6-7
Haru's eyes flutter open and she huffs an objection against the sunlight intruding through the window. She turns her head and shoves her face deeper into the pillow.
Memories yank at her, but she shuts them down, desperate for sleep and the sweet oblivion it brings.
Eventually, though, Makoto's alarm clock goes off.
Makoto stirs, and Haru watches, as the girl sits up. A great yawn escapes her, and she lifts her hands overhead in a stretch. Strands of her short, messy hair spill every which way. Makoto looks up at her through lidded eyes and mumbles out, "Morning."
"Good morning," Haru replies, and rolls onto her side.
"Did you sleep well?"
Haru nods. "I did. Your bed is very comfortable. Though, after last night, I imagine I could've slept anywhere." Makoto rolls her shoulders and twists her back. "Um, are you alright? I'm sorry about-"
Makoto shakes her head. "It's fine. This isn't the first time I've slept on the floor."
"It isn't?"
"Nope. I've done it several times. I wanted to see if its firmness would impact the time it took my body to get to REM sleep."
"Oh," Haru replies. "Okay. Did it?"
An embarrassed frown creases her lips. "I can't really say. I used one of those sleep measurement watches, but it gave me no definitive data. I'm beginning to suspect they're all scams." She shrugs. "At least, it appears that sleeping on the floor doesn't adversely affect my brain waves, so it's fine."
Haru can't help the smile. "That's... such a Makoto thing to do." She starts to laugh. "Of course you did that."
Makoto's puzzled look fades into a grin. "I suppose it is a little weird."
The girls sit in a comfortable silence for a time, and then Haru asks, "I guess we've got to talk about last night, huh?"
Her friend nods.
Sugimura had charged and stomped down with his loafer, but Mona-chan darted out of the way, calling out, "Too slow, dickhead!" He'd leapt into the air, swung out with his paw, and left three fresh marks down Sugimura's neck. A sucked in breath, a few steps back, hand held to the wound, and Sugimura attacked again.
Morgana danced around him, avoiding every kick and swing, jumping and slashing at every bare patch of skin Sugimura left unprotected. All the while, peppering his assualt with potshots and insults.
Sugimura ended up flat on his ass, bewildered, looking for all the world like a wild animal had turned his face into a scratching post. After he bit off a few more curses, he'd scrambled back towards and into his massive limousine.
"Yeah, you better run, asshole!" Mona-chan had called.
Haru had taken her first step then.
As the car sped away, Morgana turned to regard Haru and said, "Okay. Time to deal with you."
And Haru had blurted, "You can talk!"
Wide eyes. Slack jawed mouth. "Wait, you can understand me?"
Haru had taken another step, nodding.
"Oh man." A pained look crossed his face. "This is bad. Okay, uh, well, see the thing is... meow?"
Haru ran. Oh my god, she'd thought. Oh my god, he really is a magical cat!
"Hey, Haru!" Morgana had shouted. "Come back!"
Haru kept running, even as the exhaustion soaked through her, she'd kept running. Morgana chased her.
"I can explain!"
"Okay, maybe I can't explain, but still! Stop!"
"Would you stop already?"
Then, desperate, "I thought we were friends?" This last one nearly tripped her up, but she kept on.
Because there was only one person she could bring this to. One person she could count on.
She doesn't know when Morgana stopped following her, but she reached Makoto's building alone.
Her friend had buzzed her up, and stood bewildered in the open door of her apartment, as Haru, between gasps, told her what had transpired.
Makoto pulled her inside, afterwards, and insisted she stay the night.
"I think this should go without saying," Makoto says, as she stands and moves to her desk. "But until we figure out this thing with Sugimura, you should stay here."
Haru wants to cross the room and throw her arms around her, but her legs are incredibly sore. "You're sure it won't put you out? I could-"
"No," Makoto declares. "We're not going to take any chances with him. My sister is barely home as it is, so it's not like it'll be an imposition. I don't know how your family will feel, but-"
"That won't matter," Haru cuts in. "Father is so busy that he rarely notices me when I'm there anyway."
Makoto nods. "Okay, good." She blanches. "Well, not good. But good for us, because we won't have to... you know what I mean."
Haru smiles. "I do."
