Takura's POV:

"*Hic* You know what....I like you!" Genkei slurred, "shut up you drunk" I groaned as I helped walk him back to the tiny room.

"How did you two even get drunk here?! This is ridiculous!" I scolded him, "aww you jelly...?" He asked.

"Jealous of playing God knows how many drinking games with Mirai? No, I'm not...man you reek" I told him. The smell of alchohol made me want to throw up.

"Oh what the actual hell!" Nao screamed when he saw us, "Mirai and Genkei were playing drinking games, Tsuki found them cause Mirai never went back after their cat fight and next thing you know these two are wasted" I complained.

Genkei was still laughing like a little kid at all this. Glad he can somehow find this amusing...

"Wow that's pathetic" Nao groaned as he helped me with Genkei, "I...ain't drunk!" Genkei protested.

"And I'm a fucking supermodel get the fuck to sleep" Nao told him. I sighed in relief as Nao coddled the drunk Genkei.

"I need to sleep" Eiji complained, "oh you're still up?" I asked shocked, "now I am." He mumbled clearly trying, and failing, to fall back asleep.

"Sorry...." I mumbled, "it's the other one that needs to apologize" Eiji told me.

I eyed Genkei, "yeah...that's never happening" I told him, "we'll see" Eiji said, almost for once showing an emotion.

Almost.

Eiji could pass off for the google app.

Finally Nao managed to get Genkei to fall asleep without smothering him to death, I sighed and relaxed on the old and creaky bed.

It doesn't hurt.
I'm fine.

~♤~♡~◇~♧~

"Again" the person yelled, "BUT I'M TIRED AND GOT A HEADACHE!" Mirai snapped.

"I didn't ask for feedback, again" the instructor called.

You know most people who get kidnapped get locked into dark scary spider infested basements.

We became an underground band.

I think I prefer the spiders sometime.

We were never given an explanation as to why our strange captor made us become performers, I guess they wanted a foothold into that induatty for some reason?

But that meant for almost all hours of the day we were out into extreme trainings and at night only given four hours to sleep the only exception being when we had performances.

Well Mirai and Genkei wasted their two hours.

Along with the rest of our poor souls.

I kind of wish we had the spiders now.

I ignored feeling lightheaded. The excercise was good for me anyways. The restricted diet was good for me, they said I was one of the best. If I was only good looking they said.

I ignored my aching body and kept working harder, after all if we're going to have to do this I need to do it right.

So we can go home. They have to let us go...they have to let us return to our normal lives...someone by now has noticed we've gone missing....right?

Kokichi...

...

I need to work harder. It's not good enough yet. I want to be good enough.

~♤~♡~◇~♧~

I left the bathroom and returned to the rotten picnic table we have claimed as our own. Mirai was digging at it with her fork.

"So how have you been guys and gals? You know for imprisonment standards this is pretty nice" Nao asked.

Was this meant to be a morale boost?

"It fucking sucks" Mirai said, "besides booze...now if we had tylenol I could call this a five star hell of a vacation" she sarcastically remarked.

"Well I'm SORRY for trying to be the slightest bit optimistic alright?" Nao shouted, calling the attention of the guards.

He piped down.

"So...how is it going?" Nao asked suddenly in a whisper, "once we get the collar off we'll be set, the tunnel should hit the sewers any day now" Tsuki responded, "but what are we going to do after that? We still haven't decided" Eiji added.

"Run? Flee the country?" She guessed, "oh yeah let in the young adults with no social security, or any real background oh yeah sure just let them in the country and that's hoping they don't find our criminal history" Mirai retorted annoyed.

"Well I'm sorry for trying to help us" Tsuki mumbled. "Get it together Mirai, fighting amongst ourselves isn't going to help" Genkei warned.

Mirai laughed coldly "who died and made you our leader?" She asked...the room fell into a cold and familar solitude.

"We can go find Saihara..." Mirai finally muttered messing with her hair, she reminded me for once of the shy girl she used to be.

"I'm sure he could help us...or find someone who can..." She added, she eyed us as if waiting for some kind of rebuttal.

"That's...actually not that bad of an idea" Nao said in shock, murmurs of agreements followed.

It was decided, after we escaped we would find Saihara...

....

And find Kokichi.

Its cold.

~♤~♡~◇~♧~

Again.
Again.
Again.
It's not good enough, I need to be good enough.

I practiced with the guitar staring back at the mirror at the horrible creature playing.

My fingers were bleeding because I couldn't find a good enough pick but that didn't matter.

I can do better.

I can still do better so-

"Oh fuck so looks like my party is canceled, damn" a voice called out, I turned around to see Genkei holding a case of beer.

