-Summer Day 2-
Today it was Yukiko who decided to indulge and sleep in just a little. Last night a large party of guests decided to check themselves in for a celebration and so Yukiko was pulled away from her friends early. She was having a wonderful dream, one filled with the scent of flowers thanks to her persona Sume-Okami. Ever since first receiving her persona, she found that her dreams were that much sweeter. Such a beautiful garden, oh and in the center, sitting nonchalantly but grinning pleasantly was-
Though the flower petals are scattering,
they added colour to the town.
The final time was here,
the wind kindly told.
Yukiko gave an uncharacteristic groan as she rolled over and pulled the sheets over her head.
After several moments of Reset, the tired girl gave up and lift her head from her pillow, her hair unusually messy and unruly. Rolling her eyes in rage she reached for her cell phone and flipped it open seeing it was Chie, and took the call. "Hello? Chie?" she yawned and rubbed her eyes but was quickly interrupted.
"Yukiko, Yukiko is Souji there?!"
Chie sounded desperate and Yukiko immediately straightened.
"Uhm, I can go check." was her unsure response.
Covering the receiver end of the phone, Yukiko didn't bother changing her clothes just yet. She hurried down to the lobby, unprofessionally in her sleepwear.
"I'm sorry, but did Seta Souji check in yesterday or this morning at any time?"
A few pages in a book were flipped, "I'm sorry ma'am, no one by that name has checked in recently."
Yukiko raised the phone to her lips, "No, no he's not, why?"
Chie's frustrated groan sounded on the verge of tears. "Dojima called earlier this morning, he said Souji never came home last night!"
This came as a shock, Souji was always home before dark, but.. He did have a bad habit of sneaking out at times when Dojima wasn't around. But despite that, Souji always came home, he wouldn't just leave Nanako by herself for a prolonged amount of time. It was hard to believe, but Chie wasn't one to joke about these things at all.
"We're looking through all of Inaba and even Marie is missing, we even have Kanji at the beach and Yosuke searching Okina right now."
"Alright, I'll be there soon."
Yukiko quickly shut her phone and rushed up the stairs to change. In her haste it wasn't a fancy outfit, but it was perfectly acceptable as she hurried back out yelling at the receptionist on the way out to keep things in check. After riding the bus to the central shopping district, it wasn't long before she ran into Chie asking pedestrians if they had seen someone of Souji's description. Upon meeting eyes, they rushed to each other's side, Chie looking distraught and frantic.
"Yukiko, Yukiko we-we haven't found him, no one has seen him and-and oh god what are we going to do-?!"
Yukiko quickly pulled Chie into a tight hug, she knew that Chie was a tough but sensitive person. When Yukiko had gone missing she had reacted the same way. She really was a loyal and caring person.
Softly stroking her hair Chie quickly calmed and became more coherent, "Yukiko, I did it again. I blurted out something stupid and random and everyone took it seriously. I thought that maybe after yesterday he had gone back into the TV to try and fix the problem. And now Rise and Teddie are investigating there. What if he really did go, why would he go by himself?"
When put with what happened yesterday, Chie's assumption made sense, as to why Souji went alone they'd never know. From the moment he first came to Inaba, he was hard to read, quiet, aloof, he seemed so distant from them. But he proved brave, loyal, understanding, smart, and hard working. He was a wonderful person. So there are several reasons he might have gone alone really.
"Maybe he didn't want us getting hurt..." "
HURT?!" Chie suddenly recoiled in anger, "We're hurting right now Yukiko, oh my god I'm am worried SICK over that ass and all because he thinks he's PROTECTING US? I'm going to have an ulcer, or gray hairs, this anxiety is shaving YEARS OFF MY LIFESPAN YUKIKO!" she screeched, attracting the attention of curious bystanders.
Yukiko flustered, quickly pulled Chie into another calming embrace with soft tender hushes and pats on the head. A moment of silence and saying nothing, Chie pulled back, wiping a single tear from a despondent pouty face.
"Ok.. ok... I'm good now." deep breath, exhale, "I'm good."
"Glad to hear that." Yukiko smiled softly, "Now that we're calm, we'll continue the search, ok?"
Chie huffed angrily as Yukiko gently took her hand and led her down the streets looking like a mother and a child who had just finished their temper tantrum. Now now Chie, everything was going to be alright, it was, it had to be. It always was.
- o O o-
By late afternoon, there was a small search party going around Inaba comprised of the investigation team, the Inaba police department, and even some of Souji's other friends from school. Kou and Daisuke were determined and persistent and dare anyone who refused Ai Ebihara in any way. And yet despite all their efforts, there was no sign of their silver-haired leader.
"No one has seen Souji anywhere since yesterday." Yosuke sighs dejectedly and furrows his brow in frustration. "
I also don't sense him in the TV world." Rise murmured with Teddie giving a nod of agreement. "And I called the station, no one has seen Marie on the set either." she added.
"Where could they have gone?" a question from Kanji.
"Senpai is not the one to up and leave without telling anyone, or at least without giving a hint." an obvious statement made by Naoto which was not entirely true.
Yosuke knew. He knew once Souji had gone in by himself without telling a soul to confront that bastard Adachi. He didn't know what happened, nor what words were exchanged by them. But Souji was bitter that day, a scowl on his face that was uncharacteristic of him. But that didn't matter. Souji had left without telling them, alone, even after he promised that they would go in together. And still Yosuke kept this a secret.
"You don't think he was kidnapped or anything do you?" Chie bit at her fingers nervously.
"I don't think so, Senpai is a tough as nails dude. He could take on anyone." Kanji crossed his arms with defiance.
