Kokona opens her locker and sees Y/n, she goes to wave at her, when Ayato suddenly blocks Y/n's view and turns her around to walk the other way. Y/n looks up at him confused but continues walking with him.

Y/n has been trying all day, non-stop to talk to her and all of her plans have been foiled by him. He keeps telling her he needs help with homework, they need to do the project or he needs more information about Taeko and what she likes. Meanwhile, Kokona is starting to hate Ayato, he's trying to take away her best friend and she's sure he's the one setting those traps for her. This morning, he even set up a bucket of water, carefully placed on top of the slightly open door just so it would fall on her. She had to rush to get changed and she was even late for class.

Then, Musume and her friends popped up in front of her and started calling her a 'skank'. They are even asking if the rumours were true and asking if she was actually a slut. They laughed in her face and smiled at her when a student council member passed them, it all felt like a game where she had to overcome every challenge to get to Y/n.

But, when she was close something would stop her, she doesn't even know how he sets up these distractions so quick. She even got tripped by a tripwire in a doorway resulting in a graze on her knee.

She would just text Y/n but she swore she saw Ayato with her phone in hand and she's positive he's been deleting her messages. So, there Kokona was, sat on a bench on the rooftop sulking and thinking of how she was such a bad friend. Y/n is her friend not Ayato, was all that kindness there just to get to Y/n?! She can't even protect Y/n, like Y/n always would, shielding her from her sister's harsh words.

She wishes she was like her, she never breaks under pressure and she's such a fun person to be around. While, she's trustworthy and always ready to listen to her. Though, she has never been able to tell her that the rumours are true and that she does go on dates with older men for money.

She doesn't want her friends to think of her any differently.

Today, she has to tell Saki, for Y/n's sake. She stands up from the bench once she sees Saki, who looks like she's arose from the dead, and she immediately gives her a hug which she obliges to.

" Saki I need to talk to you... It's about um the rumours." Kokona spoke, nervously picking at her nails and the looking into Saki's eyes.

"Of course, Kokona, you can always talk to me." Saki smiles, and kokona breaths in, now noticing how tense she was.

"It's about the rumours...there true." Kokona said, turning away from Saki's ocean blue eyes, Saki waited for her to continue and after a deep breath, "B-but I don't go around sleeping with them, we just have dinner together and they pay me! My dad needs the money, he's in so much debt and owes the money to a shark loan agency. I have to do it! For him, and I think there is something off about Ayato. I-I saw him with Amao before he went missing and I haven't told the police because I'm scared! I'm a coward, I'm not like Y/n and I don't want to hurt her, telling her he's bad news, but I'm still hurting her by leaving her with him!" Kokona blurts out everything that's been on her mind and she intakes a huge amount of air and she scans Saki's face and notices the tears in her eyes.

A black pair of eyes watch and listen from a distance.

"I'm happy, that you trusted me enough to tell me , I'm so sorry that you have to deal with all this. It's okay, I understand you do it for your dad. We'll figure things out together." Saki replies, holding her pinky finger out to Kokona, it's a childish thing to do, it's something you'd do in middle school but she thinks Kokona wants to feel like she's a child again , when things were better for her.

Their pinkies connect and they shake on it, "Pinkie promise." They say at the same time, they laugh and give eachother a hug.

"Saki, also, after school I need to show you what I saw that day." Kokona speaks, sounding more serious, Saki nods and they head off to the Photography club, with Kokona by her side. They knock on the door to be met by Frueddo.

"Well hello- Kokona Saki? Hey, how are you guys?" Frueddo spoke closing the door behind him.

"Could you come with us after school to take a photo? It won't take long but it's fine if you don't want to." Kokona responds.

"Hmm, well I am busy planning on going to sleep, reading manga and playing videogames but I guess I could move my schedule around for you both. What time?" Frueddo asks, with his eyes crossed and eyebrow raised.

"Huh? Oh, the time, any time after school really. We can all go straight after." Kokona replied, the day went by after ,that and the sky was a orange and yellow ombre stretching down to the horizon. The three of them were walking down the school's pathway, not noticing Y/n's attempt to speak with them.

"Kokon-" Y/n was cut of by Taeko who was talking about a book, Taeko noticed she interrupted her and apologized, Y/n's heart sank and she felt that part of her was being ripped away.

Ayato interrupts her thoughts.

"I'm so surprised about Kokona ignoring you the entire day, Y/n. She shouldn't have done that to you, but I will always be there to keep you company ." Ayato whispers, into her ear, so Taeko doesn't hear. She can feel butterflies flapping about in her stomach and she smiled up at him but looks away and focuses on her friends.

