Chapter 18

He decides not to leave the cafe for the rest of the day, at least until Sakura-san leaves for the evening. Yet, even when that time rolls around, anxiety cements him in the doorway of the cafe and forcing him to double check that the gun was still hidden. He checks the glass panes that separate Leblanc from the rest of Yongen-Jaya more times than he can count; each time, he gazes through, half expecting to see Sakura-san on the other side with an army of officers in tow.

It's after midnight when he finally takes a step out of the cafe and finds himself in the bathhouse across the street, scrubbing stress sweat out of his skin, thankful that he'll have the rest of the week to catch up the rest he's depriving himself of to keep watch.

He checks under the bed when he returns, still dripping wet onto the floor as he peers underneath the mattress. Without much light reaching it from behind boxes of supplies, Akira can barely make out the shape of the folded up bag he'd gotten from Untouchable, but it still crinkles under his hand when he grips the gun's handle through it.

Still there... He notes once more, relieved. Allowing his fingers to slip away from the gun and his arm from underneath the perpetually dusty mattress, Akira climbs onto the bed, ever cognizant of the burning presence lingering just beneath the sheets.

When he's about to fade from consciousness, he feels Morgana finally climb onto the bed with him, dipping the mattress underneath him until he finally plummets between both of his legs.

When he wakes up, Morgana is on top of him, one set of claws digging into shoulder and the other set of paws curled between his chest and arm.

Akira's first waking thought is that Morgana was far too heavy, his second was a burning hot feeling that stabbed through him; his desire to check under the bed, just one more time. He decides, however, to wait until his roommate is awake- and off of him- before doing that.

Morgana doesn't budge for another hour, of which he spends most of doing his best to ignore the pain that is finally registering. The cat doesn't apologize when he finally removes himself from the bed and Akira doesn't bring it up either. Instead, he slides himself off of the mattress, jetting up a layer of dust from the floorboards as he does so. When his hand slides under the bed once more, gripping onto the more familiar sturdiness of the gun, Akira releases a sigh; with it goes an ache in his chest that he hadn't been aware of.

He pulls his hand away, then allows himself to get ready for the day. Somehow, though, before he's consciously realized it, he's already settled back into the attic, keeping guard on the bed, no shoes, no phone. Even his glasses are still tucked away on the shelf beside his bed.

He wouldn't be leaving LeBlanc today either.

"Joker," Morgana says, climbing onto the bed after he does, "I think we should go to Mementos today; I want to examine those doors more closely and there has to be something that causes them to open."

Akira doesn't move to get off of the bed, but he does reach over and pull his phone from its charger. Swiping away notifications, he pulls open a blank page and begins typing, only to erase the entire thing and start again.

"I don't feel like leaving today. Sorry." He offers the most truth he's able to; he'd like nothing more to get out of Yongen-Jaya and return the gun to clerk at Untouchable. He just can't seem to work up the nerve, though. His courage will come to him eventually, when the nerves die down, just like the rumbling of Kamoshida did.

Morgana pouts, raising and lowering different parts of his lips. Dark, oceanic eyes stare at him while he sits there, nearly mollified by a cat.

A cat that's human. He corrects, sneaking a glance only to find Morgana still staring, unblinking.

His teammate eventually gives up, retreating to the couch on the far side of the room and staring at nothing in particular. When he climbs out of bed, grabbing his glasses on the way, Morgana has no reaction; and when he climbs back onto his guard post with his schoolbag and the journal that Sakura-san had given him, Morgana remains subdued to the dusty leather of the sofa.

Given that he doesn't have much to do outside of school and their altercations in the MetaVerse, there isn't much from his notes that he has to go over and the homework they'd be assigned for the break is completed in a short number of hours, leaving him with not much to do besides stare at the blank journal.

An entire month, Akira recognizes idly, flicking through the leather-bound journal's pages even though he knows them all to be blank. He finds it almost ironic, that someone like him would find nothing to write about. The MetaVerse itself could fill up multiple novels, his strange interactions since moving could fill some more, the nightmares and feelings of dread that constantly threaten to swallow him up. Even the number of odd smells he's experienced in Tokyo could fill a pamphlet or two.

