Saturday passes without incident.

The Phantom Thieves – sans Akira – return Saturday night and bring news that the first part of the plan worked. Akira was captured by the police following a betrayal from Akechi. They scattered without the Treasure. All that's left by the end of the day is for Akechi to make his move.

It's Sunday that's stressful. Downright nerve-wracking at best. No matter what, news of Akira's death should hit by the end of the day. Until then (and after), it's a job of acting normal and going about their lives. Hamuko doesn't have work – best to keep her distance from Leblanc for now – so she heads out to the dine in Shibuya just for something do to.

(She might have spent all of the day before lounging around, catching up on all the Disney movies she seems to have missed, and moping about her lack of memories, but you can't prove it. Either way, she feels it was a very productive use of her time.)

The diner is busier than usual, full of students on their day off. Thankfully, she still manages to snag a booth that's relatively secluded so she can focus on whatever she decides to do. And by that she means anything but think about Akira's impending doom, really. She's only known him for a month, but that doesn't mean she wants him to die.

Of course she doesn't want him to die. What kind of person wants anyone to die? Aside from Akechi. And whoever he's working for. And whoever she knew before that betrayed her and was also in a cult, apparently. Actually, there's an unreasonable amount of people she knows of that want people to die – "unreasonable" meaning more than zero.

But back to what she was doing. She opens her memory journal and stares down at the most recent entry for her dreams. It's surprisingly detailed – usually her dreams are disjointed, full of feelings and pictures that she can't recall in the morning. This one was like watching a movie in first person.

It must've been her introduction to some of the people in her contacts list. Her brother, obviously, she knew before the memory took place, even if she can't remember it. Kirijo Mitsuru, Takeba Yukari. People she knew once. Strong nostalgia crashes down on her, a tsunami of feelings and memories she can't quite describe. She had entertained the idea of family, of course, but the reality of actually having one – whether predetermined or found – is almost beautifully melancholy.

It's clear now that the people of her past know she's alive – the redhead she saw waiting for Sanada Akihiko very much resembled Kirijo Mitsuru, now that Hamuko's seen what she looks like – so why hasn't Minato reached out to her? Why haven't any of them attempted to explain who they are? Their importance to her? Why leave her in the dark?

Though, she supposes she might have trouble reaching out if the situation were reverse, especially as it's obvious they are aware of her memory problem. Still, if simple conversations are enough to trigger her memories, then why wouldn't talking to the people that actually knew her help as well? It should help more, even. The only way to know is to try.

Unfortunately, they seem dead set on remaining no-contact with her. There's no hope of getting in contact with an heiress, even if they might be expecting her to try, so Kirijo is out of the question. She knows where Amada goes to school, which might help, but he seems likely to bolt at first sight of her. Sanada didn't leave any contact information when he stopped by, almost definitely on purpose. And she hasn't even interacted with Takeba and Minato in the present yet, so no hope there.

(Calling them by their last names feels somehow wrong, but the current version of her doesn't know them, so she pushes the feeling down – except for her brother. Calling him Arisato would just be wrong.)

On second thought – even knowing some measure more than she did when she woke up in Mementos, contacting them might not be the best idea. She doesn't know much at all about them. Not even her own twin brother. Knowing they're out there isn't the same as remembering everything, and it might just hurt both sides of this situation if she did reach out.

Besides, she only knows the others from a sort of observation and logic standpoint, not from actually remembering them. Right now, she can say she remembers her brother, Koromaru, and to some lesser extent Takeba and Kirijo. And even then, she only remembers meeting Takeba and Kirijo, nothing else. Is there a difference between remembering something and knowing it?

Intrinsically, she feels that there is.

It makes sense that they might be deliberately preventing her from contacting them. She doesn't know them, and they don't really know her. Humans are shaped by their experiences and she doesn't have the experiences that once shaped her, no matter how much she hopes her personality is intact.

She turns her journal back to the original contacts page and starts filling out her new information. This is something she meant to do yesterday, after the dream, but did not. It's useful to have something to do, anyway. Nothing else is going to take the mind power necessary to ignore the ever-ticking clock –

Nor, in fact, the news station playing in the background of the diner, tuned in with constant updates on the Phantom Thief in custody.

At least she'll know when they announce his suicide.

So – leads.

Takeba Yukari is the one she hasn't explored, considering how new that development is. There's no harm in looking her up. If she doesn't find anything, then she doesn't find anything. She rallies herself and then types the name into her phone's search bar.

Takeba Yukari

Actress

Known for her role as Pink Argus in Featherman Rangers, though she started her career as a model.