"Hey darling" he called dropping the case and walking towards me, "go away, I'm still mad you got trashed" I told him.

"Wha? Aww man I'm sorry I'll invite you next time!" He promised, "that's not why I was mad you idiot!" I screamed annoyed quickly taking off the guitar and heading towards the door.

"Tak wait-" Genkei called grabbing my arm.

The color drained from his face as he rolled my sleeves as I tried to fight him.

"Shit" he mumbled looking back up at me, "Tak what's wrong?" He asked concerned. I shook my head "I'm fine..." I mumbled.

"Tak, honey, if I know one thing about you is that if you say 'I'm fine' then really you're reenacting the weird dog picture, now tell me...what's wrong? I mean other than the obvious"

"It's not your responsibility" I told him, "like hell it is! If my boyfriend is a skeleton it's my job to shove a god damn cheeseburger down his throat! Tough macho love and all that!" Genkei argued.

I shook my head, "you're overreacting" I told him, he laughed, "oh yeah I definitely am, it's not like I can see your bones practically...Takura...I'm sorry..." he apologized.

"What are you apologizing for?" I asked, "I should have...I should have intervened sooner...it's just...I wanted you to come to me so I thought...it doesn't matter, look we're going to get you some food and-"

"I'm FINE alright?! If you think I'm bad what do YOU look like then huh? Getting wasted whenever, smoking when you KNOW you have asthma for crying out loud?! This was before we got thrown into this hell so you can't use that as your excuse!" I screamed.

"I KNOW! Which is why I'm trying to help you! So you don't have to suck like me!" Genkei pleaded.

"Fix yourself first...leave me alone...I'm tired...ok?" I told him.

"Takura..."

"I'm fat...ok? And if I don't look good...if I fail these performances they're going to kill us aren't they? So I have to...I have to be better...so no one else has to die....if I had been better...*sniff* Chiasa and Kazue wouldn't have died...." I screamed.

Genkei remained quiet for a while.

"No one is going to die, alright?" He finally said breaking the silence, "you don't know that! They can kill us any minute!" I screamed.

"I won't let them ok, and what happened sure as hell wasn't your fault you hear me? Chiasa and Kazue made their dumb decision because they fucking loved us that much alright? It's not your fault those fucked up police officers did what they did alright? So don't you dare blame yourself!"

"It's my fault..." I mumbled. "They were my friends...but when they needed me most I failed them...I'm horrible..."

"Aww don't be mad Takura, Mommy is just looking out for you"

....

"Do you remember what I was like before DICE found me?" Genkei suddenly asked. I looked down.

"My parents were shit. They were addicts and made me take the same shit as them so I would stay. That's one way to keep your child huh?

"Around that time I met Takashiro at school, I was thirteen I think, and one day Shiro found me after I bought some of the crap from the dealer, asked if I was happy with life.

"I must've laughed in his face, what kind of question is that am I right? Now...now damn I'm glad he was thinking of me...

"My parents kicked me out a few days after cause of some dumb fight and I remember having to deal with some nasty people in the alleys...then I met Kokichi for the first time.

"And I swear he hasn't aged at all since then, poor guy. So I was trying to act all tough but Shiro was like 'dude we all know you don't like this, just come with us' he said and I ended up caving just so he would leave me alone.

"Best decision of my life because immediately after I went through the worst relapses of my life.

"I don't remember those days well, just being miserable and then I saw the face of an angel- and the angel had acne and an attack on titan shirt." Genkei said looking over at me.

I looked down, "honestly...I thought you were an angel, when I was finally able to be stable again I immediately joined cause my parents- yeah the roles were always reversed. I trusted you shits.

"I endes up being the last member to complete DICE, I then decided to drop out of school, Shiro hated that, got a few jobs and tried to help with the debt you folks had...got some other bad habits...but you know what...I'll never regret what I decided, despite the pain and fear...this is a good life..." Geneki concluded.

"So when I think of what those four decided that day...I don't think they would regret it either...so...don't feel guilty or those suckers are gonna cry, well maybe just Chiasa you had to pay Kazue to cry but still" Genkei advised.

"I'm...I'm going to protect us alright? So don't-"

"NO!" I quickly interrupted, "shut down the damn martyr complex! If one goes down we all do got it?!" I screamed.

Genkei looked at me shocked before nodding, "ok...you feel better now...? Or ak I going to have to force feed you a salad?" He asked jokingly.

"...I'll try" I offered, he nodded "good enough for me"

"That means you need to try and stop smoking"

"....son of a bitch..."