March 21st, 2012

And they actually did. For a little while, anyway, things were actually pretty normal. Souji went back to his old self a couple weeks after the ski trip—well, for the most part, anyway, but who among them could say that they hadn't changed at least a little bit?—and sleepy Inaba was back to its sleepy self once more. School was school, Junes was Junes, and the only difference between before Souji's arrival and now was the fact that there was a hyperactive blond shadow-boy constantly in Yosuke's face. The Midnight Channel went quiet, and in mid-April, Souji went back home, as planned.

Yosuke had expected the goodbye to be heavy; to feel like a piece of them was being taken away. But there was an unexpected layer of weight, thanks to the fact that, even though things were normal, there were still things that they didn't talk about as a group. They all resorted to more blaming it on stress. All the same, Souji was gone now, with a promise to come back over Golden Week.

It was a little bit surprising, if he was being honest, to see Adachi at the train station, seeing Souji off, but he guessed they'd gotten close over the year. Surprising, also, was the fact that he got the same goodbye as Yosuke did; as Rise—the girl he'd dated for the year he was here—hell, as Nanako did. Yosuke was willing to attribute that to emotions, though. It felt final. Even with that promise to visit, it felt painfully final, and just like that, the feeling of normalcy and status quo that they'd gone back to these past couple of months disintegrated.

A deep frown crossed Yosuke's face. He'd known this would be a tough day. Maybe it was just all of that concern culminating.

Everyone was saying their individual goodbyes. Yosuke stood at the back of the group, wanting to go last and have a chat with his partner. There was only one person who could dispel this crappy feeling, and it was him. He watched as Rise hugged him tightly and insisted that she was coming to the city as soon as possible to visit him, and that she'd call him tomorrow. Yosuke suspected she would go missing for a weekend soon. A little smile crept across his face at that. The girls were crying. Chie cried at the drop of a hat anyway, almost as bad as Rise did, and Yukiko always fed off her energy. Naoto kept looking away, trying to hide her tears, and Nanako-chan had her head buried in Dojima-san's shoulder.

It's not final, Yosuke reminded himself. It's not.

Everyone had said their 'see you laters', except for Yosuke. They'd all been really careful not to say goodbye. Yosuke took his turn, walking up to Souji with a half-smile on his face. "Yo, partner," he said, his tone a little bit somber.

Souji didn't say anything, just nodded and ducked his head. Yosuke reached his hand out, clasping his partner's hand in his and pulling him forward for a hug. A hundred questions sprang to mind. Every concern he'd had. But the only thing he could really come up with to say was, "you're coming back, right?" Maybe in the answer to the simple question, he'd get an answer to everything else. Souji had always been good at reading him, so he had to hope...

"Don't worry, Yosuke," Souji answered. An ambiguous answer, but like Souji, Yosuke had to figure that he could read between the lines.

Part of him, actually, felt like there was something odd about his voice. But he was leaving. There was bound to be something off about him today. "Not worried." He hoped, as he spoke, that the lie in his words wasn't obvious in his voice.

The final goodbye he gave to the Inaba group was wordless, which was both strange and not. Yosuke scratched a hand through his hair and gave a salute-turned-wave to his friend as he boarded the train without turning back. It was strange, but easily explained. Hell, even Yosuke would probably have had to force himself not to turn and look back. If he looked back, he'd have second thoughts. Something like that.

Why is it that you're spending today making excuses for him? You'd think he's earned some excuseless weirdness, right?

And that was all it took to ease his mind, for the time being, at least. In the back of that very same mind, however, were concerns about how close the rest of their little ragtag group of misfits were going to stick together without the glue that held them together. Chie and Yukiko would have no problems, he was sure of that. But everyone else? What did they really have to pull them together without this case?

The others, at least some of them, were just as worried. Naoto stared after the train as it started its crawl down the track. Rise cried against Kanji's shoulder, which got Nanako going too. Naoto knelt down when she heard Nanako's whimpers and told her that they'd still play with her, and Detective Dojima smiled at that. Chie and Yukiko echoed their sentiments, and Teddie piped up with an eager, "I promised, right?", to which Nanako smiled, sniffling and wiping some tears from her face.

Why had he been concerned again? A ragtag group of misfits they may have been, but over this past year, he'd grown close to the rest of these people. How could he have doubted that they'd still be close?

Stepping forward, he crouched down beside Naoto, in front of the crying seven-year-old, and nodded his head. "After all, Junes would be awful lonely without you, Nanako-chan!"

