...it just occurred to me that this is the first multi-chapter story I've posted ever since I switched laptops. I have had this thing for a while now and, yet, it's taken me this long to get back into the groove of things. ...I really don't know what to say to that. I really don't.
Anyway… welcome to the second chapter for my Akiba week story. Yeah, I'll be doing every prompt. I forget if I said that in the previous chapter, but I can confirm that I will be trying my hand at all the prompts.
This was honestly the trickiest prompt to come up with stuff for, but I managed to come up with something. For continuity, this takes place after Scramble and Dancing Star Night/Dancing in Starlight, but is ignoring The Royal. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy it.
Disclaimers: Persona belongs to Atlus, Sega, and its other owners. I don't own the characters in this story.
Tuesday. November 2nd, 2017
Akira lightly tapped his pencil against his hand, checking over a list of what homework he had to get done, before he saw the whiteboard be written on.
"Do keep in mind, class, that the term paper is going to be due by the end of the month," the teacher informed everyone, "Your topic is to write about what your passion is."
"What our… passion is…" Akira muttered to himself as he wrote down the assignment.
"That sounds like it'll be easy to write," Morgana whispered.
Shortly after, the bell to signal the end of classes rang. Morgana managed to slip into Akira's bag without anybody seeing him and, not long after, Akira headed for home. Morgana eventually popped out of Akira's bag to breathe a bit.
"It's winter, but it's still warm!" Morgana whined.
"It'll eventually cool off. How bad it'll get… we'll see…" Akira stated simply.
"Ugh…" Morgana sighed.
That evening, Akira simply stared at a blank document on his laptop with a simple title of "Passion" as he tried to think of something. He eventually began to type on the document only to backspace away what he typed after a bit. This continued on for about two hours before Akira let out a frustrated yell.
"WHY IS THIS SO HARD?!" he yelled.
"Keep it down," Morgana told him.
Akira just exhaled, closed out the word document, and eventually just walked out of his room to go do something else.
"...it'll work out soon…" Morgana said hopefully.
Friday. November 24th, 2017
Akira bonked his head against a desk a few times, he then looked up, and saw his still blank document staring at him. He eventually closed his laptop with an annoyed sigh.
"How have you still not made any progress?" Morgana questioned.
"I don't get it either…" Akira sighed. He then walked over to the TV in his room and started up a console.
"Are you SERIOUSLY playing Arttoon now?! You have to finish this paper before the end of the month!" Morgana shouted.
"I need to get some frustration out of my system… beating some opposing Squidlings should help clear my head a bit…" Akira responded.
The frizzy-haired boy smirked as he won yet another round in Arttoon. He then selected to play another round, then smiled upon seeing that one of his teammates was 'SakuraSquid'. Shortly after he noticed that, his phone began to buzz. Akira quickly pressed a button to forward the chat to a headset so that he could play.
"Hiya, Akira!" Futaba's voice rang from the other end.
"Good to hear you," Akira smiled.
"Same to you," Futaba said before giggling, "Looks like we're on the orange team together."
Akira snickered a little bit upon seeing their team color, "Of course you pick the color that matches your hair!"
"Hey, people at school keep saying I look like a Squidling as is. I may as well embrace it," Futaba stated.
"Akira, I got my Splatstrike fully charged!" Futaba quickly yelled, "Shoot! Three enemies, and they look tough! Give me cover fire!"
"On it," Akira responded as he quickly got his character over to where Futaba's was and gave the requested cover fire, "You good?"
"Hang on… gotta aim it…" Futaba informed.
Akira tensely watched before he saw the Splatstrike go sailing into the air and land with a massive ink explosion. The last few seconds on the timer then ellapsed just after the Splatstrike had finished. Both of them watched as the scores were calculated and… their team won.
"Nice!" Akira shouted.
"The Splatstrike must've pushed us over the edge…" Futaba figured.
"Thanks a lot, Futaba," Akira told her.
"I should be thanking you since you gave me that cover fire. You're always helping others…"
"True…" Akira figured.
"You're just so… passionate when it comes to helping others… y'know? It's just… who you are. It's something I really love about you…" Futaba admitted.
Akira could almost see Futaba blushing in front of him when, suddenly, the words she said echoed in his mind. He then gained a large smile.
"Wanna go for another game?"
"I have something to go do. I'll talk to you later," Akira told her, exiting the game lobby and powering the game off, "You just gave me the inspiration I needed. Love you, Futaba."
"Explain some more to me later… and I love you too," Futaba responded.
With that, Akira ended their chat and got back over to his computer. He quickly began to type on the word document, a large smile on his face, and a confident air to him as he the typing went at a fast pace...
Sunday. November 26th, 2017
"Hey, Futaba, you free?" Akira asked her via video chat.
"If it's for you, I'm always free. What's up?" Futaba asked.
"I just sent you an email with a word document attached to it," Akira informed her, "I need a second set of eyes on this paper. I'm just a bit worried about it…"
"Leave it to me," Futaba smiled as she opened up the document.
Thus, Futaba began to read the document while Akira watched her do so. Futaba then noticed him watching her out of the corner of her eye.
"Um… could you not watch me while I do this? It's a little pressure inducing…"
"Oh, sorry, sorry," Akira quickly apologized. He then moved away from the computer screen so that Futaba could keep up the work.
About two hours had passed before Futaba sent a response email with a few notes about what to adjust. He then re-enetred the line of sight that the video chat had and Futaba simply smiled upon seeing him.
