Chapter III

"Come on," Futaba coaxed from the top of the narrow and corroded ladder. "Not much further."

I watched attentively as Haru made her way up each thick rung, slowly and carefully, each step double and triple-checked. The ladder should've been condemned- it looked like something you'd find in an ancient tomb.

"This was a stupid idea," Ann muttered next to me.

She, Makoto, Yusuke and I stood at the top of the concrete stairwell, anxiously watching as my tipsy spouse climbed just high enough to reach Futaba's outstretched hand.

"I gotcha," Futaba grunted as she pulled her up and over the access hatch.

"Thank you," Haru breathed in relief.

Ryuji had already taken up half the chairs, so it was my job to get the rest. I forgot where I'd put them for a second, but found them moments later only an arm's length away, leaning up against the concrete wall, black as night.

"I'll take these up," I announced.

"Be careful," Ann told me, her eyes like dull sapphires in the darkness.

Yusuke grabbed one of the chairs. "Do you need any assistance?"

"Just hand them to me when I get halfway up."

He nodded.

Makoto observed us soberly as we got into position, like a critic watching a dumb movie.

I climbed five rungs of the ladder and turned around to grab the first chair, hoisting it up over my head unevenly and depositing it in Ryuji's receptive hands. We did this two more times until all the chairs were past the ladder- on the third I wobbled precariously, prompting a gasp from those below, but managed to keep myself secure.

"Alright," Ryuji announced, unseen. His voice bounced off the concrete like the walls of a cavern. "We're all set."

I pulled myself up with another effort, and emerged dizzily from the tiny hatch onto the sprawling flatland of gravelly concrete that was the roof. The first thing that struck me was it's sheer size- something about the layout of the complex had allowed for a conjoined rooftop across all the individual buildings, creating the illusion of an endless flatland that seemed to exist in a void of only stars and distant light pollution. Haru, Futaba and Ryuji all stood just a few feet away from me, but they looked like miniature models against the colossal black night, tiny imperfections on an endless plane of celestial aether.

Haru took my arm in hers.

"It's beautiful up here," I whispered.

"It is."

Futaba gave us a perplexed look. "It's a rooftop."

We helped the rest up and started our silent trek across the barren cement wastes towards the edge of the world. I carried one folded chair. The roof flipped upside-down in my head but I kept moving, focusing on the backs of their pale necks in the starlight. If they hadn't been there with me, I would've just kept walking right onto the spinning atoms that made up the air.

How did I manage to get this drunk so fast?

"This looks like a good spot," Yusuke observed.

We'd reached the edge, but I felt a little pang of disappointment when I saw that the roof didn't simply bleed into the night without division but that a short brick buffer separated us from it.

I sat down the dripping wet chair, folding it out as a breeze, warm as beach water, flowed through my hair. Ryuji handed me another seat and I set it up, too.

"Are you sure we're allowed to be up here?" Makoto asked.

I didn't really listen to whoever answered her. It didn't feel right to listen to the answer to such a question. "Allowed" was very far away from here.

We all took a seat and some of them breathed sighs of relief, glad to be seated, glad to have that ordeal over and done with, glad to have the sky over their heads.

Haru spoke in an almost hushed tone. I understood why- it didn't feel right to do anything but whisper on such a silent night. "Makoto," she said. "We interrupted you with this whole endeavor."

"It's not a problem. It's not really even worth mentioning, it's just a tough week, and I was going to vent." She sighed. "But I'll spare you all the details."

Ryuji shook his hand dismissively. "Let's hear it." He passed around a beer to everyone. It didn't feel like it weighed anything in my hands.

Makoto looked around at all of our gazes fixed attentively on her.

"Alright," she conceded. "I think I was talking about the plane ride in." She took a breath and looked up at the sky. "It was long, and uncomfortable, as most plane rides tend to be. And the moment I got to the airport, we hit traffic. I'd planned on taking a nap before heading this way, but I hardly had time to put my things down at Sae's place before I needed to leave to come here." She caught herself. "Not that I don't appreciate seeing you all- there's no people I'd rather see in my first moments being back in Japan."

"You're just worn out," Ann empathized.

"I am," she agreed. "But I'll be alright. I've been pushing onward so far, there's no way a lack of sleep is going to break me now."

"Makoto-chan," Haru asked. "I know you're living abroad, and I know you're working at a school, but I don't know much else beyond that. How has it been, being over there?"

She almost laughed. "Right- I nearly forgot how long it'd been. I'm sorry, everyone. There's too much in my head lately. I can't keep my relationships straight."

