Ann.: The word count of chapter 2 is currently at 12k and I'm still writing, so I'll post it in chunks instead.
-x
Goro stopped having the same dream after that night. But the new sense of clarity remained, permeating Goro's every waking moment. He tried his best to ignore it, to shake the restlessness and pretend as if everything was the same as always.
He must've done a pretty poor job of it, though, if even the leader of the Phantom Thieves pulled him aside in the middle of infiltrating Sae-san's palace for a private exchange, away from attentive ears but not curious eyes.
Couldn't he at least have waited until the safe room? Goro thought with a flash of irritation. He was careful not to let the attentive grey eyes behind the mask see any of it.
"Is everything alright, Crow?" Joker asked, hand firmly on Goro's forearm, voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, looking up past the beak of Goro's red mask with something like a flicker of concern in his eyes. Might have just been a play of light too, hard to tell with their masks covering half their faces.
Goro barely managed to suppress a huff at the question – proof of how tired he really was – and took a moment to adjust his voice before he spoke.
"I'm alright. Just … Persona business taking its toll. Don't worry about me," Goro answered lamely and immediately tried to smooth over anything that gave him away by putting on his most pleasant smile.
For some reason, Joker regarded him a sceptical look.
What Goro said wasn't a lie per se. Balancing his work for Shido, his public persona, his personal agenda and hanging out with the Phantom Thieves was a merciless task even without the added burden of this new feeling weighing on his mind since the dream. Goro just hadn't expected that Joker would notice.
"I see. It gets easier with time, promised. You kind of get used to it." Joker removed his hand from Goro's arm but remained at his side, clearly about to add something else by the looks of it.
Go on. Say what you have to say, Goro challenged him mentally, almost positive that Joker would somehow feel it. He seemed to way too often for his own good.
As if he knew, a mischievous smile slowly spread across Joker's face, making Goro curiously cock his head on one side, waiting.
"But don't think I'll go easy on you just because of that."
Joker's words drew a startled but delighted laugh from Goro, which turned the heads of the other Phantom Thieves in their direction. Ignoring their disapproving stares, Goro leaned closer to their leader with a cheeky grin. He was thrilled that Joker didn't draw back in an attempt to restore personal space but stubbornly stood his ground, just following Goro's movement with his eyes.
"Anything less from you would disappoint me greatly, Joker," Goro said, his voice lowered to match Joker's.
Joker hummed, his smile unchanged, and it felt like the sound resonated with something inside Goro.
"Can't have that, can we now?" Joker asked quietly, intimate.
"Joker! Crow! We have to get a move on!" Morgana's annoyed voice interrupted them, and Goro blinked repeatedly, brutally reminded where they were: in the middle of an infiltration of enemy territory, surrounded by the Phantom Thieves, in a place crawling with Shadows.
"Right," Goro said stiffly and forced himself to laugh it off, turning to Morgana with fake cheerfulness. He doubted that Morgana noticed the fake-part though. "Sorry to hold you back. Let's get going then, shall we?"
He deliberately ignored Joker's burning stare.
-x
-x
Getting ready for bed in the evening, Goro replayed his exchange with Joker in his mind again and again, focused on the small details to analyse and assign meaning to them. Deep in thought, he went mechanically through the individual steps, brushed his teeth, combed back his hair to tie it into a short ponytail, switched off all the big lights in his flat, walked over to his bed to undress.
"Persona business taking its toll."
In retrospect, he assumed that there was more truth to his sentence than he'd realised before saying it out loud. Trust the leader of the Phantom Thieves to make Goro talk about things he would never have said or admitted to otherwise. Probably something to do with the sincerity in his eyes. It seemed to draw everyone in so naturally.
Goro felt Loki stir in his heart, familiar rage sparking in him at the thought of how Joker made having friends look so effortless.
"I see. It gets easier with time, promised. You kind of get used to it."
Goro pulled his shirt over his head and his arms out of the sleeves, standing in front of his bed and glaring at it as if it had personally offended him.
As if the leader of the Phantom Thieves, self-proclaimed defenders of justice, could understand how it felt to Goro.