He considers, however briefly, about writing about the Phantom Thieves, but knows if the journal- much like the gun he's guarding- were to ever be found, his probation would most likely lead to jail time.

Akira decides to write about Shujin Academy instead, completely ignoring it's MetaVerse counterpart. He's stumped a moment later, only managing to write down the names of his teachers and what class he's in. None of his classmates will talk to him, the teachers glare at him; the principal himself banned his best method of communication.

Am I the only one? He's not deaf, but surely there had to be someone that needed sign as much as he did at their school. He doesn't write about Kobayakowa or the embarrassment he feels whenever he has to drag the dry-erase board from his desk to present his answers.

He debates on writing about Sakamoto or Takamaki. He could just cross out anything that would be incriminating, but their Phantom Thief selves and their real selves were, undoubtedly, connected. Most likely, if it hadn't been for Kamoshida's palace, Sakamato would have never had a reason to speak to him again; would find it too troublesome to constantly read whatever he had to say. Takamaki was the same as well, though they shared a class for most of the day.

Is it weird that's she's the only one? Nobody else in his class looked at him, though they did still talk about him, yet Takamaki was constantly texting and talking to him.

Mishima, too. He figures, though the other boy only spoke to him once, and only about his connection to the Phantom Thieves.

He wonders if it would be suspicious if he just wrote nothing about his teammates, except for Kaito, who he happened to find on his way home from the station one day. Just an ordinary cat who liked to meow.

Akira writes about Takamaki first. She sits in front of him for most of the day, is taller than him; she's nice to him. He doesn't mention how her screams are still fresh in his memory, one of turmoil and one of rage; doesn't mention Kamoshida's apology to hear, how he faded from existence after she seared him into an ashy facsimile of a king.

Writing about Sakamoto is more conflicting, he's unsure what to say about the blond that wouldn't set off any alarms that Sakura-san might have. Eventually, he brings up his first day of school, running into the other boy and their run in with the police; something that Sakura-san already knows about. He makes a note of how nice the other boy is to him as well and mentioning nothing about his status as a delinquent or the vulgar language he tends to use.

The picture he's making is almost idyllic and he wonders- fears- that anyone who were to read this journal would see right through his half-truths. The Kurusu Akira on the pages aren't him, not really, yet he continues to write about the man as if he knew him. A normal teenager who has friends, who went to Big Bang Burger for the first time almost a month ago; his disability isn't mentioned once, nor his probation, or the strange adults that seem to put him in the most compromising positions. Instead, he's a youth that goes to Shujin Academy, one ignorant of the truth.

The Akira transcribed in ink wasn't the truth. But, even if he felt guilty for lying, he still jots down tidbits of his life, his hand unconstrained by the anxiousness that's threatening the flatten his heart.

Home jumps into his head before he can stop it, of writing in a journal similar to this one.

An entire month had passed since he'd started his probation, yet nothing had come from his parents.

Would they write? He questions, closing the journal and sliding it onto the windowsill.

A part of him feared that they wouldn't.

What would we even talk about? It's only been a month since he's moved to Tokyo, yet home seemed like a lifetime ago.

When Akira finally manages to pull out of distant memories, the attic is stained in rusty orange. The sun, somehow, managing to peak through the numerous buildings blocking the horizon and cast its fading glow into Yongen. The air around him still thrummed with activity and barely travelling murmurs, the permeating aroma of Sakura-san's curry and coffee were still pungent from where he was. Each intake of breath was like a punch to the stomach, making it growl louder and louder until the noise was no more disregardable than the pain pulsing from his mid-section.

He was hungry again, a side-effect of his expanding stomach; Tokyo was spoiling him.

When the whispers and smells from downstairs finally died out, so did his distractions from his boredom. Moments later, though, the stairs creaked noisily, announcing Sakura-san's presence.

Akira resisted the urge to bolt over the side of the bed and check the gun once again, but he did sit straight up in the middle of the bed, letting his calves fall over the sides along with half the blanket to, hopefully, cover any questionable items he'd concealed under there.

"You stay up here all day?" Sakura-san eventually asked, casting shadows over him and Morgana.

