NOTE: First off before we start this chapter, I want to bring up something. Recently, Billy Kametz, the English VA of Dr. Maruki from P5R passed away. I wanted to mention him here before we start the chapter to let you all know if you hadn't. Thoughts and prayers out to his family and friends.

Next with some lighter news, P5R/P3 Portable/Persona 4 Golden have all been announced to be coming to the Xbox, PlayStation 5, and Steam. If you haven't played either of these three, then you will be able to soon. P5R drops this October 21st.

Today is also the anniversary of Persona 4 Golden coming out(In Japan). An even better time to post this chapter.

Enjoy and Review!

Chapter 31: Confused Feelings

Bed sheets shuffled as Gwen twisted and turned underneath them. Sweat rolling down her forehead, hands clutching the covers over her body. "Gn…gh…" She grumbled softly in her sleep.

"After I've taken care of Tennyson. I'll go after the princess next, but I'll leave you alone, smart mouth. I've gained an interest in you. You keep things interesting!"

Green eyes shot open, her body sitting up instantly after replaying the memory. Gwen released ragged breaths, trying to regain her senses. She took the covers, using them to wipe the sweat off of her face.

"Gwen?"

The young girl looked up to see Yukiko standing in front of her with a small hand towel in her hands. Gazing around, Gwen noticed their grandfather driving and Ben up front with him. She also noticed that she was sitting in Yukiko's bunk instead of her shared one with Ben.

"Are you okay, Gwen?" Yukiko asked gently, sitting down on the bunk.

Gwen tried to speak, but her throat was dry. Yukiko gasped in embarrassment. "Sorry, Gwen! Should've figured you'd be thirsty. You were out for a whole day!"

"A day!?" Gwen mentally cried. She was seriously wondering what had happened to knock her out for that long. All she could remember was Kevin holding her hostage and everything after that was a blur.

Yukiko soon returned with a cup of cold water, handing it to Gwen. The younger girl took the cup, giving a silent thanks, before downing the water to quench her thirst. "Ah~" Gwen exclaimed, refreshed. Yukiko giggled at Gwen's cute expression, though her concerned face returned quickly.

"Are you okay, Gwen?" Yukiko asked again.

Staring at her reflection in the water, she didn't know how to answer the question. "...I don't know. I feel fine. Nothing really hurts-"

"How are you emotionally?"

The clarification of the question almost made Gwen curl up into a ball. Her stomach felt queasy at the thought of previous events. Placing a hand onto her own chest in an attempt to calm herself down. Gwen took another gulp of water to see if it would help ease her stomach. She gave Yukiko a shaky smile. "I-I'm fine…"

The heiress gave Gwen's hand a comforting squeeze. "You don't have to lie to me, Gwen. I just want to help you. We just want to help you," She corrected herself to include Ben and Max.

Gwen nodded her head, but she really didn't feel like talking about her emotions at the moment. Especially since she barely understood them herself. Everything in her head was a jumbled mess that she wanted to figure out more than anything. "I'm sorry, Yukiko. I just want some time alone…"

The heiress felt a bit hurt but understood that Gwen wasn't ready at the moment. She stood up, taking the empty cup from Gwen, and placed it into the sink before returning to her book on the table.

Gwen just laid back down on the bed, unable to go back to sleep.

"How are you doing, sweetheart?" Max approached Gwen. He sat down on the bunk, brushing some of Gwen's hair out of her eyes. Seems that her orange bangs had grown a bit longer during the summer.

"I'm okay, Grandpa," Gwen answered. She knew why he had come to approach her. If Yukiko couldn't have done it initially, then he was going to give it a try.

"I see that your hair is growing longer," Max changed the subject.

A small smile appeared on Gwen's lips. "Hm, I wanted to grow it out like Yukiko's hair. Mother said that short hair is much more manageable, but Yukiko puts so much care into her hair. It's really pretty to look at and she even lets me help her brush it."

Max chuckled lightly. "You really look up to her, don't you?"

"I always wanted a big sister. Don't get me wrong, I love Kenny. He's the best big brother I could ask for, but I always wanted a sister I could do girl stuff with. She's made this summer fun, not sure if I could've handled Ben all on my own," Gwen's smile kept growing the more she talked.

Max could agree with that. "Ben can be a handful at times, especially with the Omnitrix. I'm thankful that Yukiko has been able to reach out to him as much as she could." He felt himself thinking back to his emotional conversation with Yukiko in the park. She really hadn't seen the effect she had on these kids.