"It's not much, but I think you could improve it in some spots," Futaba informed.
"Alright. Thank you, Futaba," Akira told her.
"So… is this what you were referring to when you said I inspired you?"
"Yeah. I've been stuck on what exactly my passion is before you helped it click," Akira informed, "Helping people has always been my passion. I'm not exactly sure what sort of a career I can make out of it, but I do hope that I can keep helping others."
"It probably won't be a police officer given… y'know…" Futaba stated bluntly.
"True. Maybe a therapist? I'm still working things out…" Akira admitted, leaning back into his seat, "I could also be a writer. I've always been good at writing…"
Futaba simply gave him a relaxed smile, "Whatever it is you decide to do, I'll support you all the way."
"Thanks," Akira smiled, "...hey, Futaba?"
"Yeah?"
"What else are you passionate about besides tech?"
A faint blush colored Futaba's face, she twirled a lock of her hair, and then she eventually spoke, "...well… um… I have a second passion that I've had for several years now. I think I've had it… several years now."
"What is it?" Akira gently told her.
"...dancing."
Akira gained a bit of a surprised look on his face in response to this statement. Futaba then stood up, took off her headset, closed her eyes, took a calming breath, and then began to skillfully dance. A blush formed on Akira's face as he watched her sway around and dance with a very heavy amount of skill and care. Futaba eventually stopped, took a bow, and got her headset back on.
"I got a bit of a love it when I was younger… but the style that I fell head-over-heels for right away was belly dancing. It sort of sparked my interest in Egypt and, well, you know how much I knew about that part of the world…" Futaba stated.
"Right…" Akira nodded.
"I decided to join a dance club at school and a lot of people think I have a bit of a gift for it. I suppose that, if computers and hacking eventually fall through, I have a good back-up plan in place…" Futaba shrugged.
"Well, like you said earlier, I'll support you all the way."
Futaba faintly blushed, then giggled a bit.
"Speaking of dancing… I once had this odd dream about you and I dancing together in what looked to be Leblanc and… I think where we fought the Holy Grail…" Akira stated.
"That sounds… oddly familiar…" Futaba admitted.
The two were both silent as they thought about the event mentioned, yet they couldn't clearly recall any of it. Eventually, their conversation devolved into various topics and Futaba rambled a bit about belly dancing. Akira couldn't fully retain what it was she talked about, but he kept an attentive and happy look on his face as he just listened to her talk.
Tuesday. December 12th, 2017
"Hey, Kurusu-kun?" one teacher asked.
"Yeah?"
"May I speak with you for just a minute? I won't take up too much of your time, but I would like to talk to you for a bit," the teacher told him.
Akira gave a nod in response. The two walked into the classroom and sat near the desk.
"This is about your paper…" the teacher began, handing it over to him, "I'm sorry that it took me a little while longer to get it back to you."
"It's fine," Akira assured the teacher. He then looked over it to see he got a perfect score, "...wow…"
"You truly spoke with passion and heart in this paper," the teacher informed, "You clearly have a path set in mind. I'm honestly a little surprised you're so willing to keep helping others given where… you know… it lead you last year…"
"It's just… what I want to do," Akira stated simply.
"Well… I have three things to say to you. First of all, great job. Second off… here," the teacher told him, handing him a flyer for a writing contest, "You have a real knack for writing. If you decide to keep that up, then this is a good program that gets writers going."
"Thank you," Akira responded, slipping the flyer into his bag, "And the third thing?"
"I wish you and Sakura-san the best. Given how much you talked about her… you two clearly have a long and happy future together."
Akira simply smiled before he headed off for home. He got out his phone, snapped a picture of his paper, and sent it to Futaba. He then added on a text saying "thanks for your help" to her as well.
This was honestly the trickiest prompt to write something for. Everything else kind of came to me naturally and, while I've had some ideas change, I have had ideas in mind for them. This one? It took a bit. I am happy with how it turned out, but it was a bit tricky. ...not helping matters was some illness deciding to rear its ugly head today, but that's not really important. I have been doing better and I did promise to get a chapter out per prompt.
I kind of think the idea of Akira having writer's block came from my own difficulty writing this prompt. Not totally sure. Though, I'll admit, I do honestly think that whatever position he ends up in when he's an adult will still be helping people because of how much he helped others. Just my take. Futaba's back-up idea of being a dancer… yeah, there was a loose inspiration from the dancing games, but I just think her being a belly dancer specifically kind of fits her Palace's motif. Just my take there.
And, yes, the game they're playing is supposed to be a Splatoon parody. I mean, come on, everybody I've shown Futaba to thinks she looks like an Inkling. It was a pretty easy idea. ...albeit, originally, they were supposed to be playing Smash Ultimate, but I scrapped it because I realized it didn't line up with the timeline I had in mind. I had the joke about Futaba looking like an Inkling planned for a while, so I just changed it to a Splatoon parody. Also, the "Squidling" term actually came from the playthrough that YouTuber "The Bittersweet Gamers" did of Persona 5 where one of the people commentating said "Squidling" instead of "Inkling". Just a little nod to that.
If I had to name a favorite part… gotta be when Akira and Futaba are playing their Splatoon parody together. Just a cute scene in my mind.
Well, I hope that you all enjoyed this one. While it was tricky to write… I'm happy with how it came out. Next time is the prompt I had the most amount of ideas for… future.
Just Live More.