Read more:

There's a picture confirming it is indeed the same Takeba Yukari from her dream – memory – thing. Featherman Rangers, huh? Hadn't Futaba said something about that when they first rescued Hamuko? Something about – the actress who plays Pink Argus went to Gekkoukan High School and is dating Kirijo Mitsuru.

Well.

Maybe she should introduce them when her memories are back. Futaba's too shy for them to be any sort of close, but obviously she likes cartoons like that. And Pink Argus in particular if she knows where the actress went to school. Obsessed with cartoons, like –

Like?

She loses track of the thought. Something about someone she knew before, or something like that.

Her finger hovers over the read more – intrigued to see the information Futaba had given her with her own eyes rather than to find out more about Takeba – but before she decides to hit it, her screen is obscured by a message.


Sunday

11/20

1:34pm

Lucia : Can you ask your friend to stop attempting to find information about you?

Lucia : She's very persistent.

Lucia : We would prefer you recover your memories naturally.

Arisato Hamuko : We?

Lucia : Oh, forgive me. I'm Yamagishi Fuuka.

Lucia : It's in your best interest that we don't force your memories.

Arisato Hamuko : . . . Alright. I'll ask her to stop.

Lucia : Thank you.


Yamagishi Fuuka must be Fuuka-chan from her contacts. For all of their efforts to prevent her from learning the major things about her previous life, they're not keeping her from learning their names. That's good. At least she doesn't need to stumble blindly in the dark until she regains her memories somehow.

Should she message Futaba right now?

. . . No, she shouldn't. Futaba can multitask, but it's better if her undivided attention is going towards Akira right now. No harm in waiting until he's home safe since Futaba isn't likely to be looking into Hamuko's past right now anyway. There are priorities here and she should not be one of them.

Instead, she turns back to her open journal and reads back what she has written so far, adding what she's just learned along the way. She doesn't want to miss anything; it might become relevant later.


Akihiko-senpai – Sanada Akihiko. Star. Rank 10?

Fuuka-chan – Yamagishi Fuuka. Concerned about my memories. Hacker, maybe? Stopping Futaba.

Kirijo-senpai – Kirijo Mitsuru. Empress. Has not directly contacted me, but is aware of my presence. Leblanc.

Min – Arisato Minato. Twin brother. "Arisato fund" "special situation" orphans?

Yuka-tan – Takeba Yukari? Seems to match up. Famous, dating Kirijo. Has not contacted me.

Ken-kun – Amada Ken. Justice. Rank 10?

Koromaru – cute dog.


Even with all the new information she has accrued since she woke up, she's still missing more than half of the names on the list, and she has limited knowledge of those she does know. Sanada is a police officer, Takeba is an actress, Kirijo is an heiress. . . what does her brother do? The likelihood of finding out via the internet is low, but still. . . curiosity begins to win out and she erases her search on Takeba in favor of putting in her brother's name.

Her finger hovers over the enter button.

Does she really want to know?

. . . No.

If she found out, it would just feel – impersonal. The divide that separates them would be clear as day, because she had to find out her own brother's job from the internet. It can wait. She can wait. Maybe she can ask Yamagishi, at some point, if they come in contact again.

She turns to the next blank page in her journal – which isn't very organized, she'll admit – and writes the things she knows versus the things she remembers. The distinction is clear to her, and she wants it to be clear in the journal as well, even if at this point the journal is bordering on useless. What she remembers, she remembers, and what she knows, she thinks about constantly.


Know:

Kirijo – heiress, in charge. Sanada – policeman Amada – shujin student Takeba – actress Yamagishi – contacted me? Gekkoukan – wearing uniform when I woke up Theo? Do not know nor remember. Velvet Room related.

Remember:

Favorite color – orange Blue – Velvet Room, brother Supernatural – Evoker, Persona, Shadows, Tartarus, midnight phenomenon Koromaru – cute, cute dog Velvet Room – in danger First day at Iwatodai Minato – brother Name – Arisato Hamuko

Proportionally, she doesn't have much information about her life at all, remembered or otherwise. She's not a very patient person. It's been a month or so since she woke up in Mementos, and she barely even knows her own name. Not making much progress is a little off-putting.

Her list leaves nothing for her to research. She can't investigate the Velvet Room situation without Akira – or travelling to the depths of Mementos, which she can't do without the Phantom Thieves – she can't pick up a shift at Leblanc or even go near it right now, and she can't contact anyone she knows, past or otherwise.

Briefly, she reconsiders contacting the people from her past. Takeba and Kirijo as people in the public eye would be hard to get ahold of. Sanada and Amada, on the other hand, would be relatively easy. Sanada is a police officer, so all she'd have to do is figure out where in the city he works, and she could either just walk in or ring the office and ask for him. Amada, despite Hamuko's surety that he would bolt at first sight of her, could easily be tracked down at Shujin. If it weren't Sunday, she'd be half-tempted to go right now and corner him for answers.

