Chapter 2: Walking Nights

Getting out of her stiff and uncomfortable bed, Akira's eyes and feet follow her to the voice, to see a cartoonishly disproportionate old man sitting at a desk. Pointy ears, massive eyebrows, unblinking bloodshot eyes, and a nose long enough to make some Johns envious, frankly. She presses herself up against the bars between her and him and only now notices the little eyepatched girls in blue standing on either side of her cell. God above, they're just kids!

"What the hell is going on here?!" She shouts, shooting her meanest glare at the man.

"Welcome to my Velvet Room," if this place was a brothel the old coot sure double, triple, and quadruple downed on this indigo aesthetic of his, "a place that exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. I am Igor, the master of this place." He nods to the girls, his mouth twitching as he speaks but his teeth never opening and his smile never falling. "To your right is Caroline, to your left, Justine. They are wardens in this place."

"STAND UP STRAIGHT, INMATE!" Caroline slams an electric baton into the bars, sending pleasant-and-unpleasant tingles through her hands. Akira scowls and straightens out of her leaning posture before turning her glare back to this Igor.

"What kind of sick fuck hires little girls for his joint, Igor?"

"Your tongue is sharpened, Trickster. This is good, and proof that you are prepared to begin your rehabilitation, if you hope to avoid the coming ruin."

"I'd feel a lot more rehabilitated if I knew why you've got these kids here."

"We are wardens of this place, serving our master and charged with overseeing your rehabilitation," Justine explains with a smooth voice of little affect. Poor thing must be coping hard. "We are also your collaborators."

"This room," Igor continues, avoiding her questions like the worst kind, "reflects the heart of its inhabitants." He looks around the room, pretending as if he's seeing it for the first time for some inexplicable reason. "To think that your heart would manifest as a prison, as such. Truly, you are a prisoner of your own fate."

Akira winces. That… is unfairly true. But that doesn't mean she couldn't be mad about it, as she feels her scowl return. "So what?"

"To avoid the coming ruin, you must be rehabilitated toward freedom. You must prove strong enough to challenge the distortion of this world."

Akira decides to just let him rattle on. He obviously has no intentions of speaking in any context that actually made sense, so, whatever. Ruin, rehabilitation, blah blah I'm probably a pedophile look at my nose.

"It seems the night is waning. It is almost time," he drawls. "In the fullness of time, I hope you will come to understand this place." An alarm blares, and Akira feels her vision fade to—

Her eyes snap open, and she is back in Leblanc's attic. The sun is starting to rise through the view of the window, and Akira sighs. She feels like she hadn't slept at all thanks to that… incredibly lucid dream. That she can still recall in perfect detail. Weird.

Sojiro is nice enough to feed her some coffee and curry for breakfast, which she accepts without fuss. She's had far stranger, and with hunger as the world's greatest spice, it is positively delicious. It isn't long before they're on the road to Shujin Academy.

The place actually looked pretty nice, at least compared to her old school in Nakai. Real fancy Tokyo private school. Makes Akira wonder why they accepted someone like her if their reputation is as sterling as their aesthetic.

After Sojiro signs the documents confirming her enrollment though, Akira is introduced to every possible reason Shujin could have for any poor decisions being made.

"If you cause any trouble, you will be expelled immediately. In my opinion, you're nothing but a liability," the portly principal of Shujin explains. The man's folds have folds, and Akira silently questions his health, when what she can see of his legs look barely capable of supporting the weight of his body. She's not one to judge based on appearances, but every word out of Kobayakawa's mouth is as greasy as the mashed potatoes he resembles.

"Sir," she asks, putting on her most innocently confused expression, "if it's such a risk to Shujin to have me in attendance, why allow me in your school at all?"

Sojiro's eyes narrow as the principal smiles. "Well, we had our circumstances to consider. The rehabilitation of a troubled youth is exactly the sort of good press a school like Shujin ought to be generating. So keep in mind, all those things you may have gotten away with in your hometown won't fly here." His smile drops into a stern glare. "If you're expelled from our school, there is nowhere else that will take you. So keep that in mind as well."

