Chapter 14

Yukari joined the new seniors during their patrol during the Dark Hour, but she never tried to summon her Persona. She stayed behind the group whenever they encountered a Shadow, firing arrows at the enemy while the others ended the battle swiftly with their Personas. She took pride in her aim improving thanks to practicing with moving targets, but whenever Akihiko asked her to summon her Persona, she would tremble and avoid answering him.

"This isn't good," Mitsuru said to Ryuichi after another night of Yukari failing to conjure up her Persona, Io. They were the only two downstairs in the lounge, frustrated with what to do about Yukari.

"It's not all bad," Ryuichi said gently. "At least she fights."

"Yes, but what if she cannot draw her bow quickly enough?" Mitsuru asked, accusing him with her piercing eyes. "Or what if she runs out of arrows? We need her to be able to summon Io without hesitation. The Shadows won't hesitate to dispatch us, so we cannot show them any lenience."

"I know, but it's not easy to ask someone to point a gun at their head and pull the trigger like it's nothing."

"Then she needs to find a way to not think about it as taking her life, but saving it."

Ryuichi was also losing patience with Yukari, but he knew that Mitsuru was undoubtedly even more frustrated, and rightfully so. Even still, her voice remained steady, though tense, and her eyes were set in a hardened stare off into her own thoughts.

"We still have the new guy coming," he reminded her in the hopes of alleviating her disappointment. "He might be more willing to summon his Persona."

"If he has no problems fighting," she added, getting up from her armchair. "And if he isn't afraid of pulling the trigger."

Mitsuru touched her Evoker. "We spent years working to develop a simpler way of summoning our Personas, but this was the most effective and most convenient way we could come up with," she explained, though she had told him before in the past. "And yet, you, Akihiko, and Aragaki adapted well to this method."

He took out his own Evoker, feeling the weight of hundreds, maybe thousands of his own potential deaths in the cold metal.

"I guess, because I know that if I don't pull the trigger, we could die," he replied quietly. "For someone new to this like Yukari, putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger means death."

He exhaled, feeling slightly winded. "I think I had to rewrite in my mind what pulling the trigger means," he added, holstering his Evoker. "I didn't really see it as me dying after awhile. For me, it just became about summoning Ajax to save our lives."

"And that is the mentality I need Takeba to have."

There were times when Mitsuru seemed as frigid as her demeanor made her appear, but Ryuichi accepted her frustration, agreed with it, and also wished that Yukari would just pull the damn trigger already.

Yukari grew distant with the group again. She would still talk to them, but only if they addressed her first. She reacted to simple greetings or questions by giving short, cordial answers followed by a quick escape. At times, Ryuichi and Mitsuru tried to encourage her, only for her to walk away with hunched shoulders and her head hanging low. Ryuichi even caught Akihiko asking her in a firm but gentle voice to at least try. When all he got was a nod, he was the one to walk away.

Ryuichi wasn't sure what to do with her anymore, or how to talk to her—Not that it made much difference, as he would be too busy to see her all that often in the first place. The best he could hope for was for her to get used to summoning her Persona soon, at least for her own sake.

After kendo practice on Thursday, Ryuichi returned home with Mitsuru to start catching up on all the assignments he had not had a chance to get to during the week. Most of the material was review, but the new lessons from their online college courses made him go up to Mitsuru's door and ask her for help on a few items. She was kind enough to explain the concepts and gave him a few examples, but he could tell that he was going to need a lot more help as the semester progressed.

Ryuichi and Akihiko went on patrol that night. Mitsuru and Yukari decided to stay at the dorm, giving the two a chance to have more freedom in battle, where they didn't fear any of Yukari's stray arrows or being ordered to stand down to give Yukari a chance to fight.

"It's not that I hate her or anything, but can't she at least try?" Akihiko griped as they both wandered the streets. "She did it before, so what's the problem now?"

"The problem now is that her life is potentially in danger."

"That just means she's got every reason to summon Io!"

His mood worsened by the lack of Shadows. It seemed to Ryuichi that everyone was in a foul mood these days, and it was starting to get to him. They eventually did find one dinky little Shadow that Mitsuru directed them to, but it did little to quell Akihiko's irritation.

