Good Day Readers! Obviously, I do not own anything connected to the Persona series in general or Persona 5 specifically, I DO own Chiba Natsumi and Anais Ouvrard, along with Natsumi's immediate family members and the original Personas that will be showing up on occasion.
I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy
Chapter 47: - Fool and Strength
Ren walked down the pathway towards Shūjin, Natsumi at his side as had become quite commonplace since they ran into each other that day in April, it was such a comfort to walk at her side perhaps because in a way she reminded him – very, very minutely due to the colossal differences he couldn't ignore – of his big sister. Actually, almost all of his current friends made him feel like he was back at home for some reason despite their wildly different personalities to those he knew.
"Oh yeah, the cleanup event is the day after tomorrow. My class has to go in the opposite direction of Inokashira Park," A female voice complained. Though even that sounded kind of forced, like she didn't even care about the clean-up, Ren frowned at the thought of the park, it was nothing like Yoyogi Park and he'd noticed it when he met up with Ann the other day, it was kind of awful that people were so callous with their litter.
"I'm kind of looking forward to it. That honour student is actually in my group!" The boy beside her revealed. Honour student… was he talking about Niijima-senpai or the red headed girl he kept running into, given that he sounded younger than Ren or Ryūji it was probably the later individual. Either way, he seemed unusually excited about having the girl on his group.
"Huh? What, is she like, you type or something?" The girl asked. Ren couldn't tell if she was annoyed by this piece of information or not from how her voice sounded, why were city people so lethargic? You'd think with all the hustle and bustle going on, they'd be more energetic. "Either way, too bad. I heard honour students are exempt from the cleaning. Totally unfair, am I right?" The girl explained. Ren had to agree that it did seem rather unfair for some people to be exempt from the clean up just because of their status.
"Wha… so, am I alone on a team of upperclassmen then? This sucks. I wanna just ditch now…," The boy whined. Ren rolled his eyes at this pathetic admission as a huff of annoyance escaped the girl beside him, Ren shot her a small smile which Natsumi returned with one of her own as they entered the building.
*Persona 5 Royal*
The rest of the day passed without incident and Ren was glad about that, although he was really concerned that Kawakami-sensei was going to faint at some point given how tired she looked, as he was packing his cat to avoid detection, a vibration came on his phone. He slipped it out and looked at it to see who had messaged him.
Natsumi: Hey, do you want to meet up today at Yoyogi Park?
Ren: Of course.
Ren: See you there.
"Morgana, I'll be hanging out with Natsumi today," Ren revealed. Morgana had a tendency to slip away whenever Ren hung out with his friends or other associates; Ren did not question where he went and Morgana always seemed fine whenever he came back, although the fact that he almost got kidnapped recently worried Ren more especially since they hadn't found any information about the woman who tried.
"Alright, take care of her Ren," Morgana insisted. Ren nodded his head, Natsumi had seemed so strong and unshakeable after she opened up about Ouvrard, seemed to be getting better but then that infinite spring statue seemed to trigger some kind of PTSD attack, Maruki-sensei had described it to him when Ren explained how police officers terrified him, so Ren was deeply worried about his friend's health.
Ren picked up his bag and proceeded to leave the building to head for the beautiful park where he'd first really got to know Natsumi, it really felt like that place was where she dropped all of her walls and pretences in order to properly opened up to him. Ren could only hope that he'd be able to further break Natsumi out of the shell that she had gone and wrapped around herself for three years.
'Heh. Shells, as if Natsumi's the only one hiding themselves away.' Ren ruefully thought. He wasn't always so shy and reclusive, though he also wasn't an outgoing person by any standard, but ever since that horrible night it wouldn't be hard to say he pretty much shut down in response to how he had been treated. It was only when Natsumi had appeared in the dungeon with Arsène's words ringing in his mind that he felt the shell crack just a little, then his friends proved very good at prying that shell apart.
"AMAMIYA REN!" A loud voice yelled. Ren jumped and twisted around to face the person, dropping into a fighting stance that he had developed from his training even though he was lacking his dagger, although he relaxed slightly when he saw Natsumi standing there with a raised eyebrow. "Well at least I'm glad to see you dropped into a stance but the way you were so distracted was more than a little concerning," Natsumi commented.
