So this is a bit of a spiritual companion fic to my other P5 fic, Morning Star. But if you expected the same kind of raw, unadulterated violence here as in that fic, you'd be sorely mistaken. This story will have more of a canon-typical edge to it, but let me assure you, it's gonna be depressing.
Taken inspiration from vivvav's The Evil Queen-I always enjoyed the darker take of Makoto that that fic introduced. I wanted to give my own take on a darker, sadder Makoto, but not to the lengths that Evil Queen went. I want to see a Makoto who starts off in a much, much darker place than usual. And that's saying a lot, considering she already starts of P5 in a miserable place. Constantly judged by her own sister, her accomplishments brushed aside as pressure from everyone mounts-she's forced to put on this mask of being a perfect student for people who don't really deserve it.
This story is about how Makoto becomes the mask.
Title is taken from Kendrick Lamar's song Mortal Man, from To Pimp a Butterfly, i.e. one of the most important albums you should listen to before you die.
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The caterpillar is a prisoner to the streets that conceived it.
Its only job is to eat, and consume everything around it, in order to protect itself from this mad city.
APRIL, 2015
There is a dream Makoto Niijima has, from time to time. A dream born from all the news outlets, the stories, the various smiles on the faces of scum. In the dream she holds a gun.
In the dream, she has red eyes, for her auburn eyes have become as emboldened as her spirit. She doesn't stop, in the dream, and she doesn't want to. She pulls the trigger and she keeps pulling, her revolver never running out of bullets. Every single blast hits someone and hits them hard. Makoto sees them writhe, hears them scream. All the drug addicts, all the murderers, the psychos, the rapists, the cancers that litter the streets and get away with it. She sees their grins fade as cold reality bursts in their chests. Nobody's able to escape her bullets, nobody wants to save each other or protect each other. All they can do and all they want to do is run and hide and live.
They bring in choppers, she shoots them all down. Tanks fire at her, and their missiles barely even scratch her skin. Soldiers come in, sent by the powerful and the corrupt, sent to stop her from fulfilling her mission. Then the people, the lowly ones who've spent their whole lives with their heads down, they decide to take up their own weapons. They come at her back and they scream for justice as they start shooting and fighting tooth-and-nail. Ecstatic rage, a catharsis that can't ever be replicated in any form. And sooner or later Makoto and her armies take the whole country by storm. Sooner or later she has the whole lot of them gripped by the throat in chains and shackles. She rides in an elephant-sized palanquin made of gold that's carried by a hundred murderers. She stretches out an arm and the stars themselves turn into a flaming blade just for her. And she dances on the bodies of a million monsters and becomes queen regent of all the world.
Then her cellphone screams at her to wake up with the most aggravating noise any programmer or sound designer alive could have ever developed. She wakes up and looks at herself in her bathroom mirror and realizes her hair's beyond messy. That her eyebags have become larger than her own eyes. That even though she slept about eight hours last night, she could sink right back into her mattress again and sleep for a hundred more.
She remembers that today's her first day of school, and for as much as she may hunger for bed, she'll never hear the end of it if she doesn't get herself out this room, and out her apartment, and down over to Shujin ASAP. So she straightens out her hair with a comb Sae bought for her six months ago. Slaps herself in the face several times to make her eyes as open as possible. Pads out the skin of her eyelids with a makeup kit she found in a fashion magazine (not because she found the shirt and skirts on the front cute, but because a student had dropped it the day the prior school year had ended, and Niijima thought it was a waste of paper).
On the way to school every single little thing is compartmentalized a dozen times.
Perform the speech at the welcoming ceremony right after Kobayakawa's finished with his spiel. After classes, hold a meeting with student council that'll last for about an hour, no more and no less. Spend your remaining time studying in the library before six. Once six hits then go to the bookstore in Shibuya and purchase a couple test prep booklets. Then head on over to the convenience store that'd been set up across the apartment over the summer. Buy everything in the list for your (and Sis') dinner for the rest of the week (and hope Sis shows up which she won't). Then study until ten PM. Math today, science tomorrow, language and social studies perhaps the day after, or maybe you should brush up on English? But what about Japanese? No, she's reasonable enough to hold that off for a while. No. An hour of it, at least today. No, two hours. Aikido classes begin in a week, too- No, you're overthinking.
You need to calm down. You can take a breather on your first day. You've a speech to give in half an hour.
