You walked nervously behind the group. Anxiety had set in at the prospect of meeting new people, especially without your mask. You began pulling at your sleeves again. You jumped when someone poked you in your side. You turned around, expecting it to be Samon. Instead you found Upa. You pouted and crossed your arms, "Oh gosh, not you too." he shrugged, "Your reaction is funny." You rolled your eyes. "I want to tell you about the group we're going to see." At this, your anxiety spiked, hand going to your sleeve immediately. He noticed your action, "Calm down, it's nothing bad. Just few things about them." You nodded, dropping your hands down to your side. "Their names are Uno, Nico, Jyugo, and Rock. Uno is a wanna-be pretty boy that is addicted to gambling and females. He has an extremely good hunches and makes bets well." Your heart dropped. 'What if he finds out?' you thought to yourself. Upa continued to speak, "Rock is a street fighter that gorges himself on food. Nico is an energetic druggie that loves games. And Jyugo is a useless waste of space." "Hey, that's not nice!" He shrugged, "Well it's true." You sighed. After a bit of walking, you arrived at building 13. Samon led you through the unfamiliar hallways to what you guessed was the cafeteria. A pleasant smell wafted through the doors. Samon stopped at the doors, "Hurry up and eat. I don't wanna be in this gorilla's building any longer than I have to." You walked behind Upa as the group approached a table with four people seated at it. Upa, Liang, and Qi sat down at the table while you hid behind a pillar. The table began talking while you watched from behind the pillar. You watched as Upa looked around. He said something to Liang, who nodded. He then got up from the table and started walking towards your hiding spot. 'crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap' he stood in front of you, "Are you coming?" "Uu-m-" He sighed and grabbed your hand, leading you into the view of the table. The one with green hair got up from his seat. "Hey master, who's this?" he said pointing to you. "His name is (y/n). Don't overwhelm him with your loud babblings." Warned Upa. The green haired boy then proceeded to bombard you with questions. This cause you to start to panic. You were about to disappear again until Upa shooed him away. You calmed down a bit as the pair of you walked to the table. Upa ended up forcing Qi to move so you could sit on the side of him. You sad down awkwardly, feeling all too exposed without your mask. You jumped when you felt someone poke your cheek. You looked up to see one with long blond and pink hair, leaning his head on his hand curiously. "Who are you? I didn't see you at the tournament." "I-I wasn't th-there. I wa-was watching s-someth-thing e-else" You managed to stutter out. "What a shame, you didn't get to see how awesome I was when I beat those two pretty boys." He said grinning cockily. He points to the one playing on the device, "That's Nico." then he points to the one with the purple hair and the one with the black hair, "That's Rock and that's Jyugo." He then pokes a finger into his chest, "And I'm Uno, the handsome one in this group" this was followed by several 'hey's' He then took a longer look at you, "Say, you don't look like a boy." Rock looks at you, "Yeah, you're right. He does look kinda like a girl" Jyugo shrugged, "I don't think he looks like a girl" Uno rolled his eyes, "Juygo, you've never seen a girl" The two then began to argue, but you couldn't hear. Your ears were filled with the all too familiar ringing noise. You suddenly lost the ability to control your breathing and your chest rose and fell unevenly. Your throat began to burn and your eyes began to water. Your hand raised to your mouth in attempt to quiet the ragged breaths that were beginning to grow louder. The lack of your mask and arguing combined with the fact that they were about to find out your closely guarded secret was too much for you. 'I'm not usually this bad. What's wrong with me today'?' you ask yourself. 'this isn't even that important' In your panic-stricken mind, you managed to remember the feeling that you had forgotten something that you had that morning. You also remembered what you had forgotten. You mentally face palmed at your forgetfulness. The two white pills still sat in their container under your bed, untouched due to you getting ready so quickly this morning. Your eyes widen as you began to feel your chest begin to tighten more. Samon was too busy arguing with another scary looking guy to notice. Uno was still busy arguing with Jyugo. Nico was playing on some device while Rock was focused solely on explaining something about pizza to Liang, Qi sleeping in the background. Upa was eating pizza too. You looked down to see that a piece had been placed in front of you, still hot and steaming. 'pizza' you thought randomly. That thought was quickly dismissed as it was replaced with the loud emptiness of panic. Your eyes darted about wildly, trying to focus on something without avail. Everything was fading in and out of focus. You felt the tears in your eyes began to fall, though you quickly shut your eyes as to not let them fall. You were so consumed in this that the sudden hand on your shoulder almost made you shriek. Your eyes snapped open to find Upa's face. Though it was blurry, you could still make out a worried expression. You tried to get something out- anything. But no. All you could do was make a panicked expression. You were suddenly picked up. You felt yourself being moved somewhere. You didn't know where, but you were going fast. You stopped suddenly. You heard muffled voices. You strained and you could make out the voices of Upa and Samon. You couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were both talking frantically. You were set down on the floor. You