Makoto taps her foot on the white rug. "There has to be something we can do about that pig. Maybe some of my father's old friends could look into it for us."
Haru pushes herself upright. "I don't think that's the way to go. Your sister spoke with the Sugimuras, didn't she? It only made him angry."
Makoto frowns at the floor and shrugs. "I could throw him down some stairs."
"And if he survived," Haru says, without missing a beat, "he'd have you arrested. I don't want you going to jail for me, as much as I'd love to see him pin-wheeling down some steps."
Makoto sighs. "Well, for now, you stay with me. We'll get out of this somehow."
Her words are not lost on Haru, and her smile grows. Until it goes away. Because there's the other elephant in the room. "And, um, about the other thing?" She watches Makoto reach out and run her hand over the Buchimaru pencil case on her desk. When she opens her mouth to speak, Haru interjects with, "Do you think I'm crazy?"
Makoto's fingers hang over the case. Then, she smiles. "I would've thought so, a few weeks ago. A talking cat?" She shakes her head, and runs her other hand through her hair. "But I saw that same cat reading the other day. Texting, too. So, no. I don't think you're crazy, Haru." She giggles. "I am starting to think we may both be, though."
"I've wondered that too," Haru tells her, relieved. Makoto grins back at her, and Haru knows she made the right decision.
"Tell it to me again," Makoto says. "Now that I'm fresh."
She goes over it all again. Makoto asks for a few clarifications, but otherwise, listens to the whole tale.
"It's a bit strange, isn't it?" She asks, at the end.
Haru waits for her to elaborate, but when she doesn't, asks, "Um, which part?"
"You were wandering around Shibuya at random, looking for Morgana. Then, Sugimura comes out of nowhere and attacks you. And then, Morgana just appears and attacks him? The timing is odd."
Something cold creeps into Haru's chest. "Mako-chan, are you suggesting that I was set up? That Sugimura was led there to-"
"No," Makoto states, emphatically. "No way. It doesn't fit. If the Phantom Thieves had wanted to hurt you, why did Morgana save you? I bet he was probably just as surprised as you were. Which means, if Morgana's arrival wasn't a giant coincidence, he was following you."
Haru twists around and lets her legs dangle off the bed. "But why would he be following me?"
Makoto makes a fist and rests her chin across it. "If Morgana has human level intelligence, and it seems that he does, somehow, then he'd be the least conspicuous member of the Phantom Thieves to follow you. To follow anyone, really. He's small. He can hide easily. But you've got a point. Why would he be following you?" Makoto lapses into silence. Then, her eyes widen. "Your phone."
Haru meets her gaze, then flings herself towards the dresser, where she'd left her things the night before. She snatches up her smartphone, and brings it to Makoto.
"We know Takamaki did something to it," Makoto whispers, and Haru can tell she's not really talking to her, but sounding out the idea for herself. "So what if Morgana was following you to make sure it worked?"
Haru places the phone on the desk, and both girls begin to sift through it. There has to be, Makoto insists, something they missed.
A minute passes.
They stop.
"What's this?" Makoto asks.
A black and red icon sits in Haru's apps folder. A crimson eye with a black star for a pupil gazes out at them. "I don't know," Haru replies. "I've never seen it before. It wasn't there yesterday, when I checked." She shakes her head. "I would've noticed."
She hears her friend's dry swallow. "Well, let's take a look."
Haru nods, and taps the icon.
It expands until it covers half her screen, then fades.
The image of a microphone appears, and a single-word question hovers above it.
"Keyword?" Haru asks.
Makoto frowns. "It needs a password?" She picks up the phone and examines it. "There's no option to type it in."
"There's a microphone. Maybe we actually have to speak it?"
"Phantom Thieves," Makoto declares.
Nothing happens.
"Great," she mutters.
Haru leans over and brings her face closer to the screen. "What's that thing at the top. The little button that says, 'History?'" Makoto hands the phone back to her, and Haru clicks it. Something that looks very much like a list appears, but there's only one item at the top. "Mementos?" Haru sounds it out.
"Mementos," Makoto enunciates. "I think that's Latin. It has something to do with memories."
Haru sets the phone back down and the two girls stare at it.
