5/31

He opens his eyes. Something is wrong with the walls. They are not his. A thin, viscous membrane boxes him in. It is the pink shade of the inside of a throat. Bleached spires stretch through them, up to the ceiling. Ribs. Bones. They are smooth.

There's someone at his desk. He sits with his arms resting, folded, on the chair's back.

"I'm just here to talk," his father whispers.

Akira sits up, his blanket peeling away like sloughed skin. He is bare-chested, which is not how he went to bed. Morgana is gone. Morgana is somewhere else.

His mouth opens, but his lips don't move. "Although Nobunaga was Nobuhide's legitimate successor, the Oda clan divided into many factions, and the clan was technically under the control of Owari's shugo, Shiba Yoshimune." The voice is not his own. Inui-sensei's droning escapes from between his teeth.

"I never hurt her," his father continues. "Never hit her. Never spoke down to her. Never betrayed her." In the dark, his eyes narrow. "But you don't see it that way."

"By 1559, Nobunaga had eliminated all opposition within the clan and Owari Province. He continued to use Shiba Yoshikane as a pretext to make peace with the other daimyos, though it was later discovered that Yoshikane had secretly corresponded with the Kira and Imagawa clans, attempting to oust Nobunaga and restore the Shiba clan's place."

His father replies, "I knew you'd say that."

The walls vibrate, as if a heartbeat inched through them. Akira looks at his hands. On his left, on the appropriate finger, is a ring. It gleams in the black around him. It grows brighter, sears, and begins to sink into his skin. He digs at it, claws with his fingernails, but the more he tries, the more his nails tear from him, punctuated each time with the click of handcuffs. Then, the ring is gone, buried in his skin. A raw and blistered fence circumnavigates his finger.

"Those things are tricky," his father says. His words are deep and his enunciation is off. "Shouldn't bother with them." Akira can feel the words ready to vomit forth once more, but his father continues. "You're an idiot if you think the cat knows everything. Stare into the fire, and play too much with it, and you won't notice the water until you've drowned. Pudding knew more, but you forgot. Dabbled in the arts for too long. Now he's mixed in concrete. Can't ask a sidewalk questions. Too bad ghosts ain't real."

There's something behind his father, something writhing behind the membrane that's stolen away his walls. "When Nobunaga launched a campaign into the Asakura clan's domain, Azai Nagamasa, to whom Oichi was married, broke the alliance with Oda to honor the Azai-Asakura-"

"No," his father growls. "No. No. No." Somehow, his father bows, while still staying seated. When he reverts back into something resembling real, he whispers, "Hail to the King. No one gets a throne without horses and men."

And finally, Akira is able to hiss out a response all his own. "I'm not you."

His father smiles then. His teeth are blackened with dye, but blaze in the dark all the same. Shadows rise in the corners. "You sound real fucking sure of that."

Hands press on the mucous walls, dimple them with fingertips and fall in. The hands become arms, the arms become bodies, the bodies all have heads. Ann. Ryuji. Yusuke. Haru.

Makoto.

Others too. Others he recognizes. Others he doesn't.

Then his father is no longer in the chair, he is in bed with him. Akira no longer sits up, he is prone, pinned, though no part of his father touches him. His father grins his reaper's teeth. His voice is an icy whisper and his breath is as of the grave. "Liar."

Akira jerks awake as the sun peeks above the cityscape. Morgana lies curled next to him. His walls are normal. No bones. No pink. No hands nor heads.

His desk's chair is empty, but for the life of him, he cannot remember if it remains in the same position he'd left it the night before.

#

Morgana readies his story, as the window to Kobayakawa's office finally gives. "About time," he grumbles, and slides it open with his paw. He will, of course, regale everyone with how easy this infiltration was for someone of his stature.

He hops clear of the sill and lands on the hardwood floor. A sniff, and the citrus stink of cleaning supplies shoves its way up his nose. He shakes his head and sticks his tongue out. When he finally becomes human again, having a diminished sense of smell will be a blessing.

Now, gotta find that file. He pads his way up to Kobayakawa's desk and starts to yank out the drawers. They are, infuriatingly, locked. "Seriously?" Morgana hisses, and draws his claws once more. Picking locks is a lot easier with an actual lock pick.

One by one, they click open. He pulls them out, and sticks his head in. They are filled with ledgers, with documents pertaining to school. One holds a number of newspaper clippings, revolving around Shujin's successes. "Where the heck is it?"

