Authors Note: Alright, so there was this P6 idea that I'd seen come up a lot, and I wanted to make a fic about that potential universe, while incorporating what I loved about P3 and P4 into it. Any constructive feedback is welcome.
"Wow! Isn't it so green out here? You never seen this kind of vegetation or color out in the city."
Takahiro pointed out the bus window as he spoke, gesturing to the vivid green grass and looming trees that they drove by on their way to their new town, their new home. He smiled, looking from the window to the girl next to him, but his smile fell soon after and his shoulders slumped just a little.
Beside him, Shiori hadn't even reacted, not even a little, as though she hadn't heard him at all. She sat hunched over, staring—glaring—at the back of the seat in front of her. The hood of her hoodie, black with green accents and made for someone much older and bigger than her, was up and covering most of her face. But the frown she wore was present. She swung her feet idly in the air, her legs not quite long enough to reach the floor of the bus yet.
"There's some sheep out here," Takahiro tried, not wanting to give up just yet, and did his best to emphasize the excitement in his voice. "I've never seen a sheep in person before, they're so much fluffier than on TV. Don't you want to see, Shiori?"
Ah, he got a reaction.
She lifted her head just a little when he brought up the animal, and after what was a moments of hesitation, moved over in her seat to try and peer past her brother to see out the window. Her eyes widened and for a moment, Takahiro could see a shine, a light in them that he hadn't seen in so long. But the spark flickered out relatively quickly as she turned her attention away from the glass and settled back into her seat once more.
The bitterness, the emptiness in her heart, void of happiness, of joy or love, the anger she seemed to hold towards the world… it wasn't befitting a ten-year-old. It wasn't normal to see a child so young full of so much anger.
But, this was the norm. This was who Shiori was.
She took no interest in anything she did, she viewed everything and everyone with disdain, if she felt anything towards them at all. There was so much anger and bitterness festering inside of her, poisoning her blood, so much pain and misery. Takahiro did what he could, tried his best to try and help his sister, but it was hard. So hard. How could he help her when she hated him with every fiber of her body?
It hurt.
Takahiro loved Shiori, there was no question about that. She was his sister, she was his family—the only family he really had left that wasn't a distant relative—and he loved her so fully and unconditionally. And she hated him.
Maybe it was poetic justice. After what he had done, what he had taken from her, he deserved the hate. All he wanted was what was best for her, but he had gotten selfish, he had gotten angry, all the pain and suffering he had endured, he hadn't thought of what Shiori wanted, hadn't considered what made her happy and in doing so, he had taken away the happy life she had been living.
But he did the right thing, he had to remind himself that. Even if she had been happy, it hadn't been healthy, it hadn't been right. She belonged with her family. She would have only gotten hurt if he hadn't intervened. He had to keep reminding himself of that. Everything he would do, it would be for her.
That's why they were going to their new town, because it would be good for her.
For both of them.
His smile turned wry and he looked at his own lap, fingers playing with the straps of his faded backpack as he held it against himself. "Are you excited, at least? We probably won't be moving again for a long time now," he hoped so at least. If things went right, this would be where they lived until they both finished school. "And, this might be fun! I know Shizukana isn't like Tokyo at all, but, it's a nice place from what I heard. It'll be good for us."
Shizukana was a small rural town, the kind of community where you pretty much knew everyone. There weren't any train stations going through it and the only way to get to the town if you didn't have a car was through the bus. Right now only he and Shiori were on the bus heading into the town, and he suspected there wouldn't be anyone boarding it when they reached their stop. Over all it was a good two or so hours just to get to Shizukana from Tokyo, and that was if you didn't have to wait for the train or bus to arrive.
It was supposed to be a peaceful town, the kind of place where bad things rarely happened, where everyone was looking out for one another and treated each other like friends.
Their therapists had recommended trying to find a stable, healthy place for them, how going from relative to relative—people the two barely knew if they knew them at all—wasn't healthy for either. Not when they were already struggling enough with so much pain, so many nightmares and agony and trauma. Staying with adults they barely knew, adults who were only taking them in because they were obligated to, the therapist that he and Shiori saw had been very blunt in how detrimental it was to their recovery.
So, their current legal guardian—their mothers second or third cousin or something, honestly, Takahiro wasn't even sure how he was related to any of these people anymore—had enrolled them both into Kagami out here in Shizukana.
From what Takahiro had gathered during the meager research he was able to do, Kagami was the only school in the rural town. It served as both a high school, middle school and elementary school. Because of how small the population was, the school was able to manage to do everything within a single three-story building. Some of the classes only had a handful of students, while the max was maybe two classes for one grade.