"Sorry, Natsumi, just lost in thought," Ren admitted. Then again, the girl was so light on her feet that it was a miracle if any of them actually managed to detect the girl as she approached them; Natsumi proceeded to sit down on the bench that he had stopped nearby and Ren proceeded to join her, taking note of how Natsumi was fiddling with a lock of hair as if she was nervous about something.
"Anyway, I'm glad you're here, but what did you want to do. I know I suggested we meet up, but I can't quite decide where to go from here," Natsumi admitted. Ah, so she was concerned about what they should be doing, honestly Ren was a little concerned about what to do given the promise he had made to her back in April.
"I said that I'd help you find your heart. I think the best way to do that is to walk back through as much as your life as possible," Ren suggested. It seemed the best way to start, Natsumi had started to feel numb after her family's death so the best place to start might be at the place where the accident she had mentioned happened. "You mentioned you were getting picked up from a school club, let's start there," Ren suggested.
"Better plan than nothing. I can still remember the way," Natsumi agreed. She stood up and Ren proceeded to follow after her as they moved towards the train station, a quick ride brought them into the school's location; Natsumi stopped across the road and took a deep quivering breath before walking towards the building and in through the front door.
"Excuse me," Natsumi called out. There was a woman with greying hair stood near the entrance, when Natsumi called out she turned around and Ren spotted her brown eyes widen in shock. "Sensei?" Natsumi asked. Ren looked at the girl with widened eyes as he hadn't expected us to run into a teacher that Natsumi happened to know from her time here.
"Chiba Natsumi, this is a surprise, why have you decided to visit us with such a charming young man?" The teacher asked. She seemed nice, despite the phrasing of her question sounding a little odd, the kind gleam in her eyes and the gentle up turn of her lips showing that she wasn't annoyed by the girl's sudden appearance after a few years.
"Taking a bit of a trip down memory lane, I was wondering if we could have access to the Koto clubroom," Natsumi explained. Ren was curious as to why Natsumi had wanted to head specifically to a clubroom off all things, he had his suspicions given things she had mentioned but he wasn't going to pester her for information, the best way would be to gently ask when they were somewhere private.
"You're in luck, their practice had to be cancelled today, I'll take you two there," The woman stated. She had them sign in and then provided two visitors badges to both of them, Natsumi followed after the woman and Ren trailed after her as they wound through the corridors which seemed much warmer than their own school, it actually reminded Ren of his previous schools back in the countryside which made him feel more relaxed.
Eventually they reached the practice building area and came to a stop in front of a door, the teacher opened it and gestured for the two of them to enter, they slipped inside and Ren immediately started to look around. The room was fairly large with a sizeable collection of other kinds of instruments hanging on the walls – making Ren immediately think of the dojo – while the kotos were set out in a semicircle with each of them having a different number of strings. Chairs were stacked at the edges of the room where no instruments were hung.
"How are you finding Tokyo?" Natsumi asked. He stopped gazing about to focus upon Natsumi and he saw she was delicately running her fingers over the edge of one of the koto, despite her words Ren almost got the sense that she was half-listening to what he might be saying. But Ren didn't mind, the slightly edge of her face that he could see was relaxed with her eyes close, as if lost within memories, maybe not happy but certainly not painful.
"Loud, cramped, too many buildings, too little green, and people are way too detached. You'd think living in a city that doesn't seem to stop would give them more energy, not less," Ren commented. His words seemed to jolt Natsumi out of her memories as she threw her head back and laughed heartily which caused Ren to grin broadly. "It's not all bad, I suppose. There's certainly more to do and see than in my hometown, but I miss the peace and serenity of the countryside," Ren admitted.
"I'll bet. I've only ever lived in Tokyo so I can't imagine what it's like to live anywhere without the hustle and bustle. But it'd certainly be interesting to visit such a place, I can imagine it be quite relaxing to go to a place that's a lot less manic, especially in light of recent events," Natsumi admitted. She pulled her hand away and turned to full face Ren, Ren was actually quite happy to hear her words; maybe once he could go home, he'd be able to show it off to his friends.
"It is very relaxing. When I woke up, I could hear the birds chirping in the sunlight. The air is so much cleaner, lighter almost without some funny tang to each breath. There's this river that runs through our town where me and my family would take picnics every so often," Ren explained. He noticed that Natsumi's gaze seemed to sharpen in that instant and her eyes bore into him with a curious intensity.
