The Hierophant

April 10th, 8:46 AM

When Sojiro Sakura returned to his cafe bright and early the next morning, he wasn't at all certain what he expected.

The part of him that still thought of his new "guest" as a criminal had wondered if he wouldn't find the cafe trashed, perhaps all his beans spilled across the floor or stolen. The part of him that had exactly seen the boy now living in the attic expected to find him still sitting on his bed, probably curled up in a ball or something.

The latter part was by far the more correct. He opened the cafe door, ringing the little bell, and marched upstairs to find the kid in his slightly oversized red and black school uniform, sitting on the edge of his bed with his hands folded and his legs absently kicking at the air. He looked up at Sojiro when he came up, legs freezing halfway through a kick, before slowly settling. He didn't fidget like Futaba would have; he just sat there, still as a statue.

"You're up," Sojiro said, lamely, the first thing that came to mind. "Good. The… the trains are delayed today, and it's a trip with a lot of transfers, so I'll be driving you there for your initiation. Come on."

He turned around and headed back downstairs, giving the cafe a last longing look before stepping out the door. He didn't even realize the kid had followed him until he glanced back and sawing him a few feet away, hands in his pockets and head down. Smart. Kid knew that any attention for a guy with his record would be bad news. Maybe he wasn't as dumb as Sojiro thought.

Though the idea of a smart criminal living in his attic, when he thought about, worried him more. He led the kid along the alley, to the parking lot outside where his beat up old grocery getter was waiting. He grumbled about letting a guy in his passenger seat, but the kid didn't react. The entire drive to Shujin was like that; the kid sat in his seat, did up his seatbelt and sat stock still and stone stiff, hands folded in his lap and head down, staring at his knees. Sojiro listened to music the whole way there.

"You know that Shujin's your last chance, right kid?" he asked, turning the jazz down so the kid could hear him. "There's no chance any other school in the country takes you in if you get expelled again."

The kid nodded, and Sojiro shook his head, sighing.

"I suppose the silent type is a good one to play with a record like yours," he noted idly. "Maybe if you won't let your mouth get you into trouble you'll be able to stay out of it."

"Yes, sir…" the kid mumbled, and Sojiro shook his head.

"How'd a shrimp like you ever cause this much trouble?" he wondered aloud, though the kid didn't reply at all.

The shrimp didn't say anything, as was his custom. He just sat in silence, and Sojiro had to double check to make sure he was still breathing after a few minutes of total silence. If this was how he was gonna behave every day, maybe this probation game wouldn't be so bad after all. How much trouble could he possibly cause if he turned into a statue in his spare time?

Traffic was already shaping up to be miserable; there had been an accident that morning, a subway crash of some sort, and now everybody was trying to find an alternate path to work. Sojiro was pretty sure he wouldn't make it back to the cafe before the afternoon… hopefully he'd be able to open for the dinner time crowd or something. He couldn't take an entire Sunday off of work, or he risked being late on bills. Again.

Finally, after what felt like half an eternity, they arrived at Shujin. It was a big building, looming high and wide over the surrounding district, encircled by a concrete wall topped with wrought iron spikes and fencing. Sojiro hummed quietly when he saw that, before opening the door and stepping out. The kid followed, hands sliding into his pockets and head drooping down again.

The pair made their way across the back parking lot and around the building to the front door, which was conveniently unlocked. They walked through the largely empty halls, seeing only the occasional student or faculty member passing by without a word. Shujin seemed like a fairly typical high school in Sojiro's eyes; lots of classrooms, a few vending machines, three floors… it almost reminded him of his old high school, though the colours of Shujin were a lot more muted. He supposed that was inevitable, for a school effectively named "Prisoner"

Sojiro had to check the letter in his pocket for directions to the office, and soon enough the two were up on the second floor, knocking on the wooden door. The kid started when it swung open, revealing a tall girl with short brown hair and bright red eyes, wearing the school uniform with a vest and black leggings. She looked up at Sojiro, before glancing down at the kid. Sojiro noted the light of disdain in her eye, before she stepped back and let them in.

Principal Kobayakawa was a very large man; he dominated the space of the office, even sitting. His build was rotund and heavyset, with a neck so thick it almost looked like a life preserver and a blunt chin protruding from that ring of fat. He was totally bald, the office lights reflecting off his gleaming scalp, and his bushy black eyebrows furrowed as Sojiro led his charge inside. The principal folded his massive hands in front of him, and bowed his head in greeting.