There was a dorm building too, thankfully. The school also had a dorm that had been a gift from the Hamamoto Group, which helped finance the school in different areas, for students who did not have a place of residence or had familial issues and needed their own place. He was glad for the dorm, it meant he and Shiori would at least be able to stay in the same building and not in the care of someone they didn't know.
But he had to admit, he was worried.
Takahiro was used to taking care of himself, he'd often have to fend for himself when he was living with him and his dad, and even when Shiori and their mother lived with them, he was often helping their mother just to take care of them all. He'd learned to cook basic things, pay rent and buy groceries—and alcohol for their father—by the time he was seven. When it became just his father and him, he had to learn how to clean injuries and bandage himself up.
He'd even been essentially living on the streets for roughly half a year at one point. Takahiro knew how to survive, how to endure.
But this was nothing like enduring the pain of living with their father, or the months alone trying to find and reunite with Shiori.
They were going to be on their own for the most part, and he didn't trust that their legal guardian was going to be bothered to send them money to keep themselves afloat outside of paying for the dorm rooms and books. He'd probably have to find a way to get a job or something after school so he and Shiori would have enough money to survive. He knew that he had some money in the bank already, but, 60,000 yen between the two of them wasn't going to last long.
Most of the money they had gotten, the little they inherited from their father who squandered most of it on beer and women, and the little that their mother had to give, had been used for their therapy sessions and medication, or got swallowed up by the greedy relatives that took them in.
'Compensation' for taking in two problematic kids, they had claimed.
It left a rotten taste in his mouth, reminded him of how awful, how filthy, how disgusting adults were. How he couldn't trust them. He couldn't trust any adult, they could be liars and thieves.
He didn't want to be like that, he didn't want to be the same kind of vulgar, disgusting adult that made their lives a living hell. He had to make sure he never became like them. Not just for his sake, but for Shiori's, and for their mothers. He couldn't become a demon, a rotten, vile demon.
Takahiro let out the breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding, his hands were shaking, bulled into fists with nails digging into his skin, but shaking. He breathed in and let out another shaky breath as he tried to compose himself.
This was a fresh start for the both of them. He had her two hours away from Tokyo, two hours from the disasters that ruined them, from the source of their traumas. From the demons, from the monsters, from the poison that tried to destroy them, from the nightmares and pains and horrors. They were finally getting a new start, a new life where they can finally be happy, finally heal, recover, move forward with their lives. Be normal, healthy kids.
So why did he feel so uneasy?
"I'm going to have to study really hard," Takahiro said, forcing a laugh as he scratched at the back of his head, fingers tangling with his black strands. "I'm still behind after all, thanks to those three years I was out of school. But it's my last year in middle school, you know? I want to make sure I can finish it off with some high marks. Maybe I'll look into getting a tutor."
He had to make sure he did well in school, he needed to get good grades, needed to do well in studies. How else was he going to be able to support Shiori when he was out of school? He needed to do well so he could get a good job that could support the two of them. He wanted to make sure he could understand his own course work so he could help Shiori with hers. He wanted to be the reliable older brother, wanted to be someone she knew she could depend on.
Bur Shiori didn't answer. She rarely did whenever he talked to her if it wasn't necessary. Most of their conversations were one-sided or brief. She didn't like talking to him, Shiori didn't like hearing him talk, she wanted him to leave her alone, hated that he was around her, how he ruined everything, took away her happiness, took away—No, don't think about that. What he did was for the best, it was for her sake. She would recover, she would come to understand why he did what he did, she was just too young right now to understand.
What he did was the right thing.
For the remainder of the trip, Takahiro did his best to try and coax some conversation out of her to no avail. The most she gave in response as they rode in the bus was incoherent mutters. It made the ride feel so much longer, so much more tense.
But eventually the bus came to a stop and the two siblings, grabbing their bags, climbed off.
Takahiro slung his backpack over his shoulder and attempted to take Shiori's as well, but his sister jerked away from him and glared until he retracted his hand, holding the bag close to herself and refusing to let go.
The town was what he expected. Small, lots of homes, he could see an open market just down the street, and a thick forest to the side. There were lots of farmland outside of the town, all the crops were supposed to be freshly grown after all.
Pulling the faded map from his pocket, he unfolded it and took a minute to try and get his bearings, to know where to go to next. He was glad Shiori didn't wander off as he tried to decipher the old map, but he did watch her from the corner of his eye. She was focused on a dog that was walking across the street, probably a stray by the lack of a collar.
"That's a cute dog, isn't it? Try not to go pet it, though. Don't know if it's safe," he warned with a gentle smile.
Shiori lowered her gaze as the dog turned around a corner and vanished from sight, her grip on her bag was tight. "Kaede-chan and I were gonna get a dog," she said and that was it. There was that icy wall again, the bitterness in her voice, the underlining hate directed at him.
