[Summary: In this chapter, Nanako supports Saki Konishi, gets lectured by a teacher, takes on a part-time job, and learns a little about what makes her aunt tick. The DEATH Squad also gets together to battle the Contrarian King.]
[4/20: Wednesday]
Nanako decided she could get used to this body-numbing exhaustion. It was exhilarating somehow. The soreness felt like... progress.
What she couldn't get used to was Souji's concern. When she winced while bumping into the table, he asked if she was okay.
"I'm totally fine!" she declared.
He didn't look convinced, especially after she winced again when simply getting up from her seat after breakfast.
"Pain is all in the mind," she told him. "I worked out yesterday. You know. For, uh, sports club."
She hoped he'd be curious enough to maybe ask what sport, but he didn't say anything. Hermit child... She vowed to spend more time with him this coming Sunday after their morning television. Maybe she'd take him to a park or something.
Nanako told the DEATH Squad that they could relax today. Entering the TV and fighting otherworldly demon things was just too tiring to do every day. Yosuke apparently had to work, anyway, so it worked out.
She thought about investigating the murders, but wasn't sure where to start. She considered snooping around at the police station, but that was asking for trouble. She probably wouldn't be able to invoke Adachi-san's name to get her out of any mess, nor was she crude enough to invoke her uncle's name. And her dad's name carried no weight here at all.
Saki Konishi, then, was her goal for today. Nanako found her sitting at the bus stop at the southern end of the central shopping district.
"Saki-senpai," Nanako said, unsure of whether she should be chipper or solemn in addressing the upperclassman.
"Oh... it's you. How are you...?" The senior definitely wasn't the same woman Nanako had met last week. Her brother's death must have hit her hard. Nanako had no siblings, but she thought she could understand...
"How are you holding up?" Nanako asked, sitting down on the bench next to her.
"I'm just holding up, barely," Saki replied. "Life sucks."
Nanako nodded. "Just when you think you've got it all worked out, some shit happens, am I right?"
Saki laughed lightly. "I don't think I ever had it all worked out." She shook her head. "I miss my brother, damn it. My family's just about fallen apart."
"Well, hold it together!" Nanako said. "I'll help you if I can."
"I don't know anymore. My parents hate me. I think... They wish it was me—that I died instead of Naoki."
Nanako recalled what she'd learned from Naoki's memories in the replica shopping district in the TV World. Her family yelling at her for working at Junes, for not taking pride in the family business. "I don't know if I'd go that far. You might want to reconcile with them. Not now, but maybe after some time passes. You're their only daughter, right?"
Saki nodded and sighed.
"I hate to do this to you," said Nanako, "but... what happened? I promise I'm not asking to get gossip or anything."
"I don't know," Saki said, burying her face in her hands so her voice was only a mumble. She sighed again and then leaned back. "I was working late that night. I came home and my parents were panicking because Naoki had gone missing. He'd never come home from school. I know he went to school that day because we walk there together. Usually we walk home together, too, but since I had to work I just went straight to Junes. I didn't see him at all that afternoon."
"That's right, you and Naoki were the first to see that announcer lady's body..."
"Y-yeah..." Saki shuddered. "We'd cut out of class early together because it was the first day of school and who cared?" She made a sorrowful face as she obviously regretted that decision.
It probably wouldn't be prudent to question her about the corpse. "A TV antenna, and then a telephone pole. This is messed up. Why would they want to kill your brother?"
"I don't know. The police were worried about the killer going after me next. They questioned me over and over again, thinking maybe Naoki or I saw something to identify the killer. If Naoki knew, he would have told me. He didn't tell me anything. He didn't act any differently so it's not like he was hiding something. Believe me. I knew my brother pretty well. We were two years apart, but I knew him."
"What are you going to do now?"
Although Nanako had asked in a more metaphorical sense, Saki answered, "I was thinking about getting my hair done, but I'm sure people will bother me about it if I do..."
"How do you mean?"
"Like, 'Look at Saki. Her brother's dead and yet she still took the time to look good! She should be in mourning!'"