"You know, I've heard about your situation, but I don't think you've ever spoken about your family, I'd like to hear about them. If you're okay with that?" Natsumi suggested. Ren frowned and looked down at the flooring as his hands tightened into fist, part of his 'sentence' was that he was forbidden contact any of them, not his parents back home or his sister wherever she might be at the moment, he couldn't talk to anyone from his hometown because they might be 'a bad influence'.
Despite how dark Ren's thoughts had become, he could still hear his mum's soothing lilt as she held tight to him, his dad's near crushing embrace as if he didn't want to let go of his youngest. Luckily for him, his sister hadn't been there when he was taken away; it actually terrified him to think what could have happened had she been present that day, no matter how much he wanted to hear her reassurances. Hiding away his pain, he looked up at Natsumi who was patiently gazing at him in silence.
"My dad's name is Kazuma and he's a doctor; he works in the town's hospital. He always gets to know his patients personally, it's not that he doesn't trust the nurses, he has immense respect for them, but he always thought a doctor should know who he was treating, remind themselves of whose life was in their care. My mum's name is Akane and she's a florist, there's nothing more she loves than making the perfect bouquet for someone, especially on Valentines, White Day and don't get her started on weddings," Ren recounted. Natsumi's lips twitched into a smile at his words. "Then there's my sister, Izumi, she's older than me by five years and while to everyone else she was the closed off punk rock dressed girl who glared at everyone and detested being in public, to me she was the kindest, boldest… most wonderful sister in the world," Ren added on.
"Wow sounds like a great family," Natsumi admitted. Ren knew he had a lot more family to speak of; none of them blood related but all of them were the best friends of his sister and had been around a lot when he was younger, there was also Izumi's boyfriend who Ren perceived as a big brother and his own dear friend despite their significant age gap. But for now, he'd not over burden Natsumi with information and besides there was something else he wanted to try and ask.
"You said you forgot your family's faces but is there anything about them you do remember," Ren wondered. He knew her father had some samurai heritage and her sister liked photography, but those were kind of empty without more to know about them, especially since he knew nothing about the mother or brother – hell, Ren didn't even know their names – and this might be a way to help Natsumi remember them. But given the way Natsumi turned around, Ren was worried that he had over stepped.
"I… I don't think I'm ready for that Ren," Natsumi admitted. Her throat was a little tight, as her hand that was resting on a koto twitched as if wanting to curl up, Ren frowned slightly at her words but figured it was best not to shove her; gentleness would be required, like the way his mum would carefully select each flower. Ren walked over to Natsumi and gently rested a hand on her shoulder which drew her gaze to him as he gave her a gentle smile.
"One day, one day you'll be ready and I'll be here for you Natsumi. I promise," Ren reassured. Natsumi gave him a smile that seemed a bit weak and it wasn't helped by the water that seemed to be growing within her eyes, immediately Ren's mind jumped for a way to distract her from her sadness before his gaze landed on the koto. "You must have wanted to come here for a reason, how come?" Ren asked. It had been something he meant to ask, but they had been a little distracted.
"I was a member of the club before quitting after my family's death, it's why they were picking me up. I guess… this was the best place that came to mind when I wanted to start looking back," Natsumi admitted. That seemed reasonable, it was also interesting that she didn't seem to feel any negativity when she was here, but Ren would take what victories he could at this point. An idea sparked into his mind when he recalled how she had reacted to the koto's touch.
"Can you play something?" Ren wondered. Without responding, Natsumi quickly moved over and with a practice born of memory, she located the finger picks needed for the koto and moved over to the twenty string instrument that was set up; she moved through checks on the string instrument to ensure it was in perfect working order.
She finished her checks, seemingly satisfied and took up her position and immediately angled her hands. She then started to pluck at the strings, first in a simple manner that seemed to be like she was testing each sound that was emitted by each string before nodding her head pleased with the sounds. Natsumi then started to pluck at the strings, allowing soft and beautiful music to ringing out through the empty room; but Ren was less focused on the music and more concerned with Natsumi's expression.
It had started out as being incredibly focused, with a noticeable tension in her shoulders despite the seemingly loose movements of her arms at wrists, but as the music continue to echo through, the stiffness in her shoulder started to loosen and drop away as her expression relaxed and her eyes drifted close on occasion before opening up again. It almost seemed like she was getting lost in the music as she started to sway slightly and her mouth opened; if any sound came out, Ren couldn't hear it, but her lips were moving as her fingers continued to pluck and press the strings of the instrument. Ren was too enchanted watching Natsumi's walls come down once again and could only stare in silent shock at how free Natsumi looked until she eventually finished her performance.