It was all Takahiro could do to pretend that it didn't bother him.
Changing the subject, he folded the map up and slipped it back in his pocket, "Sorry, I'm just a bit too dumb I guess, can't make heads or tails out of the map," he laughed as he shook his head. "We'll just walk and maybe someone can point us in the right way. With how small this town is, it shouldn't be too hard."
She didn't argue and followed beside him as he started walking. Honestly, how hard could it be to find a dorm in a tiny community like this? They'd probably find it within an hour or so.
The town felt peaceful compared to the city. The people were friendlier, they felt more genuine, though it was hard for him to outright trust them—his faith in adults was shattered and it was going to take a lot of work for him not to see them all as bad people—but the ones they passed seemed nice and an elderly lady even pointed them in the right direction for the Kagami dorm.
There were a good number of strays, too. Mostly cats, occasionally another dog or two. Not a lot of cars, most people were walking or biking. He figured that in a town like this, there wasn't much need for a car when you could get to where you wanted on foot easily enough.
But the town felt peaceful, safe, it felt like a good place. Certainly a good recuperative place like the therapist had said it'd be. Which reminded him, he was going to have to get a hold of their new therapist once the two were settled in, make arrangements for their sessions. If need be and the therapist could only take one of them, he could hold off on getting help himself, Shiori needed it more than him. He could endure his trauma, pretend the pain never happened if Shiori was getting the help she needed.
"Why's everyone wearing a mask?"
Takahiro glanced down when Shiori asked that, and looked back up at the people they passed. Honestly, he hadn't thought much on it, but there were quite a lot of people wearing those surgical masks.
"Allergies, probably, or maybe there's a bug going around," Takahiro answered with a small hum and then looked back down at his sister. "You better make sure you get plenty of rest and all your vitamins, I don't want you getting sick."
She made a face at him in response, sticking her tongue out and then looking away, hunching over in the way that usually meant she was done listening to him. Well, at least he got something of a conversation out of her, even if it was just answering a question.
But, he did feel concern rising when he saw all the masks and started noticing the coughing and sniffling. There must have been some kind of cold that's swept through the town. Maybe a flu? He did make sure that Shiori got her flu shot this year, right? He was pretty sure he had, maybe he'd call up a doctor just to double check.
Thankfully they eventually made their way to the dorm and he felt a bit of assurance drift through his systems as they stood before the simple three floor building. It wasn't anything big, clearly only meant to house a handful of students. He was glad that the two of them were going to be in the same building, his biggest concern hearing about dorms was that they'd be separated. Shiori would probably like that, but he didn't want to risk it.
He didn't want to leave her in a building full of people he didn't know without him there to be there for her if something happened, if something went wrong.
"We're here. Let's go in, the dorm head should be waiting for us," Takahiro said as he pushed the door open and held it for his sister to go through. Hopefully they weren't running late, he didn't have his phone out to check the time and the bus had taken a bit longer than it should have to arrive.
But, when they entered the dorm, he found the desk by the door empty. Was there usually someone there? Maybe it was just there for a formal appearance.
With Shiori standing at his side, Takahiro looked around the first floor, taking in the interior design. It was simple, a little spacious, clearly meant to be a space for everyone. The main part of the floor was a lounge, with a few couches and chairs, a coffee table and a TV on the wall. Past the lounge he could see a tiled floor with a long table, probably the dining room and kitchen. He spotted a stairwell off to the side that'd lead up to the other floors.
Strangely, though, there was no one else in the room but Takahiro and Shiori. He hadn't misread the email about the dorm head meeting them, had he? Or were they supposed to go right up to their dorms and meet them there? He wasn't quite sure.
Glancing down, he noticed that even Shiori seemed a bit uncertain, shifting about and staring nervously at the building. It probably felt strange for her be here, having been confined to small apartments and crowded homes for most of her life, this was probably the most spacious living space she'd ever been in, it was for him, too.
Takahiro was about to suggest to her that they find their own rooms and then try and meet up with their dorm head but a set of footsteps halted him before he could even speak. Two sets, actually. Takahiro looked up just in time to see two older girls coming down the stairs.
The shorter of the two had black hair like him and Shiori, but it was cut in one of those punk-styles, the kind where she had longer strands framing her face, but it was cut shorter in the back. She was dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a shirt with some American band printed on it. Next to her was a young woman a good head taller than her, with long wavy brown hair and dressed in a way that felt too formal for an average high schooler, a kind of fashion that didn't fit with the rural setting of the town.
The two noticed the siblings quickly and their conversation ended.
