Silver Hands of Time
Author Notes:
Persona 2 and Persona 3 belong to Atlus and I made no profit from writing this fic. You don't have to play P2 to understand the story because this fic will be very AU and therefore will be ooc in a few places so please work with me. And there's fem!Jun x Tatsuya since I'm planning to do something for this ship. I decided to write the opening chapter first to see if anyone's interested, so enjoy!
Chapter 1
Whitewash
The first time she saw the boy's quicksilver eyes, she saw darkness.
An all-consuming silence that encompassed such tiny body has been a talk amongst her fiancee's co-workers. Most families whom NPA assigned the boy to found him to be a handful. The boy was too quiet, too haunted and too detached from reality that the nights where he was lucid enough to talk were filled with incessant tremor that ran through his whole body.
"No one wanted him," Tatsuya confessed with a quiet tone, offering a standard office mug filled to the brim with non-sugared coffee with his coarse, rough hands. The National Police Agency's young officer of Safety Division's room was small, but provided enough room for both of them.
She was silent, lips painted with a tight smile.
She wouldn't say that she understood the orphaned boy's situation. After all, she grew up in a warm, loving family with a gentle history teacher as a father and a mother who cooked dinner everyday despite being a busy, famous actress. She remembered being lonely during her childhood, though. It was about the time when Kashihara Junko's career soared for the first time, but her friends and kind father were there, asking her to play with them, with her father teaching her astrology, introducing her to the world of books and listening to her playing her mother's favourite classical pieces.
The boy had nothing.
"It's his fifth foster home, Jun. We're ready to give up and throw his case to an orphanage." Her russet-haired childhood friend turned fiancee said tiredly and finished his piping hot coffee in one gulp.
A part of her wanted to take away Tatsuya's burden, to make him breath easier because of her presence. After all, that's what a wife would've done, right?
Jun twirled her long, dark hair and replied thoughtfully, imagining a life of being passed around by people who didn't want him. "Perhaps this is presumptuous of me-" She said, tucking her bangs to her right ear. "-but how unusual is it for a child to be placed in multiple foster homes?"
Tatsuya arched a brow but continued in a serious note,"It's hard for me to explain... but you should see the boy. He was placed under Dr. Sonomura's care for now."
Something like surprise crossed over her delicate features, "Is it really that bad?"
Her fiancee's chocolate-coloured eyes closed shut and he shook his head.
Jun glanced around the wide, tidy office. The walls were painted in pastel colours which were pleasing to the eyes and it looked more like a relaxation room rather than a psychiatrist's office. The room looked homey, with photographs immortalized in wooden frames littered the walls and a painting lounge on the other side of the room that faced two tall French windows that fitted in from the floor to the ceiling. Finally, her auburn eyes rested on a woman who looked like she had a few years ahead of them. Her sharp cheekbones jutted out when she smiled to greet them, a beauty mark on the edge of her mouth quirked up along with her laugh line.
Dr. Sonomura's hair was styled in a simple, boyish bob that left little to imagination that complimented light brown hair. The woman's amber eyes lit up in recognition and she shook Tatsuya's hands like an acquaintance.
"Ah, you must be from NPA, right? On the Ergo Project case?"
The officer took out his badge and showed it to the resident psychiatrist, "Yes. My name is Suou Tatsuya from NPA's Safety Division."
"Sonomura Maki. Glad to meet you,"
"I'm Kashihara Jun, his fiancee." She said as she clasped the older woman's soft hands. The doctor gave a puzzled look to Tatsuya and he understood.
He nodded to Jun's direction, "Jun is a civilian, but she's trustworthy, doctor. I can vouch for her."
Dr. Sonomura scrutinized Jun, looking over her up and down and as if she has passed some sort of impromptu test, the doctor nodded her consent, "You have to sign Confidentiality Agreement either way, Ms. Kashihara." Dr. Sonomura said as she welcomed the couple inside the quaint room.
As they seated, the doctor moved to a small pantry and made tea. "How's the key witness?"
"He only got worser after he gave his oral testimony about Kirijo Corp.'s accident, officer. Although his testimony proved the Defendant's guilt, the responsible party was wiped out that night so there's no one to punish. There's also a problem with the lack of evidence."
"It's strange... considering the scale of the accident." Jun said as she recalled the thick bundle of the case report. A city sent ablaze in one night, deaths of the country's well-known researchers and a boy that became the leftover of the accident.
"At this point I won't be surprised if his defense mechanism would try to whitewash the accident completely. He's... hallucinating, officer. It's never a good sign on any of my caseload." The doctor said with her mouth set in a thin line, brows creasing.
"What will happen to him, then? Now that he had testified?" Jun voiced out her concern, looking down to her lap as an odd feeling laden with anxiety settled on her stomach. She missed a shadow that passed over Dr. Sonomura's face.
"The law..." She paused for a moment to gather herself. "In front of the law's eyes, the boy has served his purpose."
She added bitterly, "He might be placed in an orphanage and the system will wash their hands off him."
Ice crawled around Jun's chest, its vice-like grip was cold against the prickling pain. She understood being neglected for half of her childhood, but this...
Something like this shouldn't happen to anyone.