The full title of this chapter is "Z rodziną najlepiej wychodzi się na zdjęciu"
Literally: family only looks good on photos
Meaning: the phrase's used in response to family members being disappointing or unsupportive

ak56: Looks like Haru tried to get in touch with me.
AcrylicRonin: What?
annT: how
ak56: She left her phone number in Leblanc pretending to want to ask me out.
ak56: Either that or I have a secret admirer that coincidentally signs herself Noir.
AcrylicRonin: If she was flustered by seeing Wakaba, she could have pretended that she's just being awkward about asking out an attractive boy.
AcrylicRonin: I am in awe at the brilliance of her idea.
ak56: Sojiro threw her number away because I came out as ace last month, but still, good idea on her end.
annT: really?
annT: i noticed ur not into girls but didnt expect u to not be into guys
ak56: Ad meritum:
ak56: I'm concerned that even if we present the complete picture to Haru, she will deem Maruki's reality worth the drawbacks.
ribbon330: Why?
ak56: I killed her father, Kunikazu Okumura.
annT: and now hes back alive
annT: I checked
ak56: She seemed to genuinely love him, despite that whole 'arranged marriage to a cunt' debacle.

Morgana was hovering over the detective, looking at the screen. "Can I have the phone?" he asked.

ak56: mona speaking now
ak56: back when we were holed up in ota, haru ended up talking about her dad in… unflattering terms
ak56: kinda like yusuke talked about madarame today
ak56: her feelings might be complicated like his
ak56: i say we try talking to her
AcrylicRonin: May I remind you, we are not doing this to spite her personally. Maruki has already demonstrated what awaits people that disapprove of his reality.
AcrylicRonin: She will understand.
annT: yeah, i agree with the boys
annT: goro, call her
annT: you specifically

The detective ripped the phone out of Morgana's hands.

ak56: You cannot be serious.
annT: think about it
annT: u wont tip ur hand by showing whos working with u already
annT: and ever since she tried to shoot u shes been overcompensating
annT: so if u say something stupid on accident shell let it slide
AcrylicRonin: And if she still holds a grudge against you, establishing early on that you are on our side will avoid future surprises.
AcrylicRonin: I am convinced.
ak56: Very well. If everyone else agrees, I will call her immediately.

"Fine by me," the bishounen remarked.

annT: yoshizawa, whatcha think about this?
ribbon330: I don't know.
ribbon330: You're alluding to things I didn't know about and I can't weigh in.
ribbon330: Like, that Haru girl apparently tried to shoot Goro-san for killing his dad but he was evil but she loved him anyway…
ak56: I am calling her then.

He dialled the number and took a breath. After a signal or two, a familiar voice responded: "Hello?"

"Noir."

"Crow? Goro?"

"Correct. Good evening." Pause. "It is good to hear your voice."

"Same. Do you…" She seemed unsure – it's been a few days since she had left that phone number in Leblanc and she didn't expect that stunt to work. "Do you know what's happening? Like, in general?"

"More or less. It's too much to discuss on the phone so late in the evening. How about we meet tomorrow, in a location of your convenience?"

"Leblanc would be most convenient, but I doubt we might be able to talk there openly. I want to suggest Okumura Cafe in Shibuya – yes, my father has cafes now for some reason – but I don't know if you'd be okay with that."

"Fine by me."

"Good. Is 10 AM acceptable?"

"Uh-hu- Yes, it is an acceptable time."

"Great. I will text you the address."

"See you then."

He hung up and switched back to the chat app.

ak56: I am meeting with Haru tomorrow in one of her dad's cafes.
ak56: How convenient, I expect this night to be sleepless and caffeine will be welcome.

Thursday, January 5th, Morning

Goro was one hundred percent sure the place in front of him used to be a fast food restaurant in the times before Maruki. But after his takeover, it was turned into a cafe.