Makoto shuts her eyes and rubs her temples. "Okay, let's go over everything one more time. After we spent the night trying to figure out what was done to your phone, you went home. Did you stop anywhere along the way?"
Haru shakes her head. "No. And nothing strange happened either. I texted you when I got back, and went to bed."
Makoto nods. "Right. That's about the time I realized we'd left everything for the Operation back in the Student Council Room."
Haru frowns. "I still don't know why you didn't call me when you realized that."
Makoto shrugs. "Both of us panicking over it wouldn't have done much good. And I told you the second I saw you this morning." Haru concedes this with a nod. "But then what? During the day, did anything happen?"
"No," Haru tells her. "I had that early morning run in with 'you know who,' but that was all. The only thing really different about yesterday was when I went to go search for Mona-chan, and Sugimura attacked-"
"Match Found," the phone says.
Their eyes snap to the phone.
#
Ryuji throws his hands into the air. "Dude, why the hell did you talk to her?"
Morgana glares up at him. "How was I supposed to know she could suddenly understand me?"
The boy looms down over the cat. "Because you're supposed to be the freakin' Metaverse expert, that's why!"
Ann steps between them. "Guys, calm down. We need to-"
"What was I supposed to do?" Morgana demands, manuvering around Ann's legs. "Let that creep hurt Haru?"
"No," Ryuji retorts. "But why'd you have to taunt the guy and shit?"
"I-"
"Guys," Akira snaps. Three sets of eyes turn to him. He reaches out and runs his finger across one of the alley's walls. He's beginning to suspect he's lived his whole life in this little crevice, and everything else has been some strange, surreal dream. "Knock it off. It's not Morgana's fault, Ryuji. It's mine." He regards each of them in turn. "It was my plan to send Morgana to spy on Haru and Makoto. I was the one who accidentally sent Haru to Mementos. And I was the one who told him to follow her yesterday. It's my fault."
The words leave his mouth and bounce within his skull. My fault. This is all my fault.
Morgana sits down on his paws, eyes downcast.
Ann sticks her hands in her pockets and leans against the wall.
Ryuji's foot beats a steady rhythm on the concrete. "So, what do we do?" He asks.
And for the first time in what feels like a very, very long time, Akira doesn't know. His strategy is nothing but static, cathode ray snow blaring in his skull.
Think.
Nothing.
His words drip from his mouth like a loose faucet. "Whatever happens, don't say anything. If Haru or Makoto corner you, don't tell them anything."
Shujin's morning bell rings.
The color is gone from Ann's face. "School's starting, Akira! We need a plan."
"If they come up to you, tell them to talk to me." He rotates towards the school. Stares at the concrete.
"And what if they've…" Ryuji trails off.
"Already gone to the police?" Akira finishes for him. He smiles. "Then, it won't matter if we say anything or not." No one else says a thing. His friends gather their belongings and start their march towards the school.
To Akira, it feels very much like marching towards the gallows.
#
Makoto has never skipped a day of school in her life. Much less, called in and pretended to be sick. She is thankful her reputation affords her some benefit of the doubt, and Sae's permission is not sought by the main office. "Feel better, Niijima-san," the school's receptionist had said, and Makoto had squeaked out a, "Thank you very much," before hanging up. She'd had the sudden urge to use hand sanitizer afterwards.
Haru's call had seemed far less dramatic. Makoto cannot recall how often the girl has been absent, but she can - now that she thinks about it - distinctly recall days in which the class representative notated it.
When Haru hung up, a word had risen up in Makoto's mind, shuddering and shambling with dread.
Truancy!
Although, that's not quite true. It isn't as if they've no reason to skip school.
Besides, Makoto tells herself. There's a first time for everything.
They weave themselves through the Shibuya Shuffle, and stop outside the Station. Haru searches the crowd and tries to hide it, hat pulled low over her face, bulky sweatshirt - despite the head - hiding the rest of her. They'd stopped at a department store just outside Makoto's place for some clothes. She figures, if Haru's going to stay with her for a while, they'll need to stock up on toiletries and whatnot soon.
She's still unclear how she'll explain this all to Sae. She's hardly ever home. Maybe I could just hide her in my room.
