A/N - So, this started as a premise of "What if Ren simply doesn't call the maid service with Ryuji and Mishima?" It kinda escalated from there into a whole thing about how she and Ren might catch feelings and how her conflict might be resolved without access to the Metaverse. It is completed on AO3, but I thought I might subject you all to its ridiculousness as well. I will try to clean up any grammar errors and other oddities as I upload these, so you folks should get the "best" version of the story.

I do hope you enjoy.

Chapter One: What Are The Odds?

It's funny how life works. To be twenty-eight and working your dream job sounds like the greatest thing in the world to your eighteen-year-old self. And in a perfect world, it is. Sure, there would be hard times, and not everything outside of that would be perfect – after all, not even the "perfect" world can be – but that would be okay. It would be okay because the idealistic soul that longed to aspire could be satiated. Everything else was just background noise, or at the very least, something that could be overcome with the bedrock of The Dream manifested as Reality.

Sometimes, it's not so funny how life works. To be twenty-eight and working your dream job that has manifested itself into just another nightmare of drudgery that serves only as a reminder of your failures sounds like the stuff of nightmares to your eighteen-year-old self. In a perfect world, it doesn't exist. But Sadayo Kawakami has come to realize that that perfect world is just a pipe dream, a fantasy spread through propaganda and cheesy movies. Or rather, the perfect world is so very fragile, situated so very precariously on a knife's edge. It's so precarious, in fact, that it only takes one little phone call to shatter it into a thousand shards of glass that now revolve around her and slowly bleed her to death.

These thoughts and more crossed Sadayo's mind far too often, and had done so again as she peeled her jean skirt off, tossing it along with her pantyhose into the nearest corner of her bedroom. The lights were dimmed, just the way she liked it so she wouldn't get a good look at herself before she raced into the shower to wash off her inadequacies (not that they ever really left). She barely felt the heat and her hands on her own skin as they moved the sudsy water around her body, focusing instead on the series of other things that awaited her this evening. She of course had her only appointment from Victoria's to reckon with, at some high-end home that she could only hope to afford within her most wild of dreams.

She sighed.

Drying off, she wrapped the towel around herself before stepping in front of the mirror and proceeding to blow dry and brush her hair. This part wasn't so bad, she thought. It was melodic and the brush against her scalp had an almost hypnotic appeal about it. It took her back to happier days of her mother doing this for her when she was a child. Once completed though, the reminder that Sadayo the Teacher was a facade rendered itself in stark relief in the mirror. Up went her hair in these God-forsaken pigtails, making for a quite ridiculous picture of a woman nearly thirty years old trying to play the part of a woman closer in age to her students. Then came the makeup that strained to hide the bags carried tiredly by her eyes, followed by everything else she did to complete the costume.

Next came the uniform after she adorned herself in clean underwear and a gently used bra. Pulling it up over her legs and undefined stomach, she pushed her arms through its ruffled sleeves before zipping herself up in the back to nearly complete the ensemble - her prisoner's uniform to be topped off with the lacy headpiece, but that would come later. She dared not adorn herself with that until she arrived at her destination.

But now she's sitting in a half-full passenger car, gazing hypnotically out the gently swaying cityscape. It's half-full and it feels somehow like the concept of optimism is laughing at her. Thankfully, it is only half-full since it's just past the time when the majority of its passengers will have boarded and exited upon being released from work. She envies them, of course, because it's not like she can relate any longer. Sadayo the Teacher could have – should have – but Sadayo the Teacher is now just a role. The teacher is just another part in her play, a tragedy to be sure, but it's one for which she refuses to reach denouement. No sir, Sadayo is no quitter, and she's got debts to repay.

She figures that the suffering is barely the down payment.

Sighing tiredly at her reflection in the window, Sadayo ran her hands over the bit of coal black skirt that jutted from under her light jacket, more of a nervous tic than any attempt to make herself more presentable. Of course, if that was a byproduct, it certainly wouldn't hurt. She looks great, relatively-speaking. Well, great for a twenty-eight year-old teacher trying desperately to look the part of a role for which she is about ten years too late. Which means that she looks a bit ridiculous, but she still gets requested, which is something. Her tired brown eyes stare back at her, wondering where eighteen-year-old Sadayo scampered off to with all of her big dreams and innocence.

