This story was written to help spread awareness of the Crimson Compendium, a Persona 5 writing and art fanzine in the making, and originally published on AO3. However, this is not the full version of the story, but a shortened version written to work around this website's technical limitations.
We are currently recruiting fanfiction writers to contribute to the zine. Please look for our tumblr page and the AO3 version of this story for more information, if you are interested in applying!
The following paragraphs were written by vivvav:
2/26/2017 SuNDAY Evening
"I can't believe you had a shoot all the way out here, Lady Ann."
It was after dark at LeBlanc. Akira was pouring a cup of coffee while Ann sat at the counter and Morgana — despite Sojiro's repeated instructions — sat on the counter.
"Yeah," Ann said, "it was a weird shoot."
"I'd imagine." Akira started to bring the coffee to Ann. "Yongen-Jaya isn't exactly the most glamorous place."
"That was kinda the point." Ann rolled her eyes. "They said they wanted to capture 'something extravagant in a place lacking extravagance."
"Well gee…" Akira pulled back the coffee just before Ann could take it. "If you're too good for Yongen, then I guess you're too good for our coffee too."
"Come on!" Ann leaned over the counter, reaching for the coffee. "I didn't say that stuff! The photographer did!"
"So you don't think you're too good for Yongen-Jaya?"
"Of course not!"
"And you don't think it's ugly?"
"Not at all!"
"And you think it's the best neighborhood in the world?"
"No."
"Fair enough." Akira put the coffee down in front of Ann. "I'll take two out of three."
"GUYS! GUYS!" A very loud voice could be heard from outside the cafe.
"Damn it." Morgana groaned in annoyance. "And we were having such a lovely evening too."
"GUYS!" Ryuji burst through the door to LeBlanc, covered in sweat and holding a magazine in his hand. "YOU'RE NOT GONNA BELIEVE IT!"
"Believe what?" Ann asked.
"CHECK THIS OUT!" Ryuji ran over to the counter and slammed the magazine on it, almost hitting Morgana. The front was black, and had the Phantom Thieves' top hat logo on it.
"What's this?" Morgana took a close look at the magazine. It didn't seem to be made of the same kind of glossy paper most magazines were made of. The spine seemed to have been done by hand, and the image quality of the Thieves' logo was a bit blurry. Overall, it didn't seem like a professional publication. "Did you make it?"
"What? No way!" Ryuji hopped on the bar stool next to Ann. "Some dude was selling these on the street. He said it's a fan-made zine of art and stories about the Phantom Thieves of Hearts!"
"Really?" Akira walked around the counter with another cup of coffee and sat down next to Ryuji, a curious look in his eyes. "Futaba told me that we had some fans who made art and stuff, but I never imagined there was anything like this out there."
"How fun!" Ann turned it over, seeing the various masks of the Phantom Thieves displayed on the back. "Should we invite the others over?"
"I think eight of us huddled around one magazine might get a bit uncomfortable" Akira said. "Let's show them later."
"Alright!" Ryuji cracked open the magazine. "This is gonna be awesome!"
The remainder of this fic relies heavily on the use of embedding images, which is not an available functionality on ff dot net. To see the rest of the story, please go here: archiveofourown dot org / works/12243192
