Surprises

Ann was sitting in class half listening to the lecture because she was getting annoyed by Carmen's constant sighing; "Will you stop sighing already? I get that you miss Arsene but constantly sighing is just annoying me."

"Well excuse me for missing my love."

"Well I miss Akira as well but we're going to see him after school. I'm more worried about his talk with Sojiro. What if he doesn't forgive him…"

"Then have him stay with you."

"I already told you. Dad isn't going to let boys stay at my house because he doesn't trust guys since that whole thing with Kamoshida."

"Well why don't you have Akira meet your parents? You two have been together for months now. Maybe it's time for him to meet your parents."

"Meet my parents…I guess that would be the next step in our relationship." She smiles; "Yeah! I should have Akira meet my parents! Let me just text him if he would like to." She was about to text Akira when he texted her first.

[Hey! I got a surprise for you! Come to Leblanc after school!]

She looks at his message confused; "He has a surprise for me and meet him at Leblanc? Did he actually get Sojiro to forgive him!?"

[Did Sojiro forgive you?]

[Well you're just going to have to wait, Anki.]

[Aw that's not fair, Akiree!]

[Trust me, it will be worth it.]

{Alright then, I can't wait to see this surprise.]

[Good to hear! I'll see you later. I love you.]

[I love you too.]

She puts her phone away and smiles; "I wonder what this surprise is?"

"Maybe he's going to walk around naked when you two are alone from now on."

Ann blushes still smiling; "Thanks Carmen…now I won't be able to pay attention to the lecture at all…"

Leblanc Cafe

Ann hurriedly walks through the door and sees Akira as well as Futaba sitting on stools by the counter and Sojiro behind the counter talking to them.

Akira hears the entrance bell and looks over at the entrance seeing Ann. He instantly gets up and walks up to her kissing her on the cheek; "Hey Anki, are you ready to see the surprise?" "Hello, my sweet Carme."

"Yeah but wait a minute." Ann looks over at Sojiro; "Are you two okay now?" "Oh I missed you so much Arsey!"

He chuckles; "Yeah we are, but I'll explain it after Akira shows you his 'secret'."

Futaba gets up and walks up to them both; "I want to go too." "Yeah I want to see Ann-chan's reaction!"

Akira laughs; "Well, are you two ready to head out then?" "It's only been a few hours Carmen, but I missed you too." Both girls nod and they proceed outside.

As they were walking to the end of the road, Ann was starting to get anxious; "Sooo...where are we going?"

Akira smiles at her; "You'll find out soon enough."

"Ugh, fine then." But as they were walking, She realizes that they were walking towards Sojiro's house; "Wait. Why are we going to Sojiro's house?"

"You'll see."

Once they made it to the gate, Akira takes out a key from his pocket and unlocks the gate, opening it. He also did the same thing with the door.

"Sojiro actually gave him his keys without him asking?" "Ooooo, this is very interesting."

Once inside and after closing the door, Akira walks to his room's door and stops; "Well...here's the surprise." He turns the knob and opened the door.

Ann walks into the room and looks around; "So why are we in a room…and why is Morgana on the bed sleeping…" Her eyes go wide finally realizing what he was trying to show her; "Oh my god! Did Sojiro actually give you a room in his house!?" "This is actually a great surprise!"

He smiles big; "That's not the only thing…I'm actually a Sakura now." "So that means Akira is going to be staying here then."

Futaba smiles; "See Ann! He has a family again!" Necro starts crying, "It makes me happy hearing it again!"

Ann hugs him; "I'm so happy for you!" Carmen starts crying as well; "Stop it Necro…now I'm crying!"

He hugs her back; "Thanks…" He lets go of her; "Well, we should get back, Sojiro wanted to tell you about the disownment." "It makes me feel bad for accusing Sojiro of hating you."

"Oh, okay. Are we still going shopping afterwards?" "Yes! I love shopping even though I can't buy or use anything…"

Futaba looks at Akira; "Can I come with?" "Futaba-chan! We should let them have some alone time together! How else are we going to have Ann-chan be part of our family!?" "Well when they get married of course."

