Although almost everyone took it for granted and never really noticed, and certainly never said anything, Aki was really good at detecting when something wasn't right. This applied for friends and family alike. Even someone she only knew from class, she could tell if there was something wrong with them too.

So of course it went without saying that she noticed that something was off as soon as she arrived at school on Monday morning.

She had been running a bit late because she had forgotten to prepare her lunch last night and therefore needed to wrap up something before she could go. Of course, she still made it in due time for class, but she was later than usual, and therefore arrived just after Rin and Sousuke did. In fact, she walked right behind them into the school building.

Things were off though. The first thing was that Haruka wasn't with them. She didn't recall Rin and Haruka walking to school separately since 9th grade in middle school when the two of them clearly were on bad terms.

Another thing that was off was the way Rin and Sousuke were walking together and speaking in hushed voices. Aki got a feeling they were trying to keep something hidden, and a hunch told her that whatever it was, it had something to do with Haruka not being there today.

She wondered if she should confront them about it, but decided to leave it be for now. She didn't even greet them. If she wanted to speak to them about this matter, she could talk at lunch, right now it would probably be better to just observe.

Aki was not in the same class as the others, however, her class was one of the smallest classes of their year and therefore they had a lot of classes with the other small class of their year. In this class, Aiichirou just happened to be, and today, all their classes were together. Aki decided to confront the boy about what the matter was with Rin.

"Nitori-kun," she asked at their art class.

"Ah, Yazaki-san! What is it?" Aiichirou turned to Aki with an exited smile.

"Do you know what is off with Matsuoka-kun, Nanase-kun and Yamasaki-kun?" Aki asked in a concerned way.

"No," Aiichirou looked confused. "Why? Is something the matter with Rin-san?"

Aki was a bit hesitant. "I fear so. I saw him and Yamasaki-kun walk to school together without Nanase-kun this morning.

Aiichirou shrugged. "Maybe Nanase-san is just sick or something?" he asked.

"It could be but…" Aki trailed off. "They were also talking in really hushed voices, like they were trying to keep a secret or something. I'm just worried that something might really be wrong, just like three years ago when Matsuoka-kun and Nanase-kun had just started," she explained.

Aiichirou nodded, a concerned look was now also appearing on his face as he spoke. "You might be right, Yazaki-san… Maybe we should ask Rin-san and Yamasaki-san about it at lunch break and find out,"

Aki nodded. "That's what I was thinking. Thank you for siding with me, Nitori-kun," she said.

"It's not a problem, Yazaki-san," Aiichirou answered while smiling. Aki smiled too.

So, at lunch break, Aki and Aiichirou exited their classroom together and went to try and find Rin and Sousuke and confront them about their worries. However, this wasn't an easy task. The school was big and there were many students. Although Rin's maroon hair was fairly easy to spot and Sousuke was taller than most, they weren't that easy to find in the crowd.

It was only when Aki and Aiichirou started walking down a more deserted hallway that they noticed the pair. Aki started walking faster as soon as she saw them.

"Matsuoka-kun! Yamasaki-kun!" she called as both she and Aiichirou made their way up to the pair in a half-running pace.

Rin turned around and eyed the two. "Oh, Ai, Yazaki-san," he said surprised. "What is it?" Both he and Sousuke had stopped and turned to look at them.

Aki and Aiichirou stopped too, and Aki spoke. "Matsuoka-kun, is something the matter?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Rin asked.

"It just seems like something isn't right," Aki continued.

"What would that be?" Rin asked, a slightly irritated expression appeared on his face and Aki got the feeling that he just wanted her to leave him be.

"Where is Nanase-kun?" she asked directly.

"Not here," Rin said while looking away. It clearly was a subject he wanted to avoid.

"Matsuoka-kun ple-," Aki was cut off as Sousuke stepped slightly in front of Rin and started speaking.

"Yazaki-san, leave him alone," he demanded.

"Yamasaki-san, we're just-," Aiichirou started, but Sousuke cut him off too.

"Same goes for you, Nitori," he said. He turned to Rin. "Let's go, Rin," he said and the two of them started walking away from their friends.

This was when Aki had enough.

"Yamasaki! Matsuoka! Don't you dare walk away from us!" she exclaimed. "I understand if you don't want to answer our questions, I might understand if it seems like we are bugging you, but you have no right to just defy us as if you don't even know us! We have been friends for three years now! After such a long time, I think it is very rude of you to not give us permission to worry about you!"

By this time, both Rin and Sousuke hand stopped and turned to face Aki. They were not used to be confronted with such impolite speech, and especially not from a girl like her. This just proved to them how angry she really was and actually caused Rin to want to tell them about the latest events.

"I thought we were more to you, that our friendship with you was at least something, but seeing as that's not the case-" She now cut herself off because she knew she was about to take things too far. With an angry expression she turned on her heel. "Let's go, Nitori-kun," she said.

"Y-yes!" Aiichirou exclaimed and was about to turn around as well when Rin called out to them.

"Yazaki-san, Ai!" he called. "You're right, I'm sorry about the way I just acted. You know Haru too, so you deserve to know about this," he said.

Aki and Aiichirou turned around again. Aki was still acting angrily, but Aiichirou was all smiles because Rin actually wanted to talk about this matter.

"So what is it?" Aki asked, coldly.

"I don't want everyone to know, so if you don't mind, we can go to the roof and talk," Rin said before he started walking ahead, past Aiichirou and Aki, towards the direction of the roof. The two were quick to follow, and Sousuke walked right behind them as they went upstairs and sat with their lunches.

As they walked, Rin took out his phone and read the text message he had just received. He didn't have to look at the content to know what it was about. All he had to look at, was the number it came from, and the subject. It had been the same since Saturday morning, though he hadn't answered a single one since then.

Somewhere else, a man was getting fairly annoyed. He had send message after message and not gotten a single reply. Even if he didn't really want to, he would have to face the fact that it was about time to use more drastic measures to get what he wanted. He had to hurry too, or someone might call the police and they would catch on to him.

At the moment, Haruka was sleeping. It seemed like he slept a lot lately. It was understandable. He had nothing else to do, and being without food for such a long time, would probably make you more tired. The kid was just lucky he still got something to drink.

Taichi stared at the display of the phone while hoping that she would never be informed of this, because if she were, she would have no trouble figuring him out and if she told Rin… that could ruin all his plans.

Hey! I just really wanted to write a chapter from Aki's POV (as much as that goes when speaking in 3rd person) and so I wrote this chapter. I figured it would be nice to get an outer perspective of the situation. I hope you don't mind. I also hope you don't mind that I kinda suck at converting ideas from head to paper. I'm sorry about that.

Wait... I wasn't supposed to apologize today seeing as my mother gave me a t-shirt saying "I'm not sorry" and I'm wearing it now. (yes, I do tend to apologize a lot normally)

No matter. I'll see you next time.

Jackie