Ayato is her friend but not like Kokona and Saki are.

He'll never be on the same level as they are he will always be second to them but something just feels off He's been so clingy and practically forgot to ramble on about Taeko today, what's going on?

Ayato is still a mess around Taeko but he's getting better as long as he stands at a slightly far from her.

She sighs and joins Taeko and Ayato's conversation to take her mind off things.

Click.

"Is this what I need to take a picture of? Some ripped off fabric and why are we all wearing gloves?" Frueddo asks getting up from his kneeling position after taking a picture of some fabric that was next to some wired fence.

"Yes, it's um you can't tell anyone and I mean it, Amao was wearing it that day when he disappeared, I saw him." Kokona speaks.

"You did? Shouldn't the police know or something? If you saw Amao, did you see who you know took him?" Frueddo questions looking from Saki to Kokona, Saki picks up the fabric with a tweezer and plops it into a zip lock bag. Frueddo hears the loud silence and just snaps a quick picture of the crime scene.

Someone finally speaks up and says, "No, we don't have much proof yet but when we have enough we will hand it in to the police, Kokona doesn't know who did it..." Saki replied meekly.

Frueddo sees a crushed soda can, "Should I take a picture of this too? His fingerprints might be on this." He asks, awaiting a reply from either Saki or Kokona.

"Yes, please do, that would be great." Kokona says, tossing him another ziplock bag, and he places it inside the bag.

They all eventually go home and kokona's finger hovers over the send button, she wants to send something to Y/n but she does it first.

Y/n <3 You okay Kokona?

Y/n <3 Sorry you didn't get that role you wanted in the play.

Y/n <3 See I remembered this time you were gonna perform

Y/n <3 I'm sorry I've been distant I've been distracted.

Y/n <3 But I hope things are okay with Saki as well :)

Kokona smiled.

Y/n arrives home after she finished texting Kokona and once Ayato walked Taeko to her house and then followed her till she reached her house safely.

Y/n immediately takes off her shoes and sneaks into Musume's room to take her phone, she has a case with a fluffy pink chain dangling off it and stickers scattered on it aswell on her sky blue phone case. Y/n types her password in with ease and scrolls down her contacts till she sees ' stalker freak' she taps on it and sees texts between them about the video!?

So, she was the one who posted it, even in her groupchat labeled 'Girlfriends 🤭' she openly talks about posting it, but why was she talking to Ayato about it.

She then goes onto Yaobook and something pops up with her saved emails.

Akademi_123

The door swings open and she sees a fuming Musume, ready to explode, her nails looked scarily sharp in the moment.

"What are you doing touching my new phone case? Oh, I see what this is. Pfft." Musume laughs at Y/n, and snatches her phone out of Y/n's hands. "What you think I killed Amao? You just want your little detective story sooo bad, that you're trying to put the blame on me? Ugh, LAME!" Musume shoves her out her room and slams the door behind her.

Y/n decides to head to her room and jot down this information, she saw an unknown contact on Musume's phone, so she possibly has someone giving her info. Could it be Info chan or someone else entirely?

The tape player laid rest on her desk and she sits down, pressing random buttons till something opens.

The tape player clicks open revealing a compartment for her tape, which she gently places the tape inside of. Once it started playing, it was clear that the audio wasn't the best as she heard long beeps and short beeps. She stared at tape player, wishing it could answer her questions.

What does long beep and short beeps?

Some code thingy?

Wait, Morse code.

Her eyes widen and she rips her phone off the table and types into gooloogoo and sees that it is infact Morse code. She has to go off an image off gooloogoo, which is a bad idea from the start but she has to use something. After playing the audio over and over again, till she has a rough idea of what it was saying, she looks over the sentence she formed.

St_p s_ _ rching b_for_ you d_g t_ _ d _ _ p _nd f_nd a h_rribl_ tr_th

She concludes she cannot hear a vowel for her life. She fills in some of the blanks and listens to the tape again.

Stop searching before you dig too d_ _ p and find a h_rrible truth.

She assumed the word she's missed are deep and horrible, she does not take threats lightly. Especially well they are well thought out ones, that are in Morse code and force her to learn it.