"Well, she's not like you or me or Mitsuru," Ryuichi reasoned as his soles scuffed the pavement. His responses were so automatic now that he started to question why he was still defending Yukari.

"You keep telling us to give her a chance, but she's already been here for over a month," Akihiko snapped. "When's she going to do something about it?"

"I don't know," he admitted bitterly. "But something about her seems to want to stay."

Friday afternoon, Ryuichi was back at his parents' house, fetching items for his sister, listening to her moan about her latest argument with their parents, and pretending to not notice the many bouts of gas she kept having. Everywhere he went, people seemed to direct their frustrations at him while using other people's names as flimsy excuses to make it look like they were irritated with someone else. He had to keep reminding himself that they were all furious with other people and not him, but his own protective words were quickly penetrated by everyone else's.

"Gawd! This is the fourth time today!"

Shizue leaned heavily to one side, pinching and tugging around her backside to liberate yet another wedgie. Ryuichi held up a hand by his head to give his sister some privacy while she adjusted herself. He flipped through his book to silently practice the pronunciation of English words to himself, trying to remember how Mitsuru read the words fluently.

Shizue got up with a groan. "I'm sick of this. Ryu-chan, let's go on a walk; this place is driving me crazy if I stay here any longer."

Ryuichi had no choice but to go along with her. He didn't want to aggravate her in any way, in case he risked making her go into premature labor.

"But, are you okay to be walking around a lot?" he asked tentatively.

"All I've been doing is sit on my ass all day," she said with gritty irritation. "And for weeks! We don't have to walk too far."

Ryuichi put his blazer on before helping his sister with her sweater and scarf. They walked a short way to a small store run by an elderly woman and her dog, where they sold snacks, cigarettes, newspapers, and magazines. Ryuichi bought them each a can of soda and some candy, which his sister gobbled up so quickly he had to buy her some more to keep her happy later.

"So, what's it like at the dorm?" Shizue asked him when they decided to hang around the store a bit. "Mitsuru-san lives there too, right?"

He leaned against a lamp post while he sipped his soda. The chilly beverage clawed at his throat on the way down. "It's a heck of a lot better than living at home," he answered.

"Oh, right? I missed my apartment the moment I saw Mom at the station."

And then, the griping returned. She told him all about the time she chose to eat a can of mackerel instead of the burger their dad prepared for her.

"I tried telling him that I was trying to cut down on fat and grease, but you know how Dad gets," Shizue moaned. "If we don't eat his food, he assumes that we hate what he cooked and that we're not appreciating his efforts."

She even gave voice to some of Ryuichi's complaints about their parents. Each time he tried to contribute a new point, Shizue would cut him off and rage for him. He quickly grew tired of the one-sided conversation, instead focusing on his new craving for canned fish. His sister kept venting while he began to plan out dinner silently to himself.

Back at their house, Ryuichi found enough ingredients to make Tonjiru.

"Nah, I'm not really in the mood for that," Shizue sighed. "I want something heartier, something more homely."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Okay, sure. What do you have in mind?"

She peeked into the refrigerator, leaning back slightly so her stomach protruded even more. "Oh! How about curry rice? Can you make some, please?"

Ryuichi was actually grateful that she chose something simple to make. He cut up some chicken into smaller chunks and set it aside to marinate in some hoisin sauce. He started with sautéing some onions in oil, and when they started to look transparent, he added some diced garlic. The strong smell of garlic and onion filled the kitchen, prompting Shizue to retch and slap a hand over her mouth.

"Uh, oh."

She waddled to the toilet. Ryuichi took one step after her, glancing back at the ingredients sizzling in the pot.

"Oh, fuck! Ryu-chan!"

He grimaced, knowing she didn't make it to the toilet in time. "I'll be right there," he called to her, trying to mask his disgust. "What's causing it?"

"The smell! Ryu-chan, sorry, but—"

She retched again. He shut off the stove and went to throw open the doors and windows to air out the house while his sister continued to hurl.

"Hurry, Ryuichi!"