He laughs; "That probably won't be for a while Futaba and Necro." "Why not sooner? In my time, people got married right away." Arsene whispers. "This is a different time Arsene plus I'm sure Ann wants to be an action star before getting married."

Ann looks at him with a side glance; "He's thinking about marriage as well!" "You should name one of your kids after me." Carmen whispers.

"Anyways, don't worry about it Necro, I actually want Futaba to come with. I did say I was going to make it to her for what I tried to do. So I'm going to buy you anything you want."

Futaba smiles; "Really!?" Akira nods making her hug him; "Thank you!" "I knew you would keep your promise, Akiree!"

Akira hugs her back; "You're welcome; Futaba." "You should know that know that by now, Necro." He lets go of her; "So where do you want to go?"

"Akihabara. They have a new game that came out." "Oh! You mean DarkBourne, right?" "Yep."

He laughs; "Well let's go get you that game then." "The future is interesting, now that you can control the characters on a screen."

Akihabara

The group gets off the train and starts walking towards the electronic store. But Ann was still thinking about what Sojiro said, that she was supposed to tell Akira earlier about his disownment; "I can't believe I was supposed to tell you earlier about your disownment…" "I knew we shouldn't have kept it a secret."

Akira puts his hand in her hand; "The three of us handled it the wrong way, and we should all just look past this." "That is correct; Akira."

"Yeah, you're right; I guess I'm the only one still thinking about it...Especially almost killing yourself..." "Well that's just means it affected you deeply."

Futaba looks up at him; "You better not do it again, Akira." "You heard her, Akiree."

He rubs her head; "Don't worry, I won't." "Well not out of sadness, but from protecting somebody, hopefully it doesn't come to that." "Didn't I do that against the Reaper?" "Yeah…I try not to remember that…"

The three soon make it to the store but it was busy. Akira looks at Futaba worried about her being around many people; "Are you going to be okay, Futaba?"

"Y-Yeah, I'll be fine. I want to go alone though." "Do you think you're ready for that Futaba-chan?" She nods; "Y-yep. This is like the final dungeon."

He smiles at her; "I know you can do it, Futaba." "I don't know what you mean by final dungeon but I know you can do it as well."

Ann smiles at her as well; "Good luck, Futaba!" "You got this darling!"

She nods and hesitantly heads to the game section while Akira and Ann stood by the entrance waiting for her.

Akira smiles; "She's really changed from the first time we met her." Yeah. She's slowly starting to be more comfortable around people."

Ann nods; "Well she did go to the beach and our school; I'm sure those two things made things easier for her." "I do hope that she's able to do this by herself."

Five minutes later

Ann starts thinking about their situation with Akechi because after everything that happened, she almost forgot about him; "You know...everything that happened, I almost forgot about our situation with Akechi…so now I'm worried..." "I wonder what his persona is like."

"Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine." "Yeah, now that I think about it, his persona hasn't talked at all." "Remember, he's acting like he's never been to the Metaverse, we just have to play along."

"Let me guess…you're not going to tell me what you and Morgana were planning?" "I don't get why you hide important stuff from us…"

"I'll tell you when we're alone. I promise." "Yeah, it's better to do it private."

"Do what in private?" "You know, their love time Futaba-chan!"

Akira turns around and sees Futaba holding the game making him smile; "You actually got the game by yourself!" "Congratulations Futaba!"

She smiles big feeling proud of herself; "Hehe, I beat the dungeon all by myself!" "Yay!"

Ann smiles at Futaba as well; "I knew you could do it!" "You're finally becoming more and more mature."

She was now practically glowing from the praises; "Thanks guys." "Mission completed! Now let's go home and enjoy our reward!"

"Well let's go pay for this and head home then." The girls nods and they head to the checkout

Sojiro's House

Akira's Room

Akira and Ann walk into the room but Morgana stayed at the Leblanc Café because he still didn't want to see them together.