She always gets so anxious, the first day. Without fail, ever since she was a little girl. Then the nervousness would be ripped away from her, as if caught on something back on the train, the second she'd step on the platform. And she'd never feel it again for the rest of the school year (except in bits and pieces that aren't at all anything worth worrying about). And this year will be like any other. As if she's being baptized, the second she takes a step off the train, all her anxiety washes away. The worry that her makeup will run at some point bamfs into nothing. The nagging notion that her peers'll remain high off spring break vanishes. The question of if she'll be able to go about this year with just as much efficiency as she's always done, is answered with a confident and internal Yes.
(The question of if Sis will recognize any of this doesn't get an answer at all.)
There aren't very many things Makoto enjoys about Shujin, despite being elected as its student council president (she feels no shame in this, for if there's anything she's learned from Sis, you don't have to like something to be responsible for it).
One thing she can safely say she would enjoy is the long walk from the station to the building, especially in spring and fall. Since she wakes up early, heads off to school early, she'd often arrive at the front gates on the eve of twilight. Little moments where the clouds would reflect upon themselves the light of the morning sun. Moments where she'd be able to catch the moon clearly even during the day, blanketed in baby blue. Where the cold wind wouldn't blow into her but follow her on her little merry path. On such days the child in her would sometimes gets the urge to skip her way to school, but the borderline-adult she's become would dismiss it as a silly thought.
Today is not like those days, for the rain is coming down in thick white diagonals, and the sky is the darkest shade of grey that could possibly exist before shifting into black. And she's forgotten her umbrella too, because of course she has. Though, to be fair, she did read the weather forecasts last night, and they said that it'd be bright and sunny today.
(So it isn't my fault, she'll tell Sis, the better part of her knowing that whatever she says won't matter at all.)
She's now underneath a canopy, trying to wait out the storm. The rain is harsher than she'd like it to be. She'd probably get sick in her attempts to make a dash for the school. And it's not like she can't spare one late homeroom session; it may set a bad example for the students, but it's not like the students pay that much attention to classroom politics anyway.
Makoto looks up at the rain and she figures that while it's not necessarily light, it's not that heavy either. She can probably make it into the school grounds without getting too wet, if she's careful and quick enough.
She brings up her phone because she wants to check the time, but the moment she taps in her password she discovers that something strange has seeped its way into her grid of apps. Something red and black, something that resembles an eye.
She doesn't recall ever seeing it before. She doesn't even really download any apps, save ones that'd help her in her studies in some way. But the moment her finger hovers over it, the moment she makes an attempt to drag it into the digital trash bin at the bottom of the screen, it enlarges in a way she's never seen apps enlarge ever before.
When it enlarges she sees the red and black eye blare open and then the world just stops.
She lifts her head to see that the raindrops have paused mid-descent. The people she sees are frozen in space and looking completely unaware of it. Sound has disappeared from the world entirely. She is looking around, hoping to find someone who's moving, who's alive, who's not trapped in time. Makoto doesn't understand what is happening. But she's got to stay calm. Freaking out about this won't help anyone, least of all yourself. This shouldn't be possible, but here she is, moving while the rest of the world is standing still. A number of impossible things has happened to her these past few days, she realizes; and then the app flares up even more, then Makoto lifts her head to the street and she sees something bright and blue and blazing and beautiful.
In the blazing fire, she sees something, a shape she recognizes all too well. She's been allured by it time and again, she's pushed thoughts of the shape away from her conscious mind because what right does she have as the student council president to even think of having that. But the shape revs its motor and grinds its wheels against the gravel of the road, she sees a blue face watching her, looking right at her.
Makoto asks it its name, and it says Yours, as she suddenly sees herself smiling so wide her cheeks'll fall off, her eyes a burning gold color—
—then everybody's walking again. And the world continues on, like nothing ever even happened.
Makoto grumbles, because she's fallen asleep while standing up, and runs the back of her head into the wall behind her thrice. Screw it, she decides, and with a confidence she knows she doesn't really feel, Makoto Niijima hoists her leather schoolbag over her head and dashes through the rain the instant it lightens up.
She dashes to school, telling herself she needs to stop dreaming about bizarre nonsense.
If there is a God, Makoto would thank and worship Him for the rest of her life, because she's able to make it to school just with wet leggings and shoes, which dry rather easily once she wipes her heels on the welcoming carpet. Then she remembers she has so much left to do for today and all of a sudden she wants to rip whatever God exists out of His Golden Throne. And she shall build her own throne high overhead, cold and tremendous shall its summit be.