"Sakura-san," he said respectively. "And our new exchange student. Welcome to Shujin Academy."

The principal was flanked by the red-eyed student on one side, and a young woman with bushy brown hair and deep bags under her eyes on the other. She wore a yellow and orange striped sweater, shapeless and lumpy, and a denim skirt, hands folded demurely in front of it. Sojiro noted that she had the same look of exhaustion he shared after a particularly miserable day of non-tipping and talkative clientele. Beside him the kid seemed to wither under the three sets of eyes, his slightly too-large uniform absorbing him as he actively shrank under their collective gaze.

"My boy, I hope you understand the situation you are in," Kobayakawa continued, his voice a droning rumble as boring as it was deep. "Your place at Shujin Academy is an effort by the school to make plain our ability to reform even the most hardened of criminals, and turn them into productive and healthy members of society."

Sojiro didn't scoff. It was hard, but he bit his tongue and stopped himself. He doubted anybody would look at the kid and think of a hardened criminal, let alone his potential reformation. The kid didn't speak, though he had managed to turn his head up and actually look at the Principal's face. The red-eyed girl stared blatantly at the kid's face, probably the eye patch. The teacher looked about ready to pass out where she stood.

The principal blathered on and on, but Sojiro tuned out his incessant chatter about "the image of Shujin" and "the crimes of your past" and instead stared out the large picture window behind the man, at the distant traffic. The roads looked to be getting more and more busy; that spelled trouble for his schedule. He nearly told Kobayakawa to hurry it up, but decided not to rush him.

"Several of our teachers here have expressed their doubts about your enrollment," Kobayakawa said, shaking his head. "But I see no reason you should not be afforded this opportunity. Your unfortunate time spent in our nation's esteemed penal system has likely already showed you the error of your ways…"

The kid stopped breathing. Sojiro wasn't even sure how he noticed; he glanced at the shrimp and saw his shoulders completely still, his eye affixed to the principal's face, but he had gone beyond holding still. He had actually stopped moving, turning into a sort of statue. Kobayakawa didn't even notice, just carrying on his tirade about the evils of the kid's past and his "righteous punishment".

The kid only started breathing again when he somehow became even more pale, drawing in a slow and shaky breath as his eyes fluttered. He rocked back and forth on his feet for a moment, hands white-knuckling at his sides. Sojiro couldn't see into his eyes from his angle beside the kid, but he knew a thousand-yard stare when he saw it. He almost took his hand out of his pocket to touch the kid's shoulder, but he stopped himself. He'd learned from Futaba that contact would sometimes worsen a situation, instead of making it better.

So he kept his hands, and his thoughts, to himself. Kobayakawa rattled on and on, a train on the tracks barreling toward some unknown station of concluded thought. Finally, he stopped speaking, looking at Sojiro expectantly. Sojiro had no idea what the hell he wanted, so he shrugged and gave a non-commital grunt of either affirmation or denial.

Kobayakawa seemed satisfied, sitting back in his chair with a self-satisfied smile, hands folded over his voluminous gut. The teacher, Kawakami if Sojiro's idle attentiveness was correct, stepped forward and placed a student ID on the desk, unwilling to even go near Akira. Sojiro wasn't sure he blamed her; the kid was tiny, but his stillness was a little unnerving.

Then the kid stared at the card from a few feet away, clearly confused. Kawakami cleared her throat awkwardly, before Sojiro grunted and grabbed it off the desk for him. The teacher seemed a little miffed, but Sojiro didn't have any more time to screw around. The clock on the wall said it was nearly noon. If he was going to open for dinner he needed to leave immediately. Then the red-eyed girl stepped forward.

"In addition," she said, in a clipped, formal tone of voice. "Your time in prison was not spent in schooling. As such, you will be waived from the prior semester of the schoolwork, provided you take several remedial tests to prove you understand any course material you were not present for. If you can pass with at least a seventy-six percent score, you will not have to worry about catch-up work."

Then she dropped several sheafs of papers on the desk. The kid stared at them, stiffening up again when she stepped closer to put them down. Sojiro frowned, and looked at the principal.

"Does he need to take them today?" he asked, and Kobayakawa started, clearly having not expected to be directly addressed.

"Ah… yes, they must all be done by the end of the week," he said, suddenly much less certain of himself. "Sojiro-san, we are trusting you to ensure he does not cheat in any way. I hope this is satisfactory?"