I took a long, slow sip of my drink. The inside of my head felt silky. Haru took a few sips from the same bottle. I think I tasted her lips on it, faintly, like a suggestion rather than a sensation.

"It's okay," Futaba declared. "It's been a while for most of us."

Makoto continued her explanation, uninhibited by wandering thoughts. "I'm a professor of law, Haru. At Stanford, in California."

"That's incredible," she replied.

California was almost on the other side of the world. The sky couldn't be blue somewhere else, I thought. I couldn't fathom that somewhere over the cusp of the horizon California was awake in daylight, no- the world must've been all black.

"It's very hard work," Makoto said simply, no stars in her eyes. "And I just hope I get the promotion I've been vying for soon. I can't help but feel as if I'm being pressured to stay at my current level because nobody wants me any higher up, like I'm a threat, or a disease."

That seemed to catch Futaba's attention. "A disease…?"

"I don't know. My english is fine. But I'm still not- like them."

Ann put a hand on her shoulder. "I know what you mean. It's not easy standing out. You think it's going to help, but it rarely does."

"Yeah," she replied, looking out over the hills. "I moved over there in order to gain access to opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise- but nothing's going to come of that if the work stays this difficult."

"If anyone can do it, it's you."

"It's not about can, not really. I can do it. But what I'm not sure about is how much time you should spend at home to justify having a nice home, you know? Because I'm never there. My brain is all law, all the time, every second of every day. I'm sure I'm making a positive impact on a lot of students. But it's like I've given myself away in order to do that. I don't know where I fit into my own life right now."

A silence settled over the rooftop. Finished talking, Makoto looked out over the bricks and towards Tokyo in the distance, seemingly fixated on the pillars of pale light that shone from the city. Haru looked at her with a delicate gaze, eyes darting slowly back and forth like little hazel tulips in a torrential wind.

"You should leave," Yusuke said.

"It's not like that. It's not so bad. I'm just tired, is all."

"I feel the same way about my manga work," he explained. "I had to get something to secure my living situation while I pursued what I actually wanted to do."

"It doesn't really apply, Yusuke. But I do appreciate the input."

"Is that going well?" I asked him.

He laughed sensibly. "As well it can be, I'm afraid. I've come to realize that the world doesn't care much for art, and I'm forced to accept that."
"Is that really true?" Haru asked.

"I like art," Ann added.

Yusuke nodded with understanding and looked at each of us as he spoke. "Of course- people enjoy art. It's made for people. Looking at a painting gives you insight and a unique experience- it's the feeling you reference, Ann, that inspired me to pursue art in the first place, as I'm sure you all know."

He readjusted himself in his seat. A silent wind blew down from the stratosphere and split his perfectly styled hair into frays.

"But the world doesn't care much for art. No matter the high I get from creating something meaningful and pure, it's tough to pay a mortgage with meaning. And so it's as if I've become frazzled out in different directions, one day drawing manga backgrounds and the next attempting to capture the essence of the human soul. I'm sure you can understand the disconnect I'm experiencing here."

"It sounds confusing," Haru lamented. "For both of you."

"It certainly is," Yusuke agreed. "And I'm not wealthy, but I'm managing. It's a lot harder these days to remind myself of why I started doing this in the first place- that spark is much more elusive than it was in my youth. But it's there. I'm actually renting a hotel room right now for an exhibition in Tokyo later this week. You all should come if you have the time."

"Definitely," Ann replied. "Just let me know."

"We'll try our best," I said. "Depends on the cafe."

"Of course."

Futaba took a swig of something from a black shining bottle.

"Akira," she asked me. "Do you know what I'm doing right now? Career wise? Did we ever talk about it?"

I thought for a moment. Last I knew, she'd been working at an internet security firm. I remember she'd been excited to tell me about "the breaking news that never was" when she managed to diffuse a hacking attempt on some major company- a bank or some sort of store chain, I couldn't remember.

"Cybersecurity?" I wondered aloud.

She took her head. "First of all," she lamented. "I hate the word 'cyber'. Say anything else, just don't say that. It makes you sound like you're fifty. And second of all- no. Haven't been doing that since two summers ago."

"I guess we haven't talked about it, then."

She looked ahead contemplatively for a moment. She wore a white tee and black sweatpants- comfortable clothing, the kind she'd always preferred. Memories flooded my brain, uninhibited in my buzzed state, the TV snow in my mind forming vague images of a scared girl, holding her hands over her ears, asking me when we could go back home- It was like Futaba had buried that girl entirely.

"I love computers," she said. "I do. And you all know I do. I mean- I would've never met any of you if it wasn't for that love. You know, the only thing I've ever been good at yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm sure you all know the deal."