Or the change she was bringing out in him.

"Gwen." Max stared Gwen in the eyes, understanding in his eyes. "You can talk to us at any time, you know? Keeping these things to yourself never helps. It only hurts you and the people around you."

Gwen's good mood was soured at Max's intrusion. "I don't think you could understand how I feel, Grandpa. Especially, when I still don't get it myself."

He just smiled at her as if he knew more than she did. "I understand these emotions you're going through a bit more than you think, sweetheart. Your grandmother wasn't exactly easy to deal with and left me more confused than you could think. And…" Max stopped himself from mentioning more.

An orange eyebrow raised. "Grandma? None of you really mention grandma much. Is she dead?"

"No, she's very much alive. She just…" Max sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "...She enjoys doing her own things. Can't exactly blame her, but just know that we're here to talk when you need it." Max got up from the bunk.

Gwen was left there confused by her grandfather, the mystery of their grandmother, and her feelings about Kevin. Shaking her head, Gwen just fell back down onto the bunk.

"You're the last person who I thought would approach me."

Ben rubbed the back of his neck, glaring at her, a slight blush on his face. "Yeah, well…Yukiko wouldn't let me just ignore you today." Ben sat down on the bunk.

Gwen rolled over to face him. "What? You're gonna try to get me to talk about my feelings too?"

Ben made a face. "Bleh! No way! Talking about feelings is for girls!" Ben grunted.

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Well, this girl for once, doesn't want to talk about her feelings." Gwen rolled back over to turn her back to him.

"Well yeah, because you're hung up over Kevin of all people."

The mention of the mutant made her heart ache for another strange reason. "Shut up! What would you know?"

Ben sighed, annoyed by all of this already. He wanted to get up and walk away, but he knew that Yukiko would smack him for it. "Look…I also had faith in Kevin before. When I met him in New York, he seemed like a pretty cool guy. Didn't follow rules, lived his own life, nobody to tell him what to do-"

"Stole from warehouses and run from the police," Gwen added.

"Ugh…just…" Ben was scratching his head, struggling to get his words out. "...When I was hanging out with him, I thought he was someone I could call a friend." It was embarrassing for him to admit that, especially to Gwen of all people.

Gwen's irritation died out at Ben's confession. She knew what Ben's life back in Bellwood was like, he was alone with no friends, and constantly bullied by J.T. and Cash. She understood that a lot of his own insecurities and bad habits were because of not having anyone to keep him settled.

Another factor other than their birthdays that the two of them shared. She also had no friends back in Bellwood, because of how much of a stickler for the rules she was. Top of the class, takes multiple electives, teacher's pet, and a goody-two shoes.

Ben kept talking. "It's easy getting attached to someone when the chance shows up, huh? I found it weird that the two of you kept bickering with one another like that back on the Mega Cruiser. It made me realize that you felt the exact same way about him that I did…"

Her grip on the sheets tightened, thoughts about Kevin were starting to make sense. And it was all because of Ben that she was beginning to figure this stuff out.

"I thought that I could trust Kevin. But every time I gave him the chance to be good, he kept spitting it back into my face. People were getting hurt because of him using my powers. You and Yukiko both were hurt. That last battle with him was the wakeup call I needed to finally realize that Kevin just won't change, Gwen," Ben said, surprisingly softly.

She could feel tears in the corners of her eyes, and she hated it. She hated this feeling so bad.

Ben stood up from the bunk. "You have to give up on it, Gwen. He's in a completely different galaxy now, far away from us. We'll never see him again." With those words said, Ben walked away from the bunk.

Gwen let a few tears silently fall onto the pillow. "Why…? Why do I feel like you're wrong…?"

Yukiko steeled her resolve as she approached the bunk for the second time that day. Ben and Max both had managed to get her to talk more about things, even though she was concerned by what Ben had talked to her about. Since Ben had been mostly silent afterwards, stewing in his own thoughts.

As she was about to lightly nudge Gwen, the sheets were thrown off the bed. Yukiko's eyes widened when she met Gwen's tired red ones. Obviously, the young girl had been crying about something and it broke her heart. "...Gwen!" Yukiko quickly sat down, wrapping her arms around the girl. "Why are you crying?"

Gwen just wept into Yukiko's dress, getting snot and tears all over the fabric. Not that Yukiko minded, her cousin's emotional state was much more important. The two sat there for an unknown amount of time until Gwen managed to finally calm down.