"I have a business to run," Sojiro grumbled, before grabbing the papers. "I suppose he can take them tonight, after I close up… are we finished here?"

The principal cleared his throat, rather pointedly.

"Young Kurusu, do you understand all that you have been told today?" he asked, staring directly at the kid, who seemed to shrink under his gaze again, before nodding once.

"Y-Yes, sir…" he mumbled. "I… I under… understand…"

Then he nodded again for good measure, at which point Kobayakawa shrugged and leaned back, chair creaking loudly. The teacher and red-eyed girl watched closely as Sojiro and the kid left. After the door closed behind them, Sojiro glanced back at the kid, who looked half-dead on his feet, pale and slowly rocking back and forth.

"M-May I please go to the-the washroom?" he asked, voice soft, fraught with something that sounded like panic.

Sojiro shrugged.

"Just make it quick," he instructed, and sure enough the kid all but jogged down the hall and around the corner, towards where they'd seen the bathrooms at the end of the main hall a few minutes before.

Sojiro waited by the staircase, and in his boredom and idle curiosity he flipped through a pages of the remedial tests. The whole thing was Greek to him; he'd been a middling student in school, and most of this stuff he'd either never really learned or forgotten in the interceding years. Most of it was the basics; Math, Japanese, English, some History and Science sprinkled in. Some advanced stuff he wasn't sure he'd ever studied himself, but the kid would sink or swim by his own merit, same as everyone else. Even if Sojiro cared to help, he wasn't sure he had the ability.

The kid returned after a few minutes. He looked sweaty and bedraggled, his mop of black hair somehow slightly more dishevelled, lips thin and eyes flushed. He looked up at Sojiro, and nodded his head once.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "D-Did I take too long?"

"You were faster than I expected," Sojiro admitted, before turning toward the staircase. "C'mon kid. I don't want to miss the dinner rush."

Two hours of sitting in traffic later, Sojiro was pretty sure he was going to miss the dinner rush. Best case scenario, he got home at the same time it began, which meant he'd have no rice or curry cooked, no ingredients even prepped…

"Dammit." he grumbled, letting his head fall against the steering wheel and honk the horn for a moment before he sat up again. "Take in the kid, Sojiro, how much trouble could it be? They'll pay you, you need the money for the house and the cafe… ugh."

The Sojiro of three weeks ago was an idiot. How much trouble could a convicted assault felon possibly cause, Sojiro? Enough to wreck your entire weekend, apparently. The kid was sitting the exact same way he had on the way over; hands in his lap, staring at his knees. The only difference was that here and there his shoulders would start shaking, or he'd sniffle slightly. Any time either happened, he'd hold his breath, then go back to operating procedure. It was like watching his crappy home computer reboot or something.

The radio blared jazz music that was a lot less soothing when played in an immobilized car. Sojiro groaned again, turning it to another channel where the news was still talking about that damned subway accident, and then he turned it off completely and let the silence and occasional honking horn reign instead.

"Looks like a decent school at least," he grumbled, glancing at the kid. "You better not screw this up. This is your last chance. If you get kicked out, you're out of the attic too. Then it's back to…"

He trailed off when the kid bunched up his hands into fists and tucked his head down, shoulder's shaking and chest heaving. Oh shit. That's right, the kid hadn't been in Juvie, Sojiro you idiot. He'd gotten his damn eye stabbed out in actual adult prison, somehow, and now he was probably remembering that in your damn passenger seat you stupid forgetful moron.

"Uh… kid?" he chanced, receiving only a tiny whimper in reply. "You uh… you know they won't send you back to prison, right? Like Dojima said, that was an accident last time. They'll just put you in juvie. With other teens."

That didn't seem to help much. The kid stopped breathing quite so damn hard, but he was still shaking. Sojiro's mind raced for something else to say, when suddenly the kid stiffened his back, stopped breathing entirely for a long ten second count, and then sat up with his head still bowed, uncurling his fists and resuming his statue impression. Sojiro blinked. Did the kid just… force himself out of a panic attack? Seriously? How?

He didn't ask. The kid didn't seem ready to speak at all. Instead he slid the remedial tests across the console toward him, letting the kid pick them up and slowly flip through them. He rubbed the side of his head on occasion as he did so, the first time Sojiro had seen him fidget like a normal human being. By the time they'd managed to get moving again, an hour later, he had laid the papers back on the console and resumed his stillness-procedure.

"So… you think you can handle it?" Sojiro asked. "The school, I mean. It look alright to you?"