This was definitely a threat, to her, family and friends as well. The tape recorder goes static and she hears a buzzing, she stopped listening to the thing till she heard something being whispered 8 '97/$ ;3 @!69!3, 8 +903 59 #33 697 @5 5+3 '47#+8!- 034&94?@!'3, Y/n. What the hell. How is she supposed to figure out that jumbled mess? "Y/nnn! Ohhhhh my gawwwwwd, I'm defo trying my new nail polish on you! You look like you've never used a nail file in your life L O L." She laughs, pulling Y/n off her chair and onto the floor, where Musume grabs her nail and starts brutally rubbing it against a nail file.

"Ow, that hurts Musume. Plus I'm busy." Y/n pulls back her hand, only for it to get dug into by Musume's claws she calls nails. "It's not your choice anywayssss." She replies and continues filing all ten off her nails, till she pulls out some hot pink nail polish and begins stroking it onto her nails. Her nails are on fire and this nail polish is not helping, her eyes keep glancing over to the notebook that was also pulled onto the floor. It shows the thing she heard on the tape recorder and unfortunately Musume sees it and grabs it.

"What the hell is this? Ugh, don't tell me I have a weirdo as a sister." She scoffs, looking at them down at the image she was using off Google to style Y/n's nails. She then went onto her keyboard and pressed that button to change it to numbers and punctuation, then she stares back at the note. Y/n goes to pick it up but Musume slaps it out her hand, "I'm doing something slut, stop trying to grab it out my hand." Musume glares at her, "Is this some code stuff, ew and MEGA tacky. Not trying to brag but my boyfriend could probably solve this." Musume smirks, raising her eyebrow and then her eyes widen.

What did she discover.

"Guess your not the smart one in this family now, I solved it but I won't tell you unless you do something for me." Musume smiles darkly, Y/n knows her track record off being a trust worthy person is questionable but desperate times call for desperate methods. "Fine, sure." Y/n nods, Musume grins knowing she has power over her sister now, "Massage my feet or even netter bark like a dog a twirl around." Musume grins, patting Y/n's head like a dog. "Come on doggie, do a trick for me. You're a good girl aren't you doggie?" Musume taunts, scratching the back of her ear like people do with their dogs, while patting her lap to make her hury up.

This will ruin her pride for years to come, she can't- "Do it." Musume laughs, she's not surprised Musume's doing this, she thinks everyone is below her and therefore their her toy. Musume tilts her head fake pouting, "How about I tell you a tiny bit and if you can figure it out all you have to do for me is stick this note on Kizano's back. And if you can't... Well, the whole world will know you as little miss dog."

If Y/n can't figure this out her reputation is ruined even more than it already is!

She nods and Musume claps her hands, "Perfect, don't touch my phone use your own. Take it out and press the ?123 button on your keypad thing." Musume guides her, she does exactly what she says, looking from the word and number vomit on her page to the keypad. "I'll set a timer of a minute and thirty since I'm so generous." Musume laughs, Y/n is wracking her brain right now.

Okay, okay...

8 '97/$ ;3 @!69!3, 8 +903 59 #33 697 @5 5+3 '47#+8!- 034&94?@!'3, Y/n.

She presses the ?123 button and flips back to the original keypad. What's the correlation? How did she solve it so fast or is she just dumb? Is it that easy that Musume figured it out? She stares at 8, it's the first letter in the sentence and she's seen it throughout it as well. She presses the ABC button, that's what the ?123 button changes to. "Times ticking..." Musume beams. She looks at I and sees an 8 in the corner off it. Of course, Musume would notice that she's a phone addict after all.

She changes from the ABC board to the ?123 board on her phone. Shes got it! SHE'S ACTUALLY GOT IT! She thinks at least. So, Y/n believes that when you switch from both of the boards you will notice that the letters, numbers and punctuation on the other side actually line up. Therefore, 8 is I, ' is a c and so on. Shes never written so fast in her life, the sentence is...I could be anyone, I hope to see you at the crushing performance, Y/n.

"Wow, Y/n. I didn't figure it all about but I can still say you would have never figured it out if it wasn't for me." Musume's lips curl up and Y/n feels Musume's grip tighten on her shoulder, she comes up close to Y/n's ear, "Now, be a good doggie like you always have been and stick this on Kizano's back, okay? You better do it or I will find out." Musume whispers, pulling away from Y/n and standing up. Y/n looks down, not meeting her sister's gaze, it's true Musume has eyes and ears everywhere. Musume got her father to take Y/n's phone away when Y/n said she saw Musume smoking. Everyone is on her side.