then felt a stick in your arm. In a few seconds, the world stopped spinning and your heart began to slow to a constant speed. You regained your ability to breath and you let your head lay against the wall behind you. The ringing in your ears had subsided, so you could make out what Upa and Samon were saying. "Does he need to go to the infirmary?" "No, she's fine now" You winced as he used the incorrect gender pronoun, though Upa didn't seem to notice. "What happened?" You heard him ask. "I forgot my pills." You managed to get out as you opened your eyes to look at him. "Pills?" asked Upa, tilting his head to the side. Samon nodded, then looked towards you for permission to explain what they were. You nodded. "Due to past events, (y/n) has a bit of trouble with... social interactions." "He seemed to be doing fine up until now" Upa commented. Samon nodded, "That's because she remembered to take her medicine. It reduces the chances of these kinds of things happening." Your mouth went into a thin line as you cringed as he used 'her' and 'she'. To your dismay, he noticed, "She?" You froze. You felt him look at you. He walked a bit closer, crouching down in front of you. While the hoodie did help, there was still a slight bump where your chest was. He also remembered all the times where Samon referred to you as a girl. He thought back to your reluctance to change in front of them and your rather feminine name. "You're.....YOU'RE A GIRL?" Samon quickly put a hand over his mouth. "Be quiet, she doesn't want them to know." Upa moved his hand away, "What is a female doing in Namba? I thought it was an all-male prison." "It is" you said, finally finding your voice. "The only reason I was sent here instead of the female Namba was because this one has better security, and a person like me 'needs the highest security possible'" You said, mocking the judge. (Just wanted to point out that female Namba is an actual thing. While there isn't a lot of information on it, it has a warden. His name is Shin Sauzando.) You weren't planning on escaping and you had shown no signs of doing so. But that was beside the point. Upa remembered that qi gong attack you had managed to preform when Samon had led him into your training ground. "I guess that makes sense." You chuckled, "The thing is, they didn't know I could do that. They didn't have anything on me. I didn't even have a trial, actually." Samon gave you a warning glance. You weren't supposed to talk about that. The people who sent you here didn't want anything about your illegal sentencing getting out. Though he didn't want to, Samon had to make sure you didn't say anything or risk losing his job. "But that doesn't matter right now. Do you want to go back to the cell?" Samon said, changing the subject. You shook your head no, pushing up from the ground to stand on your feet, "I wanna eat pizza." Samon chuckled and ruffled your hair, "Of course you do" You giggled a bit and began to walk back to the table. "So you're not going to tell Qi and Liang that you're a-" "No, I'm not. And, if you can, please don't tell them. I'd rather keep it a secret as of now." He nodded, sitting in his chair, you following suit. Uno and Jyugo had stopped arguing and were now eating pizza. Nico turns to you and, after swallowing a bite of pizza, says, "So this is what a girl looks like." You freak out immediately, though your attempt to say something in your defense was cut short as Uno spoke up, "Don't be too sure of yourself there. Remember what happened with Hitoshi?" the boys shivered and nodded. "But I heard her say it, back when she was walking with master back to the table." Suddenly the whole table was looking at you. ". . . SHE IS A GIRL!" Yelled Uno loudly. "A girl?" said a voice coming from the door. 'great' at this point you had given up. Now that you had your medicine, you'd be fine, so you decided to hekk with it. You looked over to the door to see another supervisor with heavy makeup on wearing a weird feather thing. With him were what you assumed to be two inmates, who were currently pushing each other out of the way to get to you. "Here we go again." you said aloud. "What do you mean?" asked Upa. "Watch" you said simply. The one with the purple hair got there first. With a charming smile, he said, "My name is Honey, and what might yours be my lady?" No matter how many times this happened, you always got tung-tied when talking to new people. "(y-y/n)" Honey was suddenly pushed down by the other inmate, who also presented a charming smile, "Ignore my cell mate's boarish behavior. My name is Trois. You have a very lovely name~" he said, grabbing your hand. You pulled it out of his grasp with a quiet, "Thanks." Honey got off of the floor, "CAREFUL TROIS YOU'RE GOING TO DAMAGE MY HANSOME FACE." the two then continued to argue about who's handsomer. After a bit, they both turned to where you were, "Okay, then let the lady settle it. Who is more handsome, me or H-" he cut himself off as he realized that you weren't there anymore. You, sadly, had been taken by a drag-queen guard who had picked up on the fact that you were a female. Eager to dress you up, he had dragged you out. Upa came with you, as he wouldn't allow Kiji to take you otherwise. "I see what you mean." Said Upa as he walked beside you. "Told ya. Things like this happen when that information gets out." "Sorry." he said quietly, looking down to the ground. You smiled slightly, "No, it's fine. You're just observant." You sighed as Kiji blabbered on about what he was going to do to you, "Though I wish he wouldn't have heard. And I didn't even get my pizza." you said, mumbling the last part.

This chapter is a more lengthy one. I forgot to cut it off around 1,000 words like I usually do, but o well. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and see you in the next chapter! So YEET.