Ann sighs knowing why Morgana wasn't here; "When is he going to get over me?" "When Zorro stops staring at my chest…"

"I've been thinking about that...and I have a weird idea on how to deal with that actually." "He's going to get a female cat with fur the same color as your hair…"

She gives him a disgusted look; "Yeah…that's not creepy at all…" "That's actually a great idea." "You actually agree to this!?" "If it makes Zorro realize that he will NEVER have a chance with me then I'll take anything."

He laughs; "Well do you want him to get over you?" "It seems like the best option."

"How do you even know that he will fall for a cat when he keeps thinking he's human?" "Don't care, still trying."

"That's why we're going to test it out." "We have a lot of yen to spend anyways."

Ann sighs; "Ugh! Fine! Anyway, now what's this plan you have with Akechi?" "You did promise to tell us."

He nods; "It's nothing big, as of now, but the reason why I needed to talk to Futaba was because she's going to bug Akechi's phone, so we can find out what he's planning. I was going to wait till after we bugged his phone to tell everyone so we can all listen in to his conversations and work from there." "Basically we went from thieves to spies."

"So, we just have to wait till Futaba bugs his phone then?" "I guess you were right about it really being nothing right now." "Anyway, Arsene's right though, we are kind of like spies. Like were in a movie." She smiles mischievously at him; "So after we get Akechi…do we get to do the highly anticipated love scene afterwards?" "I definitely agree to that!"

He chuckles; "Well some of those romance or spy movies have a romance scene in the middle of the movie." "Well prepare to be pounced on." Arsene whispers. "Huh?"

She smirks taking his advice; "You know…you're right." She quickly pounces onto him pushing him on the bed then straddles his hips and hovers over him with each hand on the each side of his head; "You're mine now…" She starts leaning down about to kiss him when her phone starts ringing; "Are you kidding me!?" "Why does someone or something always stop you from the love making!?"

Akira laughs; "I guess I'm not yours right now." "Maybe you should put the phone on silent next time."

She sighs; "I usually do…" She takes out her phone and sees Shiho calling; "Oh! It's Shiho!" "Dear Shiho!? It's been a while since she called you." She instantly gets off of him and answers the phone putting it on speaker phone; "Hey Shiho!"

"Hey, Ann! I'm sorry that I haven't called in a while. I've been busy with school."

"Don't worry about it! I've been busy too. Akira's here, do you want to say hello to him?"

"Oh, really!? Hey, Akira! Sorry about that! I didn't mean to get in between your time together."

He got into sitting position on the edge of his bed and laughs; "Don't worry about it. It's good to hear from you again."

"So how are you doing Shiho? Are you feeling any better?"

"I'm doing better. I'm actually going to gym again and doing volleyball tryouts next year. I also don't have nightmares about 'him' anymore so I'm finally able to truly smile again."

Ann smiles hearing the news; "I'm so happy to hear that Shiho!"

Akira smiles as well; "It's great that you're able to truly smile again."

She laughs; "Thanks and it sounds like you two are doing great as well. Actually, it's good that you're together right now, I wanted to talk to you, Akira."

That surprises him; "Of course, what do you need?"

"Actually Ann, I know this is going to sound weird but can me and Akira talk privately?"

She now had confused look on her face; "Um, okay…" She looks at Akira and sees that he was just as confused; "Well I guess I'll go talk to Futaba then." She gives her phone to him and leaves the room.

Once she does; he turns off the speaker phone off then puts the phone to his ear; "Okay, she's gone, so what's up?"

Shiho laughs; "I'm sorry Akira, I know this is weird but the reason I wanted to talk to you privately was because its Ann's birthday next Sunday and I wanted to surprise her by coming to visit her and throwing her a surprise birthday party."

Akira's eyes goes wide; "Her birthday's next week!?"

She laughs again; "Wow Akira! You should have known Ann's birthday by now! Especially since you two have been together for months now. Anyway, I should be coming back this Sunday so we can start preparing then. But, the problem is, is that mine and Ann's parents are friends so they want to visit them. Maybe you should ask Nijima-san if she can take Ann somewhere."