"Oh, screw them!" Nanako exclaimed. "You've got to take care of yourself! Here, I'll come with and we can get it done together!"
Saki stared at her for a moment and then broke into a smile. "Sure. The bus should be here any minute."
Nanako hadn't anticipated that Saki could be a social link, but sure enough, that shattering sound happened and she was hearing voices in her head. A large crescent moon was depicted on the card in her mind.
[4/21: Thursday]
Yosuke asked Nanako what was up with her hair the next morning. She was wearing it long instead of tied back, and it had been permed so it was wavy. It wasn't as pretty as Saki's, in her own opinion, because the color was dark, which made it obvious that it was permed, but she was happy enough with it. "Like it?"
"Yeah," Yosuke said. "You should wear your hair down more often."
She wouldn't. She'd already swallowed more than one strand from it flapping into her mouth. Long hair just got in her way too often. Maybe she should get it cut short like Chie.
Besides, Souji had stared at her all night last night because of how different it was from the norm…
She sighed. "Thanks anyway."
"So, umm, Nanako-san..." Yosuke continued. "I don't work today. I was wondering if you had any plans."
"We're going in today!" she told him cheerfully. "We gotta beat up that mega Shadow that's scaring Teddie." Reclaim Hell's Castle from the demon lord, or whatever. "Are you on board with that?"
He leaned forward in his desk in excitement. "Yeah!"
"Good, because 'no' wasn't an option."
Teddie showed them a way to go straight to the top of the castle. It hadn't been available earlier, and when questioned, the bear said the TV World would memorize their progress somehow. Nanako wasn't going to complain. She needed her team ready to fight this thing, not tired from fighting through several floors of Shadows.
"It's beeeary strong," Teddie warned with a whimper when they were standing outside the huge double-door to the throne room. "Boss, it's scary. I don't think you should go in there."
"We can't get better as a team if we don't face the challenge," Nanako said. "Are you all with me? DEATH Squad."
Yosuke was pumped. He threw up a dagger—without the plastic sleeve—and nimbly caught it. Obviously he had been practicing. "Let's do this!"
"It's my castle," Yukiko said with a sniff.
"Yeah! No squatters allowed!" Chie declared.
Without further ado, Nanako pushed open the door. Inside was a Shadow a few feet taller than Yosuke, who was the tallest member of the squad. It was a cartoonish king with curly white hair, beady little black eyes, an ashen face, and a white mustache. It wore royal red robes and carried a fancy golden scepter. Its pink crown was its arcana mask. Emperor, Teddie told her. He also said its name was the Contrarian King.
Upon seeing them, the King formed a red barrier before himself. Teddie informed them that it would protect the enemy from fire. "Fire, huh?" Nanako mused. "Let us know when it wears off! Yukiko, stand by!"
Let's try elemental attacks first, she thought. "Chie, ice it up, and Yosuke, try wind!" Nanako herself prepared to use electricity.
The King swung its scepter before Yosuke could manage to summon his Persona, knocking the boy flat off his feet and into a support pillar. "Yosuke! Get back up!" she scolded while simultaneously invoking Omoikane, but the boy only whimpered and remained on the floor. The electricity grounded itself on the King's crown, but it only stopped him for a second, and then he was swinging his scepter again at Chie. Nanako heard a sickening crunch, but Chie remained standing. In fact, she retaliated by kicking out at the King. "Yeah, Chie! Try and ice it while you kick, maybe!" Nanako suggested, but Chie's face was completely red and she wasn't listening at all.
On the bright side, Chie's next furious kick tripped the King, and it fell backwards. While it was down, Nanako had Yukiko join her in the attack. As Yukiko's fan went sailing by, Nanako wondered at the physics of it and then focused on trying to hack the scepter out of the Shadow's hand with her naginata before it got up again.
The King scrambled to his feet before she succeeded, and then Teddie told her that its Red Wall had worn off. "Yukiko, try fire! Chie, I told you ice, why aren't you listening?"
"Chie's enraged, Boss! She won't listen to anyone like this!"