The white neon sign above the front door read "Okumura Cafe", written with Latin letters, with the Japanese version underneath. The outer walls were made of sturdy glass panes, and so you could see the interior from the streets. Various mismatched – but not too mismatched – chairs were standing around some high tables with metal legs and wooden tops. In a separate corner of the room, low round coffee tables were surrounded by comfortable-looking armchairs. The cash register stood on a rustic-looking wooden counter, alongside some bags of "carefully-selected" beans, should a customer desire to brew some coffee at home. A few customers were already present, some of them reading newspapers, others simply enjoying the unique atmosphere of the place over a cup of joe. Some Eastern-European-looking nerd was sitting with a laptop in the corner, writing something in a word processor – something ridiculous, no doubt.

He opened the door, left his overcoat on the hanger, and glanced around, looking for the princess herself. "Excuse me," a barista behind the counter beckoned him. "Mr. Akechi, I presume."

"Correct," he tried to appear professional. "I was supposed to meet with Ms. Okumura here."

"And I was told to expect a well-dressed young man with brown hair." He pointed towards the employee-only door. "Go there, then up the staircase, and it's the second door on the left."

He did as ordered, expecting some sort of secluded storage space and maybe a surprise attack. He did not expect an office. It was small, but not cluttered. A large window was letting in some light and allowed a bored worker to watch all the people marching on the pavement below. On the side of it was a shelf with a rainbow of binders on it, and a potted plant on top. In the middle of it was a plain white desk, on the desk – a laptop, and by the laptop – Haru, sitting on a mid-tier office chair and typing something from the paper in front of her.

"Ahem."

She recoiled a bit, startled, before realizing who it was. "Oh. Hello. I should have brought a second chair earlier."

"I can-"

"No, no, you're a guest." She stood up. "I'll also get you something to drink on the way. Do you want something specific?"

"Caffeine. Lots of it."

"Black eye it is," she said. "I'll be back in a moment." then marched out of the office. Left to his own devices, Goro glanced at the documents on the desk. They seemed to be invoices for foodstuffs for the cafe. He glanced at the laptop screen – a spreadsheet covered most of the screen, and if the data in it was accurate, this particular establishment was remarkably profitable. He didn't dare to dig deeper, not knowing how much time he'd have and not willing to arouse suspicion right from the word go.

After the longest few minutes of his life, Haru returned, carrying a chair and a tray on top of it. On the tray were two cups of coffee, one small and one massive, and a plate of tiramisu.

"I didn't ask for dessert."

"You asked for caffeine," she placed the chair on the other side of the desk, then moved the tray to the desk, "and the base of this thing is sponge fingers soaked in coffee." She put the big cup and the cake on Goro's side of the desk, then sat back down with her small cup and closed the laptop.

Awkward silence followed. The princess very pointedly waited for the detective to speak. Don't mess this up, he thought. Open with something light.

"Uh, how's your dad?" he blurted out.

Shit fuck ass verdammt piss cunt Scheiße, he thought.

Thankfully for him, Haru chortled, mostly amused by his attempt to beat the world record time in putting a foot in it. "Father decided I'm old enough to be put in charge of a single coffee shop. I think he assumed that I would play entrepreneur and he would shoulder the inevitable losses, but it's apparently been a few months and I'm turning in a steady profit." Sigh. "Things are… too good to be true, really. I feel silly for not noticing that earlier."

"It took me a while too, truth be told." He took a large gulp of his coffee. It was good – which was notable because sticking around Leblanc meant your standards for what counted as good coffee rose tremendously. "Now, this will all sound ridiculous, but please, listen to the end…"

And he recapped everything up to that point. Well, mostly – he skipped the parts about all the other people. Sumire's breaking him out was changed to him realizing things were off on his own, and the initial information that allowed him to enter the Palace was ascribed to Igor and Lavenza.

"…and then I contacted you," he finished.

Haru drank the last drop of her coffee. Goro couldn't guess how to interpret her expression to save his life. "Is Akira okay?" she asked.