He might, a voice suggested in the back of Goro's mind. Goro paused.
What an annoying thought to have, especially when it was already too late to change anything. Maybe Joker was rubbing off on Goro, making him soft. Or maybe it was …
I see a longing in your eyes.
Goro could think of one other person who had irritated him like that – Ryoji.
Ryoji had also been so self-assured in judging Goro's emotions, acting like he understood. What had it been that he had said? Something about his relation to death and seeking the answer to life?
With a scoff, Goro balled up his shirt and tossed it carelessly to the floor before falling into bed and burying himself under the blankets. He didn't fall asleep easily though, his mind full of two pairs of similarly watchful eyes.
-x
-x
Goro headed in the opposite direction from Sae-san's palace back towards the unaffected city, where he blended into the crowd of cognitive people. The reflecting glass surfaces of the buildings around them made it possible for him to keep an eye on his surroundings without having to throw suspicious looks over his shoulder and draw unnecessary attention. Goro preferred this method of checking for unwanted company for its professional subtleness.
He didn't really believe that any of the Phantom Thieves had followed him into the Metaverse, but he was rather safe than sorry, especially considering what he had planned for today. There was no way he was going to jeopardise the plans that he had slowly put into motion over the years to get the ball rolling on his revenge against Shido, and summoning a Persona other than Robin Hood would absolutely fall into that category.
The Phantom Thieves were such a close-knit group of friends that Goro would be seriously surprised if they didn't have their own secret thing going on outside their forced deal with him, behind his back, excluding him, working against him – just like he did with them. Goro just didn't know whether that entailed the possibility of them following him into the Metaverse outside of their joint infiltrations.
Earlier this morning, he had shot Joker an innocent-sounding message, asking about their plans to go to Sae-san's palace today, but the short reply suggested that the others weren't planning to come.
Well, showtime.
Goro left the main street and disappeared into the back alleys of cognitive Tokyo, where he double-checked his surroundings for any unwanted disturbances just to be sure, but the back alleys of Sae-san's perception were reassuringly empty of people.
Which left him with only one problem now: How was he supposed to summon Ryoji?
It wasn't that Goro didn't know how to switch between his personas. His little test during his first joint infiltration with the Phantom Thieves had shown that he could suppress Loki and focus only on Robin Hood just fine. He had even successfully changed his entire appearance to that of the pristine detective prince, Crow.
But for that to work, Goro had needed his Metaverse outfit as basis, which materialised when Sae-san's Shadow recognised him as a threat as soon as he set foot in the courthouse-slash-casino – and did not automatically materialise outside of it.
Right now, Goro still wore his everyday clothes, without a mask to rip off and summon anyone; both Loki and Robin Hood were ignoring his call.
Goro assumed a thinking pose.
Strictly speaking, Ryoji wasn't "just anyone", was he? The embodiment of all Shadows, that's what he had called himself, and despite Ryoji's eyes not being yellow like other Shadows' but rather piercingly blue like Morgana's, Goro had accepted the statement as the truth, not seeing why Ryoji would lie about something like that and unable to come up with an alternative theory.
Was it possible that the usual rules of summoning did not apply to Ryoji then?
Goro decided to try it because logically speaking, there wasn't much else he could do. And it wasn't like he had much to lose either if it didn't work.
Pressing his fingertips to his face as he'd usually do with a mask on, Goro took a deep breath and closed his eyes, intently listening to his inner voice and finding the throbbing feeling of both Loki's all-consuming rage and Robin Hood's warm light just beneath his skin and just out of his reach.
And there, closer to his heart – the third, new feeling of clarity.
Goro focused on it just like he had focused on dragging Robin Hood to the surface during his first attempt with the Phantom Thieves, willing it to the surface of his mind. He could feel the familiar rush of summoning through his body, exhilarated laughter bubbling up inside him, and pushed aside both Loki and Robin Hood to summon –
"Thanatos!"
Huh?
Before Goro had the time to process what he had just shouted, somebody stumbled past him with flailing limbs. Out of the corner of his eye, Goro caught sight of a billowing yellow scarf, then heard a distinct Oof! as Ryoji collided with the opposite wall of this alley. Goro turned around in time to see Ryoji straightening up and massaging his right wrist with a grimace.