A large pillar of fire hurtled towards the King, which… laughed? Its mustache twitched like a white worm over its mouth. Yes, it was laughing at them.
"That attack healed it!" Teddie said.
"Oh, you're a bastard," Nanako growled. "Yukiko! Try to get Yosuke—oh shit!"
The king swung its scepter around in a very wide arc. Nanako tried to jump over it, but it ended up catching her legs and sweeping her off her feet. Chie was caught in mid-kick and flung across the room. Nanako scrambled to get up as the King turned its imperious gaze on her.
"Do you still want me to get Yosuke…?" Yukiko asked.
"N-no, heal me, dammit!"
Nanako held up her naginata defensively as the King brought the scepter down on her. When Yukiko's Persona bathed her in its healing light, the King seemed annoyed and turned its body to face her.
"Oh no you don't!" Nanako screamed. "Valkyrie!"
The caped horse-riding Norse woman brought her twin swords down on the King, which shrugged off the attack but was, fortunately, distracted.
"That's right, bitch, it's me you want!" Nanako taunted, acting far more confident than she really was what with half her team down for the count. "Yukiko, get one of them up if you can!"
As the King came forward, she invoked Omoikane for its electric attack, and while the bolt of lightning struck the King, she grabbed the scepter and tried to pull it out of its hand. It was like a tug of war, but to her frustration, she lost and the King punted her painfully to the ground with one of its stupid curly-toed boots. Before she could get up, the King was standing over her, the cross-shaped ornament of the scepter pointing towards her stomach. The Shadow was going to skewer her.
"Archang—" she trailed off into a scream of pain; the King's scepter speared through her arm. Was it toying with her?
No, there was Tomoe, slashing at the King from behind. Chie was back! Her surprise attack had thrown off the King's aim. Nanako would live to see another day.
Well, maybe. Her arm fucking hurt. Of course it was her right arm and she was right-handed. She could hardly pull herself up to her feet, it hurt so much.
Before she could summon Izanami to sing her healing prayer, she was already awash with white light. After it faded, her arm still hurt, but to a lesser extent. "Thanks, Yukiko!" she called.
"Silly Boss," said Teddie in her mind. "That was Yosuke!"
Yosuke's back…? Yes, it seemed Yukiko had been able to bring them both back while Nanako had distracted the Shadow. However, Yukiko wasn't looking so good. She wasn't wounded, but she was holding her head, and Nanako knew that meant she wouldn't be able to keep up healing them. They had to end this soon.
"Yosuke! Stay on guard!" Nanako ordered.
"A-all right!" she heard him call back. "My wind didn't seem to do anything to it, anyway."
"You're on heal duty! Chie! Watch out for that damned scepter!"
The King swung it around again. Yosuke dodged it nimbly, but Chie was flung back. Nanako tried to catch it with her naginata but the force ended up snapping her weapon in half. "Cheap shit!" she swore. "Izanami, go!" The goddess's water attack didn't seem any more effective than the lightning had been.
The scepter was the problem. They had to get it away from him!
She launched herself at the weapon when the King raised it again, but her strength wasn't enough to pull it out of his hands. She didn't let go, hanging on for dear life while he tried to shake her off. He mashed the butt of the scepter on the ground, and the impact made her slide down a few inches, but she held on. An idea came to her. She summoned Omoikane again and tried desperately to aim the lightning to that it'd hit the scepter instead of the crown. It worked, and the King trembled as the electricity traveled through the weapon and singed its hands. Nanako repeated the attack and kicked the King while pulling on the scepter. She hissed as the electricity hurt her, too, but she continued to pull with all her might, and then tried summoning her Persona again to help out. Omoikane obeyed, and with its tentacles also pulling, she was able to wrest the scepter from its hands. She threw it as far across the room as she could manage.
She turned back to the King and grinned wickedly, taunting him. Whatcha gonna do now?
He stared for a moment with his beady eyes, and then slapped her hard with his hand.
A crack rang out at the impact, and her nose felt like it'd been smashed in. All Nanako could see was red, an ocean of blood covering her vision. Pain and a sudden, inexorable fury corroded her senses.
