[Summary: Nanako plays with her cousin, shows off her musical ability, finally hangs out with Yukiko, and discovers why Souji hates Wednesdays.]


[4/24: Sunday]

After watching Loveline and Featherman with Souji, Nanako decided she was going to spend the entire day with him. She'd promised they'd be friends, after all. And after yesterday, there was no doubt that he needed the attention. She told him in no uncertain terms that they were going to play.

"B-but laundry…" he protested.

"Laundry, smaundry!" she declared. "Ehh, actually, we do need clean clothes, don't we? After laundry, then!"

When they were done with that, she gently led him away from the apparently mesmerizing sight of the clothes tumbling in the washer and took him upstairs to her room. He hesitated before her door. "I'm not supposed to…"

"Huh? It's my room," she said. "You can come in anytime, Souji-kun. Well, it's polite to ask. It is a girl's room, after all."

When he still hesitated, she pulled him in and set him down on the floor. She handed him the purple rabbit, Chan-chan, from her shelf and took down a couple of other stuffed animals. Sure, he was a boy and was 'supposed to' play with action figures, but she had the feeling he would love to cuddle a plushie. And Chan-chan was about the size of a pillow, perfect for the job.

He was holding the rabbit rather gingerly and with a puzzled look. "This is Chan-chan," she told him. "She's a queen and also my little sister. Her ears are her crown." Nanako tied the rabbit's ears together. "See, a crown. You know what Chan-chan loves the most?"

The boy blinked rapidly at her. She waited for him to realize that she wanted an answer. "C-carrots?" he ventured.

"Gummies, actually," she corrected, "but that's because I like gummies. What she really loooves… is hugs!" Nanako moved forward and swept the boy in a wide embrace, the big plush rabbit caught between them. Souji let out a short yelp of surprise.

After that, she introduced him to the rest of the menagerie and made up some interactions between the animals.

"Someone stole Chan-chan's gummy! Who was it!?" Nanako grabbed an orange fox plush and put the gummy in question under it. "Was it you, Foxie? You're always playing tricks!" She changed the pitch of her voice. "Oh no, of course not! I would never steal from you, my queen! I learned my lesson last time." She informed Souji as an aside that Foxie was always the thief.

She continued to enact a search for the gummy, and eventually the fox was caught red-handed as Nanako pretended to have the animal eat its stolen goods. She turned to Souji, who was still holding up Chan-chan. "Oh, queenie! How shall we punish the thief!?"

"U-umm…" he said. "J-jail?"

"Jail!" Nanako declared. "One week in jail! Foxie, let this be yet another lesson to you," she scolded the plush. She overturned one of her leftover moving boxes and put the animal under it.

She had the animals chat a little more before telling Souji it was time to put them up. She put all of them away except Chan-chan. "You know, I think she wants you to say goodbye to her, Souji-kun."

"Uh, umm... goodbye?" he said weakly.

Nanako lifted up the rabbit's arm to point at him. "That's not what she meant, Sou-chan! Remember what she loves the most?"

His face reddened and he looked down, mumbling. Nanako told him that she was waiting, but if he took too long, maybe Chan-chan would hug someone else. The boy finally stepped forward and hugged the bunny.

Nanako moved around to his back and put her arms around him. "You know what, Sou-chan? I love hugs, too."


[4/25: Monday]

Nanako waltzed into the band room and pulled up one of the empty music chairs, casually sat in it, and proceeded to observe the band club meeting. Unfortunately, her entrance had attracted the club captain's attention. He was a dorky-looking guy with glasses who looked more at home in a computer club. "Can I help you? Do you want to join band?"

"Nah, I just wanna watch. Please pretend I'm not here."

To Nanako's further misfortune, since this was the first day that the band club met, they weren't actually going to practice anything together. Instead, each person played a short piece for the captain to show they'd been practicing since last year.

When it was the trombone girl's turn, Nanako covered her ears and swore to herself.

Yeah, not joining this band, she thought. Besides, there wasn't a piano in the room!

She stuck with it until the end, anyway, since she had nothing else to do. When the meeting was dismissed and most of the students filtered out, she stayed behind to ask the club captain if the school had a piano.