"Not my proudest display of motor skills, I must admit," Ryoji said sheepishly and ducked the lower half of his face deeper into the loop of his scarf, his cheeks dusted with a light blush.
He looked exactly as Goro remembered him from his dream, which gave Goro a vague feeling of déjà-vu, even though he knew rationally that they were currently in the Metaverse and he was most definitely not dreaming anymore. Still, Goro discreetly checked his phone to confirm it with the Meta-Nav, but of course he was right.
When Goro looked up again, Ryoji had turned to fully face him, his right hand resting on his chest, his eyes crinkled with his eternal easy smile, the rest of his face still hidden by his scarf.
"I was afraid that you might've forgotten about me already, but you remembered. I'm glad that you did," Ryoji said in lieu of a greeting. The sincerity in his voice was disarming. "It's great to see you again, Goro."
"Thanatos?" Goro asked and crossed his arms in front of his chest, not letting himself be swayed, which wasn't very difficult for him. His unimpressed tone made Ryoji chuckle.
"I told you before that I go by many names. That is just one of them, though I do prefer Ryoji."
"Ryoji Mochizuki?"
Saying his full name, Goro kept a close eye on any suspicious reaction – if Ryoji's smile faltered or disappeared from his eyes; or maybe a wince, a startled jump, a nervous tic. He wanted to see: Was Ryoji just putting on a front like Goro with his detective prince persona usually did? Because if they were to spend more time together, Goro had to know what he was working with.
"You were one of three transfer students in class 2-F at Gekkoukan High School, Port Island, in 2009," Goro continued matter-of-factly, all the information perfectly memorised as there hadn't been a lot, "but your name completely disappears from the school records just before the third semester of 2010. Coincidentally, the same thing happened to the other male transfer student in your class after the graduation ceremony on 5 March. He didn't start his final year at Gekkoukan High and doesn't appear in any other official documents after 2010. As do you."
Hm. No.
Ryoji wasn't faking his smiles.
The longer Goro talked, the more delighted the other boy looked, to the point where nobody could pretend to look as delighted as he did. Ryoji really meant it and certainly wasn't shy to express himself either.
"This is truly amazing! I cannot believe it!" he exclaimed as soon as Goro stopped talking, his lips pressed together in a thin line, which didn't deter Ryoji in the least. Excited like a kid in a candy store, Ryoji closed the distance between himself and Goro in two big steps and stopped just shy of him. "You found out all this in such a short time too! No wonder they call you the Detective Prince!"
"The Second Coming of the Detective Prince," Goro corrected automatically – as he admired Naoto Shirogane too much to let the mistake pass –, when his eyes met Ryoji's from up close and he thought for an irrational moment that he was looking back at Joker's.
It startled him, knocked all air out of his lungs.
If Goro had thought earlier that Ryoji looked exactly as he remembered him from the dream, it was a shock to see that Ryoji's eyes weren't strikingly inhuman blue any longer, but similar to Joker's – grey, just a little more on the blue side.
"Ah, sure. My mistake." Ryoji nodded, his joy dampening. But if he noticed Goro's reaction or his carefully released breath, Ryoji didn't let it show and simply kept on smiling one of his softer smiles. "But you are correct, of course. I transferred to Gekkoukan and attended lessons for a while. It was a nice two months, and I remember that time fondly. Too sad that it was so short. But I guess that's the sweetness of it, don't you agree?"
Ryoji sighed, put a hand on his hip and shifted his weight to one leg, taking a curious look around before refocusing on Goro.
"Where are we anyway?" he asked, abruptly changing the topic and snapping Goro back to reality.
"Tokyo," Goro answered curtly and absentmindedly ran his hands over his peacoat, straightening the hems and sleeves and smoothing out imaginary creases just to gain some moments to compose himself. Something like this should not have affected him the way it did, and Goro had no idea why his heart was hammering in his chest. "Cognitive Tokyo, to be precise."
Ryoji hummed. "What's the difference?"
