a/n: Missing scene from 11/21. This was written primarily as my way of venting my horrible, still-unresolved coffee family feelings; damn it Atlus, up your protagonist hurt/comfort game, I am not satisfied!

The truth is, his coffee is damn near perfect, but you don't tell the kid that. He's enough of a cocky punk as it is without you swelling that fluffy head.

But you still smile, and tell him it's worth a compliment, and behind his glasses Akira's dark eyes glint with humility that separates his pride from his better-schooled layer of smugness. You can't help that think that's the funnier part, honestly. The kid leads a group of misfits who have broken into the world of cognitive psience and beaten down the wills of power-mad giants, and he gets sappy over a decent cup of coffee.

What a brat.

You set the cup down on the dish and ask to be his mentor a little bit longer. You're not expecting a serious answer - very rarely does anything about this tired-looking, dry, enigmatic teenager look serious - and yet he wipes his hands in his apron, nudging up his glasses with a knuckle, and he smiles like he'd enjoy nothing more in the world.

"You're going home in a few months, you know," you almost remind him sharply; right then and there, because for some reason you're suddenly, alarmingly aware of it.

You don't do it because Akira has already taken your cup and is shuffling off towards the kitchen, leaving you to the low rumble of the television and the rain-tapped windowpanes. The kid knows his probation is up in less than half a year. He knows how much he's risking with the Phantom Thieves. Not that you've been the kindest guy to him from the start, but there's no reason for you to go reminding him off all his responsibilities he's got to resolve before he leaves.

You don't remind him because it'd be a hassle to bring it up now.

That's all.

Above the droning hum of the television, a dish falls to the floor and breaks.

You think it's the cat at first - damn that cute little thing - but as you turn and stoop to pick up the shards from the floor, you remember that the little guy is attached to Akira at the back, and your ward is nowhere in sight. You haven't seen him since this morning, actually, which isn't at all strange.

Then again, neither was the expression he'd left with this morning. Or the one he'd had last night. The hardness in his oft-languid face, like a stone unearthed from a soft bed of sand. You'd scolded him about it in the past; about getting over things that didn't go his way. The same way you'd often scold him the very following day, when he'd return home exhausted but lightened, as though unchained from a weight pressed down on his back.

You look at the clock.

What catches your eye instead is the television headline, reported listlessly by a tired-looking anchor who couldn't give less of a damn.

"Breaking news: the leader of the Phantom Thieves has committed suicide while in police custody."

The dish pieces clatter back to the floor. For good measure, the plate in your other hand falls and cracks, too.

The coffee nearly scalds on the way down, but you drain it all in one go. Your trained palate frenzies, unused to the abuse, and even as it tries to sift out the notes of acidity and quality of roast, you swallow it down and don't care.

Bitter, you think.

It's bitter.

As you pour another cup, desperate to inject enough caffeine into your veins to last you through what will doubtless be an entire night of news coverage, you notice that your hands are shaking so badly that the mug clatters on its saucer like a set of chattering teeth.

Kilimanjaro , some connoisseur part of your brain finally supplies, as if you give a shit. You're too busy trying not to hate yourself into a pit of despair for following your stupid ladykiller-days policy; never opening your contacts list to the kid, even after opening your attic to him, your daughter's soul to him, your crusty, undeserving heart to him.

You've already tried calling Futaba. She won't pick up. God, you don't know what you're going to do if she's hurt, too.

For once in your life, you hope she's ignoring you because she hates you so much. Hates you for failing her; for being a terrible stand-in of a father, who'd let things like this happen to the kids he'd promised he would do everything in his power to protect. Who would let the ravenous world devour his children while he stood there and wiped down countertops.

The newsman prattles on and on behind an aged screen of sepia. He's infuriatingly vague; bullshitting everything from cause of death to responsibility, and your whole body is shaking so badly that it's hard to concentrate.

The caffeine isn't helping; but it's not the source.

Forty-odd minutes after you learn that Akira is dead, Sae Nijima bursts through your front door.

The irritation you feel at having your shock and grief interrupted gives way to fury the very moment you recognize her. As you shoot to your feet, it takes every inch of your self-control not to hurl the closest ceramic mug at her head and tell her to get the hell out of your sight, heartless judicial lapdog, don't make you waste the cup on murderous, negligent trash like her.