Aware of how bad a plan this is, Makoto justifies it by the last bludgeoning, rapid-fire forty-eight hours. She may have gotten a solid sleep the night before, but she knows her tank is low.
"Where to?" Haru asks.
Makoto nods and leads them to the hulking mass of stairs descending into the pavement. They seperate themselves out from the pulsing mass of pedestrians, and step into the shadow of the overhang. Both girls are eighteen, and Makoto's hoping their lack of school uniforms won't attract attention. Just two adults, minding our own business, definitely not skipping school or trying to unlock the secret of a mysterious app.
Nonetheless, she can't help but feel the judgement of every person that passes. You shouldn't be here! You should be in school!
Makoto smothers the bullshit and turns to Haru. Her friend's face is scrunched up in trepidation. "Um, are you sure this is a good idea?"
Resting a hand on Haru's shoulder, Makoto says, "We need to figure out what this app does, Haru. We're close. It all revolves around Shibuya, I just know it. If we know what it does, we'll know what 'Match Found,' means regarding Sugimura. And maybe we can use that to stop him."
She watches as determination refolds itself across Haru's face. "Right. Okay. The last time we were here, we spotted Mona-chan. Back when I couldn't understand him. He ran down into this entrance, and we followed."
Makoto nods. "At the bottom of the steps, we split up. And I went to the Shibuya Underground, where I ran into Takamaki."
"And I went to check the service tunnels." Haru pauses. "I remember seeing Mona-chan. I remember calling you, but then... everything else is a blank."
"Right. You called me, the phone cut off, and Takamaki offered to help me look for you. We found you maybe ten minutes later, unconscious in one of the service tunnels. When you woke up, you said you'd had a dream, and then Takamaki offered to help us get home."
Haru holds her phone in the palm of her hand, as if weighing it. "And once there," she says. "She did something to this." She reaches out with an index finger and flips through her apps, pulling up the new one. "Which must have something to do with this app."
"So what're we missing?" Makoto asks. "Did she install or delete it? If she installed it, why did it take so long to show up? And why? If she deleted it, why did it show up again? And we still don't know why."
Haru frowns. "Maybe this is what lets me understand Morgana? If Morgana really was following me, maybe he was looking for an opportunity to steal my phone. Maybe he knew that this app would let me understand him, and he wanted to make sure I couldn't?"
Makoto frowns and thinks. "I'll bet it has something to do with that," she agrees. "But I feel like there's something we're not seeing. The app must have something to do with why you can understand him. I can't see how it would let you understand him by itself."
"Well," Haru continues, and switches to the history tab. "What about this Mementos-thing?" Makoto watches as her friend's finger drifts down towards the button. Something suddenly seizes her, but before her brain can react, Haru presses the word, 'Mementos.'
"Beginning Navigation," the phone says.
The world shifts.
Her vision splotches and peels like burning film. The people go away. Rust cakes the station in twisted spires. The early June heat is supplanted by a heavy, thick fetor she can taste in her mouth. The air - if that's what it is - pushes down on her.
A step and her feet kicks up some translucent fluid that cannot be water. It hangs in the air a second longer than it should, and falls back to the dusted concrete.
"Mako-chan," Haru whispers. Makoto feels her friend's hand wrap through her own. "I've been here before. I dreamed this."
Makoto lifts her gaze to the sky. "No, Haru. I don't think you did."
#
"Oh, I'm sorry," Ohya snaps in a voice that makes it clear she's not. "I didn't realize I was someone you could brush off, like a girlfriend you don't want to see anymore."
Akira holds the phone away from his ear. In person, Ohya's voice can be a bit much. Over the phone, adding in the digital scramble, it can feel like a drill tunneling into his brain.
"I'm not-" He starts.
"What have you got going on anyway?"
"I have work," he tells her. He hates how his voice sounds. "I can't tonight."
"At the flower shop?" Ohya asks.
"Yes, at the flower shop," he says, mimicking her tone. "So I can't do anything tonight, and I'm not blowing you off. I want to help and I will. I just can't tonight."
"Fine." The call ends.