Kobayakawa's file, the one he had shown Makoto, had to have more information in it. Some kind of lead. If there really were others who could access the Metaverse, well...

It would be bad. Real bad. Morgana knew there were holes in his memory. He knew he didn't know everything about the Metaverse. But if he had once known this, and it had slipped into whatever black space his recollections had fled?

His eyes narrow, and he continues his search, meticulous.

There's nothing. Not in the man's desk. Not in the cabinets on the opposite wall. Not in any hidden compartments he'd scoured for, as a last resort. Wherever that file was, it wasn't in this room. He'd read Kobayakawa's other documentation as he'd searched, hoping that something would indicate anything. Anything about the Phantom Thieves. Anything about his connections. Anything about his death. But again, nothing.

There wasn't even a random piece of notepaper with 'The Phantom Thieves' scrawled across it. Morgana pauses as he returns to the window. That's kind of weird. You'd think the Principal of the school where the Phantom Thieves first struck would have something pertaining to said group, in his office.

Morgana scowls, hops up to the window sill, and leaves.

He meets Akira, Ann, and Ryuji in the alley across from the school, and informs them of what he found.

Akira, who evidently hadn't slept well – going by the circles under his eyes – nods. Ryuji does his share of frustrated mewling. Ann asks, "What do we do now?"

"There's only one other place I can think it would be." Akira pushes his fingertips into the brick of the alley's wall, as if testing their give. Then, he pulls his phone out and shows them an address.

"What's that?" Morgana asks.

"Kobayakawa's apartment building."

Ryuji and Ann glance at one another, then back at the phone. "How'd you find that?" Ann asks, brows arching, voice lilting into suspicion.

A shrug. "Wasn't hard. The news hasn't named Kobayakawa as the suicide yet, but based on what Ohya told me, a simple search led right to, 'Man Jumps from Tokyo Apartment Complex.'"

Morgana makes a show of cracking his neck from side to side. "Looks like another infiltration. Should we get going?"

"No," Akira says. There's something in his voice. Something heavy and worn. "All of us going would look suspicious. You're going to meet up with Yusuke, Morgana. He's the only one who wasn't in that file. Ryuji and I will head to Untouchable."

"And I promised to go see Shiho," Ann puts in.

Akira keeps his eyes on Morgana. "You and Yusuke figure out which is Kobayakawa's apartment. Then, you break in, and see if you can find the file. Once you're out, have Yusuke bring you around Shibuya station. I've got my gig at Rafflesia tonight."

Ryuji raises his hand in the air, as if he were in class. "So, like, what happens if the file ain't in Kobayakawa's pad?"

Morgana watches as Akira's eyes glaze a bit, a look he's come to associate with hard thinking. "If it's not there, then maybe he's got it hidden somewhere else. Or maybe he shredded it, or burned it. Or maybe someone else came along after he was dead and took it. Maybe the police dug through his apartment, found it, and it's sitting in some evidence locker, waiting to incriminate us. Or maybe some space aliens flew down from Mars and beamed it aboard their fucking mothership. I don't know."

Ann looks ready to chastise, but Ryuji sets his hand on Akira's shoulder. "Dude, you okay?"

A long sigh hisses out through his teeth. He raises thumb and forefinger to his face, pushes his glasses up, and rubs his eyes. "Yeah, sorry. Didn't get much sleep last night."

Ryuji grins. "Hangin' in that Velvet place? Making some more badass Personas?"

Akira's smile doesn't look close to real. "Nope. Just regular old nightmares."

Ann blinks. "Hey, wait a second." Her brows furrow. "This Igor thing, the guy with the nose? You said he's the one who gave us the Navigation app, right?"

"Yeah," Akira drawls.

"Well, why don't you ask him if he's given it to anyone else? You know, aside from us."

Akira lifts his gaze to Ann's face and stares at her. Then, a loopy grin splits his face, and an exhausted laugh leaks from him. "Holy shit. You're right."

Ann stiffens, as if waiting for a 'but.'

Akira shakes his head, and some of the weariness leaves his face. "I can't believe I didn't think of that. Igor gave us access. Maybe he gave it to someone else too." He spreads his hands in a wide shrug. "Like, 'Duh!'"

Ann finally smiles, and blushes a bit. "It was just a thought."

Ryuji nods vigorously. "That's one freakin' smart thought, Ann!"