"Maybe," he answered. "Matsunaga! Do we have a piano in storage?"

The girl at the back of the room struggling to put her trombone into its case looked up. "Uh, umm, I think we might, but it would be very dusty…"

"Can I see it, anyway?" Nanako asked.

"I'll leave that to you, Matsunaga," said the club captain.

"A-all right!" the girl squeaked.

Nanako tried her damnedest not to judge the girl, but it was easy to see that she was a late bloomer. Her face was rosy and round, like a young child's, and she was a head shorter than Nanako, who was not the tallest of the girls in the DEATH Squad. "I'm Nanako. What's your name?" she said to be polite.

"O-oh, I'm Ayane…" the girl said, her cheeks becoming redder, if it was possible. "It's nice to meet you. You play the piano? Umm, I'm not sure how long it's been since we've had a pianist… But I think we have a piano," the girl continued. "Back here."

Ayane led her into a dark and dusty room that almost gave her second thoughts on entering. The girl turned the light on, revealing shelves full of old and possibly broken instruments. In the back of the graveyard, hidden behind an old tuba, was what could be a piano. Nanako tugged the white cloth with distaste—well, the cloth had once been white, now it was gray with dust—and, well, there was a piano, but...

"U-umm, are you alright, Senpai?"

"You don't treat an expensive musical instrument like this," she muttered. There were dead bugs on the keys!

"Umm, Senpai, are you cry—"

"No!"

Nanako stomped out of the room and searched the halls for slave labor. She found a pair of victims on the second floor.

"Uh, Daisuke?" the tall skinny pretty-boy with purplish hair said. "What did you do to that girl? She looks like she wants you to die in a fire."

"Huh?" The boy named Daisuke turned and flinched at Nanako's expression.

"I'm not mad at you, just the school," Nanako said. "Come on, I need some big strong boys to help me. You're big and strong, right?"

"Sure, he is!" The purplish-haired boy slapped Daisuke on the back. "But I'll help, too, if you need it."

Two boys might not be enough, she thought. She called Yosuke on her cell phone. "You! Are you still at school?"

"What the hell is with that ringtone!?" Yosuke shouted back, sounding frazzled.

"What, you don't like 2Pac? I'm disappointed in you. Seriously, are you still at school? I need you."

"I'm not," he said, "but, umm, you need me? What's this about?"

"Just come to school," she ordered. "I'll be at the music room!" She hung up before he could say anything more. "You," she said, looking at the two boys in front of her. "You're coming with me."


Some time later, Nanako and the three boys were struggling to get the heavy piano out of the storage room. The fact that it had casters didn't change the fact that it weighed what felt like half a ton. "You're buying us drinks after this, right Nanako-san?" Yosuke panted.

"I could totally go for a TaP right now," Daisuke agreed.

"C-come on," Nanako said, stopping for a second to wipe the sweat from her eyes and only managing to smear dust all over her face instead. "You're doing it so you can brag to your bros about how you helped out a poor, helpless, and very cute girl with your manly strength."

"Umm," said Yosuke. "But I'd still like a drink."

"There's a water fountain over there." She pointed it out with a twist of her head.

"Denied, Hanamura!" said the purple-haired boy, whom she'd discovered was named Kou. He was on the basketball team.

The piano was halfway down the hall when Morooka caught them and demanded to know what the hell she was doing, apparently knowing implicitly that she was the leader of this operation. She retorted that obviously she planned to have a foursome with the boys on top of the piano. He just sort of spluttered at her and then shook his head and left.

"I never know what's going to come out of your mouth next, Nanako-san," Yosuke commented.

"Shut up and push!" she ordered.

Ayane stood up from her chair in the music room when Nanako kicked open the door. The underclassman was surprised to see them pushing the piano but obligingly volunteered to hold open the door for them and then hovered around when they pushed it towards a corner of the room, quickly moving music stands and chairs out of the way.

"H-here, stop, that's perfect," Nanako said. The four of them took a moment to catch their breaths. They were all filthy from the exertion and the dust caking the piano. "Thank you very much. Sorry that your clothes got all dirty." But some sacrifices have to be made, she added in her mind. Her own uniform jacket was wrecked, too.