Akira shoves his phone back into his pocket. He lifts his glasses away from his face and rubs his eyes. People, with their eyes glued to their own phones and folded up newspapers, march their way across his vision. He pushes himself away from the Hachiko Wall of Shibuya Station, turns, and regards one of the interpretations of the faithful animal.
It stares down at him, stone eyes patient with a faint hint of hope.
"Oh, fuck you," Akira tells it, and shoulders his bag.
Haru had not been at school.
Neither had Makoto.
Akira's mind had sundered itself over the various possibilities encountering those two had implied. He had no expected to not encounter them. The whole day, he'd been a basket case, nerves shot through the stratosphere. And here he was, on his way to his job, where he might or might not encounter Haru.
Morgana isn't with him. Things with the Phantom Thieves would move on, and the cat had his own assignment for the night.
Pulse like a thunderclap, he turns the corner towards Rafflesia, and finds Hanasaki standing there, sentinel still, smiling at the mall-goers.
"Good evening, Kurusu-kun," she says.
Akira walks up to her smiling. "Hi. Is Haru here yet?"
Hanasaki shakes her head. "I'm afraid not. I haven't heard from her today."
There's acid in his chest. Morgana had intervened in Haru's attack. Had stepped in to defend her. What if the guy had come back? What if he'd done something to Haru?
"Kurusu-kun?" Hanasaki asks, brows furrowed. "Are you alright?"
Akira nods. "Yeah. I'm fine. Sorry." He enters the shop and begins his shift.
Haru does not show.
He goes through his motions. Waters the plants. Feeds them nutrients. Speaks with customers. Puts together orders.
If the guy did something to Haru, did he do something to Makoto too? Is that why she wasn't at school either? Haru heard Morgana talk. She must've told Makoto about it. He's - more or less - the last piece of the puzzle. So what are they doing? Are they okay? Turning us into the police? What the hell is going on?
His shift ends. Hanasaki thanks him for his hard work. He hardly hears her.
Phone in hand, eyes to the screen, he marches towards the exit. There has to be something he can do. Some way of checking on them or finding out what they're doing without exposing himself.
He doesn't look up when he turns the corner, and collides into someone. He stumbles back, shaken, and begins to mutter, "I'm really sorry about that, I wasn't-" But then he looks up into the face of the person he's bumped into. "You?"
#
"Navigation Complete."
Makoto and Haru stumble out of the Metaverse - though they do not know its name - and come to a halt outside the station, eyes on the concrete sidewalk, hands on their knees. Breath coming in pants.
Pedestrians spare them little more than a few, disinterested glances, before continuing on their very many ways. The sky is dimmer than before.
How long were we gone? Makoto wonders.
She looks to find Haru staring at her phone. The girl straightens, holding the device in both hands, and whispers, "Thank goodness that worked."
Makoto nods, takes a few deep breaths, and nods again. "So now, the question is, how did you get back last time?"
Haru's eyes flick to her. "Mako-chan-" Haru starts.
"Because." Makoto gestures with one hand as she speaks. "Because if you used your own phone, then why wasn't the app on it when we checked it later?"
"Makoto-"
"That would mean you got out another way, and it wouldn't explain why you were unconscious. It's possible someone else took you out and-"
"Makoto!" Haru squeaks.
Silent, she stares at her.
"What was that place?" Her friend asks her.
Makoto shakes her head. "I've got no idea. Let's find some place to sit."
They find rest on one of the small garden walls surrounding the Hachiko Statue, and Makoto utilizes a nearby vending machine to buy two green teas.
She returns and hands one to Haru, who thanks her, and twists the bottle cap off.
"I think," Makoto says, as she sits back down. "Beyond a doubt, that the app is what Takamaki must've been looking for."
Haru takes a sip of tea, then says, "But it doesn't make sense for her to have put it on my phone."
"Maybe she didn't put it on," Makoto replies. "Maybe she tried to get rid of it, but didn't do a proper job of it."
"If that's true," Haru whispers, before taking another sip. "Then maybe you were right. Mona-chan was following me to make sure I wouldn't use it, and send myself to that weird place accidentally."