"Wait, how does she know Makoto and that she's friends with Ann?" "Maybe Ann told Shiho about her." "Yeah that would be a good idea. Just let me know when you're about to come back on Sunday."

"Will do. So let's exchange contact info and chat id then." He takes out his phone and they exchange contact info and chat id; "Well tell Ann I said bye and I'll text you tomorrow so we can sort out the details about the party then we can have an idea on Sunday then."

"Alright, sounds good. I'll tell Ann that you said bye. Good night."

"Thank you Akira and good night to you as well." She hangs up

Akira removes the phone from his ear, smiling; "I'm glad that she's doing better now. She finally moved on from what happened with Kamoshida and she's trying out for volleyball again." "I'm glad that everything is working out for her and its all thanks to you and Ann for being there for her." "Yeah. Well now we should get Ann a gift tomorrow after school, I can't believe I didn't ask her when her birthday is." He brings out his phone and texts Futaba to tell Ann she can come back in.

Ten minutes later

Ann walkd through Akira's door; "Sorry it took long, Futaba was in the middle of a boss battle before she saw your text. That game really gets you angry easily, she almost broke her controller." She sits on his bed; "So, what did you and Shiho talk about?"

Akira smiles; "Can't tell you, it's between me, Arsene, and Shiho. By the way she said bye." "Don't you put me into this."

She mock glares at him; "Oh? So you're going to hide things from me that involves one of my best friends?" She then smirk; "And here I was going to let you touch my body…all of my body." "That goes for you too, Arsene."

He smirks back already used to her game; "That does sound tempting but nope, I rather keep it a secret." "Well that's too bad Carmen because Akira said the next time we go to the Metaverse. We can have our 'alone' time finally."

"Nevermind Arsene, you can touch me all you want." "Really Carmen? Aren't you supposed to be the teaser?" "Well it's your fault, if you just let me make love to Arsene earlier, then I wouldn't be sexually frustrated." Carmen whispers. "Fine…wait a minute, did Shiho tell him my birthday is next week!?" She smiles at him; "So Shiho told you that my birthday was next week didn't she?"

He pretends to be shocked; "You're birthday's next week!? Why didn't you say anything or give me a hint!?" "Nice acting." Arsene whispers.

She looks at him confused; "So it's not about my birthday…Speaking about that; I actually never did tell you mine but now you know. So when's your birthday?""Are you trying to get with dear Shiho behind Ann's back!?" "Actually now that I think about it, how do we not know each other's birthdays…" She says ignoring Carmen's accusation.

Akira sighs because of what Carmen said; "Really Carmen? Shiho's the one who wanted to talk with me and my birthday is in December, Ann. Anyway, Shiho just wanted to know how we were doing together and I told her about what happened a day ago. She was not happy and kind of yelled at me." "Yeah, it was pretty bad."

Ann sighs; "Why did you tell her that? You said that we should look past it." "That's because you shouldn't hide things from each other."

"Well I guess I should tell her about Kawakami's massages…I just threw myself into the corner…""Yeah Carmen's right. So I should tell you about Ms. Kawakami. Well she used to give me massages after our trips to the Metaverse so I could go to the gym or go to work." "This is between you two so I'm just going to be quiet."

She glares at Akira not liking that he was hiding involving another female; "…for how long and were you clothed?" "You were cheating on Ann!" "Carmen! Quiet!"

"For about a month after we changed her student's parents' heart and yes, I was fully clothed. I only did it after our trips to the Metaverse. We stopped because she didn't feel right doing it since I was with you even though it wasn't sexual in anyway and I agreed with her."

She thinks for a moment; "I guess I shouldn't be mad. I trust you when you say it wasn't sexual and you were both fully clothed. But, if you were really tired from the Metaverse trips then you should have asked me to massage you then."

"Arsene told me I should have asked you but I thought you would think I was trying to be sexual or forceful."