Before you can talk yourself into it, she tucks a strand of smoke-gray hair behind her ear, drawing attention to her uncharacteristically frazzled appearance, and pins you with her severe-looking red gaze.

"I have him," she says harshly. "I - he needs your help."

She doesn't need to elaborate. With a speed you hadn't known you possessed at this age, you tear your apron off and practically fly around the bar, following her brisk steps out the door.

It's dim in the underglow of your shop's sign. The backstreets hum with sleepy Tokyo life, but all your focus lies on Nijima's path through the back alley. She keeps glancing over her shoulder; not at you, but beyond, as though she's afraid someone is following her. If you had the sense, you'd be afraid of it, too. Even smarter, you'd realize that she could be leading you by the nose into some kind of trap.

You don't care.

"Here," she says crisply, turning the corner right where it empties into an alleyway connected to the street. An empty taxi is parked, the engine running, and Sae hastily throws open the backseat door. You feel your breath hitch at the body of Akira sprawled in the back, piled in a swath of blankets, shivering and pale.

Akira blinks groggily up at you; one eye swollen shut, the other dilated and unfocused.

"Sakura-san?" he croaks.

"You punk," you say, and somehow your voice is even weaker than his. Your hands are still shaking when you reach in and draw him out by the arms, and he flinches , god, but he still melts into your grip, letting you pull him out, and his head lolls bonelessly, frizzy hair forcing his one good eye shut.

"Don't you know what they're saying about you, you troublemaker? Do you have any idea…"

You growl and pull his arm over your shoulder like he's not a good several inches taller than you, scolding him all the way. He's barely listening. So are you.

This troublesome, no-good moron.

Damn him.

"They haven't treated him well," Sae cuts in as she shuts the door. There's a sharp note of anger in her voice, and unwittingly, you find your respect for her shooting up a notch or two. When she turns to look at Akira, her harsh gaze softens in pity. "It's been a tough night for him. No thanks to me."

Then her eyes are on you again.

"The others are all safe, including your daughter. She'll be along soon. I expect the rest will show up within the next day or so to collect their leader. Until then, I'll leave him to you."

Sae Nijima's exit can be measured in rhythm, with the sharp clicking of her heels on asphalt as she rounds her appropriated taxi and climbs into the driver's seat, but somehow it's still so hilariously abrupt that you can't do more than stand there and watch her rumble away into the floodlike current of Tokyo traffic.

Akira groans against your side. You realize that you've stopped shaking, but your ward, flushed with sweat and trembling, has only just started.

"Time for my attic prison?" he chuckles, miserably.

"Shut up," you bark.

Taking his weight onto yours - he's favoring his left leg - you haul him straight towards the alley that will take you directly to your house.

"We're going home, fool."

"Sojirooooo..."

You grunt and wave a hand to show that you heard, but that's as far as you get. Your throat is thick with the taste of black coffee. You should know better than to try and outpace the caffeine crashes at your age.

"Sojirooo! Get up!"

The voice registers as Futaba's this time, but you don't know what she could possibly want. Is she annoyed because Akira spent all day doing pull-ups in the attic again instead of playing video games with her? Tch, it's not like the kid has any weight he needs to shed, the little beanpole-

"Sojiro! Up, I say! Deploy Anti-Mona-tonin!"

And you don't get any time to puzzle that out before there's a loud Mreow! shrieked directly into your ears, and you startle awake just in time to see Futaba dump the cat into your lap with both arms. Morgana flails unhappily as you shoot up into a sitting position, instinctively shoving him off onto the floor with a yelp.

As you blink down at him, he scrabbles to his feet and gives you a thoroughly betrayed look. Aw, hell. You feel bad about that. He didn't even try to claw you.

But Futaba ducks into your vision, pushing her glasses up with a pinky, her fiery orange hair spilling past her shoulders. For as eccentric as your adopted daughter is, there's a glint of uncharacteristic urgency in her eyes that reminds you a lot of-

Oh, hell.

"Sojiro! Akira! Take us to Akira, please!"

On the floor, Morgana pulls primly into a sitting position, wrapping his tail around his feet and meowing firmly in what you can only assume is agreement. Exhausted, you hunt a minute for your own glasses and grumble your way into full consciousness, waiting for the evening's events to fully re-register with you.