"But when Sugimura came at you," Makoto powers on. "It forced him to intervene. He didn't anticipate that you'd be able to understand him, so he didn't make an effort to hide it." She nods, each little step foward making more sense as she says it. "You couldn't understand him before, but Akira could. You said it yourself, it's like they've had conversations." She stands, exhaustion forgotten. "And you spotted Morgana at Shibuya Station the other day, and then, seconds later you go trasported to that place. It must've been by accident. That's why they knocked you out. They wanted to make sure you thought it was a dream or some kind of crazy hallucination. And going there must've somehow installed or initiated the installation of the app on your phone. Which is why Takamaki came with us to my place. Which means Takamaki knows about the app, and knows what it can do."
She walks in small circles now. The pieces snap into place. "What if that other world is the key to everything?"
"Everything?" Haru asks.
"Daisuke told me he just felt different when the Phantom Thieves changed his heart. Kamoshida wasn't blackmailed or threatened, according to the police. He just changed. And your phone, when we said Sugimura's name earlier, stated, 'Match Found.'" She walks up to Haru, reaches down, and lifts the phone free from her hands. Then she turns it around to show her. "What if this is how the Phantom Thieves operate? What if the app lets them go to that other world and somehow they're able to change hearts?" She ponders this for another second. "They keep slipping up and making mistakes around us, but for all that, there's little physical evidence linking them to the Phantom Thieves. What if this is why? There's not much evidence in our world because they're not doing it in our world! They're using their phones to teleport to some sort of dreamscape with a magical cat that allows them to change hearts!" She looks at Haru and a grin breaks across her face. "That's it!"
Haru meets her gaze. Then, a smile cracks her lips. A small laugh worms its way out of her mouth, followed by a larger one. Then, an even bigger one.
The bone deep weariness reminds Makoto of its presence, but she cannot help it. She starts to laugh too.
The girls throw back their heads and laugh and laugh and laugh.
"Oh my god," Makoto says, when she finally settles down. "I think I need sleep. And a hot springs trip. I need to sleep in a hot springs. For a week."
"For a month," Haru counters. She reaches out, and Makoto hands her the phone back. "I don't know if I'm up for this, Mako-chan."
Makoto takes a seat next to her, and sips her tea. "It was one thing when we were just following Akira and his friends around. Now, we've got a talking cat, and a phone that can send you to an alternate reality, or whatever. It is a bit much."
Haru shrugs. "Just a bit."
"I never thought it would actually be magic."
"I did," Haru says, a smirk on her face.
They hadn't gone deeper into the other world's Shibuya Station. The black of it had waited for them like a gullet, and from below, over the faint, rancid howl of some subterreanean wind, Makoto swore she could hear the soft whisper of chains.
They'd explored a small area around the station, but fear of getting lost kept them from going too far. Only the station itself seemed to promise some kind of discovery, but Makoto hadn't been willing to risk it. Haru had fiddled with the app for a while, and they'd made it back.
"Alright," Makoto says, as she feels some of the strength return to her legs. "We should get going."
"Going?" Haru asks.
Makoto nods. "We've got to get you some supplies, since you'll be staying with me. And since we're already at the mall, we may as well do it now."
Haru yawns. "Okay." She stands. Her balance shifts as she rises, and Makoto reaches out to steady her, but feels her own weight betray her. Haru stops herself before she falls. "Oh my," she mutters. "I think that place may have taken a lot more out of me than I suspected."
"Me too," Makoto replies. Her limbs feel very heavy. "Maybe we should just head back? Sis and I have a pretty good stockpile of toiletries anyway."
"I think that'd be for the best," Haru tells her. "I don't know if I could manage to do any shopping right now."
Makoto shoves herself to her feet, takes Haru's arm in hers and begins to turn. She takes a single step and bumps into someone's chest. She blinks, jumps back, and focuses on the face of the newcomer.
Her eyes widen.
"You?"
##
A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks for the well wishes.
I hope you enjoyed today's chapter.
Here's the deal. I went back and reread a number of the chapters I've written since this one, and I hated them.
The major storybeats are all there, but there's little else. Everything feels very mechanical. Very subpar.
I'm going to need to redo all these. It's not back to the drawing board, just back to the drawing.
The next chapter will be up on Friday. I'll have more info then. Thank you very much for reading Crimson, I really appreciate it.