"…kind of?" he replied, unsure. "I couldn't shake the feeling that he's just tired of everything, but he didn't seem unhappy per se."

Some more awkward silence followed before she spoke up: "You expect me to join you in this crusade against Dr. Maruki, don't you?"

"I… don't have expectations. You wanted answers, I had them. What happens now is up to you. If you say the word, I will turn around and leave." And spend the rest of the day watching my back, he added to himself.

"If I am allowed to ask…" She tried to phrase things politely before remembering the detective couldn't care less. "Why are you concerned about this? By your own admission, you're indifferent to humanity as a whole."

"Good question." He cut off a bite of the cake and shoved it in his mouth to give himself time to think. "Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe it's another facet of my guilt, maybe I don't like Maruki as a person, maybe I just want a non-evil cause to justify my continued existence. All I know for certain is that someone has to stop that madman and no actual heroes volunteered up until now." Pause. "Or if they did, they didn't inform me."

For the first time during their conversation, Haru avoided his gaze. "I'm… curious about something."

"Ask away."

She took a breath. "Dead people have returned to life, like their deaths never happened to begin with."

"I believe so, yes."

"And you've had a lot of close calls in December alone. One of them was courtesy of me."

"Where are you going with this?" he asked, fully aware where she was going with this.

"I think you need to…" she drummed at her desk with her fingers, "consider the possibility that you died and Maruki brought you back to life as well."

He grinned. "If that's true, that's just one more reason to take him down."

She shot him a glare. "Do you think this is funny?"

He gestured at the mug on the desk. "I like my comedy like I like my coffee: surrounded by corps-"

The princess reached across her desk and slapped him in the face, with as much force as you'd expect from someone waving a massive pole arm for the past three months.

After processing the blow, Goro said, just a smidge bitter: "I'm sorry, would you prefer me to react with an existential crisis?"

"I would prefer you to stop hiding behind cheesy one-liners," she growled, sitting down. "Be honest for once."

"Honestly? I couldn't care less." He tented his fingers. "I am at peace with my mortality and Maruki needs to be stopped. If that means I need to sacrifice myself, so be it. At least I'm not killing myself for revenge like a fucking moron." He paused for a moment, realizing he was getting himself riled up. "And should it turn out that, in some form, you were responsible for my death… I do not hold it against you. I just hope you didn't get in trouble because of that."

Some more awkward silence followed. The detective cut off another chunk of the cake.

"Do you know what was the thing that finally broke me out of Maruki's reality?"

"At this point," Goro washed it down with some coffee, "I wouldn't dare guess to not upset you even further."

"It was my father." She stood up from her chair and turned towards the window. "I don't remember the wider context," she continued, watching the crowds going to and fro, "we were having a discussion about something or other, and then he said… 'I don't want to force you'" Pause. "There was a follow-up, but I don't remember it. Those few words caused everything in me to protest that no, you wanted to sell my body to that…" her fists balled up, "waste of oxygen, and when your Shadow ran out of disposable grunts, you told my cognition to blow herself up and take us with it."

Goro, having carefully followed the Thieves throughout Okumura's Palace, had managed to witness that moment. In retrospect, the fact that it didn't make him concerned about his position in the grand scheme of things was yet another proof of his foolish overconfidence.

"Ever since that realization, I wonder," she continued, "was the caring father I remembered him as real, or was I simply too young and too naive to pay attention to the warning signs? Did the distortion grow over time or was he too far gone by the time I came to be? I don't know and I will never know." She turned to him, steel in her eyes. "Because of you."

Goro tensed up a bit, but remained collected. Whatever would follow, he would take it with dignity.

"We can split hairs, blame your f- your handler, the mad god that granted you your powers, or the society for ostracizing you, but the bare facts are that you killed my father, and I will never see him become a better person. And this," she gestured at everything, "is just what I wanted him to be, not a result of his own atonement. A hollow facsimile."