"It's just our P.E. clothes anyway," Kou said cheerfully.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too," Nanako said. "It was why I picked you guys out of the crowd. I'm pretty sure that guy in glasses walking around up there would look down his nose at me if I suggested he get his hands dirty."

"What about me?" said Yosuke. "This is my favorite shirt!" It was an orange and white V-neck that now had several streaks of gray through it. These dust stains couldn't pass as part of its design.

"Sucks," she said. "Anyway, thank you again!" She smiled as dazzlingly as she could manage, and when the two sports-minded boys left, she let it drop into a broody scowl.

"Nanako-senpai," Ayane said meekly. "Are you going to join the band?"

No, she thought. "Maybe," she said. "Depends on if this thing works."

"You don't know if it works? Maybe you could have done that, umm, before we moved it?" Yosuke said somewhat reproachfully.

"I couldn't have tried to fix it in that dark storage room," Nanako said while she inspected the piano a little more closely. "They didn't even have the fall board over the keys…" she muttered to herself. She opened the lid, ready to cringe at what she might find, but fortunately there were no dead animals inside. Just ever more dust. Oh, and maybe some spiders…

With a sigh she turned to Ayane and Yosuke, thanked them, and told them they could leave. Ayane told her to let her know if she wanted to officially join the band, and then picked up her trombone case—which was almost as big as her, really—and left.

Yosuke, however, stayed behind. "You play the piano?"

"Not as well as my mom, of course, but yeah," she answered, preoccupied. "One moment." She left the room and entered the nearest janitorial office to 'borrow' some cleaning supplies. She returned to the shabby piano and began to clean it off, first sweeping off the dead bugs on the keys with a bristle brush and then dusting off the handprints on the lid and frame leftover from their rough handling of it. She dampened a rag and wiped down the keys, careful not to let water drip between them and drying them with a second rag, then cleaned out the filthy washcloth in the bucket and went over them again a little more thoroughly. Hmm, she'd have to bring a toothbrush and toothpaste to remove the yellowing…

"Umm... You want some help?" Yosuke was standing there watching.

Too focused on what she was doing, she didn't reply, until Yosuke called her name. "Hmm? Sorry. You're still here? I said you could go."

"I want to know if it works," Yosuke said. He shrugged. "I don't mind helping you clean it out."

She declined. Someone inexperienced could do more harm than good. Really, the inside shouldn't be touched by anyone but a professional piano cleaner, which Nanako herself was not, in all honesty…

Eventually the piano was in presentable condition, or as well as it was going to be for today. Nanako hadn't found a bench in the storage room, so she just pulled up one of the music chairs. There hadn't been any sheet music, either, so she decided to play a simple piece she knew by heart: Sakura.

It was a short piece, but her playing was ruined by a key sticking half-way through. She sighed heavily at it. There were so many different reasons a key could stick, and a screwdriver was not one of the things she'd stolen from the janitor's office.

"Huh, you really can play," Yosuke remarked. She glanced at him sharply, but he looked impressed. "Too bad this thing is a hunk of junk, huh?"

"Yeah. Too bad pianos are so expensive. I miss having one around."

"You played it a lot?"

Nanako nodded. "I'll have to manage with this until I go home, I guess." She pressed a few keys to test them. A couple more were stuck, too, and some others didn't have the right sound to them.

"You should join the band," Yosuke said suddenly, in the middle of her toying with one of the stuck keys. "You can only improve the sound." He chuckled dryly.

"I don't know. I prefer to play solo. But I don't know if they'll let me play this," – she patted the piano – "if I'm not officially in, so… we'll have to see." She pulled down the fall board to cover the keys and then took to her feet. "Let's go home and get cleaned up. We've been at school way too long for a Monday!"

"It's your fault I'm still here," Yosuke noted. He sighed. "Oh well."

They walked out together and talked about music. Yosuke said that he'd been given an acoustic guitar for his birthday some years ago, but he hadn't played it recently. She told him he should start it up again, and he seemed to warm to the idea until she stipulated that she didn't want to hear him practice.