She flung herself at the enemy with a primal howl.
When Nanako came to her senses, it was to a throbbing pain in her right hand. She glanced at it and found that she was gripping the blade to her naginata so tightly that it was cutting deep into the palm of her hand. She blinked muzzily at it, unable to remember when she'd picked it up. It was just the blade—what was left of the haft was a splintery mess.
"What happened...?" she murmured. She looked around, and her teammates seemed to be keeping their distance from her.
"Y-you kind of destroyed that Shadow we were fighting," Yosuke said slowly. "Teddie said you went, ugh, 'bearserk.'"
"The King was dethroned!" the bear commented cheerfully. "By an enraptured Queen Boss!"
"...I think I need to sit down," Yosuke muttered, and he did just that, leaning his back heavily against a column. He was trembling slightly from the adrenaline. "My head's killing me. It was all I could do to keep you healed, Nanako-san. It was like you didn't feel any pain at all when you were attacking it."
"You mean I took it out all by myself in a blind rage?" Nanako asked. "That's... kind of frightening."
"I'll say," Chie piped up. "I wasn't sure which one of you was winning the fight. You were both beating each other pretty badly. We were afraid to help."
"Afraid to get in your way more than anything," Yosuke said sheepishly. "You were pretty determined."
"Must've been, if I was using this," Nanako mused. She tossed the broken naginata blade to the floor and asked Yukiko to heal her hand. She checked her body for wounds, but the healing left her flesh clean and pink, and to her surprise, it didn't seem like there were going to be any scars.
Instead there were plenty of bruises. She poked the one in her forearm left behind by the king's scepter and winced because it was sore already. So, this healing thing had its limits…
"That's definitely enough for today," Nanako said, and the others nodded.
"Boss! The Shadow was hiding something!" Teddie cried. The bear was sniffing around the throne. He produced an elegant-looking fan from behind it. Yukiko gasped in delight and Nanako told her to take it. The spoils of battle... Too bad it hadn't been a new naginata.
Maybe Daidara-san had a return policy?
[4/22: Friday]
Nanako wanted to hang out with Yukiko. She knew the pretty princess was a social link that she'd yet to establish. And she wanted to delve into the mind that had produced that castle. Maybe not too deeply… but she suspected Yukiko was important to get to know. Her Persona was just too awesome not to.
However, Yukiko was always hanging out with Chie. Well, Nanako had essentially ordered the kung fu master to guard her, so she should have expected that, but…
The two girls were already gone when school let out. With a resigned sigh, she turned in her desk to Yosuke behind her, who was messing around with his MP3 player, probably trying to find a particular song to play.
"You doing anything?" she asked.
"Oh, actually, I work today..." he replied with a heavy sigh.
"Again?"
"Yeah. A lot of our part-time help make a habit of calling out, so I'm usually stuck making up their shifts. On the bright side, money. On the downside, work."
"Money, yeah," she grumbled mostly to herself. Her aunt gave her an allowance provided by her father, but she'd already used up this week's and wasn't due to receive the next one until Sunday evening. She wanted to appear reliable to her aunt, so asking for the allowance early wasn't an option.
"You could get a part-time job," Yosuke suggested. "There's a board advertising jobs at the central shopping district."
"Me, work?" She made it sound like he'd suggested she kiss him or something. She wrinkled her nose.
"Careful, if you make a face like that, it might stay that way," he teased. "Anyway, I've gotta go. Have a great day, Nanako-san…"
"'At Your Junes,'" she sung to herself as he left the room. Why was that Junes tune so catchy? If felt like it might have meant something to her in another life.
Regardless, she didn't want to work. She wasn't an adult! Only adults slaved away their entire day for a paycheck.
Well, with her entire DEATH Squad away, she didn't have anything to do. She drummed her fingers on the top of her desk, then saw the sports teams' recruitment notice up on the chalkboard. She didn't want to join a team—neither Chie nor Yukiko were on one—and besides she had her own team—but pretending to be interested might earn her some brownie points. She did get a question wrong in class this morning because she had been playing with her hair.