Akira nodded, swallowing around silent confessions and staring at the ground between them. He found himself, not for the first time, unable to look towards his guardian's face in fear that his guilt might show. When he lifted a hand to push up his glasses, but finding only empty space where the lenses would be, he let his fingers tug on strands of his own hair, twisting them out of his face.

"Why?" His guardian questions, crossing his arms over his apron and blocking out the lower half of Leblanc's name.

His fingers, in tandem with his heart, cease all motion for a long, eternal second, before resuming. His heart continues to pound noisily at his heaving rib cage, his fingers fall from his hair, gesturing to the notebooks scattered over the mattress. His palm finally lands on the journal that Sakura-san had given him and he considers handing it over, but decides to wait until the man asks for it or changes the subject. Instead of the journal, though, Sakura-san plucks up one of the identical notebooks on the bed and flips it open.

Sakura-san's gaze flicks over his notes, yet Akira can still feel the man's disapproving stare as if the man's gaze was locked onto him through the pages.

"Studying?" His caretaker asks, clapping the notebook shut with one hand. Akira flinches. "During break?"

He nods, in turn, to both questions.

Sakura-san's face flows through different expressions, each equally unreadable. Eventually, the older man sighs, then returns the notebook to the small pile on the bed.

"Your food is downstairs," He says, back turned and departing, "Don't burn the place down."

Akira nods to an absent figure. His stomach growls at the prospect of a meal, but he doesn't attempt to stand until he hears the cafe's door slam shut. Even then, it's only to finally check under the bed. Akira peers into the darkness, crawling under the bed completely this time and resting one hand over the paper bag at the back. The other is used as a pillow, folded up along with his knees until he's entirely submerged in the mattress' shadow.

It's quiet under the bed, the dark, borderline claustrophobic atmosphere reminds him of home. He doesn't smell curry or coffee, his stomach doesn't growl after hours of being empty. His head doesn't throb with boredom. His hand isn't concealing a realistic looking model gun.

He's merely Akira.

When he jerks out of the calm, he inhales a cloud of dust and chokes on it. He does his best to hack up the debris without outright spitting it on the floor and he's able to pull himself out from under the bed with his lungs intact. The gun is still here, hidden behind boxes and strange medicine. The attic is much louder when he's not surrounded on all sides, yet deafeningly quiet. He can't feel another's presence, aside from Morgana's and the personas quietly stewing inside of him.

Gross... He thinks moments later, pulling his hand away from his hair only to find that that too is covered in a thick layer of dust.

Akira bathes with purpose, once again not risking using the hot springs and double checking that the bathing area was doctor free before pulling his clothes off.

When he returns to Leblanc, smelling of tea leaves, the first thing he does is stick his head under the bed once more, checking the gun for the last time that evening before climbing onto the bed.

There's a long silence, then he wakes up to the sounds of birds and coffee makers. For once, he can hear the television downstairs, expanding on recent events and the weather. Nothing he finds particularly interesting, not enough to have woken him up.

Morgana is back on the bed. It's something that he notices only when he sits up. The black and white cat is on the edge of the bed, as far away as possible while still remaining on the attic's mattress.

When Morgana awakens, or notices that he's awake, he says nothing to him. Instead, the feline patrols the attic at a slow, rhythmic pace.

He must be bored... Akira realizes sometime in the afternoon, watching Morgana strut around when he's supposed to be reviewing his notes over quadratic formulas. The cat still refuses to look up at him and Akira feels guilty for the quarantine he's put the two of them under, too aware of Morgana's mission in Mementos. Unable to cave in, he finds it difficult to apologize or offer an explanation to his teammate- especially when Morgana won't even glance towards him.

When the cafe closes that night, he offers to take Morgana around Yongen before he heads into the bathhouse. Getting the cat to look at him, or at the phone in his hand more specifically, is more challenging than the actual act of walking around the near-rural district.

Akira's feet tremble in his boots, which snakes up his calves and liquefies control of his knees. He jogs unsteadily behind Morgana just to keep up, his entire body threatening to crumble under him as spring air hisses through trashed alleyways. Morgana slips through the alleyways of Yongen-Jaya with ease, hopping over tipped over trash bins and, somehow, avoiding the murky puddles that lurk on the other side of each of them.