[4/26: Tuesday]

Nanako's problem with being unable to hang out with Yukiko solved itself; while she was thinking about visiting the music room again and seeing if she could work on the piano, the demure raven-haired girl came up to her desk and asked if she was busy after school.

"Huh? No, why? You wanna go in the TV?" Nanako asked. They probably should. It had been almost a week, and she didn't want all her newly built muscles to atrophy from lack of use, nor her team to get rusty.

"I was hoping we could go out," Yukiko said.

Go out...? Nanako swiftly glanced around the classroom. Chie was nowhere in sight. "Sure! What do you want to do?"

Yukiko led her to the shrine in the central shopping district. The princess solemnly walked to the offertory box, prayed, and dropped in a small donation. Nanako didn't follow suit; she wasn't a religious person—with her expansive worldview, she really couldn't be more than a deist, if even that—really, she would have no truck with gods even if they did exist.

They sat down together on the steps before the offertory box. "I heard a wild animal lives around here," Yukiko commented, looking around.

"Wild as in dangerous? If it comes out, I'll bop it good," Nanako replied. "Or make it join the DEATH Squad."

"Where did you come up with that name?" Yukiko asked. She began to giggle. Her whole body shook uncontrollably, but she was able to contain it. "DEATH Squad...!"

"Umm, Yukiko, death squads are an actual thing. You prooobably don't want to look into it." Or maybe she would. Hell's Castle... "But we're only genociding Shadows, so it's okay. We're good guys."

"We really are," Yukiko said. "You saved me!"

"You saved yourself, actually. Accepting your Shadow, that's awesome. If only Yosuke could've accepted his, then his Persona would be stronger and we would have two awesome healers. Unfortunately he didn't, so you, or maybe I, will have to pick up his slack."

Yukiko sighed suddenly. "You get along so well with him... I'm a little jealous."

"What the heck are you talking about?" Nanako stared at her. Jealousy... in regards to Yosuke? It did not compute. I thought you had Chie, but you really want Yosuke? Nanako wondered if she had a love triangle or maybe even quadrangle forming on her hands and her ever-spinning mind further wondered if she could turn it into something raunchier.

"Both you and Chie get along so well with boys," Yukiko explained. "I'm afraid to talk to them. I don't think I'd have anything to say."

"You wanna talk... to boys?" Nanako made it sound like Yukiko was speaking a foreign language. "Do you have a particular one in mind or something?"

"No, but... I'd still like to be able to talk to one on my own. The only time they come to talk to me is to ask me out, and then Chie makes them leave."

"Chie is a problem," Nanako admitted, "but there's really nothing to it. Just talk to them like you'd talk to anyone. And when their eyes start wandering to your chest, you punch them, and then you go talk to a girl instead because girls are better anyway." And then you can look at their chest if you want and it's okay because you're also a girl. Heh.

"I wish I had your confidence," Yukiko said demurely.

"You're looking for a friend, not a boyfriend, right?" Nanako chewed her lower lip while she thought. She didn't actually know many boys their age by name. Yosuke, Daisuke, and Kou, and she'd only met the latter two yesterday and didn't know them very well. "You could probably hang out with Yosuke? Since he's on the team and all, you sorta already know him. You even have his phone number. Just make sure to let him know that you aren't interested in him. He doesn't need another Saki on his hands."

"I wouldn't even know where to start."

"Yeah, I can't even think of what you two would have in common, anyway. 'Living in Inaba' and 'Same class at school' can only get you so far. Hey, it was just an idea! Maybe I'll come up with something better after I've thought about it more."

Nanako proceeded to immediately think about it more even though she'd planned to change the subject. Maybe you can talk to my little cousin. Though it'd definitely be 'talk to,' not 'with' and he is ten years younger... How cute that would be! Yukiko was shy around boys, Souji was shy around everyone and everything...

"Nanako? You've a strange look on your face."

"Huh? Uh, yeah, sorry, was thinking about something. You could also join an after-school club, maybe. There are boys there. Say, do you play an instrument?"

"I always wanted to learn how to cook," Yukiko confided. "Is there a club for that? But with the inn, I don't have much time."

"If there isn't, make one!" Nanako told her. "It can't be that hard. Hell, maybe I'd join so I can cook more than ramen."

Yukiko smiled at her.