"Senpai is undoubtedly strong. But as we know from our many battles with him, he is not without his weaknesses. He isn't Superman." Naoto pointed out, running her fingers through her hair, her brain probably unscrambling every possible scenario to see which one made more sense.
"It's... Going to rain tonight." Yukiko pointed out, "You think... Possibly?"
It was preposterous. Izanami herself said as her last words that she would stop interfering with the human world. And that meant stopping both the unnatural fog and the Midnight Channel. Besides, Souji had never been on TV before, no one outside of Inaba and possibly Tokyo knew of him enough to be curious about him. And not to mention he was never-
Wait a moment.
In a sense he had.
But it would be the same case as with Nanako, never directly shown or mentioned on the television, and yet implied. Naoto came to this theory fast. And her head turned to Rise.
"Rise, we all know that during your performances on TV you've given a shoutout to senapi on more than one occasion. You never stated his name, nor given any hints to his identity. Only that he was the one who inspired you." Naoto pointed a finger.
In addition to this it didn't help that Rise also referred to him as the boy she was head over heels for once or twice. That would certainly get some people curious as to the identity of this boy and everything about him. Rise frowned and bit her lip in distress.
"Well I thought this whole TV nonsense was done with. If I knew mentioning senpai would lead to him getting- wait are you implying that he will show up on the midnight channel?"
"It... Seems unlikely yes. But it is a requirement that has been fulfilled."
"But it rained last night and nothing showed up on the TV at all." Chie rebutted with a confused frown.
"But let's face it, did any of us even stay up that late to check?" Naoto shot back.
"True," Yukiko absentmindedly played with a lock of hair, "It's not like any of us were expecting it, so none of us would have stayed up to watch. We thought it was all over."
"But I still didn't sense anything on the other side, I checked this morning. Senpai went missing last night!" Rise frowned,for some reason Naoto's facts made her feel as though this was all her fault somehow.
And so Naoto had nothing to say to that. She couldn't doubt Rise's analytical ability, she was the best one of the group. And so the group fell into silence once more, back to square one. It was almost humiliating for them how they had solved a whole murder case together, but when one of their own go missing (specifically their leader) they're powerless to deduce anything.
"I want to go see Nana-chan." Teddie spoke up.
Of course. Nanako would be heartbroken over this. Soui was her 'big bro' after all. Despite being mature for her age, she was still only seven and to loose one as close as Souji would be devastating. Perhaps it would be nice to pay her a visit, to cheer her up. However it might also be stressful for Dojima if they were all suddenly crowded into his house. It was decided that only Teddie would go. He had a much closer relationship with Nanako than any other of the investigation team members and she saw him as a close friend. They all passed on their messages to Nanako through Teddie and he hurried off anxiously.
"So what do we do? We've hit a wall." Yosuke groaned in irritation.
Naoto sighed, "Perhaps the best thing to do is do what we've always done when we've hit a blockade: We wait."
It pained everyone to do so, but it was the only reasonable option before them. Perhaps time would bring with it a new clue, a new kind of viewpoint and then Souji would be found safe and sound. And then, everything would be ok and they would laugh like nothing ever happened.
- o O o-
"I still don't like this. I swear if even one of them gets hurt-!"
"Oh but it's quite impossible for them to go through such a trial unharmed don't you think?"
"I don't care! You call it a trial and yet here we are watching them like this is some god damned movie of the year!"
"Please calm yourself, this is no different than the trial he went through a year ago. We were observing then too."
"That doesn't make it any more right! Here we sit knowing everything that is going to happen and we're watching them stumble on like mice."
"As I've said before, if his bonds prove true, they will all pull through unscathed. Well, for the most part anyways."
"Yeah I heard you the first time."
"But, should they prove false, we can rest assured that not only will our guest perish, but he won't be the only one severely harmed.
"..."
"Oh would you look, we're coming to a pivotal part in our story, let's watch shall we?"
"... I'm beginning to think you two are cruel sadists in some way."
- o O o-
They had all said their goodbyes, gave each other positive reinforcement, and assured one another that everything would be just fine. And yet in the pit of Yosuke's stomach, he knew it wouldn't go as smoothly as they all hoped. He as Souji's partner knew him better than anyone, and for him to disappear like this didn't bode well. Oh and once his parents caught wind of this, being at home made it all the more unbearable. Yosuke's mother tried to console her totally distraught (sarcasm) son, patting his head and treating him like he was five all over again. He was not devastated, he was worried yeah, but having his parents senselessly fawn over him due to a loss of a friend was both ridiculous and annoying. Both were just highly exaggerating things.
How relieved he was to get away from them was probably borderline rude and once he made his way to his room, all he was planning to do was go to bed and sleep secretly hoping that he could sleep it all away. God today had been so stressful. For sure where Souji was, when he found him, Yosuke would be sure to punch him, it was only right considering he worried everyone to death (And Chie to tears).
Hell if all of Inaba didn't know that Souji Seta was missing by now, almost everyone was on the lookout for him, and if no one's seen him in such a small town then...
Could Naoto be right?
It was impossible of course. They had resolved all of this long ago and that was that. And yet at the clock ticked on noisily Yosuke found himself slouched down at his desk and intently watching the TV. Aside from the faint voices of his parents, the patter of rain hit the window. The clock ticked. Now to wait until midnight. Time slowed on agonizingly until-
Ten
Nine
Eight
Eyes watched the screen intently
Seven
Six
Five
Suddenly static
Four
Three
Two
One
"Hello and welcome one and all!"
"No. Fucking. Way.."