"Ah, you two must be our new residents," Tall Girl said as she walked towards them, her heels clicking against the floor with each step, her voice polite, but like a business woman meeting a potential partner. "Takahiro and Shiori Shiokawa, correct?"
Shiori didn't say anything, not that he expected her too, eying the older girls warily. But Takahiro was more polite, he offered a weak smile. "That's us. And you are?"
"I'm the head of the dorm; Emi Hamamoto, a third year high schooler at Kagami," she introduced herself and then nodded to Rocker Girl, "and this is Ayaka Koyama, she's a first year at Kagami, high school as well."
Rocker Girl—Ayaka, wasn't quite as formal or reserved as Emi was and she held out a hand, smiling widely. "Nice to meet you, Taka-kun. You're a third year in middle school, right? Guess that makes me your senior," she grinned when Takahiro shook her hand, and then moved to crouch in front of Shiori. "Aaah, I heard we were getting an elementary student in the dorms, but you are so much cuter than I anticipated."
Shiori quickly took a few steps back away from Ayaka, looking away with a sour expression, not even bothering to say anything back at her.
"Sorry," Takahiro offered a tired smile, feeling a little embarrassed. Hopefully Shiori could warm up to them, hopefully they didn't take her attitude poorly. "She's… not good with people, but she's a good girl. She won't cause any problems."
But Ayaka didn't even seem insulted as she pushed herself back onto her feet, "Hey, no worries."
Clearing her throat, Emi nodded at them. "Well, let's get you two to your rooms, I'm sure you want to get everything settled before classes tomorrow. Your things arrived yesterday, they're in your rooms. You're free to decorate your living spaces as you please so long as you do not nail or otherwise damage the rooms." She gestured to the stairs in a silent way of telling them to start walking. "As of right now, the only residents in these dorms are us and one other boy since most students at the school live in town and don't need the dorms."
"I'm sure Nagisa-kun will be glad to have another boy around," Ayaka chirped as she started up the steps. "He's a third year just like Emi."
It was a comfort to know that he wasn't going to be the only boy in a dorm full of girls, and if there were only five students, that wasn't so bad. Less people to worry about. Takahiro had never been good with crowds, it was going to be his biggest obstacle once he started up classes again, and Shiori was even worse with them. At least their classes in this town were going to be smaller than a normal. Maybe they'd luck out and only have ten or so classmates.
"Which floors are we on?" Takahiro asked as they walked up the stairs. He had reached a hand out to Shiori, wanting her to not lose her balance on the steps, but she just ignored his gesture.
"Boys on the second floor, girls on the third," Emi answered as they reached the boys floor. There was a small table by the stairwell, a tiny little lounge spot on the floor, probably for group studying. There were eight rooms on the floor in total, four on each side and what looked like a shower and bathroom to the side. "Your room is right there at the end of the hall on the right, you're free to add a nameplate if you want, the door is unlocked and you'll find your key on the desk."
She didn't even give them a chance to look around before she was ushering them up the stairs again onto the third floor. Takahiro noticed the stairs kept going up even after the second floor, probably led to the roof.
"And the girl's floor. Shiori's room is the second one on the right."
Shiori didn't say anything as she stepped away from the stairs and stood off to the side. The floor was set up in the same way as the previous one, he suspected the rooms were the same.
"There's a communal laundry room on the first floor, as well as a communal kitchen," Emi continued, "You are both expected to clean up after yourselves and respect the living spaces. It's building-wide quite hours after ten until six in the morning. Everything in the kitchen is free to use with the exception of anything labeled to a specific student." She seemed to be going off of a mental checklist.
Ayaka butted in with that overly friendly smile of hers, arms behind her back. "And, if you guys ever want to hang out, just let us know. I'm always up for anything and I'd be more than happy to show you guys around town," she said with a nod, "I'm kind of new, too, moved here last year so I know how tough it can be being the new kid. At least you're transferring in before the term starts."
"Thanks," Takahiro managed, stepping back when the girl got a little too close for comfort.
Emi didn't say anything but turned back to the stairs. "Ayaka here will be happy to answer whatever questions either of you have, if you need me I'll be in the lounge. But, for now, I'll leave the two of you to unpack and adjust to your new living spaces."
With that she brushed past them on her way down the stairs like a professional ice queen.
Takahiro scratched the back of his neck as he watched her go. "Well, I guess we should get to unpacking," Shiori was already heading towards her room before he had even finished and he felt his heart clench at the coldness of it all. If Ayaka noticed anything wrong, she thankfully didn't say it.
This was their fresh start, he reminded himself as he followed his sister into her room. Now that they were here, they could finally heal, recover. They could be the happy family they were supposed to be. He just had to be patient. Things would get better. Had to get better.