Priestess, huh? Nanako thought as that mysterious voice indicating a social link spoke in her head. The card seemed to depict a witch's hat with a mask and a crescent moon in the corner. I can see that.

"I'll consider both of your ideas," Yukiko said. "But I should get home. I planned to study tonight. We have exams after Golden Week, you know."

"We do? What the hell did we learn...?"

Yukiko began to laugh. It started slow, as just a chuckle, and then built up into a laughing fit so strong that a stand-up comedian might kill to see it. "N-Nanako!" she gasped. "That's exactly how Chie reacted this morning!"

Nanako sighed and canceled her plans to make everyone go training this week because she obviously needed to do some studying. The Midnight Channel better not air anytime soon, she thought...


[4/27: Wednesday]

Aunt Seta had caught Nanako studying last night and had promised her a monetary reward if she did well, so Nanako was going to spend the afternoon studying. Maybe tonight she'd reward herself for her diligence with some shitty TV in her room before bed.

Yukiko had suggested she use the library—that's where she and Chie sometimes studied together—but Nanako decided that home was quieter and had the added bonus of Souji. She set up her math notebook opposite the boy at the tea table while he busied himself with his own cram school work.

They'd been at it for some time when Souji interrupted their peaceful silence by muttering to himself, "Mom's not home yet..."

Nanako checked the time on her phone. It was still pretty early. She didn't expect her aunt to be home anytime soon and wondered why the boy did.

"She's supposed to make dinner today," he went on.

"She can cook?" Nanako asked, surprised. She'd never experienced anything but takeout so far in this house... Besides that, what made this day different?

"It's a Wednesday," Souji explained, but he didn't elaborate. Nanako was further puzzled by this because Wednesday was nothing special. It hadn't been special last week—Aunt Seta had definitely worked late that night and even more definitely hadn't cooked—and Golden Week was next week.

The boy looked tense for some reason and Nanako couldn't understand why. "Why does it matter that it's Wednesday?"

"Not every Wednesday," he said, "but sometimes... This is one..."

"Souji-kun, I don't understand at all," she told him outright.

He apparently didn't care to explain further.

"Well," she said, "if your mom is supposed to make dinner, I could make it instead. If ramen is okay, 'cause that's pretty much all I know. Or maybe a stir-fry."

The boy's face brightened and he seemed to cheer up at the prospect of cooking. "Can I help...?"

Since the mental image of a six-year-old stir-frying couldn't work out in her brain, she decided to go with ramen. She put him on noodle-boiling duty while she cooked some beef and veggies in a skillet.

The soup was practically done when there was a knock on the door. Souji stiffened at the sound. Nanako frowned to herself. If it was her aunt, she'd have a key. "I'll get it," she told him. He nodded quickly, eagerly, even, which gave her the impression that he was relieved.

She paused at the door, though, even as the knock repeated. Nanako hadn't been on the TV news, nor had she been on the Midnight Channel—she trusted Yosuke to be diligent about checking both, and besides it hadn't rained in a while—so it probably wasn't the killer, but... "Who is it?" she called.

"It's, uhh, me," came the reply. "Who else would it be?"

Muffled by the door, she couldn't really tell who it was by the voice alone. She opened the door with one eye closed just in case...

Standing there casually on the doorstop with his hands in his pockets was the red tie detective. "Adachi-san...?" she said. "Uh, hello."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot you were living here," Adachi said. He scratched the back of his neck. "...Is your aunt in?"

"No. She's not."

His eyes widened. "O-oh... Huh."

A very awkward silence followed. Nanako's mind whirled. Adachi expected Aunt Seta to be home. Souji had been nervous earlier, and now it was quite obvious that he'd known Adachi was coming over. Aunt Seta was supposed to make dinner. Dinner... for Adachi!?

T-too much info, really...

Adachi checked his phone and then closed it with a snap. "Well, what do you know... she told me not to visit tonight. My mistake! Have a good evening!" He began to slink away into the encroaching evening darkness.

"Wait!" Nanako called. He paused in his retreat. "You're hungry, right?"

"Err..."

"I made dinner," she said. "I owe you, anyway. I never did get you those cabbages. Well, it's just ramen, but, yeah."