Normally, she would have driven her way over here, but the price of gasoline relative to her checking account balance negated any of that. She checked her phone once more to verify the address – another nervous tic - and it wouldn't be too far of a walk from the station. She knew that she'd verify it anyway another five times at least. She only had the one request tonight, so she'd at least be able to do this bit then get home and finish grading the papers that she'd said she would have done by the end of last week. There were only five or six left, so it shouldn't be too much effort to finish them off with a beer and one of the movies that she's seen at least fifteen times. She liked the background noise of her movies, but she also liked being able to get lost in obligation while being able to look up and find a particularly wonderful scene and know precisely what was going on in the film. She'd stop, enjoy the show, maybe recite the lines in sync with the actors, then resume her work with a tired smile after sighing wistfully. It's a scene in her apartment that has been repeated far too many times already.

When the automated announcement that her stop was coming up next blared through the speakers, she stood up and glanced around her – another habit – before heading toward the exit. She was careful to keep her feet away from the other seats and people as she "excuse me'd" her way to the nearest exit. When the train stopped with just a bit too much braking, she stumbled forward, banging her left foot against the metal frame by the door. Cursing quietly at the pain, she looked down and saw that her freshly polished shoe now sported a bruise of a scuff mark.

"Ow…damn it," she muttered at the pain and the uselessness of the time and effort she'd spent polishing the damn thing. Bent over trying to mitigate the damage to her appearance, when the doors slid open she partly stumbled, partly fell through the exit. A woman passing by - looking no worse for wear - caught her and steadied her with a polite smile tucked under judging green eyes. With a nod, Sadayo thanked the back of the woman, who had walked away before any real words could be exchanged. Another face in a sea of facelessness.

Securing her purse around her shoulder once more, she headed for the exit. Her footfalls were drowned out by the drone of everyone else. "Okay, Sadayo. Guess it's gonna be one of those nights, then."

Thus, the teacher-maid soldiered on into her darkness, surrounded by the life and light that eluded her.

The pulsing of the bass-heavy techno music was, as usual, kinda annoying. The volume filled the house and shook the walls, forcing all to submit to the suffocating atmosphere. The bodies that milled about, trying to talk to one another over and around the thrumming of the beat, only added to the foreboding crunch in the atmosphere. Alcohol, weed, and sweat filled the gaps that the sound left behind, adding a physicality to the experience that ensured that all senses and nerves were touched - for better or worse. All of the commotion surrounded the young man with the dark, messy hair and the steely gray eyes as he sat between two of those bodies talking obnoxiously around him. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

How did he let it get to this? Ren couldn't rightly explain how it had or why he was even here. Sure, he'd been invited by his "friends" (quotes most definitely intended), but the idea of going to a party with them seemed…well…distasteful somehow. He wasn't much a drinker, and he had never been big on crowds that didn't involve him sneaking around and performing a bit of supernatural thievery. Indeed, the occasions for which Joker was required were fewer and farther between these days, just another casualty of the destruction of the Metaverse. That was a good thing, of course, no argument there. Well, most days it was a good thing. He wouldn't mind being able to break out the persona of the leader of the Phantom Thieves tonight, though. Being a little sneaky and getting the hell out of here sounded pretty damn good to him right now. He probably wouldn't even mind having the palace music back, either.

So far, his first semester at Tokyo University had required far more of an adjustment than he would have liked. Yes, he was back in his home - after his year at Shujin, he'd vowed to return here to stay as soon as high school was finished. His parents, while happy to have their son back, were just as happy to have more than their son back. He'd returned to them more confident and focused, ready to take on the world on his terms. There was just something about putting a bullet through a despotic god's head with the wings of Satanael at your back that had a way of changing one's perception about a number of things; his own capabilities chief among them.

While all that was true, he'd still found the academic side of things more difficult than he would have liked, and the social side of things wasn't faring much better. He'd been comfortable with his band of Thieves and the confidants that orbited around him, and he trusted them implicitly. His final year of high school had been a little rougher, but he still had Morgana, and his parents had been supportive. So it was with this deficiency in mind that he found himself at this particular get-together with a number of his fellow classmates with the primary goal of "meeting new people", and the secondary goal of "having a good time". Ryuji had laughed when Ren had complained to him about it, saying that he "sounded like Queen". Offensive, sure, but still accurate. And as he sat here among people whom he nominally considered acquaintances, let alone friends, he was strongly considering just grabbing the next train back to Leblanc and his own bed. That Ryuji himself had bailed on him certainly didn't help. He was about to message Sojiro that he'd be back early and could open up the cafe tomorrow morning when he overheard the two friends (acquaintances, really) that sat on either side of him.

