(Warning! Homophobic slurs/ homophobia , mentions of suicide ahead! View discretion is advised!)

As every minute ticked by, Suki's anxiety grew more and more. She kept thinking back on that night with Isas, how rude she was to him. How angry she became as he expressed his concerns.

She didn't have to be so angry at him. And now, she had to figure out how to repair their bond. She reached over to the bedside table and grabbing her phone, seeing she already had two messages; one from Isas and one from Jumin.

She opened the message from Isas first, squinting hard to read it.

Suki sat up, a twinge of worry in her heart. "Yasahiro...he's getting sick? Why?"

The minute that thought came into her head, she felt sick. How could she ever think that?! Why did she think that? She didn't feel that way. She didn't.

Yasahiro was useful. And even if he wasn't, that shouldn't have matter. He was her friend! He was the baby of the group! He didn't have to be used for anything!

She shook her head. "I'll deal with this later. Let's see what Jumin has to say."

She opened the message from Jumin. This time it was in the team's group chat.

Suki sighed, laying her phone on her chest, trying to take it all in.

She couldn't do this. Not until she got her shit together and was ready to be a proper leader.

But in this case, she didn't have much of a choice.

--------------------

When Anzu got the text from Jumin, her heart sunk to her stomach. She jumped out of bed and dug under her bed, pulling out a small black box. She opened and rummaged her way down to the very bottom of all the old notebooks and Polaroid pictures to what she really wanted.

She gently pulled out a long photo, one she meant to frame a long time ago but put off until she had almost completely forgotten. She turned on the bedside lamp and held the picture in up to the light.

It was an old photograph back from when they were just kids. It was the original six, in all of their glory, at the ages eight and up at the town's summer festival. They were all smiling.

Jumin and Isas were wearing those featherman masks-Jumin was blue and Isas was red. She was in the middle, her arms around Saburo, who was holding a candy strawberry skewer in one hand and the teddy bear he won in the ring toss game. Meko was in her crutches, a green featherman mask on the side of her head. She was smiling so big, her round glasses were falling off of her face. Daiko was right beside them, holding up two bags off goldfish that they would later take care of for two weeks before their untimely demise.

She could feel tears trying to make their way out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She bit her lip so hard, it started to bleed.

She fell to her knees and almost started crying. "Goddamnit...why did it have to be you...why did it have to be us...? Why did we have to fall apart like this...?" She muttered, her voice shaking.

Her phone starting going off like crazy. She stood up and grabbed her phone. Her eyes widened when she found that someone had sent her over fifty texts in the last minute, and they were all from a mysterious number.

"What the...?!"

She opened the texts and scrolled through them. They almost all said the same thing.

Unknown: Suki.

Unknown: Suki, it's mama.

Unknown: Suki, why aren't you answering your phone?

Anzu's face scrunched up in disgust. "Who does this asshole think they are?!"

She angry typed into the keyboard and sent the following message:

Anzu: I don't know you, or who the fuck you think you are, but this shit isn't fucking funny. This is fucking sick and you need to stop.

She sent it and threw her phone on her counter, only for it to vibrate violently from a barrage of texts from the same unknown number, all of them saying the same thing.

'Daughters...?'

----------------------

Saburo couldn't sleep after the day he had. He could and it was fucking him up. He didn't want to admit it, but he was scared. He was still scared of going to the doctor at age seventeen.

He was afraid of what he would find once he got there. His mind was just racing with what it could be or what it probably would be.

He groaned, turning over on his side, his phone starting to find it ringing he picked it up quickly. "Hello?"

"E-Etsuko-kun! You're awake. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to call you so late."

Saburo sat up once he heard the familiar voice. "Hey...it's okay. I was awake anyway. H-How've you been?"

Isas was quiet for a minute, shifting in his bed. "I..I'm better now."

"Saw you the other day. You looked good. Different."

"I stopped gelling my hair. It...wasn't me."

"Looks good."

"T-thank you."

There was another long moment of silence between the two before Saburo spoke again.

"Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?" He asked, turning into his back.

"I...I'm worried about you. Jumin texted me earlier in the night and told me you might have the flu..."

Saburo sighed, "Of course he did..."

"I know it's none of my business, but I still care about you. You know that. I want to help you."

"Princey, I told you before, I don't want your money."

"But I-"

"Even if you could give me the money, your parents would murder my ass and take it back. They've done it before and they'll do it again."

"Then I'll get a job! I'll get a job and pay for your bills!"

"Isas, no."

"Why won't you let me do this for you? Please-"

"Babe, enough!"

The silence returned with a vengeance. Once the words escaped from Saburo's mouth he almost instantly regretted it. Hint, almost.

"Did you just-"

"No. No. I...you're right I did."

"Be we're not-"

"No, we're not."

"And we never-"

"No. We never did. At all."

"But did you...?"

Saburo bit his lip, shaking his head. "I'll see you tomorrow. Tell Jumin I'll be late. Got a doctor's appointment."

"Saburo, wait-"

He hung up before he could hear Isas' protests. He sat up, burying his face in his hands. "Shit...you Princey ass bitch...you fucking jackass...."

'Why are you doing this to me...?'

------------------------

The next day, the Quaran-Team met on the roof of the school during their break, placing themselves in the very corner of the rooftop so that way no one would hear what they were saying. They were all very exhausted from the night before.