Akira isn't as lucky or graceful, he steps into each puddle they pass, cringing as the opaque puddles make his steps sticky and loud, the noise amplified with the dead silence of the area around them.

Morgana abandons him and Akira can only run around a few corners before he finally stumbles, barreling into an empty street as his feet stumble under him. He feels the pain in his wrists first, where he tried to soften the impact to his head; then it erupts in his knees where mud and dirt are caked on his jeans.

When he stands up, he glances into the dark around him, trying to use the moonlight to spot Morgana's oceanic gaze in the night, only for there to be nothing. Dragging himself to his feet, Akira hisses, reaching down on reflex to grasp at his burning leg. He considers going after Morgana, but when his next step finally crumbles under him, then the next, he decides to head to the bathhouse instead, hoping that Morgana wouldn't run into any danger.

The cat was waiting on Leblanc's step when Akira emerged from the opposite alleyway. The cat was back to avoiding him, not saying a word as Akira unlocks the cafe and steps inside. When he wakes up the next morning, Morgana is back on the bed, curled in the corner and far away from him.

He's not sure what any of it means.

When Children's day finally arrives, there's a long stretch of flesh that's only beginning to scab over that drops down from his knee and ends halfway to his ankle. It burns when he stands up from bed, even more so when he crouches to reach under the bed. When his hand wraps around the model gun and uncoils from it, he doesn't pull himself fully out from under the mattress. Instead, he grabs at the still full box of medicine along with the other loose containers he'd somehow accumulated.

He unscrews the lid on a jar of multivitamins first, figuring that would be the easiest place to start. Each of the tablets in the bottle are all identical; small, cylindrical, and white. When he swallows two of them, his mouth is overwhelmed with the taste of peaches.

The next bottle is the already opened jar of cream that's supposed to reduce his already present scars. Akira applies the minty mixture around the curves of his ribs, but avoids brushing any of it around his leg, not sure how much it would help the still present injury but more than certain that it would burn more than the cream does already.

Sifting through the box that Sakura-san had left, he finds something that might work. Anti-septic cream with pain relief. He doesn't recognize any of the ingredients that are listed under Takemi's name. After a moment of hesitation, he ends up rubbing the cream into and around the injury.

The hiss is rend from his mouth before he can clamp it down. The noise surprises him enough that he recoils from it, jerking back against the edge of the bed he's leaning on. Across from him, Morgana looks in his direction for the first time that morning. Akira thinks he can see one of Morgana's eyebrows lift under the dark folds of fur, but he can't confirm it before Morgana is facing the other way, looking down the stairwell of the cafe; for a moment, Akira wondered if he hallucinated the entire thing.

After using the cafe's bathroom to get dressed, Akira finally checks his phone. There's a surprising number of notifications. All of them are from Ryuji and Ann, some personal messages, but most of them were concentrated in the group chat. A lot of the messages are the same, asking if he's going to show up, about his health, if he's sold the medal.

Glancing over at his pillow, where he tucked away the bills, Akira smiles to himself as he confirms.

The replies are almost instantaneous; Takamaki sending the address they're to meet at once again, along with a picture and Ryuji reacting to it.

Something about the picture makes him uncomfortable.

Fancy... He comments to himself, feeling under dressed just look at the building.

Are we really going here?

Inside of him, Arsene curls his presence around his own, making him feel warmer and that much more uncomfortable. Without words- or thoughts- he can tell that his persona is pleased.

Akira ends up digging through his box of clothes once more, looking for something more presentable than t-shirts and jeans, but doesn't find anything that quells the uncomfortable lurch under his skin. Tugging on a hoodie and pulling the straps of his schoolbag over his shoulder makes him feel more comfortable, though, and he hopes that feeling will last through this afternoon.

All of that comfort sinks into his shoes when he approaches the stairway and meets eyes with Morgana. His first instinct is to look away, and he uses that moment of panic to pull out his phone.

"I'm sorry." He says, finally; which he is, he's just not sure what for.