Rise stopped crying, cleared her throat and wiped her eyes. "I know!" she said, catching Nanako's attention. "We can start planning a party for when your big bro comes back for Golden Week!" She nodded her head excitedly. "It's not that far away, so we don't have a lot of time, but I think it'd be awesome if we sang him a song. What do you think, Nanako-chan?"

"Yeah!" Nanako responded excitedly, finally breaking away from her dad and walking over to Rise to discuss the details. It was good, of course, to see her smiling, but as Yosuke stood up and brushed a bit of wayward dirt off his pants, he turned to look at Naoto, whose face held the same look of concern that he felt like his did.

Well, that wasn't good.

He opened his mouth to speak to her, but she cut him off by mouthing the words 'we'll talk later,' and then went back to giving Nanako her full attention, a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes on her face.

Sure enough, as everyone dispersed, Naoto walked toward him and adjusted her hat on her head, nodding in the direction of a nearby park bench. "Let's talk, senpai," she said softly, her calm, collected voice betrayed by the perplexed look on her face. Her voice seemed almost like it was when they met her—all business—and it made him realize that he definitely wasn't the only one with some doubts.

They had to come up with some reason not to go to Junes with everyone else—Naoto's was that she had to study some case files and Yosuke's was that his dad needed him to go over some scheduling changes for the store at home (a far less believable reason, especially if the look on Kanji and Chie's faces could be believed)—but eventually, they split off from the group, and reconvened at the station.

Yosuke sat on the bench. "Naoto-kun, I..."

She held up her index finger. "Allow me to wager a guess." She took a seat next to him and straightened her coat. "Souji-senpai's actions are striking you as odd, and to add to that, you're still not completely satisfied with how we left things back in December?" As astute as ever, Naoto delved right into the heart of the problem, without mincing words or anything.

As much as that particular trait used to annoy Yosuke, he was actually kind of glad for it right now. "Something like that. You too?" his gaze was fixated on her. He liked to think that he knew her well enough to read her face now, but sometimes...

… sometimes, she trained it so that he couldn't. This was one of those times. She chuckled, a low, blank noise, and nodded once. "Yes," she confirmed.

Yosuke opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head no. "But, barring anything obvious, telling us that there's something wrong with him, I think we should leave this alone. I think..." she stumbled, something he didn't see often from her, "I think he's earned some trust." She echoed his thought from earlier, and he nodded his head.

"I agree. It's just..." he cleared his throat. "I can't imagine that he'd be so willing to let go of things. I mean, whenever so much as a minor weird detail came up, he always jumped on it. He always wanted to see it through. And now that no one really feels like..." he paused, then backtracked, "or, now that you and I don't feel like it's over... nothing." He didn't know if the others still felt the same way.

Humming thoughtfully, she shrugged. "I think..." she paused, "I think we need to rely on the evidence." There was a split-second of doubt on her face, but she shook it off. "Namatame confessed, right? And there's really no evidence to implicate anyone else. The letters he wrote to Souji-senpai are at the station, and now we all remember seeing him, so we just have to-" she trailed off. She didn't want to say it anymore than he liked thinking it.

He nodded. "We have to ignore our instincts." That was pretty much what it boiled down to.

"That's a horrible thing to say, isn't it?" She laughed bitterly. "But we do. There's nothing we can do, but accept that we might be wrong." The words sounded as bitter as the laugh.

He sighed. "Yeah."

She smoothed her hands along the legs of her pants and stood up. "I really do have to get back, though. I wasn't lying about having some files to look over." The look of dissatisfaction was still plain as the nose on her face. "Do you want to walk back with me?" She nodded in the direction of town, but Yosuke shook his head no.

"I mean..." he backtracked quickly. "I don't mean... I'm not mad or anything. I just need to think for a little while. You know?"

Naoto nodded her understanding and put a hand on Yosuke's shoulder. "Everything will work out, Yosuke-senpai. If anything comes up, we'll deal with it, right? Like we always have." She gave a comforting smile.

He smiled back, and nodded his head. "Yeah. Like we always have." He watched her turn and walk away, and when she was a safe distance, he inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly, letting his head fall backward. This sucked. This really sucked. The whole year, they'd been following their instincts, and now they had to discard them. Damn it, he thought, staring up at the sky. The fog was gone, right? That was what was important. The world wasn't going to end, and Namatame was in jail. And... Namatame was the real killer. He was the guy they wanted in jail. He was.

...Wasn't he?