Then she makes it to the gymnasium, takes a seat backstage as everything's all set up, and rehearses. Every single line, she's able to repeat in her head. When she needs to absolutely be sure, she whispers them to herself, reading from the script aloud. As I begin my term as student council president...
She didn't write the script herself, of course. Well, she had tried to. But Sis caught a glance and crammed three hundred more long words in, to make Makoto come off as more mature and professional. Makoto was grateful for the help, but not so much for the fact she now has a few hundred more words to memorize.
Then the clock strikes nine and Makoto doesn't give herself the opportunity to feel nervous, as teachers and students pack themselves in the large hall. Kobayakawa shuffles onstage and he's already sweaty as he does so - no, Makoto shouldn't shame him for his weight. But she should, and does, silently shame him for a lot of other things - such as being fifteen minutes late, or speaking into the mic like he wants to be done with this as much as she does. Or filling his script with so many platitudes.
"As you begin the new school year, I'd like each of you to remember the proverb, If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. When applied to student life, this means..."
She swears she's heard this exact same speech somewhere before. Perhaps even just last year, during the last welcoming ceremony. So she takes it she doesn't need to listen to whatever the hell he's saying, she only needs to know when he's done.
Five, maybe ten minutes and most of the crowd claps half-heartedly, but when most of the crowd is clapping anyway it doesn't particularly matter how sincere they are in doing so.
He ends his message with, "And now, a word from your student council president, Makoto Niijima."
One step forward, and the irrational fear of biting her tongue onstage goes dark. Second step forward, and she's no longer bombarded with thoughts of what the students may snicker about her in their seats. Third step forward, and thoughts of Sis judging her every word blink away. By the time she gets to the podium everything she could possibly be nervous about has been shoved in a tiny imaginary box, in a big imaginary chest, in a large imaginary safe locked by a thousand imaginary bolts.
The words come rolling off her tongue.
"I, Makoto Niijima, make this pledge to all of you. This is a transitional period for us all - the shouldering of new responsibilities, the unlearning of things we thought we'd already come to understand. It's a period of change - the time for us to start pursuing our futures, our own individual journeys of self-discovery. And to say it's an overwhelming undertaking would be an understatement. As your student council president, I promise to work only towards the goal of helping as many of you as I possibly can. To ensure that anything whatsoever that could possibly impede your progress or your well-being is swiftly and decisively taken care of. This school prides itself on its high standards of education and I intend to honor that, to keep the peace and preserve the systems that push us towards the greatest versions of ourselves. I feel no greater joy than to be standing here, working for the benefit of such a fine institution and all its people. Thank you."
The crowd claps, but it's a half-hearted and genuinely unenthused kind of applause that perhaps is the best reception Makoto's ever received throughout her life. Most of the students' and even some of the teachers' eyes are half-lidded, some even snoring in their seats. Makoto thinks the speech sounded boring, that it was just an empty set of truisms that ticked off box after box after ungodly box - just to make Kobayakawa feel like he could shove a lot of his work to the student council, just to make Makoto look like the best possible dog on the leash that money could buy.
Makoto is well aware, of course, that Sae's additions had made the speech better, not worse. That had it all been up to her, she'd probably mess it all up like she usually does.
Then the rest of the day happens.
Classes are forthright and she jots down notes in such a way that would take years to master for literally anyone else - able to write each word clearly, precisely, sometimes even before the teacher's managed to complete their sentence. For she is very well-read, and she has grown so accustomed to her teachers' idiosyncrasies and speech patterns, and dammit why did she have to bring two pens that've run out of ink? Why can't they make these wretched little things last? If ever a company came around and mass-produced pens that could last lifetimes they'd rule the world. That settles it, she'll never go to the bookstore in Shibuya again for writing tools.
Three classes shove homework in her lap for the first day and she's infuriated because it messes around with her schedule. Stupid, wretched, goddamn worthless you should have known this could happen. But it doesn't matter. She can stay up late tonight. Maybe use library time for homework instead of studying? She understands the lessons well enough, she thinks. God, she'd hate to have to reread any of the assigned books.
Student council. The meeting lasts precisely for as long as it needs to. Makoto's extremely direct to the point of unnerving a few people here and there. She doesn't bark out orders, they just pour out her mouth like vomit and to get her to stop the others in the council speak with simple responses - "Yes, ma'am," "Okay ma'am," "Alright senpai," "Got it Miss Niijima," and so on. There's a sports rally coming up next week, Shujin tradition - she's assigned Fujioka and Masaki with flyer design, Kogan with printing production, Akamatsu and Kawajiri with social media promotion. She and Munenori in charge of managing timeslots, seating arrangements, scheduling, the works.