Morgana looks at the screen, then up at him. Akira can feel the cat's gaze like a physical presence, much like Arsene's. He doesn't say anything, not even as he climbs into the bag hanging from Akira's shoulder. He's not sure if it's an acceptance or not, but he decides to take it as it comes, carrying the two of them in the cafe and towards the door.

A loud bang pulls him away from his thoughts, making him jump. Under his arm, he can feel Morgana do the same. Akira turns around, releasing his hold on the cafe's door and spotting Sakura-san staring at him from the other end of the cafe. There's a plate of curry on the bar in front of him, most likely the cause of the sudden noise.

"You headed out?" Sakura-san questions gruffly, setting down a glass of water on one side of the plate and a spoon on the other.

Akira nods towards the floor, wondering if he should have asked permission first.

Sakura-san makes a noise, "Better eat, then, today is gonna be busy here today and I can't afford to close the cafe because you can't take care of yourself."

Akira approaches the bar, sitting down at his spot and avoiding clashing gazes with his guardian as he nods once more. Internally, the words make him recoil. Red, hot shame starts bubbling in stomach when he hears those words; a near-identical statement to the one Takemi had made the last time she'd seen him.

He realizes, stupidly, that he had only come down from the attic to use the bathroom and bathe. Not once had he entered the cafe's kitchen to eat something, something that Sakura-san must have- most definitely noticed. He considers up making the argument that he was on the way to get food, but can't bring himself to reach for his phone while Sakura-san is glaring down at him from behind a Sudoku.

Akira ends up eating the entire plate of curry and rice without really tasting it; he swallows around the mushy lumps that it creates when he puts it in his mouth, he also smells how good it must taste, but his tongue refuses to cooperate.

Sakura-san seems satisfied with him as washes the dishes, a curve of his lips showing just that before he's dismissed out of the cafe with the instructions to come back in the evening to assist him.

Walking through one of the small alleys of Yongen-Jaya, Akira lurches forward and throws up into an empty trashcan. The sound echoes out of the bin and makes him do it again. He wipes flecks of curry off of his lip, staring into the mess he's made, more curious than annoyed, more scared than curious. His stomach recoils once again, but it only slows down his pace instead of halting it as he heads to the train station.

Morgana remained quiet through the whole ordeal, something that he was grateful for for reasons he couldn't explain.

The hotel that Takamaki told them to meet up wasn't accessible through just his regular train pass and, as he was digging through his bag- carefully avoiding coming into contact with Morgana- for some coins, something landed on his shoulder and he croaked out a gasp before he could stop it. Heart pounding, he turned his head over his shoulder and spotted Sakamoto instead of any of the things he'd been fearing.

"Did I scare ya?" The blond asks, a lopsided grin offering a curved window of the boy's sharp teeth.

Still stunned, it takes a moment to recover before responding. He shrugs, quietly huffing out a sigh as an attempt at slowing the racing, hammering sensation in his chest.

Ryuji shrugs too, "You hyped about this place? I was lookin' the place up earlier on the net and heard they got Kobe just on stock, ya know?" His grin gets larger, impacting other areas of his face, namely the curves around his eyes, "Which basically means unlimited steak!"

The taste of his own vomit is still the predominant taste in his mouth, but Akira nods vaguely, not exactly certain about the excitement Sakamato seemed to have.

"Anyways," Sakamoto says, digging into his pocket with one hand and pulling out a handful of coins, "We should probably hurry, Ann's probably getting pissy by now."

Without asking, and before Akira can interfere, the blond ends up paying the toll for both of them. Past the turnstiles, Ryuji doesn't stop long enough for Akira to thank him and it's not until they're seated across from each other on the next train that he's able to hand his phone over.

"Thank you?" Sakamoto reads out loud, glancing down at the screen between them then back up at him, "What for?" He asks.

Akira blinks, then replaces his message with another one.

"You paid for me at the station."

Sakamoto's eyebrows lift as he reads the message, "Did I?" He queries, as if Akira were being the strange one.

Akira nods, unsure why or how Sakamoto had forgotten something so soon after it had happened.

"Spot me on the way back, then?"

He nods again.

Then it's quiet between the two of them until they arrive at their stop. Once they step out of the station, however, Sakamoto gasps loudly. Akira glances in his direction, concerned, then tracks the blond's line of sight.