She headed to the faculty office and found Mr. Morooka drinking coffee. It was an interesting sight, him sipping from the cup even with his massive overbite. She'd assumed he'd have to use a straw. He soon spied her. "Dojima! What do you want?" he growled.
"Ehh," she said. Sports clubs can suck it. "I was thinking of a Greek myth the other day, but I couldn't remember the name. I was wondering if you could help me?"
"...Are you pulling my leg, young lady?"
He was clearly suspicious of her intentions, so she went on, "It was the myth with the guy and the maze and the ball of string. Kings were probably involved."
"Theseus and the Minotaur, eh? There are several versions of that myth..." He quickly warmed up to the topic. "Queen Pasiphae slept with a bull and then gave birth to the Minotaur, half man and half bull. Her husband, King Minos, had a labyrinth built to house the monster and sent his enemies in there to be eaten by it. Now, the prince went to Athens to participate in one of their many tournaments, and died in it—to the very same bull who'd fathered his half-brother. Infuriated, King Minos ordered King Aegeus of Athens to repay with blood..."
Morooka continued to tell her the entirety of the myth. He was surprisingly animated compared to how he was in class, and he made very few disparaging comments about any of the characters' virtue. It might have been because she was his only audience, or maybe because it was a topic he enjoyed.
"Do you know what the moral of the story is, Dojima?" he asked when he was finished.
"Don't have sex with animals," she replied promptly.
The teacher snorted in his surprise. "You're a straightforward one, aren't you? I'm sure you won't make that mistake." Morooka seemed to be sizing her up.
"No, sir!" Nanako was open-minded about many intimate things, but she drew the line there. Well, now it was time for a serious answer. "One of the morals could be not to make a judgment until you have all the facts. Because the king thought his son was dead just because the flags said so when it was just the captain being an idiot." He seemed to be thinking, so she didn't stop there. "And not to give up, because the maze was dark and confusing and probably had traps and stuff, but Theseus kept going anyway. Not that he had much choice, it was get through it or die, but still."
"Would you say the labyrinth symbolizes the journey through life?" Morooka had a smirk on his face, which she realized was actually his smile.
"Sure, and the string could symbolize spirituality. Like... a sort of guide or anchor to the path." She was stretching it a bit, but... "And leaving the girl asleep on the island symbolizes man's self-destructive nature!"
"Oh, so she likes symbolism, huh?" He chuckled darkly to himself. "You should be careful about that. Everything can be symbolic if you try, and symbolism can be very base. Talk to Freud."
He went on to tell her that, in his understanding, the myth was about mankind's fight against its animalistic nature and its desire to lord over the innocent.
She thanked him for clearing that up for her, and he told her to watch out for bulls. When she made to leave the faculty office, he stopped her. "Wait, Dojima..." He stopped and scowled to himself, then sighed. "I might have another myth to tell you, young lady..."
"If you know a story of a hero brought down by his own hubris, that might be super relevant," she told him, thinking of yesterday's close battle.
"Another day, perhaps," the teacher said. "I gotta grade these damn papers. I swear you brats can't string two words together…"
She blinked as he began to rant because that sound of glass breaking was happening again. What, he's a Social Link...? The Hierophant...
She used the time stop to scamper out of the office.
[4/23: Saturday]
Speaking of Social Links...
Nanako had a lot of them now, which was... good? She was beginning to wonder how important, exactly, they were. Margaret and Igor had been pretty vague about it, and that voice in her head that spoke when she established one told her it would lead her 'closer' to the truth, but she couldn't see how. All she was doing was being friendly to people.
Her best bet was just to ask, so she went to the shopping district and entered the Velvet Room.
"Hey, Igor," she said, wasting no time. "I'm curious. Why are these social links so important?"
Igor's smile remained as enigmatic as always. "The strength of your bonds reflects the strength of your heart."
"And I want a strong heart because..." Nanako made a gesture with her hand for him to continue.
"When you max a bond, you'll get a super Persona," Marie explained. When Margaret shot her a glance, she said, "What? That's what you said."