"It's not the real one. Just as real as it gets."
"And what's the difference?" Ryoji repeated, and when Goro lifted his head and looked back at him, stilling, Ryoji eventually averted his gaze and looked in the general direction of the main street.
"I'm just asking, really," he said. "The last time we saw each other, at the place that he guards, you called Gekkoukan's rooftop a cognition, although it really isn't. It's rather my final resting place, in a sense. Quite fitting for it to be, too." Ryoji pulled his scarf over his mouth, hiding half his face in its loop. A light frown settled between his eyebrows. "Don't get me wrong though. I'm more than happy to be here. I just don't know what to expect of this place, so I was hoping you could tell me. Will it be empty of other people? Or just … coffins standing around?"
The mention of coffins involuntarily conjured up images of Kaneshiro's cognition in Goro's mind, where all of Shibuya, bathed in greenish light, was populated by human-like ATM machines, stripped off their humanity in Kaneshiro's money-hungry eyes. Goro couldn't possibly know how close his memory of Kaneshiro's cognition was to Ryoji's current memories about the Dark Hour.
The two boys fell silent, each one dwelling on his own thoughts. The silence stretched on, not uncomfortably, but with Ryoji wordlessly staring off into the distance and Goro not speaking up to break the silence.
He had to weigh up how much he wanted to reveal.
"The people," Goro said eventually, hesitated, broke off. He cleared his throat and wordlessly gestured for Ryoji to walk with him towards the main street, the direction Ryoji had been looking. The two of them stopped just out of sight of anyone walking past (if anyone had paid attention), before Goro continued his thought, leaning with his shoulder against the nearest wall, arms crossed in front of his chest. He pointedly did not look at Ryoji.
"The people here," Goro repeated, with a jerk of his chin towards the street, his tone grimmer and more sincere than he intended, but then again, that seemed to have become a trend for him with certain people, to speak differently than he would have with anybody else. "They are just hollow mindless puppets. Shells of their true selves, just cognitive replicas of humankind the way the Palace ruler sees them. Not a threat, not distorted, not even Shadows. Just … nothing."
"You hate it," Ryoji observed quietly, and Goro bristled at the feeling of Ryoji's eyes resting on him, seeing him.
Staring straight ahead, Goro didn't grace the statement with an answer, didn't think it was worthy of one. Just watched the crowd walk past aimlessly, letting the moment settle.
"What's the answer to life?" he asked out of the blue, turning away from the street to look directly at Ryoji, who raised his eyebrows in mild surprise before returning Goro's glare with a small, not unpleasant smile. "You said you'll help me find it if I show you around Tokyo."
Ryoji nodded emphatically. "I remember that, and I mean to keep my word. I'll be your guide as best as I can. But this is something that I can't answer for you. You will have to find the answer yourself, Goro."
Ryoji lifted his free hand, the one which wasn't on his hip, in a shrug. "I have no doubts that you'll figure it out, though. You're smart. Ambitious. The longing in your eyes tells me that you long to find the answer, and you will." He motioned towards the street with his raised hand, his interest obviously shifting.
"Shall we go then, and you show me around?"
-x
-x
They didn't immediately head for the casino, even though it seemed like the most obvious destination, as the excessive lighting coming from the building made everything else around it seem to be immersed in shadow, the huge glowing star ornament on its roof illuminating the sky like a searchlight. However, with a cursory glance in that direction, Ryoji muttered something about delaying fateful encounters and asked if Goro would mind going in the opposite direction first.
Goro didn't, since time worked differently in the Metaverse, and matched his pace to that of Ryoji as they headed deeper into the cognitive city.
While they were walking, Ryoji kept turning his head and glancing around, apparently trying to see everything at once. Several times, he pointed out something that caught his attention with childlike glee, sometimes fondly talking about how it reminded him of past memories and old bonds he had forged, sometimes asking Goro oddly specific questions (for example about green tea … crepes? Goro made a face at the idea of green tea crepes, and Ryoji insisted that they tasted better than they looked, but Goro doubted that.).