And once that's done, she heads to the library. She does her homework and she realizes she doesn't need to reread any books, the notes are fine. In thirty minutes she finishes Math, fifteen she finishes Biology, ten she finishes composition. Fantastic use of her time. Now she can head out and do whatever the hell else needs to be done before the end of the day.
She's getting ahead of herself.
KRAKA-THOOM
It thunders and rains and it fills her with so much anger that if she had the power she'd just tear apart the whole goddamn world right there. She's been underneath the canopy at the front door of the school for an hour, waiting for everything to pass. But the rain feels like it could fall forever. She sees her peers rush through out the door with umbrellas. Some pulling their jackets over their heads, others sharing their umbrellas with friends. But Makoto doesn't have a Shujin jacket, for her last one had been torn up by vandals during gym class months ago, and she hasn't had the time to buy a new one. And Makoto (doesn't have friends) doesn't have anyone who could possibly want to share their umbrella with her.
(And that fact doesn't make her eyes sting, or fill her guts with an unbridled envy. No it does not.)
Suddenly cloth folds bloom open and she sees something blue above herself, held up by long silver wires attached to a pole.
"You alright, Miss Prez?"
The girl appears to be the same age as she is, perhaps a few months younger? Makoto notices she's bundled her hair up in a ponytail that hangs from the side of her head, rather than the back. She's got a coy smile on, and deep brown eyes. Her skin looks smooth and her smile is warm.
"Do I... know you?" Makoto asks, and she hopes she doesn't sound rude.
"No, but I know you. Or, I guess I know of you? We're in the same class. Thought you could use the help."
Makoto wants this conversation to end, immediately. "Really, I'm fine, thank you-"
"So fine you don't need an umbrella in this rain?"
KRAKA-THOOM again and the rain just gets that much harder, pouring like mad, driving Makoto mad-
(You forgot your umbrella? Sis would say, arms folded and with a scowl on her face. How can you be so absent-minded? Even if it wasn't going to rain, you should have kept it with you just in case.
And Makoto would defend herself, or at least she'd try, It was unlikely it'd rain today. I didn't think-
And then Sis would tell her she doesn't think about a lot of things at all. And then Makoto would ask what that's supposed to mean and get this passive-aggressive response, this look that makes her feel stupid for asking, and then she wouldn't be able to say anything because her soul's been crushed, and-)
And she's dwelling on this too much.
"I'd see you on the same train as me on the way home," the girl smiles. "Thought you could use the help?"
This girl is blunt, but earnest. She doesn't ring of someone who'd treat Makoto maliciously, of someone who would draw penises and obscenities on her desk. Or call her bulimic, or say she has a garbage smile, or call her Robo-Cunt, or make fun of her for having a "resting bitch face," whatever that means.
"Why?" Makoto doesn't intend to sound so ungrateful, but she's just not used to this. "I've never even met you before."
"And I've never spoken to you before now. But, well... I don't think I'd feel good if I just went straight home, knowing you'd still be stuck under the canopy, waiting for the rain to stop?"
Makoto blinks at her. Exhales.
Not a fan of being pitied. But what other option does she have? The rain won't let up and Sis'll look at her like a goddamn moron if she comes home drenched. (Not that Sis'll show up at home anyway.) "I... would appreciate it. Where are my manners? May I ask your name?"
"Course. Takao, Eiko Takao."
Makoto nods, "Takao-san. Thank you very much. I'll be sure to make this up to you."
"Sneak into the faculty office and change all my grades to A plus."
Makoto stutters, "I-I refuse to do that!"
Takao giggles, "I'm just fucking with you, don't take it so seriously. Shall we go?"
Makoto was taught to be self-sufficient, or at least as self-sufficient as she possibly could be in every possible situation. She makes a promise right then and there to grab some kind of hooking material to attach an umbrella to her bag.
Neither talk much, not that they'd be able to hear the other through the downpour. But Makoto figures that even on the clearest weather possible she wouldn't make much conversation with this girl at all. Takao is similarly focused on getting the both of them to the station - almost slipping a little as she does so, something Makoto's able to prevent by grabbing her arm. Takao just chuckles it off and Makoto doesn't know how she'd be able to -
(Because Makoto remembers being a little girl and slipping in the rain. Skinning her knee, blood coming through. She remembers crying terribly, quietly, her tears disappearing in the showers overhead. She remembers kids around her laughing and running away when she'd turn to them. She remembers Dad picking her up from school, remembers expecting him to be angry with her, but he isn't. When he gets her home, he gives her a bath, and bandages her knees and tells her he's just happy she's okay.)