"Where have you been?" is the first thing you manage to say, which comes out a hell of a lot more scolding than you'd meant it to. Morgana peers at Futaba and meows something in the distinct tone of I-told-you-so , not that you claim to understand damn Cat, but your daughter isn't even phased.

"Doesn't matter! Even kitty says you're being too slow! He's gonna scratch you allll up for making us worry longer!"

Morgana's next yowl is an alarmed denial, and okay, either you are starting to understand the cat or you're going crazy from stress. It pulls a smirk out of you, though. Cursing your old bones, you rise from the couch and ruffle a hand through Futaba's hair on your way down the hall.

"All right, all right. You win. I've kept him safe and sound for you."

You haven't done much, actually, other than make him as comfortable as you could while you fought to break his fever. Worry is creeping again through your own gut as you climb the stairs to your room; you sat down for only a moment to rest, but you're not sure how long you were out. Akira isn't likely to have expired in the time you were away, but still…

If Futaba thinks it's weird that you've laid Akira out in your own bed, she doesn't say it. She whisks past you as you open the door, the cat hot on her heels, and both of them throw themselves onto the mattress where your ward is stretched out beneath a thin blanket.

While Morgana kneads Akira gently, sniffing and meowing before finally curling up into a ball on his stomach, Futaba peels off the damp towel you'd placed on his forehead and feels his skin with a soft tut.

"I wanna know what they did to him," she says. There's a hardness in her voice that you've heard in the steel of her mother's.

"You and me both," you grouse. But you've already got a pretty good idea. You weren't always a humble coffee-shop owner watching Japan spiral into hell from behind a glass window. As you brushed Akira's bangs back, helped him gently out of his school uniform and handed him a set of your old pajamas, you saw his dilated eyes; you heard his slurred attempts at explanations, assurances that made you want to cuff him over the ear.

They haven't treated him well , Nijima had said.

Bitterly, you think: When's the last time someone has?

When you walk into your house, Akira is upright on the couch, sipping a cup of coffee and watching the news.

"Hey," you say brightly. "You're not looking half-bad for a dead man."

"Not feeling half-bad for one either," Akira says with a tired smile. He seems to reconsider. "Maybe a quarter-bad."

"I'll bet." Moving to stand in front of Akira, you use your knuckle to tip his chin up towards you. He allows it without so much as a blink. It almost helps you forget the way he flinched away from your touch the night you pulled him out of a taxi as a shaking, delirious wretch. "Well, eyes look clear. And you're not mumbling nonsense about your cat warden anymore."

Akira laughs and swats your hand away. "You wouldn't think it's nonsense if you could understand him."

You glance to your coffee table, and for some reason, you aren't surprised to see two additional coffee cups laid out on the table, making three in total. One of them is entirely drained, with only a faint yellow ring to suggest it had been filled at all. Futaba must have drank hers before leaving this morning. Akira is nursing his right now. It's the last cup-piping hot, curls of thick steam willowing into the air, that catches your attention.

"Have a cup," Akira suggests casually, as though he hadn't just set it out especially for you with his apparent psychic powers.

You sigh with the appropriate level of exasperation and plop down onto the couch next to Akira. "You sure there's time for this? You've got a lot of people anxious to see you, you know."

"I know," he says, and drains his cup. That stony look is in his eyes again. You suddenly wish you could bury it again, under all the softness in that innocent-looking boy with the glasses, in a world where it was really just as simple as a misjudged kid you could take in and teach your craft, in a world that wasn't trying to destroy him or his future or grind him into the dirt with its heel.

Seriously - what a troublesome kid.

But you don't tell him that. You pick up the cup, inhaling the smooth notes of Blue Mountain, and take a long, slow draw, as if you can make this moment last forever before sending your boy back out to the world.

As you lower the cup, Akira watches you expectantly. You set it down with a solid click of porcelain and nudge him affectionately with your arm.

"I still have a lot to teach you," you rumble warmly. And because he's such a clever damn fool, you watch the iron weight in his eyes break apart, just for a moment, for something softer and lighter, for a place with a crusty old man who will be his mentor for just a little bit longer in a world that rejoices in the safety of his death.

Just a little bit longer. That's all he wants.

That's all.