"I-I-I think I understand now," he said, averting his eyes. "You aren't against taking Maruki down, but you are against working with me." He got up. "That's fine. I'm going to turn around and leave and you won't see me again…" He grabbed the mug. "...as soon as I finish the coffee and cake."

An amused smirk appeared on her face. "They're that good, huh?"

In lieu of a response, the detective poured the contents of the mug down his throat. He then put the empty vessel down and cut off a large morsel of the cake and shoved it into his mouth.

"You're more considerate of my feelings than my father ever was, you know?" she muttered, sitting down.

He swallowed without chewing. "The secret ingredient is guilt."

"That goes without saying," she admitted, "but you could have channeled it in a lot of ways, or just wallow in self-pity. Come on, sit back down." He did so. "But you keep going, and you're fighting for the right thing, even though nobody expects you to. Part of me still wants to throw you off the Tokyo Tower, but the rest…" She paused. "If I can't see my father become a better person, you will have to suffice." Pause. "So, if I don't mind your presence and you don't mind mine, let's go and steal a heart."

Goro outstretched his hand, satisfied. "Welcome back onboard, Noir."

Haru reached forward and shook it – for an unassuming teenager, she had quite a firm grip. "Okay, now that we've established I'm on your side… how many others are there?"

The detective kept a poker face. "I have no clue what you're talking about."

She chuckled. "Come on, do you expect me to believe nobody besides me noticed something's amiss and tried to go to Leblanc to get some information?"

Goro decided there's no point in sticking to half-truths. "The thing is, the few that did panicked at the sight of inexplicably-alive Wakaba." He stood up. "I'll give you a proper recap, but I'm gonna go get a refill beforehand." He grabbed his empty mug. "This is some serious gourmet shit."

Daytime

"Was the limousine really necessary?" Goro asked, holding the door open for Haru.

"Oh, you know," she got out of the vehicle, "trains are chock-full of various unsavoury types."

The two turned a corner and noticed a few people waiting by the club already. Human Morgana, Ann, Yusuke and…

"Ryuji?"

The athlete noticed them approaching. "Guys!" He trotted over to them. "Good to see you!"

"Hey," the princess waved. "I wasn't told to expect you."

"Yeah, I tagged along at the last minute," he explained. "I noticed something was wrong earlier today and went to Leblanc to get some info. I bumped into Morgana when leaving the Yongen station, and he filled me in."

"Okay," Goro found the situation just a bit too convenient, "how did you break out of Maruki's reality?"

"This'll sound dumb," the athlete prefaced, "but I hit my leg against a table. Like, really hard. The pain reminded me of Kamoshida's training breaking my leg," he scowled, "and other memories just snowballed from there."

Still unconvinced, the detective went on, "So you're rejoining the Thieves… just so? No angst, no foot-dragging, no second thoughts about me being on the team? Maruki's reality has nothing to offer you?"

"I mean, my track team's back and it's kinda cool," he shrugged, "but I don't want that if it means Maruki's throwing folks into regret-reliving rooms," he pointed at the group, "and if it means we are kept separate 'cause Doc is scared of us stopping him or something."

Haru smiled. "I, for one, am glad to have you back around."

"Yeah, I agree," Goro reassured him, " it's just… things are going a bit too smooth for my liking."

"Seriously, relax," Ann said as the rest of the group approached the three. "It's a day off, we're gonna have some fun and-" She noticed something in the corner of her eye. "Oh look, Yoshizawa's…"

The last word of that sentence didn't get out of her mouth as she realized she's seeing double. The one in the front had a much more confident stride, a slightly different hair colour, closer to brown than to red, and a tiny beauty mark under her right eye. The one in the back had her hair let down and glasses on her face, looking a bit like her own shadow – and Shadow, while we're at it.

"You must be Sumire's friends," the other twin announced to the group. "Nice to meet you all, I'm Kasumi Yoshizawa." Noticing everyone's uneasy expressions, she giggled. "Come on, you look like you've seen a ghost."