"You're a genius, Lady Ann!" Morgana puts in.

"Alright." Akira nods down at Morgana. "Let's go meet Yusuke. Then, we're heading to Untouchable. Tonight, I'll go to the Velvet Room and ask Igor about the Metaverse." The brightness cools on his face by degrees.

The group breaks apart.

#

Akira is beginning to recognize Iwai's scowl by degrees. There's the 'what'd you want now?' scowl that typically ornaments his face. That one tends to melt into, 'Don't waste my time,' and eventually becomes, 'We done yet?'

Today, however, the tight white slash across his face is something new. His eyes only casually rest on the knickknacks Akira presents him. His fingers reach out, prod and poke, then return to his lap. He quotes a figure. Akira agrees, a bit disappointed.

Ryuji bumbles his way through the back of the shop, eyeing shotguns and the like, but really looking to smoke out any additional customers who may be hibernating. He flashes Akira a nod from down the aisle, and Akira reaches into his bag and pulls out the card skimmer and mini-camera.

"Thanks for these." He slides them across the table towards Iwai, jumbles them up amongst all the junk he's bought off them.

"Hope it helped."

"It did."

Iwai had bombarded Akira with a heavy silence when the latter had asked the former for, 'something that can mimic a keycard, and its passcode.' He'd known it was a risk, being so up front about it, but how else could he have phrased it? There was really only one thing a card skimmer could be used for.

It was, when stripped of its excess parts, a pretty simple plan. Set up the skimmer in Natsuki Storage, with a mini-camera covertly installed directly across the hall. Goad Madarame into rushing to his storage unit, thereby capturing the card's signature, and the passcode. Leave with the reader and camera, eliminating any trace of their presence, and use the stolen data to fool the device in Madarame's Palace. It had all hinged on Morgana's stealth, Yusuke's acting, and Iwai's ability to come through.

And it had been a resounding success.

Iwai had capitulated, and agreed to get him the requested 'materials.' Of course, Akira was in debt to him now, as the fee quoted was not something he could successfully pay-off. Not with jobs at a flower shop in the mall, or serving soda at a bar in Shinjuku.

'You'll help me with things,' Iwai had informed him, then.

'What things?' He'd asked, naturally.

'Things.' And that was that. Iwai wouldn't elaborate, and Akira hoped this wouldn't turn out like all those movies - where this exact thing happened - did.

Iwai snatches the card reader and camera from the counter, and sets them in a drawer, out of sight. "Anything else?"

"No," Akira replies. Iwai nods and sets about clearing the Metaverse crap away. He steps into his back office, and returns in a few moments with a plump envelope. He slides it over to Akira, who takes it and shoves it deep into his bag. Akira stands there for a few moments, but when the man says nothing, gives him a half-hearted, "See you around, then," and heads towards the door, motioning for Ryuji to follow.

"Kid," Iwai says, when he plants his hand on the door handle.

Akira looks back. "Yeah?"

"Be careful. Shibuya's gettin' dangerous."

Akira looks at Ryuji, who shrugs. "Uh, think you could elaborate on that?"

"Nah," Iwai replies, and shakes his head. "I'm good."

Akira frowns. "Okay, then. Thanks for the head's up, I guess."

#

Ryuji pulls the manga from the shelf, flips to the final page, and groans. They still don't resolve the fight? It's been, like, ten volumes already! He shoves it back onto the shelf with a muttered, "For cryin' out loud..." and sees a familiar face down the aisle.

Akira had left for his flower shop job, but Ryuji hadn't been ready to call it a day yet. He was behind on his reading, so had stopped by the bookstore in Shibuya to catch up on his favorite series. Plus, he really needed to give his brain a break from the whole, 'someone else may be sneaking into the Metaverse and looking to frame us,' thing.

He cuts down the aisle towards the person he recognizes, a grin split across his face. "Yo, Maehara!" He calls, when he's close enough. The boy straightens with a jolt, nearly dropping the manga in his hands. He practically jumps when Ryuji slaps him on the shoulder.

"O-oh. Hey, Sakamoto."

"How's it goin', man?" He peers down at the book he holds. "Aw, rad. I've been reading that one too. Isn't it freakin' badass?"

Maehara's smile is small and phony. "Y-yeah. I guess so. Pretty cool."

"You okay?" Ryuji asks. He doesn't know Maehara well, but he looks pale. Paler than the last time he'd seen him, and he'd been getting beaten up in an alley then.