Makoto and Takao make it rather far, but the rain shows no mercy. Not even the umbrella, despite its size, can shield them when the storm dashes down at them from the front. They have to seek refuge and the closest they can find is a jewelry store outside school grounds - the same one Makoto huddled under, the beginning of the day. Makoto's leggings are drenched and her boots are soaked - she's fortunate no car had come and dashed sewer water on either of them. Takao's not that much better, but Makoto notes she doesn't even have leggings, just white socks and brown leather shoes, and rain in either of those wouldn't feel pleasant at all.
"Are you alright, Takao-san?"
"Yup," she undoes her shoe and wrings out water from her sock, a foot bare on the wet concrete. "Nothing I can't handle. You?"
"I'm...alright. I'm sorry. You wouldn't be so inconvenienced if I hadn't..."
"I told you, it's nothing I can't handle," Takao waves her away. "I chose to help you."
"I owe you so much for this..."
"I'm sure the student council president must be busy with tons of after-school work, so don't worry about that."
...so she doesn't have any ulterior motives?
How could Makoto think so little of her, all this time?
Makoto should repay her somehow. Someday, when her schedule's freed up, she ought to take this person out somewhere they can eat, for all her trouble. But who is she kidding? She doesn't even really know this person. This is a random act of kindness that ought to be forgotten the instant she's brought to the trains.
(Sis would tell her to not give it a second thought, to thank her and then only speak to her when absolutely necessary.)
But to hell with that. Sis isn't here.
Sis hasn't been here or there in a long time, except to tell her when she's done something stupid.
Sis wasn't there to bandage up her knee as a child, and Sis can't be here to get her out of the rain. Not that Makoto would waste her time calling for her help like some lost child.
But this person wasted her time on Makoto. She was willing to, for no reason whatsoever. And if Makoto's going to be chewed out for all her stupid decisions whenever Sis gets back, she might as well make one more.
"Lend me your number," Makoto says, fishing out her phone from her bag.
"Sorry?"
"This is mine." Shows Takao her phone. "Call me if ever you need anything."
If ever you need anything. It's a very clear and strong choice of words, but Makoto means every one of them. Call it being overeager at the fact that she is speaking to someone who isn't her sister, isn't a part of student council, and isn't a teacher. Someone who's done something nice for her with seemingly no self-serving motives behind her actions - who's gotten herself drenched in the rain just to get her idiot self to a train station.
Makoto feels terrible for being so careless that she'd drag this girl who'd done nothing wrong to her or anyone else in all this mess. So terrible she thinks it doesn't really what Sis will tell her, because she will make time to make it up to perhaps the first girl she's spoken in ages who doesn't seem to want anything from her.
"S-sure, okay," Takao stammers, a little nervously. She raises up their phone and the two transfer their numbers to each other. "I could use a little help studying, I guess?"
"Let me know if ever you'd like to meet up about that. I'll be sure to make time."
"You'd do that for me? I'm grateful," Takao smiles warmly.
"Grateful?"
"Thought you had too much time on your hands to help out the little people."
Little people? "What made you think that?"
"Didn't mean to offend, if I ever did. Just a little joke. I know you've got your hands full, after being elected president. I know you get high grades, so you must study a lot, even when you're at home. I'm just... grateful you were willing to carve out some time to help me out."
Makoto says simply, "You'd do this for me. It's only fair."
Takao chuckles, "For real? I dunno if me bringing you under an umbrella compares to me asking you for help studying. But I appreciate it! My grades are dogshit. It'd help a ton if you could help me wrap my head around it all."
In all fairness, Makoto'll have to do a lot of fudging around with her schedule, if she'll have to make time for someone else.
In all fairness, it is weird and she is too bold and she is extremely lucky Takao doesn't treat her like a creep for being so direct.
In all fairness, Makoto's hated looking at herself in the mirror every morning, thinking about all the stuff she has to do day after day after day, and feeling sorry for herself that not one of those things involves talking with people her own age.
And it'll help Makoto a ton if she, for once in all her goddamn years, actually has a friend to talk to.
So it's a win-win.
What a hypocrite she is. Doubting this girl's motives while using her to fill the hole she has for a social life.