"That's enough, Marie," Margaret interrupted, the glance turning into a glare that Marie wilted under. Then the woman turned back to Nanako and smiled grimly. "A strong heart will be required to find, and then face, the truth."
"I suppose that makes sense," Nanako said. The truth could be ugly, and dangerous, too, if the killer found out they were after him. Or her. Nanako would have to be dedicated to the case, no matter what happened. Any help would be welcome indeed.
"By the way," Margaret continued. "Are you visiting, by chance, to take Marie out...?"
"Ah, no," Nanako replied. "I gotta work today. Unless you can give me a discount on some of those Personas?" She eyed the Compendium in the woman's lap.
Margaret's lips tightened in a 'not a chance' gesture.
Nanako shrugged in a 'there you go' gesture.
Marie huffed and looked out the window. "I didn't want to go out there, anyway," she claimed.
"You aren't missing anything," Nanako agreed before leaving the room. "Besides, you've got brandy in here. What else could you ask for?"
It wasn't that Nanako didn't want to take Marie out—the girl was probably another social link—but that after seeing all the cool new (although not quite 'super') Personas available at the Velvet Room that she couldn't afford to create, it was time to seriously consider a new source of income. Her allowance just wasn't cutting it. She forced herself to to swallow her pride and take a look at the part-time job board that Yosuke had spoken of. She was already at the central shopping district, anyway, and she didn't have to take any of the jobs if she didn't want to.
Folding envelopes. Hahaha, yeah right. Like she had time for that. The boy standing near the board told her it was a job that could be done before going to bed, that it might be nice to help one focus their mind for sleep. Yeah, she supposed a boring job like that would put her to sleep, no problem. She passed on that.
Translator. Nanako's foreign language knowledge was mostly limited to rap music and curse words. And she was sure it wouldn't be translating anything interesting like that, anyway, so she passed on that.
Gas station attendant. Oh, what... the gas station was hiring. Yeah, no. She went on to the next ad.
Nighttime Hospital janitor. No again. Hospitals were bad enough in the daytime, going at night was just asking for trouble. And janitorial work was totally beneath her.
Daycare assistant. Psh, like she wanted to work with little kids all day—wait a sec. Souji went to daycare on Saturdays. Could she... terrorize her little cousin? Well, it might not be the same daycare he went to, but if she didn't like it, she didn't have to keep the job, right? Working one day couldn't hurt.
She wrote the address in her pocket notebook and asked the boy by the board for directions.
The shock on little Souji's face upon seeing her in the assistant daycare worker's apron was something she would cherish forever.
Before she could say anything to him, though, the other kids crowded around her at the playground and asked her tons of questions, none of them even waiting for her to respond. "What's your name?" "How old are you?" "Do you go to Yasogami High?" "Can I have some candy?" "Do you have a boyfriend?"
"My name's Nanako," she told them, "but you can call me Boss. By the way, I'm from Tokyo and right now I'm living with Sou-chan!"
When some of the kids turned to Souji curiously, the boy made a face like he'd swallowed something rotten. He didn't like the attention.
"Sou-chan! Is she your big sis?" a little girl with braids asked.
"C-cousin..." Souji whispered.
Yeah, that was enough putting the poor kid on the spot. Nanako said, "Yep, he's my adorable little cousin. Oh, but you're all adorable, too! But why don't you all prove it? Let's have a fashion contest!"
She brought forward a plastic crate full of play clothes and watched over the kids while they dressed up in the most hideous combinations of clothing imaginable. Seriously, one little girl put on colors more clashing than her stegosaurus.
"Nice hat," she said to the boy who'd put underwear on his head. The boy giggled.
"We have to dress you up too, Boss!" a little girl declared, and the other children quickly agreed.
"Yeah?" Nanako said. "Sure, go ahead!"
Some time later she was decked out in a yellow sundress, which would have been fine on its own, but they'd had her put on overalls over it and big bulky boots. To top it off, she had on a cowboy hat.
"Dojima-san?" someone called from behind.
"The name's Boss—" she began. "Oh." It was the daycare manager, an older woman with dark hair and an apron who proceeded to inform her that parents were beginning to arrive to collect their children. The manager showed Nanako how to check the children out by matching their parents' name against a list on a clipboard and then left her to it.