"I'm fine," Maehara replies, quick.

Ryuji knows he's not the sharpest... whatever, but even he can tell something's up. Oh shit. It can't be Daisuke, right? We changed his heart! "Daisuke's not giving you grief, is he? I thought the Phantom Thieves took care of him."

"He's not. And they did. It's just-"

"'Just' what?"

Maehara lets out a frustrated huff. "It'd be nice if they helped him out too."

Above them, the A/C kicks into full force, and a gush of cool air spreads across his skin like tiny pinpricks. "What're you talking about?" Ryuji asks.

"Daisuke stopped picking on me, which is great. But there were these kids who were making him do that. So, when he stopped taking my money and bullying me, they really started giving it to him. Said he had to make up the difference."

"For real?" Ryuji asks. Daisuke's shadow had alluded to some kind of bullying ring at Shujin, but he hadn't seen anyone giving him a hard time. Not that he could recall.

Maehara nods. "It got really bad. They, uh, well, they beat him up so badly, they put him in the hospital. Broke his arm and everything. It was awful."

"Are you freakin' kidding?" Ryuji asks. A few customers glance their way. "They broke his arm?"

"Uh-huh. And all because he stopped picking on me. And not just me. Daisuke isn't hurting anyone. So, they're hurting him."

Ryuji sighs. "That sucks, dude." Just one thing to do. He sets a hand on Maehara's shoulder. "But hey, there's a way out, yeah? Have him put in a request with the Phantom Thieves, right? They helped you out, after all."

Maehara blinks at him, and his face falls lower. "That's just it. He has been making requests."

"What?"

Maehara pulls his phone out of his pocket. "He's been following all the rules. He sent the private messages to the PhanSite. He even asked me to help him put together a request. He's been sending one almost every day for the last week." He turns the screen towards Ryuji. His eyes run over the messages.

'Please help me, Phantom Thieves. I'm really screwed here. I know you guys changed my heart, and I know what I did was wrong, but now these others guys are picking on me...'

'His name is Yoshimori Sakoda and he's the head of this group at my school. They keep beating me up and I think it's going to get a lot worse...'

'Please! I get it, okay? I was a dick! I was an asshole! But, please, stop this guy...'

'Why won't you help?! It's getting worse! This guy's gonna fucking kill me! Where are you, Phantom Thieves?'

Ryuji takes a step back from Maehara. "Son of a bitch," he whispers.

"I even sent a request in on behalf of him," Maehara says. "I figured, since they helped me before, maybe they'd hear me out again. But I haven't gotten a response." He shrugs. "There isn't much anyone can do, I guess. The Phantom Thieves just took down that Madarame guy. They were probably busy." Maehara's phone vibrates and he glances at it. "Oh geez, I gotta go. See you later, Sakamoto."

"Yeah," Ryuji replies, as Maehara heads for the exit. "Later."

#

Akira wishes Morgana were with him. The cat's penchant for absurdity has always managed to regulate Akira's own thoughts, especially as they pertained to Haru. For every bizarre thing that popped into Morgana's head, Akira could offer a calm alternative. Given that Morgana was off infiltrating a dead Principal's apartment, that left Akira with only his own conjectures.

Therefore, Haru's behavior births a headache the size of his fist behind his eyes.

Every few moments, he casts a glance her way. Whether he's watering the plants, moving the fertilizer, adjusting the merchandise, or helping a customer, he always finds his gaze circling back towards her.

And finds her casting a few looks his way as well. Whenever she sees him staring, her eyes dart away and she returns to whatever it was she was doing.

It's not just the looks either. Everything about her seems so deflated today. Her skin is a touch paler than he's seen it before. Her normally puffy hair is absent its buoyancy. Even her clothes seem like faded copies of her regular outfit, as if someone produced them on one of those bulky, out of date printers the school kept in supply closets.

Because Morgana isn't there to temper his rationality with crazy, Akira's mind goes straight to bonkers. What's going on with her? I expected her to give me shit about Makoto or something, but she hasn't said two words to me. Is she plotting something? A sneak attack? An ambush? He wonders, briefly, if Makoto is hiding in the ceiling somewhere, adorned in a ninja outfit, which leads to a particularly unhelpful tangent about just what Makoto would look like in a ninja outfit - a tight one. He has to physical shake his head to clear his mind of that.

No. Not that. It's something else. He glances back towards her. She almost looks a little afraid of him.

