As (Y/n) entered her geography class, she was greeted with an impatient and angry looking Hiroko. He had his arms crossed and a stern glint in his eyes, as his partner came over to sit beside him. "We. Need. To. Talk." (Y/n) inwardly cringed at the overly harsh tone the boy spoke with. "You might be alright with getting played (Y/n), but I won't allow someone to toy with you."

(Y/n) deeply exhaled at the redundancy of the male's protectiveness and disapproval. "What now?"

"Well I'm sorry if this is starting to annoy you, but I'm getting tired of staying awake at night, worrying that some creep is watching you while you sleep." (Y/n) couldn't help but laugh at the claim, despite it being said in a completely serious context. "Stop laughing!" Hiroko's outburst caused the teacher's attention to land on him, giving him the first strike to change his attitude. In a calmer and quieter pitch, he continued to angrily whisper at his partner. "You have some nerve laughing at me after what I've heard had been happening."

"Hiroko, I'm getting really tired of your empty concerns. Please give me a reason to actually feel some sort of care." The boy's eye began twitching at how easily the girl had forgotten of his previous proof.

"Alright, then. I'll tell you why I'm so concerned for your wellbeing. From what I heard, last Friday you ran out of the school crying. And I might just be going out on a limb here, but my intuition tells me it had something to do with those guys." (Y/n) quietly gulped, hoping he never finds out the truth about the occurrence. "And then while I was out in town on Sunday, I saw you and the pricks going into that fancy restaurant." The (h/c) haired girl shrunk back at the invasion of privacy she had gone through, without even noticing. "They seem to have you wrapped around their fingers, what did they have to do to convince you on going?" Hiroko gave the female a smug smile, finally seeming to corner her.

"Y-you can't just go around assuming things dude. My personal life isn't your problem." She hissed at the boy, fed up with the ostracising she was receiving from the male.

"Maybe not, but I think you underestimate how much I actually care for you, kid. You're a good girl, and you don't deserve whatever those b*****ds are sooner or later, going to do." (Y/n) grinned at the gang leader referring to her as a child, disregarding her being 5 months older than him.

"As I said before, I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself..." Despite her words, even (Y/n) couldn't help the aching gut feeling developing within her.

"As much of the excuses you like to give some people, you aren't an idiot. You've probably noticed some things being out of place too, but chose to pass them off." As much as (Y/n) wanted to deny that, she knew he wasn't far from the truth. Despite every little hiccup that would occur, she always pardoned their actions.

"I'll keep that in mind..."

Time Skip

After the last lesson of English, (Y/n) decided to search for the twins and try and save Alex if they were harassing him once again. When she went to their English class, she knew they were bound to be around there but only found other students leaving the room.

After checking up with their teacher and asking around a few of their classmates, she finally had enough information to piece together where they could be located. 'I need to talk to them about this Alex business...something's very off about the whole thing-' The female never got to finish her thought when she heard the sound of a heated argument that sounded a lot like her friends. 'Oh no.'

When (Y/n) located the racket, she found her twin friends in, what seemed to be, an almost physical altercation. "You couldn't just keep your hands to yourself! You always ruin everything!" (Y/n) reluctantly approached the bickering sisters as Saki had a dangerous grip on her sister's blouse, holding back on any other attempt to attack.

"Me?! Ｙｏｕ were the one who had to simply mind her own business and it would have been ｊｕｓｔ peachy! " Lala screamed back in her face, very obviously testing her sister's resilience to sending the first hit. (Y/n) seemed stunned for a moment. She hadn't been unfortunate enough to witness an argument between the two girls that seemed this serious, until now. Usually, they would have innocent quarrels, but (Y/n) could sense this seemed to be a deeper discussion that might spiral out of hand if not stopped.

"Stop it you two! What's going on?" The female immediately regretted her intervention when the twins looked at her with sly and triumphant smiles.

"Ha! (Y/n) can decide which one is right! Go on, tell her what happened with you and Alex." Saki tightened her hold on her sister, preparing to choke the girl in any second.

"Wh- I already told her about what Alex said to me, ｙｏｕ need to tell her about your experience!" Saki's smirk seemed to disappear at her sister's statement.

"I already told her about that a while ago..." The two sisters turned towards their friend, both having trouble in deciding who they should inflict their anger to. "You knew and you didn't tell me...?"

(Y/n) felt her heart plunge and wished there was some sort of magical deus ex machina to take her out of the situation. There was virtually nothing for her to say that could hamper the circumstances. "Yeah...I mean, Lala told me to keep it a secret..."

"Even after Ｉ told you...?" Saki glared at her sister and reluctantly released her. "You always ruin me...every guy I've ever liked in the past, you always take them away." The tomboy clenched her fists, seemingly in preparation to throw a punch, but no move was made. "You always get what you want and then I just have to settle for the leftovers! Because you're the perfect little princess that could do no wrong. It's not enough you get what you want out of mum and dad and the people around you, you need to take everything from me." (Y/n) had never seen her gruff friend cry. Not even when she broke her leg when they were younger, and not even when she was getting bullied by older kids years back. But she could tell there were tears in the girl's eyes that she was trying her hardest to hold back. "I'm f**king sick of being the third wheel as siblings."