But –

She's never going to get anywhere if she doesn't trust people who were once her friends. (This, she's sure of. She can feel it – they are not her enemies.) Yamagishi said not to try to find anything about her past, so she won't, beyond what she already knows. Somehow, she thinks actively trying to contact the people who once knew her involves trying to seek out her past.

(Plus, she's pretty sure Amada would be traumatized if she cornered him like that. He was downright terrified when he saw her originally.)

So she can't go to work, she can't talk to anyone, and she can't do anything productive towards finding out who she used to be. That means she has absolutely nothing to do for the next however many hours until Akira's death is announced, real or not.

Hamuko looks around the diner. It's full of high school students on their day off, and it's only getting more crowded as the day goes by. No point in taking up space if she's not even really here to do anything now that she's finished with her memory journal for now. She heaves a sigh and pays, packing up her things neatly into her little bag. Walking around Shibuya couldn't hurt. She hasn't really explored Tokyo yet – she's been busy with her memories and newfound job.

Let's see, there's an arcade – probably also filled with teenagers, so that's out – a CD shop, which she's already been to, and a few other shops that don't seem particularly interesting. She refuses to go down Blue Door Alley, even knowing what the blue door is, so not that either. She's already been down to the mall and it didn't seem all that interesting. She might have to venture out into other districts of Tokyo in order to occupy her mind.

"I've always wanted to go to Jinbocho, but it's a bit far. . ."

. . . Jinbocho it is, in honor of whatever girl she just heard in her head. Mostly because she sounds cute, and if that isn't reason enough to listen, Hamuko doesn't know what is. She turns and heads to the station, taking a minute to figure out which train she needs to get on to get to Jinbocho.

Within the hour she's there and –

Oh, wow. She's never trusted a cute girl more in her life. There's just so many books! She glances around the little street with wonder. She doesn't think she's ever seen this many bookstores in one place in her entire life.

She spends hours walking around the shops, but it only feels like a few minutes. She leaves the district with a bag full of books in hand. A guide to Greek mythology – she finds she's particularly curious about Greek myths – some astronomy, a book on tarot, and one on Arsene Lupin, the basis of Akira's Persona. It's getting dark as she boards the train back to Shibuya.

The news on Akira's capture is still playing in the subway as the train pulls into the stop. She stops just to see if his death has been announced yet – it doesn't seem so. It won't be long now that the sun has started setting. No matter what, the news will be that he died. She just has to remind herself that it might not be true.

A bark draws her out of her thoughts, and suddenly she is on the floor with something licking her.

A dog?

A very wiggly dog.

"Koromaru, no!" says a gruff voice from nearby. The dog is pulled off her. She starts brushing herself off, then registers what was said. Koromaru? She looks closer at the dog.

"Oh my gosh, Koro-chan!" Hamuko finds herself cooing. "Fancy seeing you here!"

Koro-chan's wiggles double at the sound of her voice. She busies herself with petting, though she does get up off the floor. She has some amount of dignity. (She's not sure how much dignity you can have after being knocked over by a 20-pound dog, but she's going to ignore that.)

She is almost so distracted by Koro that she doesn't realize that the voice that said his name is most likely someone she knows. Knew. Whatever.

Almost.

Moon. Rank 10. MAX.

She locks eyes with a man. She has to look up to do so – he's taller than her. (Not that that is a very hard thing to be.) He doesn't look too surprised to see her, but there is something in his expression that she can't quite decipher. He's hunched over a little, almost as if to compensate for how much shorter she is. His brown hair is pulled into a ponytail, and he's wearing a white turtleneck tucked into jeans. For a moment she imagines a peacoat and beanie on him.

So much for avoiding anything even semi-related to before she woke up.

The man sighs. He looks deeply, intensely tired, as if he's worked every shift he could possibly pick up at a high-stress job for the past year. Honestly, he could've been. It's not as if she would know what he's been doing in the time she's been gone. (Or, really, what he was doing before, since she doesn't remember him.) "Shinjiro. I can see you're wondering."

"I wasn't going to ask," Hamuko says defensively. "Yama – Fuuka asked me not to look into my past, so I haven't."

Shinjiro – Shinji? – snorts. "Must be killing you."

"It is," she admits. "But you guys know more than me at this point. I trust you."

There's something about his features that make him seem gruff at first glance, but it melts into something much softer at her words. They were close, then. She wishes she had any memory of him – there's something heartbreaking about being recognized and unable to return the favor. He opens his mouth to say something when she hears it –

"We have breaking news; the Phantom Thief held in custody has committed suicide."