One by one the kids were taken away to go home for the day. Nanako had the kids keep on their dress-up clothes until their parent arrived just to see the responses. Some were heartily entertained, but some were noticeably upset by seeing their little boy in a dress, for example. It was kind of frustrating and she worried she might get in trouble with the manager if one of them complained. Well, the daycare seemed like it was hurting for help, so she probably didn't have to worry too much.
Finally, all the kids were gone. She pulled off the boots and cowboy hat with a sigh of relief.
Then paused.
Wait.
What about Souji?
...She'd been having so much fun with the kids that she hadn't even noticed that he hadn't been playing with them. She spied him easily, sitting on the ground with his back to the pole that held up a canopy over the picnic table. He was facing away from her. "Hey, Souji-kun!"
Souji didn't look up. As she approached, she saw that he was watching some sort of bug crawling on his finger. It flew off when she bent down in front of him.
The boy didn't look happy, not that he often did, but he seemed more unhappy than normal. His gray eyes were as stormy as his hair in the light breeze. He was really upset that she'd crashed his daycare, wasn't he?
"Souji-kun... Why didn't you play with your friends?"
He looked off to the side, at the ground. One of his hands picked at the grass.
"You didn't want to play with them?"
He continued to do his best impersonation of a rock.
"Do you want to play with me?" she tried. He looked up at her suddenly in surprise and confusion. "Yeah. Why don't you choose what I should wear next?"
She held her hand out to help him up, and it took him a few long moments to take it, but the fact that he did at all was a relief of its own.
When he tried to let go after he got up to his feet, she gently kept her grip on him, and they walked to the dress-up box together.
"All right, Souji-kun! What do you think I should wear?" He looked at what was in the box, but made no move to go through it, so she went ahead and started picking things out. She put on a bowler hat. "How about this?"
He stared at her. She stared right back. She wasn't going to give in.
The boy broke it by stepping towards her and reaching up. "Huh?" she asked. She handed him the bowler hat, and he put it back in the box. Then he tugged at the overalls the other kids had put her in. Not knowing what he wanted, she sat down on the ground. He pulled the overalls' strap down over her shoulders.
Souji-kun! You're way too young to be undressing girls! she thought, and then she began to laugh. The boy ignored her, and when he began to tug at the sundress, she pushed him away and removed it herself. The boy took the sundress from her, folded it, and put it back in the box.
Then he closed the lid to the box.
Apparently he didn't want to play dress up. Or maybe he preferred her in just her normal Yasogami uniform. Nanako sat on the box and smoothed out her apron. She invited him to sit next to her, and he did, though he left several inches between them. She put her arm around him and pulled him close. "I'm sorry that I didn't play with you," she told him.
His silence was starting to bother her. Hermit child wasn't supposed to be mute, too! "Hey, Souji-kun... If I do something wrong, you've got to tell me. You're family, but I also want to be your friend. We've got to be friends because I'm gonna be here for a whole year."
He looked up at her, and an excruciatingly long moment later said, "I do want to be friends..."
She smiled at him, and it took another long moment, but he smiled shyly back. She had to keep herself from squeezing him too tightly in her happiness. "All right. Now… come along—I need to talk to the manager." I need to get paid, she mentally added. That was the whole point of this job, after all!
She held the boy's hand and they walked together to the main building, where she took off the apron, handed it back to the manager, and received an envelope with her pay for the day. The manager noticed the boy, though. "Oh, Souji-kun's mother isn't here yet? She's as bad as Minami-san sometimes, I swear."
"Huh?" said Nanako. "Souji-kun is my cousin, so I was gonna take him home with me. You mean Aunt Seta picks him up?" She was relieved to hear it.
"Is your name on the emergency list? For liability reasons, we can't let any of the kids go home with just anyone."
"Probably not," Nanako admitted. She'd already handed the clipboard back, so she couldn't check. "It's okay. We'll just wait for Auntie to show up."