Eventually, it's too much for him. "Hey, Haru?" He asks, and hates how tentative his voice sounds.

She looks up at him then, from where she had been notating stock. "Yes?" She asks. Her voice is faint, but polite.

"Are you okay?" He doesn't point out that she hasn't threatened him once this shift.

"Fine, thank you."

Akira nods, and feels himself begin to grasp at straws. "Sorry Mona-chan's not here. He, uh, had a prior engagement."

"I'm sure," Haru replies.

"I know you want to take pictures with him, so maybe I can drop him off with you this weekend?"

"Mmmhmm."

Akira stands next to her, a spray bottle in his hand. "Haru, seriously. Is everything alright?"

Her response is silence, and Akira starts to walk away, when she suddenly blurts. "What's your-" But then Hanasaki-san sticks her head into the storeroom and calls, "Oh, Kurusu-kun?"

He turns to her. "Yes?"

"Would you mind coming out to the front? There's a young man here to see you. He's rather insistent."

Akira pictures Yusuke in his mind. Had something happened to Morgana? Akira speeds his way out to the storefront.

He stops when he finds Ryuji, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes flickering back and forth, foot tapping away on the tiled floor.

"Dude," the blonde boy says, when he sees him. "Could I talk to you for a sec?"

"Like I said," Hanasaki says, behind him. He can almost hear the strained smile. "Insistent."

"R-right." Akira turns to her and bows. "I'm very sorry about this. Please, excuse me for just a moment."

She nods, face never wavering. Akira suppresses a gulp. Hanasaki-san has been good to him. He'd rather not get on her bad side.

Akira sidles up to Ryuji, pats his friend on the shoulder and whispers, "What're you doing, man? I'm working."

"I gotta talk to you. It couldn't wait."

"Is it about...?" He lets the implication hang.

Ryuji nods. "Obviously! I wouldn't bother you about something that ain't important."

Akira leads his friend down the hall, away from the Shibuya Underground. It's a long, mostly silent hallway, heading off towards a service corridor. "What's going on?"

"Did you know about Daisuke?" Ryuji asks.

Akira blinks. "Daisuke? Are you talking about Takanashi?"

"I just saw Maehara at the bookshop, Akira. He told me Daisuke is in the hospital. Those guys he used to hang with beat the shit out of him. They broke his freakin' arm."

Akira glances back towards the crowds. No one's paying attention to the two teenagers down the hall, in the dim light.. "Ryuji, just chill, okay?"

"Chill?" Ryuji's eyes are all wide and white. "Did you see the requests he was putting in? On the PhanSite?"

"I-"

"You're the admin, man. Don't tell me you didn't."

Akira's chest feels like it's bubbling with carbonated soda. "Yes," he says. "I saw them. I saw the requests, but-"

"But you didn't say anything." Ryuji puts his hands on his head. "Dude, why? Why didn't you say anything to rest of us?"

"Because we got dozens and dozens of requests, Ryuji. And we needed to focus on Madarame. For Yusuke's sake."

Ryuji scowls. "I get that, okay. I do. But Daisuke is in the freakin' hospital, man! Because of what we did."

"No," Akira shakes his head. "It's not on us, Ryuji. We changed his heart. We didn't paint a target on his back."

"Bullshit," Ryuji replies. He glares at Akira, now. "We told you that Daisuke's shadow was worried about the bullies at Shujin. But we didn't do anything about it."

"We talked about this," Akira hisses. "If we kept helping people at Shujin, then it would've been obvious we were connected to Shujin. And at that time, Daisuke hadn't put in any requests."

"But he's put them in now, hasn't he? He's freaking out. He thinks they're gonna kill him. Are we just going to ignore it, because he's a Shujin student? Or because he was a target?"

"Ryuji, look, I need to get back to work. We can talk about this later."

"We need to help Daisuke," Ryuji says. "It's our fault he's getting kicked around by those assholes."

Akira runs through his options. Talking him out of it will be tough. Do I really need another member of the team pissed at me? And if there were others out there with access to the Metaverse, they needed to take priority.

Plus, if we help Daisuke, it'll make it more obvious that we're Shujin students.

Akira keeps his face passive even as he grinds his teeth. He's too tired for this fucking shit. Every single time he decides on a course of action, the others just pile on their crap. Akira's mouth opens before he can help himself, but then he looks Ryuji in the eye.