Big... Is his first thought.

Really big... He rationalizes a moment later, staring up at the massive building that's meant to be their destination.

"The picture didn't do this place justice..." Sakamoto comments.

Akira is inclined to agree, though the notion only makes him feel even more under dressed than he thought he would be.

Takamaki is waiting outside when they finally step into the shadow the building casts. She notices them right away and waves exaggeratedly in their direction. It's not hard for him to notice how well that the girl is dressed compared to himself, or to Sakamoto- who's wearing the same type of outfit he had worn to their meeting at Big Bang Burger.

Her bright red earrings are one of the first thing he notices. They tilt as her head does, exposing the sharp lines of her collared shirt as her hair moves out of the way.

His skin crawls in unease, feeling out of place even when they're only just outside.

"What took you guys so long?" She asks, tone not as intense as when Sakura-san or Takemi questioned his tardiness.

When he glances up at her, she doesn't seem particularly annoyed; smiling even, though he knows by now what smiles can hide.

He shrugs in response, glancing toward Sakamoto.

"Got lost?" He laughs.

"Kind of hard to miss this place." Takamaki snaps back, then laughs as well.

The bag under his shoulder stirs, bringing his attention to Morgana as the cat squirms out of the opening in the zipper.

"Lady Ann!" He says loudly, causing the laughter between the two to cease.

"You really don't have to call me that," Takamaki greets, "Just Ann is fine."

Morgana slinks back into the bag without another word, then things are silent for a moment before Ann shatters it with a hitch of her hand pointing towards the hotel's gilded entrance.

"Shall we?" She questions, taking a step back.

Akira watches as Ryuji follows after her, then he does the same, stepping off the noisy street and into the hotel's lobby. The sound from outside is muted the instant the door slides shut behind him, causing the hair on the base of his neck to stand on end. Instead of city noise, the lobby's air is filled with soft, barely there orchestra music that Akira doesn't notice until his ears fully adjust. The entire room emits a fancy smelling odor that he probably wouldn't recognize, along side that is the smell of cooking food that makes him want to vomit all over again.

While the lobby they walked through was decorated in pale shades of white, the place where they end up sitting is mostly dark, saccharine red. The rugs covered the fancy tiles, the table clothes, the chair covers, even the velvet ropes that tie off the eating areas are wrapped in crimson. It's an unusual moment for him; he's certain he's never seen this much of the color anywhere before.

A tall man behind a podium stops them as they're about to enter the buffet.

"Payment?" He asks, glancing between the three of them. Then two additional sets of eyes are on him, staring at him.

Oh. He realizes after a long moment of fidgeting under their looks before reaching for his pocket. Unfolding the bills, he extends them towards the man. He watches, enraptured, as the man's fingers flick through thirty thousand yen with ease; he's a little sad to see it go, especially considering how much it had cost all of them to get it. Without the bills in his hand, they feel a little empty, and he grabs onto a lock of his hair with one of them to settle them down, the other hangs loosely at his side, perpetually clammy. He wonders when the next time he'll have access to that much cash ever again.

Probably never. Akira sums up, watching as the man hands some bills back to Takamaki, who then extends the change to him. Using his free hand and whatever math his frazzled brain can come up with, he divvies up the remainder and hands it to his two teammates.

"Huh?" Takamaki drawls, "For me?"

Nodding, he hands her a small fraction of the thousands of yen they'd just spent.

Sakamoto accepts his portion with nothing more than, "Sweet!"

"If you'll follow me." The man behind the podium says, tugging on one his pristine white gloves. For some reason, he finds the gesture kind of cool.

The seats the man takes them to are in the back of the roped off space, though no less opulent than any of the other spaces in the place. Each of them takes up a side of the table, leaving plenty of empty space between them that is decorated with table ornaments that are wrapped in gold or made of luminescent glass.

The utensils are even gold... He notices after accidentally nudging one of his three spoons with his elbow as he's moving to set Morgana down in a place where he won't be easily seen, an easy enough tasks considering how secluded they are from the other people in the room.

"We only have an hour in here before they kick us out," Takamaki explains, "So let's go!"