"I can't believe you called that maid thing! When's she gettin' here?"

"Oh yeah, you know they have like, a stripper service?"

"Awww, no way! This is gonna be great!"

Ren had stood up, ready to leave the party when he stopped, remembering a very similar conversation he'd had with Mishima and Ryuji. At the time, he'd told them both that they were on their own if they were really that curious. He'd had an image to uphold, after all. From what Ryuji had told him, they'd chickened out anyway, much to Mishima's chagrin. "Operation Maid Watch" hadn't even gotten off the fucking ground, let alone actually accomplished the mission objective. It never bothered Ren any, though. As far as he was concerned the less of that nonsense that they got involved in, the better. He had his hands abundantly full just trying to keep his - and Ryuji's by extension - images intact while they took care of the cruel and corrupt of the world.

He looked around at the somewhat rowdy group of drunk college kids and decided that maybe he would hang out just a little bit longer. Maybe it was intuition, maybe it was the remnants of Joker's "third eye", but he just had a feeling about this…"stripper". That feeling was almost never good, and it was rarely wrong.

He focused on the one on his left. "Hey, Hiro-kun, what did you say about a stripper?"

The young man with the hazy eyes and broad shoulders turned to him, and clapped him on the shoulder. He reeked of alcohol and testosterone. "Oh man…didn't think you'd be into it! Here, check out this flyer!"

He shoved a crumpled pink flyer into Ren's hand, and he immediately scanned it. His eyes widened.

"Did you say 'stripper'?"

"Yeah! Woo! Hot maid striptease time!"

Ren did his best to form what he hoped was an agreeable smirk to appease the idiot. It was probably more of a sneer. In truth, he didn't really mind Hiro-kun, but he was quickly finding out that he could only tolerate him in short doses, and even less so when he was drunk. He was definitely giving off "creepy drunk" vibes.

When he'd looked over the flyer he'd been handed, Ren had realized at that moment the reason that his senses had grabbed him sharply by the collar. The flyer - from a company called "Victoria's" - while indeed an advertisement for a maid service, failed to mention anything more than some young woman providing housekeeping services. She would undoubtedly do so in a highly-flirtatious manner and in a very provocative "uniform" - but nothing more. As he looked between Hiro-kun and the drunkard on his other side whose name he'd already forgotten, he could feel the temperature of the room rising and the blood in his veins cooling significantly. This was going to end badly, because this poor girl had no idea what she was getting herself into.

"Hey Hiro-kun? I don't think this is that type of -"

Some fat idiot with what looked like sauce stains on his t-shirt barreled into his sentence, wheezing to inform Hiro-kun that there was a woman at the door asking for him.

"Yes! There she is! Be right back, guys!"

Hiro-kun began wobbling his way to the front door as Ren matched him step for unbalanced step until they actually got to the door. He put his hand on the young man's shoulder, causing him to meet his own icy gaze.

"Hiro-kun, she's not a stripper."

"What?"

Ren wanted to get this sorted before the door opened, fearing that once that wall was breached, it would become even harder to defuse the situation.

"I said that she's not gonna be a stripper."

He tilted his head with stupid eyes. "What?"

Was he deaf and stupid? Ren shoved the flyer in his face. "Here. Look! She's a fucking housekeeper! That's all!"

The drunkard ran a hand through his hair, squinting at the flyer. "Are you sure?"

This guy! And Ann wondered why he hadn't made more friends!

"Fucking…yes I'm sure!"

Hiro-kun shrugged. "Maybe she'll wanna stay anyway? I mean, I did pay." He slid the door open and as Ren eyed the girl at the door, his heart nearly stopped and his brain most definitely froze.

"Helloooo, Master! I'm Becky and I'm -"

The maid standing before them was certainly not what he'd been expecting. Ren knew that these "maids" tended to be younger women around his age, usually eighteen or nineteen, but this woman certainly was not in that particular demographic. She was attractive, sure, with her cute pigtails and her deep, brown eyes, long slender legs, but -

It fucking hit him with the wide eyes of realization and disbelief.

"Kawaka-…I mean, Becky?"