Adachi blinked. "Ramen, huh? Well... Sure, if you insist." The corner of his mouth turned up. "Better than anything I was gonna make."

She ushered him into the house and set him down at the kitchen table. She served out three bowls of the ramen soup and put one in front of him. He inhaled the scent, and to her delight—it had been a while since she'd cooked, after all—he seemed excited about eating it.

But someone was missing from the equation. After handing the detective a pair of chopsticks, she frowned and called out for Souji, but the boy didn't answer, and at a glance he wasn't anywhere in sight. Huh, where the heck did he go? She noticed the door to his room was closed and suspected he was closeted in there. "Souji-kun!" she said sourly. "Come on out!"

"Eh, it's okay," Adachi said from the kitchen table, waving the chopsticks at her. "Leave the kid alone."

"He needs to eat dinner, too!" Nanako protested, her hand on the doorknob.

"He's prooobably not hungry." Adachi poked at the soup in front of him.

Well, fine, I'm not going to let it stop me from eating! she thought. She returned to the kitchen table to do just that.

There was silence while they ate, and then Adachi commented, "He doesn't like me."

"Maybe you should wear different clothes when you visit," Nanako suggested. "You might be reminding him of his dad."

Adachi looked down at his scruffy detective's suit. "Huh, I never thought about that. You know, it might even be just the tie. His dad gave it to me, after all. He had a thing against patterned ties, heh. It was solid colors or bust with him." He ran his fingers down the tie, leaving it more crooked than it already was.

Thankfully, the nostalgia concerning his old partner didn't seem to set him off in any way. Nanako wondered if she could ask about him... maybe get some insight into why—

"Ehh, well, thank you for the meal, Nanako-kun," Adachi said, interrupting her thoughts. He pushed the finished bowl away. "I should probably get going now. And let Souji-kun come out of hiding, heh."

No, Nanako thought. I haven't yet grilled you for info on the case! "Won't you stay and chat?" she said. "I'm sure you have some interesting stories to tell!" He seemed reluctant, so she added, "Come on, it's not like you had any other plans for the night."

His expression flattened, but then he burst out laughing. "Yeah, you got me there..."

They moved to the living room, where she sat across from him at the tea table. Nanako shoved her open math notebook to the side to clear it.

"I don't miss that," he said with amusement.

"Yeah..." Nanako sighed. "I got exams the week after Golden Week. Like hell I'm gonna study during the holidays."

"Holidays? What holidays?" He chuckled darkly.

"Crime never takes a holiday," she said, shaking her head, understanding him implicitly through her experiences with her father.

Adachi sighed heavily. "I could use a vacation, too."

"They're running you ragged, huh?" she said. "Must be rough."

"Tell me about it. No witnesses to the murders because the rain and the fog, and the ME's got no COD for either of them. It's a mess. And the two prime suspects have solid alibis."

Nanako perked up despite her effort to control her curiosity. "Suspects?"

"Taro Namatame and his ex-wife. I've got my eye on that guy—he lives around here—but an alibi's an alibi, and his is preeetty strong. He was at the Shiroku pub that night and the old lady vouches for him, and so do a couple of other patrons. The ex-wife, now, she was on a tour, and nowhere near Inaba. We looked into other family, too, but it was drier than a well in a desert."

She didn't envy the detective his position. When the culprit was killing through supernatural means, the normal police weren't going to find the solution. And every day without progress made it less and less likely that they'd find said culprit.

Dammit, she hadn't made any real progress, either, even knowing the true cause of death...

"Good luck, man," she finally said.

He let out his breath in a snort. "Yeah, thanks. Well, I'm not alone. My superiors are scrambling, too, you should see them! Always trying to see who can shout the loudest."

A silence elapsed as Adachi seemed out of things to say about the case, and Nanako had basically run out of questions. So she asked instead, "By the way, what did you do with all that paperwork on my dumb friend? The one who got arrested at Junes."

"Oh, that...? Heh, this is what I did." Adachi took out a lighter from his pocket and set it down on the center of the tea table.

"You burned it?"