The silence from this point on is a bit of an awkward kind, but the rain refuses to let up and in these minutes of silence, Makoto is sure she'll lose this one connection she has to the outside world. Either she talks or Takao does, and why would Takao even want to talk to her? Makoto has nothing at all to say, nothing to show, she doesn't even know what this girl likes or dislikes. She hasn't known what most anybody likes or dislikes in years.
"So you're in my class?" she starts, her tone a little stilted. So stilted it doesn't come through in the rain.
"Sorry? Couldn't hear you."
"So we're in the same class?"
Not you're in my class. Implies she puts herself at the center of everything.
"Yup. 2-B."
"I never noticed you on the trains before."
"I notice you spacing out, or looking at your notes," she chuckles. "Kinda cute."
Makoto doesn't know what to think about that observation. Because she spent all that time, spacing out and looking at notes, being stressed out of her mind. She's surprised she hasn't had a sick day yet, because this is perhaps the first time in a long time where the only thing she has to worry about is the rain to subside.
And what Sae may or may not say to her when Makoto may or may not see her at home...
"You work really hard, don't you?" Takao asks her.
"Why do you say that?"
Takao scratches her chin. "I work in a cafe."
"A cafe?"
"Yeah. But don't worry, the most that ever happens is a bunch o' guys ogle me for three hours and I get paid. There's a strict no-touching policy. So I know when someone's pushing themselves."
"Perhaps if you didn't have a side job you wouldn't struggle so hard with your studies."
Did Makoto really just say that?
My God, she needs help.
"Ha!" Takao bursts out, "True! But, hell. I like my job, and I like what I do. I like getting paid and I like it when guys smile like dopes for me."
Makoto has half a mind to lecture her and tell her that such an occupation isn't safe for teenage girls their age. The other half of Makoto's mind knows lecturing is boring and people should be whatever the hell they want. (Some small part of Makoto wishes guys would smile like dopes for her, but not the part that tells her to say this:) "You've never encountered trouble of any kind?"
"None so far, no. Everyone's nice except the occasional handsy asshole customer. Pay's acceptable, and parents don't mind."
"That's fortunate."
"It is. I heard you know some aikido. Care to teach me, in case some guys get a little too handsy?"
"I'm not qualified to instruct anyone."
"Shame."
"There's a dojo close from here. If ever you want to give it a try, feel free to sign up. There're weekend schedules you can take for convenience."
"Mmm, I'll think about it. I work the most on weekends."
"Suit yourself."
Takao looks at her, chuckles - not in a demeaning way, not even all that amused. Bemused, more like.
"It's funny," Takao says.
"What?"
"You're nicer than people make you out to be."
Makoto almost doesn't respond, but there's something unconscious and raw which wells up, forces her throat muscles to bend and make noise: "And what do people make me out to be?" Takao looks somewhat surprised. Makoto, a little annoyed now, asks her the real question: "What do you make me out to be?"
Takao puts some thought into her answer.
"A lot of people are hard on you, but I think you're doing your best," Takao says. "You may not have a job, but you're pushing yourself to do something, and I dunno what. But you work hard. And I want you to know that someone out there appreciates that."
Makoto narrows her eyes. What is this?
Maybe she is trying to butter Makoto up. Why else would she say these things, try to pinpoint all her anxieties? It's aggravating. "Why do you want me to know so badly?"
Takao blinks, "Honestly?"
"Yes, honestly."
"Because you look like you want someone to know. Anyone at all."
Takao looks at her so firmly Makoto almost sees shades of her sister. But she's sincere, so sincere it almost offends her.
Don't talk like you know me, she's about to say to her newest and quite possibly only chance at having a friend in a long, long time. Takao catches her before she can even say a word.
"I don't know you. I've never said I know you. It's just, a feeling I have."
"You do a lot of things based on feeling, don't you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing at all."
Passive aggressiveness is something Sis has mastered, something Makoto's beginning to learn the ropes on. Is it reasonable to be so easily aggravated over someone being presumptuous? Someone she's just met, for God's sakes?
No.
No, it isn't reasonable at all.
What is she even doing. "It's nothing, I... I'm not used to this."
"To what?"
"Talking with people like this."
"Like what?"
"Like this. So...," so openly. "I apologize. I've got a lot on my mind."
"I'm sorry if I stepped out of line."
Takao really didn't. The only reason Makoto was upset... was because she was right.
Every single thing she said, it stung Makoto like barbed wire. There wasn't any offense meant, no exaggeration or even really any criticism. Takao had just spoken a truth that perhaps Makoto herself did not want to acknowledge was truth.