"I'm amazed I can even remember how to play it," Natsumi remarked. But there was a happy smile on her face, one that seemed to make her green eyes shine with a brilliant light. "Good grief, would you look at how late it is," Natsumi suddenly commented. Ren furrowed his eyebrows in confusion before looking over and seeing that it was quite late, they quickly gathered their stuff and found the same teacher from before outside, she led them out and they returned the passes before departing back to the train station.
Once back in Yongen-Jaya, the two continued walking with small snippets of conversation darting between the both of them before splitting off from each other. Ren kept moving until reaching LeBlanc while wondering if he should head to Untouchable to help out Iwai-san, but upon reaching the door, Ren's phone rang which jolted him out of his thoughts. Ren pulled it out and saw it was Natsumi so he quickly answered it.
"Hey, I just wanted to say thank you. Not just for walking back through my old school but also for talking to me about your family," Natsumi admitted. She sounded alright which caused a small smile to appear on Ren's face at how well she sounded; Ren had been worried that going back to the site of the accident or such a place connected to it might have caused her to unravel, but it seemed Natsumi wasn't as temporarily fragile as they'd all feared.
"It's fine Natsumi. Honestly, I liked being able to tell someone about my family. I hope I can tell you more about home someday," Ren admitted. His hometown was such a lovely place, it still hurt his heart to think that he'd been drag away from it by some uncaring coward; it was just annoying that his memories of that night were so foggy now, it was hard to recall anything about the coward's face, although his voice was loud and clear in his mind.
"You said you'd be there for me. The reverse is also true. We all need to lean on each other if we want to get through challenges as a team," Natsumi stated. Ren blinked his eyes in surprise, true he was helping out all of the others in their team and some others with their issues; but none of them who he was close to had ever told him this, he felt like he would be unnecessarily burdening them if he ever opened up about himself but here Natsumi was encouraging him to do so.
"Well, you aren't wrong, but like you it might take me a while to-," Ren began to admit. However, a sudden shocked gasp escaped Natsumi which immediately put Ren on alert. "Natsumi! What's wrong?!" Ren panicked. If she was in danger then it wouldn't be too hard for him to run to her location in order to keep his friend safe from harm, whatever that harm may be; he never wanted any of them to be hurt as they had already been.
"I'm sorry, but there's something I've got to do," Natsumi rushed out. But her voice sounded completely distracted as she rambled out those words, as soon as she was done Natsumi hung up on him before he could formulate a response. In fact, he was so shocked that he barely registered Morgana jumping onto his head and then using his shoulders as a resting area.
'What just happened?' Ren thought. He'd never heard Natsumi so shaken in a good way and it was quite baffling to overhear.
*Persona 5 Royal*
My legs pumped hard as I ran after the blonde hair and blue dress that had drawn my attention, it was probably rude to bolt out on Ren after that, but I'd call him later and apologise; I couldn't resist chasing after that colour combination, it was the best lead I had to the Velvet Room since it disappeared so suddenly and I couldn't just push it away if I had a chance to get some answers.
The woman up ahead was moving quite swiftly and turning around corners almost impossibly fast, if I hadn't been determined to avoid being stared at, I'd have given into the urge to use higher areas in order to follow after her better. Thankfully when she turned around a corner, I knew this to be a dead end and increased my stride to a sprint and turned the corner. She had stopped moving so I reached out to grab a hold of her arm.
"Eliza- oh," I began to call. But when the woman turned around, I was proven quite wrong in who I had suspected it to be, despite the platinum blonde hair and gold eyes matching both Lavenza and Elizabeth, she was significantly different; she was a much more elegant appearing lady, reminding me of Haru-senpai, her dark blue dress was quite different as well, gold metal circles ran down in parallel lines with a belt cinched around her waist and long sleeves with what looked to be buckles on the wrist area, she wore matching high heel shoes with black tights, she also carried a blue and gold book titled Le Grimoire. "Sorry, I thought you were-," I began to apologise.
"My younger sister Elizabeth," The woman cut me off. I almost felt like sighing in relief that it was still a resident of the Velvet Room who I had chased after instead of some poor random woman. "My name is Margaret, I take it you must be the newest Betwixt, Natsumi," The woman introduced. That meant someone must have talked to her about me, so maybe she could help me with the Velvet Room issue.