She took another drink.

"So-" she continued. "That's what I did. Worked IT, or 'cyber'security, or this or that, since I got out of high school. You know that much already. The goals changed- 'I just wanna help people learn computers' to 'I just wanna protect people' or 'I just love the rush of a good exploit', but really and truly, I didn't actually give a shit about any of those things. Not a one. "

"You had no passion for it?" Haru asked.

"I thought I did. I did a great job of tricking myself into thinking I did. But about two years ago or so, I had a breakdown at work."

She took a quick breath, as if she were preparing to dive into an underwater cave. Her hair looked almost black in the inky night.

"I was working on some exploit or something. And I remember-" she squinted her eyes a little, recalling the exact image in her mind. "The keystrokes I was making started to feel different- like I was typing on tiny pinprick shards of glass. And I couldn't figure out why that was. But as I kept typing, that feeling traveled up my fingers and into my throat. I almost couldn't breathe. And all of a sudden, it was like I was a little girl again, in the middle of the office, in an instant, all the eyes on me, cutting into me like they used to. I almost started to scream. And so I went home, trying my best to hide my tears, and I shut myself in my room for a goddamn week. Never went back."

"Christ," Ryuji muttered.

Haru, uninhibited, touched her shoulder. "Futaba, are you okay?"

"I'm alright now. I wasn't then. I realized- the same motions I had been making every day with my hands, the motions I had to make for my career, were the same motions I'd relied on when I was that terrified little girl as the only link I had to other people, or to any interaction at all. The girl who couldn't even go outside her room, the girl who still saw the window as some portal to hell. And something about typing that day brought back all those feelings, like it was some link between the me of now and the me of back then."

Somewhere in the far off black, a car horn honked and then fell silent.

"So it all came crashing down on me at once," Futaba continued. "That I only developed this love for computers because they were the only things I had to link me to anything as a kid. They were the only tethers I had to even keep living. And so working with them was like… well, it was like a soldier coming home from a war to work at a shooting range. It made no sense."

She poured herself another glass.

"So," she began again. "I quit. And for however many weeks, I just sat in my room and I thought. And eventually, it dawned on me. I couldn't do computers anymore. It wasn't right. I was using a skill I'd acquired as a side effect of some horrific time in my life and trying to warp that and twist that into something positive. It wasn't going to work. They're fundamentally different."

She puzzled together her next thoughts in her mind, as if she'd never said any of this out loud before.

"I thought- okay. What can I do to change this into something positive? And I realized- I'd made progress. All of you helped me get out of that place, and if you'd never existed, I'd probably be dead ten years ago. And if there's no Phantom Thieves anymore, I have to try and fill that lack. I could be that hand, reaching down into the black, pulling someone up. Because I've been there, you know?"

We nodded solemnly.

"I couldn't start being a therapist. You need schooling for that, and I wasn't gonna go back. I was done with school. But I knew what I could do."

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs.

"I went to some church. You know, the kind that isn't going to ask for a license. The kind that doesn't really care, the kind that wants you to push their agenda to distressed kids and that's about it. I went there and one bullshit resume and confession of faith later, I was working as a counselor."

"I think it suits you," Haru commented.

"I think it does too," she agreed, pausing for a moment. "I've seen some shit, now, though. A lot of kids go through a lot worse than I ever did, and deal with it so much better. I mean… things I can't even repeat. Things beyond what we could've even fathomed back when we were the Thieves."

I could see her mull over her next words slowly, checking to see if she really meant them.

"Whatever we did in Mementos as kids," she muttered. "Didn't fix whatever makes people fucked up. I mean, deep down."

She fell silent, taking another long drink.

The night howled like hell. Our gazes held fast to the concrete at our feet as if to tether us to earth.

I wondered if Arsene could see the distant orange lights of Tokyo bleeding into the black sky as I did, or the fire in Ryuji's gaze, the quiet awareness beyond comfort that arrested Futaba's disposition, the sober misery I found creeping at the corners of Makoto's lips- perhaps he could see through the dark, all the way home, to Kunikazu's bedroom, over interstate roads, connecting my blood to my blood across train routes that ran under my feet, or through the crackling in the air broadcasted from unseen cell towers. Maybe he only saw the way the summer breeze fanned Haru's eyelashes as her gaze reflected the stars in little hazel pools, the dark burgundy of her sundress like another facet of the night, a flat plane given form. Maybe he was dead.

Ryuji poured another round of shots, the little glasses all lined up at his feet like toy soldiers. Futaba grabbed one of the chip bags Makoto had brought up, and tore it open with a loud crinkling that echoed through the night. She munched as the rest of us talked and shared little details about their lives, or discussed movies or books, or something or other.