"My princess would never do such a thing, why do you continue to be a lying snake?" Her father complains, Musume is standing behind him with her arms crossed and that smug look on her face whenever she gets her way. Only when her father turns to look at Musume is when she starts to burst out the waterworks and cry saying Y/n caused her so much distress at school. "She-She embarrassed me in front off my friends!" Musume cries clinging onto father's arm, Y/n would applaud her for how quick she can fake cry but it's not fun when her crying gets you in even more trouble.

"If you cause any more trouble for you I'm taking you out of that school. Not only are you a disruption to her you hand around with a slut and some other girl!" He shouts, who the hell does he think he is? "Don't you have henchmen to do all your filthy work, huh dad?" Y/n snaps back, she really shouldn't have said that, she got that information from Info-chan. "You don't even know what you're talking about, you little shit." He growled back, Musume looked at Y/n and her father and saw how similar they acted when it came to anger. "You wouldn't know anything! Get the hell outta my sight!"

"Oh? So, you want me to leave when I call you out for the truth? You bit-!" Y/n is cut off by a hard slap to her face, she was definitely not thinking straight when she gave him a massive slap back. "Hitting your own father? Get out off my house, you fucking mistake!" He yelled. "I get it, now you're calling yourself my father. I hate you so much but if I'm such a bother I'm out." Y/n shouted back, already opening the door and slamming it shut.

That's how she found herself in Amao's grandmother's house, talking over a cup off tea, "I remember the times, when he moved in next door with Mrs Ronshaku, who he only saw as some trophy wife at the time. He truly thought that a beautiful, sexy wife was a sign of triumph." Amao's grandmother's laughed at the thought thinking of how foolish that ideology is. Y/n feels so bad for her, since she's lost her grandson yet she's still kind enough to let Y/n in her home.

"When she got pregnant, he lost almost all interest in her, because he didn't find her attractive anymore. He never wanted a child at all. I remember how much he complained and mumbled under his breath when he looked at her stomach." She places a hand over Y/n's, and Y/n relaxes immediately, "The only reason he was looking forward to Musume's birth was because he knew his wife's stomach would go back to normal and she'd become is trophy wife again." She explained, and Y/n listened intently yet a question was itching the back off her throat, which she noticed.

"Ask away Y/n." She smiled.

"So, how comes Musume is his precious princess now?" Y/n asks, if this is true, which it is since she's telling her. Then, why is she is precious child now?

"At first, when Musume was born, he didn't even want to touch her. He would always come around to my house and try making me look after her instead. After a bit of convincing, when he did hold her in his arms for the first time, he changed." Amao's grandmother's speaks, Y/n leans forward and takes a sip off her lukewarm f/t (favourite tea). "For the first time, your father held something that he couldn't by with money and had someone that was inextricably linked to him. He's never cared about something other than status or money and now he has to care for the well-being of someone other than himself."

"He was overwhelmed with a desire to ensure the safety and happiness of his daughter. The next day, he got every necessity needed and more, using his wealth to help him be good father. He wanted to build a better up a better relationship with his wife, I remember seeing him giving her rose bouquet's, a heart shaped box of chocolate, a teddy bear and getting her plane tickets. Believe it or not he was much younger than he is now and he came to my doorstep asking for advice." She laughs at the memory with a lighthearted smile, "He envisioned his daughter with two parents, that actually love each other. He wanted her to grow up in a nurturing environment, he wanted to give her the world if he could." She said sincerely.

"Your mother died, after having you and it was absolutely crushing for him - to have many hopes and plans for the future and for Musume to lose a maternal figure. He mourned her and he still does dealing with the pain by taking it out on you and even Musume targets you as well. Though, she was too young to remember her I've been sitting on my porch and hearing the envy in her voice whenever her friends talk about their parents. She responds with a harsh comment to make them feel bad and it's no surprise on who she got that from." She spoke sadly.

"He sees me as the child that took his wife away and the future he saw for his child..." Y/n says allowed, she lets that sink in and she stares into the cup of tea intensely.

"None off what I said is an excuse for the way he treats you, Musume isn't the world's greatest sister either. You shouldn't have been forced to grow up without a mother figure." She says through tears, Y/n let's a few tears her own run down her face and Y/n pulls her into a hug. "You are like a mother to me, no you are my mother. You're as close enough to bring family then they even will be." Y/n cried, hugging her tighter. There's really no way of winning if in his eyes she'll always be the murderer, who took away his wife.

She can't let this killer run around free, especially after ever harming someone she cares about. This can't go unpunished.



But who is she against someone who convinced the world Amao ran away?

Y