He stuck a fan by the back door and turned it on high. "I'm trying!" he shouted.

"Don't yell at me!" she barked back.

"I can't hear you! The fan's too loud!"

It took some time for the smell to finally dissipate. While Shizue rested on the couch with a damp cloth over her pale face, Ryuichi mopped up her vomit that was just shy of the toilet. He wasn't so eager to eat curry rice anymore.

Shizue refused to eat anything after that. Ryuichi couldn't stomach anything, either. They nibbled on rice crackers for dinner, and the ingredients for curry rice were packed away into containers and put back into the refrigerator.

Later that night on his way home, Ryuichi stopped by a convenience store to pick up some rice balls for dinner. By the time he made it back to the dorm, everyone had already gone up to bed, leaving him to grab a bowl and a can of sardines to eat with his onigiri. He sat at the dining table with his pitiful meal and took his first bite. Astonishingly, it tasted pretty good, even after an evening full of vomit.

"The power of hunger and cravings," he sighed to himself.

Saturday rolled by, and Ryuichi was all too happy to have a short school day. Kendo went by quickly afterward, and with Mitsuru getting picked up outside the school gate for other business, he was able to return home and rest for once.

Except, he didn't. Back in his dorm room, he dumped his books onto his desk in preparation to do his homework.

"This is getting ridiculous," he grumbled as he roughly dragged his chair out to sit.

He had originally thought that he would be able to study and do homework over at his parents' house whenever he had to watch his sister, but any attempts he made were in vain. It wasn't often that he had to clean up vomit, but fetching Shizue things, taking her on light walks around the neighborhood, and occasionally having to go grocery shopping to cook that night's dinner robbed him of any spare time he could use for his studies.

When he did get a chance to study, Shizue would distract him with more complaints and more vocalized dreams she had of finding her own place, or even joking about bunking with him in his room at the dorm for a little while. He couldn't concentrate when she was talking, nor did he have the gall to ask her to shut up and let him work.

Sometime later that Saturday afternoon, he snapped up from a nap when someone knocked on his door.

"Senpai? It's me," said Yukari through the door. "Can I come in for a sec?"

He rubbed crust from his eyes. "Yeah," he yawned. "Come on in."

The timid girl opened the door but stopped short when she saw all his books open out in front of him. "Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were studying. I can come back later."

He closed his notebook. "I actually fell asleep, so you're not interrupting anything," he said, flashing her a tired smile. "What's up?"

She opened the door wider, taking a tentative step into his room. She looked like a small child about to tell her father about something wrong that she had done.

"Well, I was just thinking that Mitsuru-senpai and Akihiko-senpai are probably not happy with me," she said, keeping her head down. "I feel pretty bad about not being able to summon my Persona."

Ryuichi knew that she was completely correct about their disappointment, but didn't have the heart to say so. "So, what will you do?" he asked her. "You still have the choice if you want to stay or go."

She picked her head up. "I want to stay," she said firmly. The determination in her eyes and voice diminished as she added, "I just need more time to practice."

"Just don't think about it when you do it," he advised, lazily swiveling his chair back and forth. "If you think about it too much, you end up psyching yourself out. Instead, think about the others who need you."

She nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Ryuichi hoped that she would live up to her words this time. He watched as she thanked him and headed out the door. Right before the door closed, it opened again, and Yukari poked her head back inside.

"Hey, Senpai? Why do you fight?"

He rubbed a finger over his upper lip, searching for the right answer. "Lots of reasons, I guess."

"Yeah, but what is it that made you stick with it?"

He stopped to think. "I wanna say, because I know that I'm among the few who can, it's kind of my responsibility to do something about the Shadows," he finally answered. "It's not something I can just walk away from."

The dejected look on Yukari's face made him panic. "B-But, that's just my own personal opinion for me," he added hastily. "I'm sure you have your own reasons for staying, but just remember that sometimes you just have to do what's best for you."

She stood half-bent into his room, looking like she was contemplating what he had just said. He watched as she slowly closed the door without saying another word. After that, Ryuichi just didn't want to study at all, but thoughts of disappointing Mitsuru shocked him into opening his notes again.