The kid nodded, and so Sojiro shrugged. It was good enough for him.

Another hour of traffic and misery later, Sojiro pulled into his usual parking space, leaned against his steering wheel again and let out a long and anguished sigh. The kid stiffened up when Sojiro opened his door, before meekly following behind him as he walked down the alley toward Leblanc. He unlocked the door, leaving the sign to read "Closed" and walked into the middle of the room, before turning to face the kid.

"Alright," he said, having taken a moment to inhale the scent of his cafe and recharge with the thick aroma of fresh coffee that lingered in perpetuity. "Take a seat up here at the counter and get to work. You have pencils?"

The kid did have pencils. And as he did his remedials, Sojiro brewed two cups of the House Blend, placing one down in front of the kid and sipping on the other with a refreshed sigh. The kid glanced up at the cup, halfway through a question, and blinked.

"It's for you," Sojiro confirmed.

The kid took the handle of the mug in his fingers like was grabbing a live bomb, slowly and gingerly lifting the little porcelain cup off the coaster and taking a small sip. Sojiro raised an eyebrow. The kid didn't react; he didn't smile, he didn't frown, he didn't even wince. He just put it back down, and then paused before going back to his test.

"Thank you, sir," he said, softly.

Then his pencil touched the paper and he returned to his work. Sojiro kept one eye on the clock and the other on the kid. No way was he cheating, at least. The shrimp didn't even move his free arm except to turn the page of the test. His eye remained locked in the page at all times, and before he started he'd set his phone down on the table behind him, far out of reach. The only weird habit was occasionally leaning in way too close to the paper, analyzing it intensely with his one eye before sitting back up and writing his answer.

Every now and then he'd take another small sip of the coffee, until it was gone. Then he'd slid the cup and saucer closer to himself, weirdly enough, until he finally finished the tests and set his pencil down. Then he pushed them toward Sojiro, bowing his head, and slid off the stool to carry his dishes over to the sink.

Sojiro looked over the work. The handwriting was shaky, and the questions made no sense to him, but the answers seemed reasonable. He glanced at the clock and then blinked; it was barely a quarter past six. The kid had done all of it in two hours? He flipped through page after page of sums and sentences and historical facts and yes, yes he had finished it all, in two hours. Sojiro swallowed, closed the papers up and then watched the kid vigorously clean his own cup and saucer before placing them gently in the drying rack.

Then the kid just sorta stood there by the sink, hands by his sides and head down. Sojiro stared at him for a moment, finishing his coffee and wondering what this was about, until it clicked.

"Oh… yeah, you're… you're done, kid," he said. "Get upstairs. I'm gonna lock up early tonight; no point in opening an hour after everyone's eaten. You get to sleep; you've got school bright and early tomorrow."

He didn't wait for the kid to reply; he dropped his cup and saucer in the sink and splashed a bit of water in them so the coffee didn't dry to the bottom, then made his way to the front door with a sigh. When he turned to check the kid was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking down at his phone. Sojiro shrugged, stepped out the door, and locked it behind him.

Weird kid. Quiet, at least.

Weirdly quiet.

Sojiro went home, texted Futaba to let her know he'd be starting supper in a bit, then out of curiosity picked up the kid's record from his kitchen counter and gave it a quick read. He'd mostly ignored everything after the basic rundown of his court case, but this time he went through everything.

Akira Kurusu, age 16, Male. Born in Tokyo, but moved with his family to Oyama in the country a few years later. Mother passed when he was five from illness, father died two years later in an automobile accident. Raised by his aunt after that, solid grades, no outstanding issues until January of that year, when he'd assaulted a man and woman on the road late at night. The man had required dental surgery and the woman was in therapy. Kurusu was charged with and convicted of assault and battery, then a paperwork mixup saw him thrown into North Tokyo Correctional Centre for a full month and a half before a fight in the prison yard ended with him stabbed in the shoulder and the eye.

Sojiro put the paper down and thought about things for a minute. The kid, that kid, the tiny one he'd just watched slam through almost twenty pages of review material in two hours, had beaten a man to the point of needing corrective surgery and a woman to the point of needing therapy. The midget in his attic who threw up in the school bathroom after being stared at by three people (he wasn't an idiot, he knew what somebody who'd recently vomited looked like), who turned into a statue when alone with somebody else. That kid.