There was a loud pause in which only the bass and the undergrowth of chirping voices punctuated his thrumming heartbeat. They blinked at each other.

"Amamiya-kun?"

"Y-yeah. Um…hi?" She took an uncertain step forward before Ren recovered his senses, shook his head and raised his outstretched hand. Thankfully, his old teacher understood the message and took that step back.

"Uh…you two know each other?"

Oh yeah, he'd forgotten Hiro-kun was there.

"Huh? Uh, yeah. She, um, went to my old school."

He smiled, but still looked dumbfounded. "So…is she one of the stripper types?"

Ren's face flushed as he looked from Hiro-kun to Kawakami-sensei, whose face still flashed confusion like one of those neon signs downtown.

"Damn it, no!" Turning to the maid, he asked, "you're, uh, not, right?"

She blinked twice and was just as flushed as he was. "What? Oh no, Master! I'm just a housekeeper. Becky doesn't do those, um, services."

Ren gave Hiro-kun what he hoped was a disarming smile. "See? Not a stripper."

"Yeah, but I paid for a stripper, Ren-kun, and I'm not about to waste my money."

A part of Ren wanted to tell the idiot that buying a stripper for an evening was, by definition, a waste of money, but now wasn't the time to pontificate about the proper use of money. Besides, it would've been easier to tell Hiro-kun to take it up with the company, that there was a misunderstanding. Maybe even take it up with his bank. But it was too late for that because it was palpable now, the animal energy that was starting to spark in the drunk man. Ren was sure he could feel it, and if he was judging the expression on Kawakami-sensei correctly, she was feeling it, too.

Maybe it was the noise, maybe it was his mood. Maybe it was the headache that dealing with these morons had given him. Or, more likely, it was his certainty that this situation was about to go sideways that pushed him to act. "Hiro-kun, sorry man. But I've gotta go." Before he could even react, Ren pushed past Hiro-kun, grabbed Kawakami-sensei by the wrist and stepped through the doorway with a hushed "C'mon", hurrying her up the sidewalk and into the night air. The pulse of the bass echoed in his head and he had no recollection of Hiro-kun yelling for him.

When they got far enough away that he was sure there wouldn't be any trouble following them, he released her arm and they walked quickly in tandem toward the station. The cool air nipped at him, prickling his skin. He shivered.

"Amamiya-kun…what the hell just happened?" They were the first words she'd uttered since he'd rather forcefully removed her from the premises.

He turned to her and immediately noticed her trembling hands. He wanted to hold them until she calmed down.

'Kawakami-sensei, it was something of a misunderstanding, I think. Hopefully I'll be able to explain the next time I see Hiro-kun in class. You know, not drunk off his ass, the damn idiot." He ran a hand through his dark curls, actively trying to slow his own pulse. "Are you all right?"

"I…I'm not sure. That was kind of a lot." She blew out a breath that betrayed her frayed nerves. "Was he about to…?"

Ren let that question trail off. He saw no need to really answer it. "Come on, let's get some food in you, okay? That always helped me calm down after a rough day."

"What? Food?" She frowned as her stomach grumbled its discontent. "Yes, that's probably a good idea."

"All right, I know just the place. It's in Yongen-Jaya, is that okay?"

She fiddled with one of her hair ties the way he'd seen Ann do sometimes. "Hmm? Yomgen-Jaya? Yes, that's fine Amamiya-kun. I'm not far from there anyway. In fact, I could just go straight home. I don't want to inconvenience you, after all."

"Inconvenience? You won't be anything like that at all. I work there anyways." It seemed as good a place as any, and since it was closed he knew that she could calm down on her terms. "Yeah, it's a coffee shop called 'Leblanc'. A man named Sakura Sojiro owns it."

She blinked a few times, before lighting up in realization. "You mean like Sakura Futaba? That Sakura?"

He nodded. "She's his daughter, and basically my little sister. Leblanc was actually where I stayed when I attended Shujin."

"You mean you lived at the coffee shop?"

Ren laughed a little. "Yeah, don't look at me like that, sensei. It wasn't that bad." Ren cleared his throat. "But, you're okay with stopping by Leblanc? It's the least I can do, but if not, that's -"

Finally, she gave him an understated, tired smile. "It's okay, Amamiya-kun. That sounds good. I just…it's been a strange night."

He smiled back. "Yeah, I bet."

"So, lead the way."