Before I knew it I was holding another full shot of whiskey, and Ryuji and Futaba were toasting to something. The words felt far away, like they didn't mean much up here, like they were linked to the ground.

I let the silk run down my throat and felt the world melt into a million little pinpoints that swam around me. Haru leaned against my shoulder and we watched in silent subdued wonder as the kids we once knew grew into men and women and pulled apart only to come back together again, blooming into flowers together in shitty apartments or finding themselves in a new career, reborn with purpose, or struggling to keep their heads above water over some unseen ocean, or like their eyes hid some forbidden truth like they were holding up the whole world on their shoulders, a truth that maybe I knew, too.

I looked inward and the roof seemed to swallow the sky when I realized I wasn't sure where I stood, that I couldn't seem to imagine how my life might look if I could memorialize it in a single image. Little paint strokes came to mind, but I couldn't find the picture. Maybe I just didn't want to.

The night went on endlessly, it seemed. Eventually I got so drunk I couldn't even think about anything anymore. Everyone was laughing and yelling and discussing with such passion things I couldn't really understand. I liked watching them, but I wanted to be alone. Ann was passed out in her chair.

I got up and slurred a goodnight to everyone. I helped Haru up from her seat with an outstretched hand. She was so light. We left behind a chorus of singing goodnights as we made our way back into the black plane of nothing that suspended us. Fireflies lit up in pulses around me.

"That's…" was all that Haru said. Then she just looked and watched with me, tracing the little spirals they did as if they were embers from a fire.

I went down the ladder first. It was surprisingly easy. It's just one foot in front of the other, kind of like days of the week. Each day was it's own little story, where sometimes I didn't have time to contemplate what it was exactly I was doing, or why. Or what it meant or didn't mean. But for now I would go onto the next rung. And then those thoughts were gone.

Haru followed me down, her movements competent and graceful. One of her little sandals fell off on her descent. I picked it up and gave it to her when she reached safety. We didn't speak. We didn't need to. She held onto my arm like she wanted to sleep standing up.

We opened the door to Ryuji's apartment to see the full moon hanging low over the world, filling the open sliding glass doors with it's celestial white mass, shining silver over everything like a silent sulphur fire. She sat down on the couch and watched me with the moon in her eyes as I followed suit, then she leaned in and rested her head on my chest as we both let the moonlight bathe us.

"What a strange night," she whispered.

"It is strange," I said.

Her breathing settled into a calm rhythm and she lay down next to me on the couch, our noses touching. I took my fingers and brushed her hair behind her ear, and she studied my face with a quiet gaze, her breath and my breath like the push and pull of the tides. Her eyes closed and then slowly, she kissed me with her lilac lips. Warm movement washed over me as I held her, like the moonlight had dissolved us both into quantum particles and we were melting together into one form, like I was kissing her the way I'd kissed her fifteen years ago. We kissed for a long time, neither of us speaking another word, holding onto each other like we knew the huge moon would soon collide with the earth.

Then, one by one, every other sensation slowly and silently faded away, until the warmth of her lips was all that remained. Eventually, it too, relented to the moving darkness.

Arsene stood before me in a room of nothing at all, his top hat shining a silver glimmer, his crooked red smile of long, jagged teeth and his piercing crimson eyes the only sources of light I could see. He stood with his hands clasped together at his waist, his long claws interlocking together like the blades of a woodchipper, his horns long and reaching towards me. He was still as a monolith.

You are a coward, he said without speaking. You've forgotten everything.

"I haven't," I said.

You are afraid of change, he spat back, his voice like the hellscream of the devil. You are complacent, and small, and you have no perspective.

I screamed back, suddenly angry. "What am I doing wrong, then? I've made a life!"

You saw the signs, I know you did. You cannnot lie to me.

"You're just as useless! You've stayed silent all this time!"

I trusted that you'd be competent. I was wrong. You watched and did nothing as you let the spirit of rebellion slip through your fingers, as if your task was done. Like a fool.

"My task?"

SILENCE.

I went to speak, but found I couldn't open my mouth. Panicked, I felt for it, and felt only smooth skin where my lips would've been.

There is no justification for the way in which you've allowed yourselves to fall into complacent mediocrity, the way in which you've squandered your gifts in lieu of creature comforts and childish dreams half-realized. You were to become a seed from which human liberation would spring forth, and instead, you and The Empress forged your very own chains.

Arsene laughed, his cackling like thunder. The room started to collapse, the rubble showering down on me. I felt every bone in my body crushed to dust under the weight of all of Tokyo.