If it were just a matter of looking good, Akira might have let it slide. She'd done much the same over the last two years, but…

"If I'm such a high risk, I don't understand why you would still take me, sir. I don't intend to cause any trouble, but I'd like to know why you think it's a good idea, if you think so little of me."

"Can it, kid," Sojiro mutters, although it's soft enough that maybe he's just talking to himself.

"You'd do well to keep your wit in line, girl. Don't ask why, simply do as you're told and all will be well." Kobayakawa turns to the curly haired woman standing next to him. She stands a little slumped, which is probably to be expected from someone called in to work on their day off, especially a teacher. "This will be the teacher in charge of your class."

"I'm Kawakami Sadayo," she says with a sigh. She's quiet, her eyes wandering quickly away from Akira's face, down to the desk as she reaches into the pocket of her skirt. "Here's your student ID."

Akira catches a flash of pink folded paper beneath her card that Kawakami quickly snatches and puts away. Akira looks up at her new teacher with a raised brow, and Kawakami has enough composure to look embarrassed about letting a personal article slip in with the new student ID.

Kawakami starts talking about how she won't be held responsible for Akira's actions as her teacher, but her voice is quiet and she's half rambling before looking to Kobayakawa for confirmation. The large man is quick to smile and reassure her that Akira's her own problem now.

"We good to get going? I'll be sure to have a long talk with her about this, make sure she understands clearly." Sojiro shuffles his feet, looking ready to get out of the overstuffed office.

"Sakura-san, make sure to keep a close eye on her. Don't let her cause any trouble when she's not in school," Kobayakawa instructs, and Akira sees Sojiro's nostrils flare.

"Meet me in the faculty office when you get to school tomorrow, and I'll show you to your classroom." Akira looks up and nods to her teacher.

"Could I speak with you in the hallway, Kawakami-sensei?" Akira asks pointedly. Everyone in the room stiffens, but with a nod from the principal, the two step out, Sojiro not far behind them.

"...What is it?" Kawakami asks, placing a hand on her hip and staring directly at Akira now.

"You need to go easier on the makeup." Kawakami blinks as Akira continues, "You're overcompensating. Trying to cover up your bags only makes them stand out more. Try to soften them up, make them brighter instead of trying to hide them completely." Akira gives her a smile she hopes isn't too sharp. "I don't think my teacher needs to look like she's been up all night, when there haven't even been exams yet. Try to get more sleep on your days off, and hopefully everyone else will just think you've been up late grading papers."

Kawakami's eyes narrow, and she crosses her arms. "Why are you giving me advice, Kurusu-san?"

Akira shrugs with a sigh, "Someone who walks nights looks out for their own. I'll see you tomorrow, Kawakami-sensei."

Akira nods to Sojiro and heads back to the entrance, leaving Kawakami to react however she'd like.

Sojiro keeps looking at her until they're near the entrance to the school. "Mind telling me what that was all about?"

"What do you mean?" Akira replies, looking back at him.

"Mouthing off like that, and that stuff you said to the girl…"

"I was just showing them the respect due, Sakura-san."

Sojiro huffs a laugh. "You're too sharp for that, kid, what you asked the principal was more like a challenge than anything."

Akira grins. "That's what I said. Respect due."

"Heh, if you weren't such a punk I think I'd like your attitude. Where's he get off telling me what to do, he's your principal, not mine."

"I think he's simply used to being in charge, sir. And most parents would be expected to show deference to their child's school faculty."

Sojiro crosses his arms. "Yeah, well, you're no kid of mine."

"Which I think is the part he doesn't get. He doesn't realize you don't care, so he thinks he still has leverage."

"You're right, I don't care. If you get expelled, I won't hesitate to throw you out."

Akira says nothing to that, and idly picks at a fingernail.

Sojiro huffs and turns back to the doors. "Come on, we're headed home."

Heading home ends up taking longer than anyone expected, however.

Sojiro groans, "Traffic isn't moving at all. You're taking the train, starting tomorrow," he says pointedly.

"Thank you, Sakura-san." Akira doesn't lift her head from where she's leaning against the inside of the passenger door.