Sakamoto scrambles to his feet, chasing after the blonde as she ditches the table.

The entire room smells like food; quality, well-made food, stuff that people pay tens of thousands of yen to take a piece of. He knows that, yet something in the back of his head- and his stomach- gives him the impression that this- all of this- is wrong. Akira isn't meant to be here, dressed in a jacket covered in cat hair while everyone else is in suits, dresses, and custom-made shoes.

Just under the layer of cat hair and cotton, he's sweating like a pig, only serving to make him feel even more nervous and even more out of place.

"Uh, dude?" Ryuji calls, back from the buffet with a plate in each hand; both are piled to the tipping point and Akira feels anxious just looking at them, even when the blond finally sets them on the table, only to place a hand on his shoulder.

Akira shudders, uncomfortable.

"You good?" Ryuji continues, "You look a little sick."

Akira pauses, attempting to pull the pieces of himself back together only for them to slip through his fingers and onto the floor like loose sand. He shrugs, though he's not sure how delayed his reaction is and ends up twisting a piece of his hair to try and alleviate the painful tension that's wracking up his spine and neck.

"Well, make sure to get extra everything." Sakamoto advices, smiling down at him, then to the stack of cubed meat- presumably the Kobe that he'd mentioned earlier.

Nodding dutifully, Akira takes Morgana back under his arm and steps around the table and towards the elegant looking buffet. He passes Ann on the way and, much like Sakamoto, had both of her hands full with plates, only instead of meat, hers were stacked high with desserts; most he didn't recognize, but he could smell how sweet they were when he passed and is forced to make another attempt at holding in the contents of his stomach.

He succeeds, but only just.

Morgana peers out from under his arm when he finally manages to locate a stack of plates. He only grabs one, scared that he might trip and end up wasting expensive food with a result of them being removed.

Glancing between the aisles of packed serving trays, he feels overwhelmed with options and embarrassed that he only recognizes half the things being served. Around him, the formally dressed clients ignore him completely. Not glaring, not staring; they don't even glance in his direction. It puts him at ease, like he's finally slipping back into the comfortable.

"I smell fish." Morgana whispers, sticking his nose high into the air. "That way!"

Akira follows his teammate's directions, hoping that conceding would repair whatever wounds lie between them, excluding his leg.

At Morgana's demand, he piles expensive looking sushi rolls onto his- their- plate, and quickly returns to the table before the thing threatens to topple.

His other two teammates stare at them when they return, odd expressions on their faces.

"I didn't know you liked sushi, Akira-kun." Ann comments. Her smile draws his attention to the smear of cream that's blotted the make-up on her face.

He shrugs, plucking a strip of meat from the top of one of the sushi pieces and offering it to his schoolbag.

A loud groan erupts from beside him, startling him enough to recoil his hand and activate his thief vision. The world spirals into blue for a moment, but when he blinks to adjust his new perspective, all the color melts back into his line of sight.

"So good." Morgana purrs from underneath the table, only to climb onto it a moment later, "No wonder you chose this place, Lady Ann."

Akira glances over at Takamaki, watches her pull a golden utensil from her mouth with a smile. "Of course it's good! It's a famous hotel after all..."

"Not to mention the price..." Ryuji tacks on.

The table is quiet after that, until Takamaki sits up straight, pulling her face away from a now empty plate.

"So..." She starts, staring at him, then at Sakamoto.

"So?"

"To the Phantom Thieves?" She proposes quietly, lifting up a glass filled with something translucent and bubbly that he doesn't recognize.

Across from her, Sakamoto lifts his own glass, "Phantom Thieves!" He cheers, voice loud enough that Takamaki recoils and glances around for a moment.

"Not so loud, idiot!"

Sakamoto smiles back, "'s not like anyone here would know who the Phantom Thieves of Hearts are." His voice much quieter.

"Speaking of..." Ann trails off.

"Phantom Thieves?" Sakamoto says, raising his cup back up.

"Phantom Thieves!" She cheers back, knocking her glass against Ryuji's.

They both turn towards him, "Phantom Thieves?" They ask, nearly in unison.

Akira picks up his empty glass, turning it over in his fingers, he extends it towards the middle of the table.