No wonder Dojima had been acting so weird. The kid's story made no goddamn sense. A kid that small, with no prior record of criminal behaviour beyond his aunt complaining about his lack of gratitude for her care, suddenly snapping and assaulting two strangers on the street?

Sojiro had worked a government job for years. He knew bullshit when he smelled it. There was something more to this story, something he was missing. He didn't want to think about it, not really; it made things much more complicated and fucked up if he did. But that kid… there was something in his eyes. Well… eye. Something that made Sojiro feel profoundly concerned for no good reason.

Sojiro took a deep breath. He had other things to worry about. Futaba was probably hungry and he was starving. He decided to throw together a quick ramen pot, with some of the chicken he had left over in the fridge. About halfway through the process he realized he hadn't fed the kid in the attic all day, and froze. Was that neglect, technically? Criminal neglect? He'd been so busy with feeding Futaba and figuring out the directions to Shujin that the kid had completely slipped his mind.

As he had last night. Dammit! He'd forgotten to feed the kid dinner too! After Dojima warned him and everything! Sojiro smacked a hand against his forehead and sighed deeply, impressed with his own incompetence. Crap. How long had it been since the kid had eaten? He'd been in a holding cell before probation, then he'd spent most of his day on the trains… so they might have fed him breakfast the day he showed up. Then again, they probably didn't, so maybe dinner the night before? It had been at least a full day since the kid had eaten, more likely two. And it was technically all Sojiro's fault.

"Ugh." He grumbled and groaned, pouring a decent sized serving of ramen into a separate bowl and stowing it in the microwave. That would feed the kid. He'd take it over to Leblanc later.

Later came after Sojiro ate with Futaba. She'd sealed herself back in her room all day, but she'd opened the door to take the bowl of ramen from his hands, and squeaked out a thank you. Then she'd left the door ajar; through the crack he could see her eating on her bed, curled up in a ball with her bowl balanced on her knees. Sojiro shrugged and sat down in the hall, eating his ramen with his back to the wall and his ass on the floor. It was as close as they'd come to eating together since she'd moved in.

"Didn't manage to open the cafe today," he admitted, after quaffing half the bowl in just a couple minutes. "Had to take care of some business. Did you… do anything?"

Futaba blinked owlishly behind her glasses. His adopted daughter reminded him of his new ward; she was tiny, probably only an inch or so shorter than him, with a thin stick-figure build that had only recently begun to flesh out a little as she actually ate more of the food he made. Her skin was an ethereal shade of pale, her bright orange hair falling all around her as she sat curled up.

"No…" she croaked, before drinking more ramen broth. "I… played games."

"Mmmm." Sojiro didn't push it. She'd almost made eye contact that time, which was a sight better than last week when she hadn't said a single word to him at any point.

The two wrapped up supper, and Futaba passed him her empty bowl through the gap. She closes it gently, and he listens as she padded softly back to her computer chair, hearing the familiar creak as she settled in. Well, that was one stray fed. Now to handle the other one.

Sojiro checked the time in the kitchen. It was almost nine. Where the hell had the last two hours gone? He only hoped the kid was still awake. He took the bowl, topped with a little plastic wrap to keep it from spilling, and headed out into the cool spring evening. The streets were largely empty, but he still locked the gate behind him when he went.

Leblanc's lights were all off. The kid might have been asleep. Sojiro unlocked the door and walked inside, then froze as the door swung shut behind him. The kid was not in bed; he was awake, and had a bucket beside him as he mopped the cafe floor. He was wearing a white t-shirt that was again too big for him, and baggy blue jeans that also fit poorly, cinched tight around his narrow waist with a shoelace in place of a belt. The ringing of the bell had made him freeze, and he looked at Sojiro with wide eyes.

"What the hell are you doing?" Sojiro asked, putting the ramen down on the counter and putting his hands on his hips.

The kid choked on whatever he was about to say, before swallowing hard and mumbling something under his breath. Sojiro frowned, and the kid tried again.

"Being… useful…" he managed to croak. "Sorry…"

"Alright, enough with the apologies," Sojiro grumbled, staring the kid down. "You want to clean my cafe? Go for it. Just don't make more of a mess in the process. I brought you dinner. Make sure you eat it."

Sojiro turned and left, too tired to concern himself with the kid's oddness. He locked the door behind him, went home, marched upstairs to his bedroom and prayed to whatever divine force was listening that the kid wouldn't screw up the cafe in some irreparable fashion.

That night he dreamt of cell doors and knives, weeping women and raging men. And come the dawn, he remembered none of it.