She giggles; "Are you serious Akira? Now I have a perfect excuse to touch your body. But I should ask Miss Kawakami to teach me how to do a good massage and maybe you can be the dummy."

He laughs; "Well I wouldn't mind that."

"I'm sure you wouldn't." She then looks down; "Well...I have something to tell you as well. When we were getting dropped off to our houses after we left Haru's house, I was thinking about how glad I am that Emily betrayed you and you got a criminal charge on you..." She didn't look up because she was afraid Akira would look at her with anger but she feels his hand on her hand making her look up and she sees him look at her with a gentle look to show her that he wasn't mad.

"I know there's a reason why you would think that but you don't need to be afraid to tell me anymore because I trust you to have a good reason for it. I owe you anyways for not believing you before."

Seeing and hearing that he was willing to listen to her reason made her heart skip a beat; "Because if it wasn't for you…Kamoshida would still be around…Yusuke would have been taken advantage of by Madarame…Makoto would still be a pawn to the school and wouldn't find her own path…Futaba would still be trapped in her own room and still blaming herself for her mother's death…Haru would have been forced into marriage with an complete asshole… Sojiro would have lost Futaba to her uncle…Miss Kawakami would either still be a maid servicing men blaming herself for her student's death or quit teaching giving up her dream…and now we're going to stop Akechi whose been causing the mental breakdowns. Not only that, all the requests we did for the people on the Phan-site that we helped. So what I'm saying is, is that if it wasn't for you being falsely charged, this whole city would be even worse. So maybe you should think about the false criminal record as a blessing instead of a curse?"

Akira looks at her in surprise; "You're right. If I didn't get a criminal record, I would have been happy. But then you would all be suffering. Yeah, I lost my blood family but now I have Sojiro and Futaba. I lost my old friends but I have the others. Not only that, I have this power that can be used to help people in need and became friends with them as well. So you're right, I should look at this criminal record as a blessing instead of a curse. Besides, I can work at the coffee shop and I have multiple jobs already." He then lifts his hand from Ann's hand and puts it on her cheek caressing it making her lean into his hand while sighing in content; "But, above everything, I may have lost Emily but I have you and you're ten times better than Emily." He leans in and softly kisses her who instantly kissed him back. After a bit, he pulls back still caressing her cheek; "So do you want to do your request today and stay over?"

She sighs because this was a perfect moment; "No…I rather wait till Saturday. That way, we don't have to wake up and go to school the next day." She then smiles at him; "So I want to change my request to staying over every Saturday instead of just one time."

He smiles; "Hmm, I can either accept the request and spend every Saturday night laying with the warm and soft body of my girlfriend or I can deny the request and go to bed lonely thinking of my girlfriend's warm and soft body. I wonder what I should choose?"

She smirks knowing how to entice him; "I can even sweeten the deal and at random Saturdays, I might 'accidently' take off my underwear allowing you to hold my naked body against you." She puts her hand under his shirt and puts her finger on his neck trailing her finger down his chest then down his stomach making him shiver the whole time; "All…night…long…"

He blushes deeply and turned his head away coughing nervously while crossing his legs to hide his 'excitement'; "Y-Yeah…uh...you can definitely stay the night every Saturday." "Let me guess Carmen, you taught her that?"

Carmen laughs; "Of course I did! And I'm just surprised she did it without hesitating and so well for her first time. I knew my dear Ann would have the natural talent for teasing." "Good." She kisses him on the cheek and get ups; "Well...I guess I should get going." She then smiles innocently at him; "I'm going to say bye to Futaba so you can have some time to 'calm down' just text me when you're ready to walk me to the station." She opens the door but before she walks out. She looks back at him and winks while blowing a kiss then leaves.

After she leaves, He stares at the door in shock; "Does she have a secret button that turns on the sexy because she got embarrassed for getting aroused yesterday but now she just got me aroused with no hesitation." "Well they call changing from happy to angry and back quickly, bipolar. Maybe we should call Ann's abashment to unabashed and back quickly, Annpolar." "Yeah…I'm definitely going to call it that..."