Ouma's POV:

It's been an hour...he shouldn't come back...ok.

I got out from the bedroom and quickly grabbed my things to leave the house. Hopefully it would be enough so Shui wouldn't murder me when he figured out I snuck out again.

I quickly took one of the disgusting pills and covered my face with a mask, I felt bundled up enough not to get sick this time hopefully.

I went to grab my shoes...

...

Do you really not trust me this much....?

Inside of the little container we stored our shoes in, mine was gone. Where he would have hidden it I had no idea, it likely wasn't even in the house anymore.

...he does this because he loves you...

Sighing I got out and braced myself for soaked socks in the rainy weather. I didn't have any sort of phone to contact his Uncle, I never really had a good phone the one back in DICE was a buisness flipphone.

Its not like you needed one...theres the house phone...and it would have been wasteful back then...

The drive to his house was thirty minutes and I had no idea how long it would be on foot, grabbing a map I tried and navigate my way through the district no doubt in my mind that people saw me as some weird homelessman.

It didn't matter.

I wiggled my engagement ring around for support as I finally arrived at the apartment and knocked on the door, a loud crash heard in the wake.

"NOT MY ELVIS DISKS WHY?!" A cry erupted as the door opened. His eyes widened, "Ouma? Is that you? Wait where in God's name are your shoes?" He asked all at once. I quickly grabbed the notepad.

Shui took them.

...

"Son of a bitch..." he muttered and I punched him in the shoulder, he didn't apologize though.

"You're here so we can keep investigating right?" He quickly asked inviting me inside. I nodded, had gotten cut off last time.

"Alright. I've done some digging and you mentioned a pawn shop right?" He asked. I nodded pulling out the headphones that I had hid in the drawers earlier for safe keeping.

"Well after hearing the location and name, I traveled to the shop did some lovely sweet talking and figured out that your friend pawned that item a year ago in fact. However that left me really no where to go since the name she gave was a fake.

"I decided to then take a step back and search for people who registered under her fake name and found an apartment that had been rented out for a year along with someone else, my guessing one of your other friends.

"I went to the building and lied saying I was inspecting the room, and found that the room had been abandoned by the two vacants much to the annoying cat lady managers dismay.

"Going in, I found the room had been broken into. They tried to hide it, probably later but I found with a UV light dried blood and one of the windows locked had been smashed and the kitchen knives were missing.

"My guess is when they kidnapped your friends, they fought back with the knives and landed some good enough hits that they had to clean up blood afterwards but unfortunately your friends were overpowered.

"However those headphones were also sold in a rush, and your friend worked multiple jobs. Remembering your edgy joker origin story I figured that your friends or at least these two knew what was coming and tried to pay them to leave them alone.

"It failed. I don't know what happened from there, but my guess is they are still in the country and alive. Afterall this happened a full year ago. I can even deduce when it happened thanks to voicemails Shuichi had" he recapped.

Wait there were voicemails?

His Uncle's face turned somber, "I tapped into the machine...my god ever single week- nearly every single day there were messages from your members just asking about you. Asking when they could see you again, if you were mad at them for some reason...it was painful to hear but man those guys love you." He told me.

...

There were that many?

"You didn't know?" He asked shocked, I knew there was some but

I froze. Was Shuichi hiding things from me even before Ace left that letter? No....he couldn't have...

Right?

"Shuichi lied to you. Because he should've known something was wrong when the messages abruptly stopped...Ouma I hate to tell you this...but I think Shuichi knew all along what happened to your friends...he purposely didn't tell you because he wanted to in some sick way protect you"

No.

"But that isn't love, it never could have been because he didn't trust you enough to tell you things so important to you"

No.

"Shuichi...I'm so sorry...but I think you need to leave him"

I can't.