"Cut that out, I've already seen what you look like underneath that politeness." She doesn't know how to react to that. "Talk to me, kid. About what you said to that teacher… I was thinking about your case file, and something about it doesn't add up, but I can't figure out how."

Akira sighs. Time to rip off this bandage. "Do you really want to know?"

"Give it to me straight. Did you do it?" He really is sharp, Akira thinks with a smile.

"I didn't. He was blind, stinking drunk, and I found him trying to… He was forcing himself on a woman. Her blouse was half-off when I found them."

"Nice set-up, but that doesn't explain—"

"I pulled her away from him. He stumbled and hit his head. By the time he got himself pulled together, he said he'd sue me for everything, show me for insulting his ego or some nonsense." Akira sees the images playing out in her reflection of the window. She doesn't even remember the drunkard's face; she just sees every rotten John she's worked with. "Somebody had called the cops, and they arrived just in time for the guy to say that I attacked him. That we'd been fooling around and I got uppity for not getting paid for services rendered. Cops didn't even give the real victim a second glance. She was half-naked and hysterical but she just nodded along and the cops put me in cuffs. Threw in a resisting arrest charge too, just because he said to."

Sojiro scoffs. "You actually expect me to believe that? You told that teacher something about 'walking nights'..."

"I said I didn't sleep with him, or attack him. Never denied being a whore."

…

Akira doesn't look at his reflection, nor does she turn to face him directly. "I was in the business for two years. We needed the money, and mom lost her job. It's… it's just like you said, you know? Easy money, and a slippery slope." If Sojiro picks up on the way the words stick like glue to her throat, he doesn't say anything.

She can hear him drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as the radio talks about a subway accident. Explains the traffic, she thinks as one of her nails digs under the other, picking at it incessantly. "That's a pretty wild story. Hard to believe, honestly," he says, softly like he's still processing it.

"The truth doesn't care about being believable. Lies do, because that's all they need to be. The truth is a messy, improbable thing that doesn't care if it's unlikely or even outright impossible. I don't know how some drunk could just order cops around like he did, but that was what happened. Half his accusations were bullshit, and the other half were right on the money. Nobody gave a shit if mom and I ended up out on the streets, but as soon as I got arrested people were tripping over themselves to cozy up to her saying, 'Oh you must be so ashamed, don't worry Hibiki-chan, you don't have to worry about that whore daughter anymore,'" Akira says, letting her disdain drip through her saccharine impersonation. "I haven't seen my mom since before the arrest, but I don't even want to know how she'd look at me after finding out the things I did."

The car ride, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, goes quiet at that. The radio drones on heedless of the heavy air between guardian and ward.

"You know… there've been a lot of accidents lately." Akira squints, and turns to see what Sojiro's getting at. His brows are knit together on his face, and he is staring forward with an intensity she hasn't seen yet on his face. "There was a girl who died a few months ago… she was only fifteen." He coughs, "Her parents… have gotta be just…"

"Sojiro?" She asks softly.

"What I'm saying is… yeah, you messed up. But you're alive. From what I've heard of her… that's more important to your mom than anything."

Akira watches the old man's face a while longer. His jaw is working, but he doesn't say anything else. Akira turns back to the window, letting her thoughts drown in the white noise of the world.

"Why tell me?" He asks, startling Akira after nearly an hour of silence.

"You mean, besides because you asked?" She responds, turning to face him again, a little cheek in her voice since Sojiro's not once bought her nice girl act.

"You didn't need to tell the truth. You're right, a lie would have been more believable."

She looks back out the window. "Because you may look old, but you're not stupid, remember?"

Sojiro laughs, and Akira lets herself smile a little more honestly at her reflection.

A/N: Consider this my commitment to a regular update schedule! I'm planning on updating on Sunday nights EST, around 9 pm.

If you like my fic and want to see more fics like it, join the Fanfiction Treehouse server on Discord. I'm one of the founding members, although this is my first consistent project to actually warrant regular plugs.

Discord link at: /9XG3U7a

And thank you again to genderneutralnoun for beta'ing, and being a bastion of support for SWU!

See you all next week!