"And I'm sick of being outshone by you! Year after year, day after day, I get to hear how my sister is so good at sports, how relaxed, determined and confident she is. I have to wake up seeing ｙｏｕｒ medals on our shelves. Yes, maybe I get what I want, but you achieve what you want. I could never have the motivational attitude you have and I know I'll never surpass you in so many things. All I ever hear is how 'Saki is so confident', 'she's so strong', 'she's so funny' and I get sick of it! You think you're the third wheel in this. I feel like I'm the disappointment in the family!" Lala glared at her sister with equal envy, a vein distinguishing itself on her neck. "I'm tired too...I'm always falling in your shadow and I'm tired."

"Don't make this about yourself! You knew how much I liked Alex, we spent hours talking about it and then I distinctly remember you saying 'I'll let you have him,' even though it was f**king insulting hearing that -from my own sister no less- you don't know how happy I was! (Y/n)! Tell her that I'm right here!" (Y/n) jumped as the tomboy referred back to her. She was too speechless to say anything at that point, she was unaware of these feeling of conflict that has been hiding between the twins and now that she had the full view, there was no chance in nullifying the argument.

"(Y/n)! Tell Saki that I was the first to actually speak to him and show interest, and how I'm right here!" The female was stunned, being put on the spot between choosing one of her best friends.

"(Y/n)!!" The two sisters shouted out at the affrightful female who was sure she would have a panic attack at that point. The atmosphere was toxic and suffocating, seemingly clogging up the activity of the girl's brain. She needed to say something, whatever it would be.

"I-I'm not choosing between my two best friends...!" These words didn't seem to go well with the two girls and they looked at each other with clear tension and hatred between them.

"So that's how it's going to be." Saki was the first to break eye contact and turn around to leave. Lala also prepared to depart the scene in the opposite direction and turned towards (Y/n) to say her last words, before withdrawing.

"Thanks a lot."

(Y/n) was left to wonder on what had happened. She couldn't understand the sudden trigger that was pulled since the two were relatively happy that morning. "Lala! Saki! Please, can't we just talk this out?!" She didn't know to who she should run after, they both didn't want to speak to each other and it was evident they had no motivation in speak to her. (Y/n) then started realising another problem. 'Did I just lose my friends?' (Y/n) shook her head, trying to deny it. But even she wasn't gullible enough to hope for an overnight change of heart. 'No, they're just angry right now. In a few days, we'll be laughing this off.' Despite it bringing a false sense of relief, though at a deeper level it was clear to her this wasn't going to be the case.

She heard a group of laughs coming her way from one section of the halls. As the people came to view, (Y/n) was more than glad to see the familiar face of her childhood friend. Kenzan was hanging around with a group of boys he had acquainted with but change demeanours when he noticed the lonesome looking female. The boy waved off his companions and approached the girl, becoming more aware of how melancholic the air was.

"(Y/n)? What's wrong?" The girl wanted to tell him what had now begun troubling her. But her words didn't go past her brain and ended up tongue-tied. The boy noticed the speechless behaviour she exhibited and scratched the back of his neck in careful thought. "Come on, let's get some ice cream, maybe that'll cool you down a bit." The boy gently smiled at the solemn girl and placed a hand comfortingly on her back. A slight, sad smile hovered on the girl's own lips at that and swallowed down the nauseous feeling.

Time Skip

"I see...I'm sorry that my sisters had to involve you in their sibling rivalry." (Y/n) took a slow and prolonged taste of her treat, trying to hold back the queasiness building up.

"I didn't even know they felt like that about each other..." The girl's couldn't help but feel guilty at how oblivious she had been to their feelings, wondering how she hadn't been given any clue as to their true emotions until now. She would always excuse any tension between the two as playful banter, though now looking back on those moments, (Y/n) felt horrible at how blind she was at that issue.

"Don't feel bad, they usually want to keep any problems between them,ｊｕｓｔ between them. I'll talk to them and see what I can do, alright? So just relax, you know how they are." (Y/n) felt a bit better at that information, but even with those comforting thoughts, she knew her friends too well to dwell on false hopes.

"I think I just lost my two best friends..." She could feel tears threatening to spill. Seeing her strong-willed friend on the brink of crying and witnessing her more effeminate companion at the point of boiling, hurtful rage sent bad impulses through her mind.

"Don't think that. It's still not certain, I'm sure it wasn't your fault so don't blame yourself." (Y/n) slowly nodded and felt a hand on her head. "I'll see you tomorrow, alright?" The two exchanged waves as (Y/n) was left in front of her empty house, with her melting ice cream cone.

'Even my home seems to be crying...how did this even happen?' She never liked seeing her friends in such emotionally distraught situations, it always hurt her to watch her friends suffer or in such wistful states. 'Why would this happen...?Alex.' The surge of anger, she had been keeping dormant until that point was finally seeping out. Her teeth tightly clenched and her hand unintentionally sneezed the cone, crushing it to let the frozen food drip to the ground.

(Y/n) tossed the crushed product to the terrain and began sprinting towards the source of all this.