And that truth was that she does want to be seen. She does want people to see all her efforts, all her hard work, all the sweat and tears she's poured into everything she does. Something she can't bear the thought of letting people know, because she's supposed to be better. Because she's supposed to be a cut above everything - and appraisal from someone other than her superiors is something she doesn't need, it's not something she should crave. It could never be something someone with her standing and her future prospects should ever even want.
...but she does.
"You didn't step out of line at all. It was just... me. All me."
Takao smiles like Makoto hadn't said such cruel things to her just a few minutes ago. "I knew you were nice."
Makoto finds it in herself to give a smile back. "I try..."
Of course Makoto tries.
And she'll keep trying.
And one day, one day she'll be proud of the person staring back at her through the mirror.
"The rain..."
It's all dispersed now. Sun coming through the clouds. Rather than a bright blue its a deep and dark purple mixed with red. The sun yells, Hurry you fools! and Takao says "Race you!"
And Takao runs, feet splashing against puddles, and Makoto calls out, "Don't run on wet surfaces!"
Takao just laughs in a lovely way, "You're nice, but you could be a little bolder!"
And Makoto doesn't know why she stops in her tracks right then, for just a couple seconds.
Then of course Takao slips and slams her face against the wet concrete, and Makoto runs to her. Asks her if she's okay, fiddles around in her bag for a napkin or something because Takao's nose is definitely broken, but she realizes it isn't. Takao just keeps on chuckling, even through a swelled and bloody and not-broken nose, and Makoto wonders if this is what it actually means to have a friend.
When she and Takao split up they part with mutual smiles. Makoto doesn't quite know how to smile, judging from the way Takao laughs at her when they diverge paths. But she's happy she's gotten somewhere.
Before she's even aware of it, she's standing at the front door of her apartment.
She asks herself how she'll deal with Sis' inevitable outburst of Why didn't you bring your umbrella? When she opens the door, however, she isn't met with any sort of outburst. She isn't met by anyone, or anything, besides a familiar silence.
The only sound in the apartment is the sound of her feet tapping against the floorboards. She's about to call for her sister, as she closes the door and puts her shoes at the entrance, but remembers feeling her phone buzz in her pocket just ten minutes ago.
It never really crossed her mind to actually read the text, until now.
I'll be out for the next few days. I'll be staying in a motel, close to the station. I'll be back this Wednesday. This case has been very demanding. I'm sorry.
Makoto doesn't think she's relieved. In fact, she thinks she'd like it if she had someone to talk to, about anything right now. Even Sis.
She didn't think that the familiar silence of her apartment could have ever been so loud.
So when she goes to sleep tonight she thinks she'll dream of madness and murder and con
Then that dream ends, and another begins.
Makoto awakens in a room she's never been to before. There are heavy and freezing steel binds wrapped around both of her wrists, a lengthy weight between the two binds. The room has to be -49°C; she can't help but shiver and shudder as she stands herself up. She's in a prison cell padded with soft, yet firm, ultramarine. The moment she tries moving, she discovers that her left ankle is trapped in a ball-and-chain.
"What...?" she murmurs as she stares at the chains binding her limbs. She moves forward then, gripping the bars of her cell. When she reaches the bars, two little girls wearing blue emerge from Makoto's right and left. Both of them, in terms of facial features, look exactly alike. But the one to Makoto's right wears her silver hair in buns while the other wears a braid. The twins inch close to each other, keeping a parallel distance of two feet, and they maintain still expressions as they gaze at Makoto with their topaz eyes.
Then the lights flicker on. The dark and damp world beyond the cell brightens and Makoto finds that the cell she is in is but one of many, arranged in a circle. In the center of all these cells sits an old man with wide, bulging eyes. The man is a short hunchback wearing a tuxedo, and his nose is about as long as Makoto's arm. He is sitting at a simple desk, one Makoto would often see in those crime dramas she always watches in secret—the desk of a police commissioner. He smiles when his eyes meet Makoto's, and he speaks with a voice so loud she could swear he's speaking directly into her ears, even though he's three meters away.
"Trickster," he tells Makoto, "welcome to my Velvet Room."
Then Makoto hears an aria. Wistful and impersonal, one that chills her to the bone. She repeats what the man's said, "T-Trickster...?" in her inability to comprehend just what kind of world she's entered.
"Looks like you've come to, Inmate," says the girl with buns in her hair.