Suki yawned before she started to speak. "Okay...so, this friend of yours, Saburo Etsuko, was it? You're sure that he's infected?"

Jumin nodded, "Yeah. Yesterday, he got unbelievably angry-like angrier than I've ever seen him. And his eyes, they were yellow-like the shadows. He's sick, guys. He needs our help."

"But he doesn't want it...." Isas muttered.

"Come on, don't say that. He misses you. He told me so, last night." Jumin explained.

"Do you know him, Kim?" Suki asked.

"Not as well as these guys, apparently. All I know is that he's not exactly everybody's favorite. They say he gets into a ton of fights with this guy...Akito Chimon, I think it was?"

The other three noticeably flinched at the mention of the stranger's name.

"Let me guess, you guys know him too?"

"He's...an acquaintance we know-"

"Acquaintance my ass," Anzu growled, "that asshole tormented each and everyone of us at some point. He picked on Jumin the most because he knew he wouldn't fight back."

Jumin lowered his head. "She's right. We thought he'd be one of the guys who'd leave town to go to school somewhere else."

"But nope! He stayed and so did his dumbass friends." Anzu muttered.

"Can we not talk about this anymore? I really don't want to get into it right now." Isas said.

"Right. So, after school? We go to the falls and we get it done?" Jumin said.

"Woah, what is the deal with you guys? If there's something you're not telling us about, you better do it soon. I don't want us to have problems while we're out in the field."

Jumin sighed. "Later. It's not that important for now."

Kimi nodded, unsatisfied with his answer.

Anzu stood, making her way over to Suki. "Hey...could I talk to you over here? I wanna tell you about something."

"Sure."

The two broke off from the group and into the stair well leading up to the roof.

"What's up, Anzu?" Suki asked.

"Uh...I don't know how to say this 'properly', but...some sick fuck was texting me last night. Callin' themselves your mom and shit like that. Just thought you should know."

Suki was a bit taken aback. "W-what? Really?"

"Yeah," she replied, taking out her phone and showing the texts to her, "I wanted to know if you might know who this is."

Suki scrolled through the texts, her eyes continuing to go back to the one text at the bottom.

'Please save my daughters...'

She took at her phone and wrote the number down in her notes, handing the phone back to Anzu. "Thank you, Ayako-Chan. I'll look into it."

"No problem." She said, turning back to join the others with Suki.

"Annie?"

She froze at the sound of her nickname from the familiar voice. She turned slowly and her heart practically stopped. Her cold blue eyes met Saburo's warm amber eyes. For a while they just stared at each other for a long time, making Suki very uncomfortable.

"S-Saburo...you're here."

"Y-yeah I..." He let out an airy laugh, "it's good to see you. I...I heard about what happened. Are you okay?"

Anzu turned red and nodded. "Y-yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. It wasn't that big of a deal."

"Not that big a-Annie, you tried to kill yourself-"

"DON'T call me Annie! You don't just get waltz back into our lives like you didn't just leave us out of the blue!"

"You know I had to! I had to take care of my mom, I-"

"That's a cheap lie and you know it!"

He looked away from her. "Annie, I don't want to talk about this now. Not in front of...who are you?"

"Suki Ichika. Nice to meet you." The silver haired girl said, shaking his hand.

"Y-yeah, whatever. Where's Narukami-Eko? And Chikako-kun?"

"Outside. Come on." She said.

He followed them both outside, where they found three boys surrounding Kimi, who had her fists raised and a bloody nose.

Saburo ran over and pulled one of them back. "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!"

"Saburo, no! You'll get suspended!" Isas shouted.

The boy in his hand had a shit eating grin on his face. "Well, well. Look who it is. It's that gay punk. How long has it been since we've seen each other?"

"Not long enough. What the hell did I tell you? Leave Jumin and them alone."

"Do you really expect me to take orders from a faggot like you?"

Saburo drew his fist by Anzu held him back. "No! Just leave him alone! You're in now condition to fight."

Akito chuckled. "Well, look what we got here. The walking corpse girl, the fag, the prince, the dumbass, an ugly pig, and the transfer student. Quite the circus you put together, Etsuko-kun. You know, I heard these guys are shady as hell. Better watch your back or your mom might find out about all the other bad shit you've been doing..."

Saburo's rage hit a boiling point as he broke free from Anzu's grasp and threw Akito down on the ground, kicking him in the stomach.

"You son of a bitch! IT WAS YOU! YOU FUCKING TOLD HER!"

"SABURO NO!" Isas shouted, lunging towards him.

"DON'T DO DO IT!" Jumin shouted, holding him back as well.

Kimi lunged forward as well, fighting off the other two who were trying to hurt Saburo.

Once they got Saburo away, the delinquent boy began to hack and cough, falling to his knees as blood poured from his mouth.

Akito got up and started walking away. "You'll for this, Etsuko! And so will your friends!"

"FUCK YOU!" Kimi shouted, flipping him off.

"B-bastard....I-I'm not gonna let him hurt you..." He groaned, hacking up more blood.

Jumin hugged him tightly. "We're gonna help you....I promise."

Saburo nodded, burying his head into the crook of the smaller boy's neck.

Suki watched from afar, completely baffled.

'This is gonna be a lot harder than I thought....'

(A/N: this was long chapter! DAMN! I should start doing this more! Thank you for reading another installment of Persona 6. Thank you all so much for reading my work and have a great day!)