Ryoji seemed to be particularly taken with a cognitive souvenir stall along their way, which sold rather shapeless trinkets, nondescript phone and bag straps and other, far too expensive little nothings for tourists. Their undefined shape was probably a consequence of the fact that the real Sae-san, as a long-time resident, was not interested in tourist attractions and therefore didn't have a detailed cognition of the souvenirs at this shop, despite passing them every day on her way to work.
Standing next to him, Goro watched Ryoji browse through the key chains, though if Goro wasn't mistaken, Ryoji was more interested in the rings than the dangling part of the key chains. Was Ryoji a jewellery person?
"Hey, Ryoji?" Goro reached out and touched a surprisingly detailed, heart-shaped metal accessory on a leather strap among the grey mass, waiting until he was sure he had Ryoji's attention. "Since you went to Gekkoukan High School in 2009, does that mean you know Yukari Takeba?"
Ryoji started visibly, and colour shot into his cheeks, which he immediately tried to hide, his hand flying to his scarf to pull it higher over his face. Suddenly, Ryoji didn't meet Goro's eyes anymore, but dropped his gaze and stared at the ground.
"You know her." Goro was so startled by this revelation that a disbelieving laugh escaped his lips. Had he still doubted the truth of Ryoji's history as researched at this point, discovering that Ryoji knew Yukari when he had never heard of either Goro or the Phantom Thieves would have been the final proof to convince him.
Ryoji's voice was muffled by his scarf when he confessed with a pained expression: "I really wanted us to get along, you know? Takeba-san and me. After several failed casual invitations, I tried to invite her to dinner with me once. It went as well as you can imagine."
Goro blinked, processing the information before an amused smile spread across his face.
"Surely you jest," he said, delighted disbelief bleeding into his voice. "You hit on her? On Yukari Takeba?"
"Objectively speaking, it wasn't that big of a deal! Really! None of the other girls at school ever minded when I asked them out, or were really happy to spend time with me. But Yukari … She always … She seemed to …" Ryoji took a deep breath. "She didn't even outright reject me, okay? Yukari just stepped on my foot really hard that one time and that was the end of any romance, I swear!"
Ryoji furrowed his brow, looking the most dejected Goro had ever seen him. "And then she didn't speak a single word with me for a whole week, basically until I apologised to her for being stupid and inconsiderate. I guess that's about as much a total rejection as you can get from any … – Hey, what are you …?"
Ryoji's eyes widened when he looked up to see Goro trembling with barely contained laughter, a gloved hand pressed against his mouth to keep it from pouring out. However, Goro couldn't help himself. Knowing important parts about Yukari's dating history, he knew that Ryoji had never had a chance with her from the very beginning.
"Hey, I can't believe you! Stop laughing, Goro!" Ryoji demanded, straightening up indignantly. "It really hurt!"
"What? Being stepped on? Or being rejected by Yukari Takeba?"
Ryoji seemed to think for a moment before reluctantly deciding: "… Both."
He pulled his scarf down, holding it absentmindedly at its hem. His grey eyes studied Goro, at first guarded, then increasingly curious. "So you know her too? How come?"
It was Goro's turn to visibly pause and think. Goro wasn't about to tell Ryoji about his interest in Featherman, the show Yukari starred in as the prominent and beloved Feather Pink, but sobering up, he answered him as closely to the truth as he felt comfortable with.
"It's simple. Yukari-san is a famous actress. Many of her TV interviews and specials are done in the same studio as mine, so we talk from time to time, mostly in between filming breaks. We've quickly found common interests and sometimes enjoy a sweet treat together."
If Ryoji noticed the deliberate barb in that last part, he chose to ignore it. In fact, he was a master at brushing off Goro's prickly side, or if not brushing it off, then being surprisingly okay with it. It made Goro wonder about the people Ryoji had known and spent his time with at Gekkoukan. Had there been people among them with a similar dismissive attitude as Goro's?
"Huh," Ryoji said, a distant look coming into his eyes. "Then, after all this time, Yukari did finally meet a real ace detective, not just the self-proclaimed Junpei one. She used to call him Stupei, did you know that? Probably still does if they keep in touch." He smiled serenely. "I wonder what he's up to these days?"