"The you in reality is currently fast asleep," says the girl with the braid.
Then the girl with buns in her hair orders, "Stand up straight! You're in the presence of our Master!"
"Wh-what is this—!?" Makoto exclaims, realizing she's wearing a striped long-sleeved shirt and striped pajamas, like she's a prisoner— The long-nosed old man sitting in a chair then says to her, "I am delighted to make your acquaintance. This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. It is a room that only those bound by a contract may enter. Remember it well. I am Igor, the master of this place."
"Wh-what am I doing here!?" Makoto demands, gripping the bars. Sweat beads down the side of her head as her eyes remain wide and her teeth begin to chatter. Too many unanswered questions, too many things she's never seen before. This has to be a dream, she reasons, but then she sees everything and smells everything and hears all the sounds around her and it's all too real to be a dream.
"I summoned you to speak of important matters—matters that involve your life, and the lives of those around you," Igor continues
"What...what are you talking about...?" Makoto mutters in her fear. Not knowing what this old creature plans to do with her, not knowing anything behind all of this. Then a mild electric jolt runs along the bars and Makoto removes her fingers, letting out a bit of a scream.
She sees the girl on her right, sees that she's now wielding a baton. The girl is glaring madly at Makoto, ordering her again, "Know your place, Inmate! Who do you think you're speaking to!?"
It's at this point Makoto decides to calm down a little, take a few deep breaths, and listen. She's helpless, as she is.
Look around you, you're in a padded cell; as if the chains 'round your wrists and ankle aren't enough. They've got weapons, they can hurt you at any time if you step out of line. Just stay calm and wait.
"Still, this is a surprise...," says Igor, looking around. "This Room is a reflection of the state of your own heart...to think a prison would appear as such." Makoto wrenches her head around the place, unable to even begin to comprehend how this prison is a reflection of her heart. "You truly are a prisoner of fate," Igor grins. "In the near future, there's no mistake that ruin awaits you."
To which of course, Makoto says, "Ruin? Fate, future, prisons...what does any of this mean? What are you telling me? Why am I here?"
"I speak of the end of everything," he says simply. "However, there is a means to oppose such a fate. If you are willing to pursue the path of rehabilitation, that is."
"Rehabilitation...?" Makoto realizes at this point that she's largely just repeating everything he's saying, but she can't help it. Words and terms and entire dream-worlds are being thrown at her endlessly. Who can blame her for trying to make some sense of it all?
"Rehabilitation, towards freedom. You seek justice for this world, do you not?"
At that, Makoto doesn't respond. Because he hit the nail right on the head and she doesn't want to give too much of herself away.
"You see everything in this world, all the madnesses that won't ever seem to end...," he chuckles. "Such vile injustices cause you to retch in yourself, do they not?"
"Injustice...," Makoto repeats him, again she repeats him because she's afraid, but also because the word itself is something she can't help but be agitated by.
"In challenging the distortion of the world—in challenging ruin, you may yet rescue yourself from your fate, and bring salvation to this plane of existence. Allow me to observe the path of your rehabilitation." Then the two girls step forward and turns to face Makoto, in unison. To which Igor says then, "Pardon me for not introducing your wardens; to your right is Caroline. To your left, Justine."
"Try and struggle as hard as you'd like," Caroline declares, the baton behind her back as she keeps up her glare.
Justine's voice is calmer and cooler, and she tells Makoto, "It is the duty of wardens to protect inmates. We are also your collaborators. That is, if you remain obedient."
Igor then says, "I shall explain the roles of these two on another occassion. Take your time to slowly understand this place. The night is waning...and it is almost time for the game to begin. We shall meet again...eventually."
"Wait, wait!" Makoto exclaims. "What's going on here? What game are you talking about? What kind of ruin is—!?"
An alarm rings. Caroline turns to Makoto. "Time's up. Hurry and go back to sleep."
"I'm not going to sleep until I get some answers—!"
Igor's eyes blare wider than she can stand, their sclerae red now with bulging veins. "Answers are never earned, Makoto Niijima. Answers are taken."
And then she awakens, in a cold sweat.
Shivering. Terrified. She holds herself and she holds herself close. She keeps her sheets close to her, and she decides to never ever tell her sister about this. That...must have been a dream. Must have been some sort of strange and stupid fever dream she had overnight. She won't ever have it again. She can't. It was just a dream. It was just a dream.
She doesn't know why she's more scared of that dream than of that other dream, the dream where she kills every single living criminal in the world and ushers in an age of peace.