"Well, paper shredder, actually, but same thing, right?" He shrugged nonchalantly. "They had him down for threatening an officer and resisting arrest. That's pretty heavy stuff for a sixteen year old to have on his record."

"Yeah..." she said slowly. "Thanks again."

Adachi waved it off. "I bet you made sure that kid learned his lesson. Is he under your thrall now...?" His eyes narrowed and he seemed very interested in the answer.

"Don't worry. I treat him well." When his eyes narrowed further, she added, "I just made him buy me a soda, really."

"Only a soda?"

"And I drank his when he wasn't looking," she admitted.

He chuckled, and Nanako noted how different his chuckle was from his laughter. The chuckle was a low rumble that didn't sound like he was all that amused, but his laughter earlier had felt true and was catching.

She blinked as the card formed in her mind's eye. It had a red and white background and held a silhouette of a balance shaped like a sword. There was something strange about it, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Justice, the voice told her. Well, it made sense that a cop would represent Justice, right?

Nanako thought fast on what she could do during the time stop and settled with nicking his lighter. He'd left it right there, anyway, so she simply couldn't resist.

As if realizing his work was done after that link was established, Adachi said that it was probably time for him to leave. "Let you get back to studying, and I'm sure Souji-kun is hungry..."

She saw him out and ensured that he locked the door behind him—he did—and then knocked on Souji's door and informed him that Adachi was gone. "I'll heat up some of the ramen for you, okay?"

A long moment later, the boy opened the door, but he stayed by it, looking sheepish. She told him to sit at the table and put the bowl before him when it was ready. She didn't ask about his problem with Adachi, and he didn't volunteer the information.

Nanako was doing the dishes when Aunt Seta arrived, so there was essentially no evidence that the detective had been at the house. Except for, well, the lighter, but that was already safely stashed in her room. Nanako wasn't sure why she wanted to keep it a secret that Adachi had been over, except that it would be awkward to explain. 'You were supposed to cook dinner for him, what is up with that, anyway?' Her aunt was someone she still hadn't quite got a read on.

The rest of the night was rather quiet. Souji said absolutely nothing, but that was to be expected, and Aunt Seta seemed to be in a sour mood. She kept checking her phone and scowling at it. Nanako supposed she might be upset that she'd had to cancel the dinner date.

When Nanako retired to her room, she inspected the lighter more closely. It was an expensive one of the flip-top variety made of stainless steel. A stylized dragon was engraved on it. She'd have to return it. There wasn't any lighter fluid in it, and Adachi hadn't smelled like cigarettes. Maybe he didn't smoke? Then why did he carry around a lighter...?

She ran her fingers all over it and discovered an etching on the bottom. She read the name...

Sachio Seta

...and felt ill.

She was a terrible person to steal her dead uncle's lighter like that, wasn't she?


[AN: That's right. In the Nanako-verse, Tohru Adachi is Justice instead of Jester. Losing his partner on the force might have changed his outlook on life. Might have.

Souji's parents don't have canon names, so I had to come up with them myself: Sachio Seta was his dad, and Ryoko Seta is his mom.

In the epilogue to Persona 4 Golden, little 7-year-old Nanako is taking piano lessons, so that's why we decided that she can play the piano. And with Chisato Dojima alive, it's not hard to believe she would've been taught to play it.

We toyed with the idea of having the shrine fox join them in the TV World just like it does in the game, but, eh, I don't think it adds to the story at all, so we probably won't be seeing it. I don't see Nanako taking on ema requests, do you? And we're not going to make a cooking club. That's way too domestic, hehe.

Someone requested a list of social links and their arcana, so here you go!

Established
Chariot – Chie
Hermit – Souji
Hierophant – Morooka
Justice – Adachi
Magician – Yosuke
Moon – Saki
Priestess – Yukiko

Not established (yet)
Aeon
Death
Devil
Emperor
Empress
Fortune
Hanged Man
Lovers
Star
Strength
Sun
Temperance
Tower

The Investigation Team's arcana are going to be the same as in the canon. Their links will be different in content instead.

And I'll be honest and admit that I don't have any ideas or plans for Devil or Tower at the moment.

Next Chapter: Golden Three Days

Why is it called 'Golden Week' when it's only a few days?]