"Can we please talk, there's something I'd like to discuss," I requested. If she was a Velvet Room attendant and knew who I was, then she might be aware of the current weirdness that was a missing Velvet Room; without being able to show the others that ethereal place – despite the weird dream from a while back – there was no way that I could ask them for their aid, Ren was still cultivating his Personas so he had to be able to access it, but I had run through various ways to start that conversation and all of them were uncomfortable weird.
"I'll assume it concerns the mysterious disappearance of our sister and master," Margaret stated. I nodded my head, supremely relieved that it wasn't just me to had misplaced a world between mind and matter, which must have shown on my face. "Yes, me and Elizabeth, along with our brother Theodore are aware of this," Margaret explained. Her expression was so grim that I thought someone had died, which was something I wanted to avoid quite desperately,
"Yes, can we please about that?" I requested. Margaret waved her hand and I followed after her once the woman moved around me, we left the dead end and I had to wonder if Margaret had intentionally lead me to such a remote area of Yongen before allowing me to catch up to her; however our meeting had occurred wasn't as important as getting some answers about where Igor and Lavenza could have disappeared to.
Margaret guided me through the area until we came to a rather deserted location, had this woman not been a member of the Velvet Room I wouldn't have even considered entering this place. But given that she was someone Igor trusted, that allowed me to enter the area with minimal trepidation as we approached two figures; one of whom I quickly recognised as being Elizabeth.
"You've already met Elizabeth, this is our younger brother Theodore," Margaret introduced. Theodore had hair that was much closer to white than the blonde in his sisters' hair but at least he had the same yellow eyes. He wore a black collared and long sleeved shirt under a blue suit which was complemented with a blue necktie, he also wore black pants with blue lines running through the sides, black shoes, and a hat similar to the one that Elizabeth wore. "Theodore, this is Natsumi, the newest Betwixt," Margaret introduced.
"A pleasure to meet you miss," Theodore enthusiastically greeted. He came over and extended a hand to me, I took it and shook the offered appendage, Elizabeth moved over and smiled brilliantly at me, she didn't appear to be harmed in any way and that removed a sizeable weight from my chest since I had been worried that the sudden disappearance might have badly affected her.
"I am delighted to see you again Natsumi," Elizabeth spoke up. She even sounded the same, that kind of airy lightness that made me wonder if her head was permanently stuck in clouds if it weren't for the undercurrent of sharpness that I could just barely detect; I pulled my hand back from Theodore and proceeded to give Elizabeth a smile.
"Pleased to meet you too Theodore and I'm glad to see you're okay Elizabeth," I greeted. Margaret moved over to stand between her younger siblings which meant I had all three attendants standing in front of me as she lightly knocked her compendium against her leg with a serious cast to her eyes. "But I think we have more important things to discuss," I began. Margaret gave me a grateful look at turning to the concern at hand.
"The Velvet Room has disappeared and with it, our master Igor and little sister Lavenza," Margaret stated. With that statement, the joviality and lightness seemed to almost evaporate from the two younger attendants, Theodore shifted his weight and it was then that I noticed he was lacking a compendium of his own which was curious but not important enough to distract me as Elizabeth released a heavy sigh.
"Yes, most concerning, I know I left my position as an attendant, but that doesn't mean I don't care about what happens to them," Elizabeth agreed. She raised the arm holding her compendium up to her chest and pressed it tightly against herself, I certainly don't recall seeing Elizabeth looking so concerned, when we had been facing off against Dantalion she'd seemed totally unflappable.
"It was quite sudden as well, all I can recall is stepping out to speak to one of the elder Betwixt and next, the door had vanished," Theodore spoke up. Well, that was interesting to hear, I already knew that Rise had encountered a Betwixt – and probably worked with one – but to know that there were multiple who were still alive was quite interesting to hear, I wonder if I could meet any of them.
"All I know is that they vanished one day and the only thing left behind was this," I admitted. As I did, I reached behind and pulled off the butterfly clasp I always wore, the three attendants drifted in closer to look at it as if trying to define some meaning from its' presence; however, Margaret pulled back first and proceeded to shake her head in dismay with the younger two pulling back with frowns on their faces.
"There doesn't seem to be anything special about this clasp you have," Margaret bemoaned. Well, that was a disappointment, I had hoped that they'd be able to provide me with some new information about the clasp but apparently not. I sighed and proceeded to clip it back into place on my hair as I focused on the trio of attendants.