"...Yukiko…"

"Yes, Gwen?"

"What was it like for you?"

Yukiko pulled herself back to get a better look at Gwen. "What was what like for me?"

"Falling in love. When did you know that you were in love?"

The heiress didn't answer immediately, surprised by Gwen's question. Though, considering everything about the situation, she shouldn't have been surprised.

Gwen was confused beyond her own understanding and needed a form of guiding light.

Rubbing circles on Gwen's back, rocking the girl as if she were an infant, Yukiko began to talk. "That's a hard question to answer, Gwen. Being able to understand your own feelings about another person is infuriatingly difficult. But I think it started after Yu-kun and the others saved me from my dungeon."

Gwen sniffled lightly. Yukiko handed her a tissue from the bottom cabinets under the bunks. "There were times in between our investigation that I would call Yu-kun to spend time with me. Each outing would be me talking about my own issues, it was selfish of me to do, but I needed someone to talk to. My thoughts weren't something I could ever talk to Chie-chan about, because she wouldn't understand. Yu-kun however, never interrupted me or tried to talk me out of it. He listened and he understood my feelings. Leaving it more to me to figure out where the real problems were."

Her mind drifted back to that day at the shrine, when those TV outlet men were trying to take advantage of her. "When there were times that I felt at my lowest, Yu-kun always gave me strength to move forward. When a group of men from a television station wanted to ruin our Inn, he defended me and gave me the courage to stand up for myself and my family. My old self never would've been capable of doing that."

Gwen nodded her head, absorbed in the story. Her tears had stopped falling as she continued to listen.

"So, a few days later I invited him back to the shrine and it was at that moment that I realized I was in love with him. That he was the perfect one for me, the piece to the puzzle that had plagued me for so long. I had asked him if he felt the same way, which was terrifying," Yukiko frowned.

"How come?" Gwen asked.

"I had thought that Yu-kun was in love with Rise-chan, because of how attached to his arm she was. She was always hogging his attention whenever she could, and it caused my blood to boil several degrees. Almost hit her with the sharp side of my fan once."

Gwen looked concerned.

Yukiko laughed at the face Gwen made. "She was fine, but that isn't important to the conversation. What I'm saying is that Yu-kun did return my feelings, Gwen. We shared our first kiss at that shrine."

Gwen tried to picture it in her mind, the unknown land of romance that she had no familiarity with at all. A sharp sense of desire pained her heart.

"I'm sorry, Gwen," Yukiko apologized. "I'm sorry that your first crush ended up being Kevin."

"Don't apologize, Yukiko. I shouldn't have gotten attached so easily, knowing everything he did. But I could just feel it around him, ya know?" Gwen mourned. Yukiko tightened her hug around Gwen. "He felt so alone, so isolated. I thought, maybe if Ben couldn't do it then I could. Maybe, there was still a chance for it."

"I know that it hurts a lot, Gwen. But you'll move past it eventually. It all takes time, soon you'll forget all about Kevin. He's gone and will never hurt our family again, I promise," Yukiko said, softly.

Gwen wanted to believe those words, that she'd move past it. However, that weird feeling in her heart was telling the girl that Yukiko and Ben both were wrong.

They were wrong and she hated it.

UNKNOWN GALAXY - TIME: ?

Kevin Levin walked through the dark corridor; a large group of aliens were surrounding a large block of frozen ice that was being lifted up by a crane. "Wherever I went in the galaxy, no matter whose butt I kicked, there was one name that kept coming up over and over again." Kevin placed his pyronite arm onto the ice, melting it, and revealing the body cased in ice.

Blood thirsty ruby red eyes glowed with lustful hatred as they stared at Kevin. Nothing but the promise of revenge present within them.

"Vilgax!"

Chapter End

NOTE: Yes, the ending of this chapter is just meant to foreshadow Back with a Vengeance. That episode will still be the season finale of Season 2. It will take Kevin and Vilgax awhile before they can make their way back to their original galaxy.

First, there was a mention of Verdona and Max was kind of alluding to Xylene as well.

Second, the reason as to why Ben and Gwen latch onto Kevin is because they both long to have friends. They're social outcasts back home in this story and have nobody other than family. Which isn't the same in their eyes, so Kevin was someone the two latched onto and he took advantage of it.

Thirdly, if you think I was bashing Rise, I wasn't. Remember that was being told from Yukiko's perspective, which would obviously favor her over the idol.

Next Chapter - Camp Fear