"Phantom Thieves!" They all cheer quietly, all except him.

They quiet down after that, both Sakamoto and Takamaki begin working on their second plate.

"I heard that the police are going to be coming to our school again to investigate about Kamoshida..." Ann picks up again, stabbing a jiggly dessert with her fork.

"Oh?" Morgana pipes in.

Ryuji growls, "Our names are gonna pop up for sure, with those old rumors about us..." His expression rapidly shifts into another smile, "But it's cool that people will still be talking about the Phantom Thieves, right?"

"Yeah, but, um..." Takamaki says in reply, spinning a finger around the rim of her empty glass, the bubbly drink long gone. "I think someone is stalking me... or following me, at least."

Just as easily as she'd raised the mood between them, Takamaki was able to bring it spiraling downwards.

Adjacent to him, Sakamoto starts choking on a piece of meat and ends up spitting it onto the table cloth.

"Stalking?" The blond asks between sips of dark soda, "Someone stalking you?"

Takamaki nods, her gaze is cast towards her plate despite it being empty, "I just get this feeling around school, and when I'm walking to my line, you know? I feel it every day, but I'm just... too scared to look behind me, you know?"

Akira swallows around the lump her words had managed to lodge in his throat. He does understand how she feels, has felt that exact same feeling in Leblanc for the past week. He thinks of Kamoshida, the man who had made everyone at Shujin suffer; wonders if, somehow, the man had avoided prison and was still laying a claim on Ann's life.

"Why would they be followin' you?" Sakamoto questions, frowning deeply, "You sure it ain't because of your modelin' thing?"

Ann shrugs, drooping down into the cushions under her. "I think it might have to do with what we were talking about earlier." She admits.

"About being phantom thieves?"

Takamaki nods again, "Or about Ka-Kamoshida or... I dunno. Maybe I'm just being paranoid..." She laughs, a quiet sound that's drowned out by the classical music playing around them.

There's quiet again, as Takamaki wipes at her eyes, spreading black smudges on the back of her hands. "S-sorry... This was supposed to be a celebration and I kinda blew it."

"Kinda?" Ryuji quips, smiling across the table.

Ann throws her napkin at him, then the crust of something she didn't finish.

"H-hey!" The blond yelps, wiping crumbs off the table, "What are you, nine?"

Something about Sakamoto's reply sets her off. She starts laughing, but trails of tears start sliding over her cheeks.

Ryuji rushes across the perimeter of the table, grabbing onto the blonde's shoulders, "Ann?" He questions. Takamaki doesn't respond with words, instead she pushes her face into the bright purple of Ryuji's jacket, burying the cries that come out as muffled screams. When he glances around, nobody else seems to notice except the people at their table.

"Lady Ann..." Morgana calls out gently, stepping over him and onto the table, closing the distance between the two of them.

Akira fiddles with the rice he refused to feed Morgana, smashing it down with his spoon while he tries to think of something his teammate would find comforting.

"I've just..." Ann ends up saying, pulling away from Ryuji to bury her face in her hands. "Since we got here, I can't stop thinking about Shiho... We've always wanted to come here and with her not here it feels..."

Suzui... He tries his best to drown out his old memories of Suzui, of seeing her exposed and purple or plummeting from the sky; tries to imagine her sitting with them, flinging food back at one of them. For some reason, he just can't picture it.

"Lonely." Ryuji ends up finishing, still rubbing at Takamaki's shaking form.

"You can still do that with her." He sets his phone down in front of her.

"Akira's sayin' something to you, Ann." Ryuji announces quietly.

The blond's presence seems to be enough to pull Takamaki out of herself, and she glances down at the screen. She coughs out a noise that he can't identify, then glances towards him. For some reason, he finds himself unable to look away from her; finds himself taken in by how watery and how blue her gaze is, and how much sadness she shows that even he can identify it.

She laughs though, and Akira is left confused.

"I guess you're right." Ann says, reaching over and grabbing his hand as it was reaching up to tug at his hair; he hadn't even noticed it moving.

Her hands are wet and cold.

So different from her persona... He can't help compare.

"I think Shiho would really like you." Ann whispers to him between a combination of sobbing and laughing.