Nanako had been expecting to camp out here for the rest of the afternoon, but against all odds, Aunt Seta pulled up in the car just around ten minutes later. She was surprised to see Nanako and remarked how she was a nice young lady to help out at the daycare. I'm doing it for money, Auntie, Nanako thought to herself. Not because I love kids or plan to have any anytime soon!
Nanako asked to have her name put on the emergency list so that she could take Souji home if needed. Her aunt seemed excited by that idea, to Nanako's silent rage. Aunt Seta hardly seemed to interact with her own son at all, and passing the buck like this would make the situation that much worse. Nanako was way too young to be taking on the role of surrogate mother.
To her further annoyance, Aunt Seta made her sit in the front, not in the back with Souji. But to her delight, when she glanced back at the boy, he'd put his seatbelt on all by himself—and Nanako had only shown him how that one time! She was very proud of the boy. It informed her, too, that even if he didn't seem like he was listening or paying attention, chances were that he actually was.
Aunt Seta picked up beef bowls at Aiya for dinner, and the three of them ate at the kitchen table together. Aunt Seta asked how Nanako was doing in school, so she talked about her friends and teachers. Nanako wasn't sure her aunt was really listening, but little Souji seemed to be watching her intently, at least.
"How do you like school, Souji-kun?" Nanako asked, trying to involve him in the conversation.
The boy twisted his chopsticks and looked down at the table.
"Answer the question, Souji!" Aunt Seta requested.
"I like school…" he said softly.
"Souji is the top of his class," Aunt Seta said, raising her chin with pride. "He always gets the highest marks in reading and math. He's the brightest boy there. Aren't you, Souji?"
The boy made a sound that sounded vaguely affirmative.
"Speak up," his mother requested. "Use big boy words. You're a big boy, Souji."
"Yes, Mama…"
"He's grown up so fast," Aunt Seta confided in Nanako. "He looks so much like his father, bless his soul…" The woman was positively glowing, and Nanako wasn't quite sure how to react. "Such a sharp boy... He'll become a lawyer or a doctor someday, that much is certain."
Nanako looked at Souji, and it was impossible for her to imagine him as anything but the sad little boy he was right now.
Aunt Seta informed Nanako of her plan to send Souji to a private middle school in another city instead of continuing in the nearby public school system. Nanako didn't blame her too much—the teachers at Yasogami were a bit to be desired. A private school would probably be better in that respect. And... she could imagine that maybe Souji would do better in a new environment... But he still had a few years before middle school, anyway.
"Only the best for my Souji," the woman said. Nanako just smiled indulgently at her. It was awkward to talk about the boy when he was sitting right there.
Aunt Seta went on about the quality of education in public schools—no offense, Nanako-chan—and Nanako began to wonder if she harbored some personal resentment towards public school from personal experience. Nanako was pretty sure her father hadn't gone to private school, which would mean his sister, Aunt Seta, wouldn't have gone to one either...
As the night went on, Nanako wondered if she'd bond with her aunt. On one hand, she hoped the woman wasn't a social link, simply because she didn't want to spend time with her. On the other hand, if she did spend time with her, maybe she could gently nudge her aunt into the right direction, help her come to realize the myriad small injustices she was doing toward her own flesh and blood.
As the evening drew to a close, though, Nanako never heard the telltale sound nor imagined the card that signified a link.
[AN: So the main reason we kept Saki alive was so that she could be a social link! I didn't have any ideas for how Nanako could bond with Naoki, nor did I really want to write Nanako befriending Ai Ebihara as the Moon link, so, yeah.
But if Saki is the Moon, who will be the Hanged Man? Hmhmhm...
And Morooka is the Hierophant, since Dojima-san, is, well, in Tokyo, hehe. I remember seeing an unfinished Morooka link written somewhere on the kink meme. This version will focus on philosophy, I suppose! It was pretty fun looking up that myth he told.
Whether Aunt Seta will be a link or not is yet to be seen.
Next Chapter: Striking a Chord
Alternative title: Grand Theft Piano
(I couldn't think of a title, but Nanako is not really stealing a piano... haha)