"I think we should be more concerned with the dark aura surrounding Tokyo," Theodore commented. That set of words however drew my attention as a yawning pit seemed to open in my stomach, I did not like the sound of some kind of dark energy pulsing around my home city; Tokyo wasn't perfect, but it held everything and everyone that I held dear.
"Dark aura?" I questioned. I needed to know what they meant by this dark aura, if it had anything to do with the Palaces then I'd be calmed down by the fact that as me and my friends continued our activities then the dark aura would fade. But my concern was if it wasn't linked to the Palaces, then what could it mean and how would we be able to stop it from hovering over us.
"Yes. There is a terrible oppressive energy surrounding Tokyo and it always seems to spike whenever those terrible accidents occur," Elizabeth explained. That caused my attention to sway to her as I processed her words, terrible accidents that had something to do with a dark aura; I could only think of one possibility and it honestly chilled me to the bone to consider such a thing… but in light of what Madarame's Shadow had said, it wasn't something I could ignore either.
"By terrible accidents, do you mean the mental breakdowns that have been occurring?" I wondered. The mental breakdowns had to be connected to the way that someone reacted when their Shadow was killed, or at the very least that was my theory which had only become stronger since Madarame's Shadow had mentioned a black masked individual wandering around his Palace which was the only indication of someone else being capable of entering the Metaverse.
"Yes, those accidents aren't normal, unfortunately without our master none of us can find the source," Margaret admitted. But Igor hadn't mentioned anything to me about the source of the mental breakdowns, granted they had only been growing more frequently in recent months, but they'd been happening over the course of two years. "While we normally do not involve ourselves in the journey of other guests, such as yourself and your Wild Card, this time is… unusual. We've never lost the ability to step into the Velvet Room before," Margaret revealed. Worry plain on her face at this highly troubling incident.
"Then it's probably time to get involved," I suggested. All of them proceeded to look at me with wide eyes but given how unusual the situation was, I wasn't going to let these three just wander around without putting their knowledge of the collective unconsciousness to use, if they couldn't find the Velvet Room then they might at least try and do something else. "What would you do?" I asked.
"I believe that looking into these… mental breakdowns, you called them, would lead us to an answer. I suspect something otherworldly is at work here," Margaret admitted. It was good to see that Margaret was already considering their next step forward in trying to figure out what the heck had happened to the Velvet Room; I wished there was an easier way to find them, but this might just be our best bet.
"In which case, would you be willing to assist us Natsumi?" Elizabeth requested. That set of words startled me enough to cause me to jump, I twisted my head to look at the woman with her siblings also proceeding to give her a strange look; I tried to process exactly what she was trying to ask even as Theodore seemed to understand it by his lightening expression, but my brain simply wasn't putting the required puzzle pieces together.
"What?! Why me?" I questioned. I really needed to hear her explain why she thought it was a good idea to drag me into this search, from the heavily scrutinising look and slightly scowl on her face it seemed like Margaret was in the same boat as me given that she was flicking her eyes rapidly between her two siblings but that did nothing to lighten the heaviness with which she gazed at each of them.
"Well, you are a resident of this world unlike us. We wouldn't even know where to begin searching. In sort we'd very much be in need of a guide," Theodore explained. I took a step back slightly, running my eyes over the trio of attendants before me, mentally cataloguing their blonde hair and golden eyes which would stick out more than Ann's looks since it was paired with their very eye-catching blue clothing. I don't know if the attendants could be seen by normal people but if they were then they certainly would be noticed.
"You know… that makes sense… because outside of Harajuku, you three stick out like sore thumbs," I agreed. If someone like me was with them, then any officers or generally nosy people might be suspicious but if I simply call them cousins visiting then it won't be so strange. "Alright, I'll… actually I have no clue how to contact any of you, so we need to find a way to meet up, because if I suddenly have three random people living in my house it'll cause more trouble than it's worth," I admitted.
"Don't worry, we can call you," Margaret reassured. At least that's what she probably meant by the words, but it slightly disturbed me that they would just be able to randomly call me whenever they felt like it, I know that I can't limit these three by normal capabilities, but it was still more than a little unsettling to hear them easily admit to being capable of essentially hacking my phone.
"Alright, call me when you guys are available," I agreed. Perhaps the question that had been bugging me for months would finally be answered if we ended up looking into these cases.