Really looks at him.

And he remembers the look on his friend's face.

Back when it was just the two of them. Back before even Morgana. Back before they knew what the Metaverse was. Back before Palaces and Mementos and Calling Cards and all of it.

Akira remembers asking Ryuji, 'You think he actually is hurting people, over here?'

And Ryuji had glanced around, back by the front gate of Shujin, and had given him the same look he's giving him now. 'I know he hurts people. I see a lot of guys on the volleyball team with bruises and slings. And sometimes I see the girls looking like that too.'

And just like that, Akira had known they'd needed to do something.

He remembered Arsene's question, and he remembered his answer.

Has it really been only two months? Not even that.

Akira takes a deep breath, and thinks. Maybe there was another way to do it? A way to keep it secret? What if we fulfilled a bunch of requests at once? Small time stuff, nothing big. Nothing like Madarame or Kamoshida. At least until they could get a handle on just what was going on out there.

Akira lets the air out of his lungs and says, "Okay, we'll help Daisuke. We'll have to be careful, though. No rushing. We need to stay anonymous."

Ryuji's scowl turns into a grin, and his shoulders slump in relief. "Man, I knew I could count on you to do the right thing." He chuckles a bit and rubs the back of his head. "Sorry I got so heated. It's just that hearing about Daisuke really got me rattled."

"Clearly," Akira replies, and paints a considerate smile across his own face. "We'll figure it out, okay? But I've really got to get back to work."

"Yeah, of course. Sorry again, man. I'll see you." He holds out his fist.

Akira bumps it, and turns back towards Rafflesia. That's all well and good, but how the hell am I actually going to pull it off?

#

Morgana's investigation is a bust. Yusuke had successfully brought him to Kobayakawa's place, and thanks to a conveniently labeled doorbell system, had figured out which apartment belonged to the deceased.

Morgana had snuck inside, and poked around. But, like his office, Kobayakawa's apartment was absent any information on the Phantom Thieves, any hint of some larger conspiracy, and any clue as to why he might kill himself.

Akira had related the story of Ryuji's discovery to the cat, and Morgana had made the correct protestations. Akira didn't know what to tell him. He'd already committed to helping Daisuke, and he couldn't risk Ryuji's ire along with Ann's.

As he lay down to sleep, he recalled the nightmare from earlier. The hands pushing their way through the membrane. The ghastly figures squeezing their way towards him, grasping and gnawing.

He shuts his eyes and thinks of the Velvet Room.

And when he shifts, the crinkle of chains accompanies it.

He opens his eyes to the clammy cell, the slow drip drip in the corner, and the distant moaning. He rises, stands, and moves to the barred door.

Igor smiles through the metal at him. "Trickster," he exclaims, spindly hands spread wide in greeting. "It is, as always, a pleasure to see you again."

Two familiar presences shift behind him. "Will you be requiring our services, inmate?" Justine asks. Caroline is quiet, much to his relief.

"Actually, I had a question for you, Igor." He wraps his hands around the bars. His knuckles become white blisters.

"Oh?" The man-thing replies. "How interesting. Please, ask and I shall answer if I possess the capacity to do so."

Here goes. "You're the one who's given my friends and me the ability to enter the Metaverse."

"That is not your question, but yes."

"Right. You put Navigation app on our phones."

Igor inclines his head towards the rotting desk. "I did, indeed. All to aid you in your rehabilitation."

"Okay. So my question is this. Did you give the app to anyone else? Anyone I don't know about?"

Igor stares at him. Akira watches, but feels himself waver at whatever he sees behind the thing's eyes. He realizes he knows nothing about this creature. Nothing about this otherworldly entity that seems intent on helping him. Why was he even doing this? What did he get out of it? Anything? Where did he come from?

Igor's response comes in a single syllable. "No."

#

Akira leaves, fades away to his reality.

From her place in the Velvet Room, Caroline glances at Justine. Justine looks at Caroline.

Without turning to face either of them, their Master growls, "Have you something to say, girls?"

Justine answers for the both of them. "No, Master."

Caroline stays silent, eyes on the back of her Master's head.

##

A/N: Happy Hump Day, everyone!

...

Sorry, I'd say more but I'm pretty wiped. I'm still adjusting the new hours at work, and they require me to wake up a lot earlier than I'm used to.

But hey! Thanks for reading! I really appreciate it, as always! And with this chapter, we've finished May! Onto June!