Futaba's eyes fluttered open weakly. Her joints popped as she stretched her muscles out on the bed with a yawn. It was difficult to tell the time since she always kept the windows closed and the lights on, even while she slept, but her internal clock guessed it to be around 2-3pm.
Before teaming up with the Phantom Thieves and being forced into a somewhat normal schedule, she'd run on 32 hour days, with 18 awake and 14 asleep. She'd mostly gotten accustomed to the 24-hour cycle of the unfortunate masses, but during weekends or particularly slow days she'd sometimes fall back into that more drawn-out routine. She craned her neck down to look at the clock on her computer monitor. 12:02, just past noon.
Deciding, paradoxically, that she was too tired to fall asleep again, Futaba dragged herself out of bed, trudged over to her desk popped a piece of gum into her mouth to stave off the morning breath. No noteworthy posts on her usual forums or onion sites. She grabbed her phone and read through the messages on the 'general' Phantom Thieves group and the 'girls only' Phantom Thieves' group (named 'Thot Pockets' by Ann, a reference to some western snack, apparently). Nothing there, either, but-
Yusuke had replied to her DMs! One of Futaba's favorite pastimes was finding images and videos of complicated machinery or circuit boards and showing them to Yusuke, who would without fail start spouting nonsense about 'the mechanical horrors.' She had sent him a picture of an automatic transmission valve body just before bed yesterday and was excited to see his reaction.
Inari: These arcane sigils elude the eye of heaven.
Inari: There is no artistry in these accursed metal monoliths.
Inari: It disturbs me deeply that the very busses and cars our society operates on harbor within them such ungodly labyrinths of iron.
She giggled to herself and replied.
Futaba: Just wait till u see the schematic for the SOC inside ur phone
She found online some particularly indigestible pictures of silicon wafers and die schematics and flooded Yusuke's chat with them. He was the type to agonize over every single one and fail miserably to understand them. Pulling his leg with obtuse technical jargon had become one of her favorite hobbies. She giggled again.
Her day a bit more chipper, Futaba hopped into the shower; One of the other good habits she'd picked up from Akira and the others was not to let her hygiene falter. She stuffed her phone into a touch-screen compatible Ziploc bag and started blasting some video about MD5 hash functions for background noise as she slipped out of her pyjamas.
She caught her reflection in the mirror. Yup, today might have to be a hair day. Between the bright orange locks fanning out from the top of her head she could see a hint of black creeping its way out of her scalp. It always grew so fast, part of her wondered why she even bothered dying it orange if she had to re-do the entire process every 2 weeks.
Futaba cupped her hands around her waist. She wished the rest of her would take a hint and start growing, too.
In around 4 months, she'd be 17, and yet she still looked like a middle schooler. She knows she shouldn't make a big deal out of it, but standing next to literal models like Ann or trained martial artists like Makoto and being half a head shorter than them could only do so much to keep a young girl's self-esteem up. The big boots and baggy clothes she liked to wear helped hide her petite figure and gave an illusion of maturity, but she still felt self-conscious about herself, specially around Yusuke.
Futaba blew a dejected raspberry and lazily bunched her hair up inside a shower cap, she'd wash it tomorrow. Her thoughts wandered to Yusuke as she scrubbed herself clean.
She'd realized long ago that she had a crush on him. Haru might be denying her lady-boner for Akira (bleugh), but Futaba was the type of girl who played video games about optimizing factory layouts and calculating orbital trajectories; Her rational mind could only lie to itself for so long. She'd been hoping to eventually talking to him about it, but she was also the type to let others cut her in line at an amusement park over fear of confrontation. How exactly was she supposed to muster the courage to admit her feelings to Yusuke? She'd call Haru a coward to her face all day long for taking such a roundabout method for dealing with Akira, but Futaba could not deny that if she were in her shoes, she'd probably stick a fork into an electrical outlet for an easy way out…
Would Yusuke even like her back? He always seemed so involved with his own world, Futaba can clearly recall a multitude of times that Ryuji and Morgana had let their lust for the female form run free, and even Akira would let the occasional Freudian slip escape his lips when the conversation shifted to boobs or butts or something (not to mention, the other day at mementos, Futaba had managed to piece together that Akira actually had a crush on someone associated with the color red). It wasn't unusual or anything to be ashamed about, really. Teenage boys would be teenage boys, after all. But Yusuke had never made any comment of any kind implying he was even into romance at all. Futaba had initially even considered that he might be gay, so little did he express any kind of attraction towards women.
That was actually part of the reason she was able to get close to him, he never seemed to see her as anything other than just 'a person.' He accepted her and her awkwardness at face value, never making her feel bad about being the way she was and always encouraging her silently with his judgement-free approach to conversation.
But now that her heart was starting to flutter whenever she was near him, she began hoping that he might return those feelings. There was nothing wrong with Yusuke being attracted to men, but it would make Futaba sad if she knew that he would never like her the way she liked him.
The hacking prodigy stepped out of the shower and shook herself dry like a puppy. She threw on some random clothes and slumped back into her chair. What to do today? She checked her phone. Still no response from Yusuke. What was he up to?
She didn't like doing this often, but sometimes, the curiosity got the better of her. Futaba would deny all accusations, but she might have just maybe perhaps installed some 'surveillance' applications on the phones of everyone in the phantom thieves… It wasn't even slightly ethical, phantom thieves or not, but what could she say? A teenage girl bored at home all day needs some kind of entertainment!
She would sometimes pop open Akira's phone camera when he was at school and just watch him walk around, talk to random people, or sit in class. It was kind of like watching a livestream; It made Futaba feel closer to her friends, in a weird way.
She switched on Yusuke's feed and played the audio through her headphones. His phone must have been on a table nearby, the sound was unclear at best and the camera showed a blank, but she could faintly make out Akira's, Morgana's and Ryuji's voices in the background. It was tough to make out any words, but it sounded like they were screaming, just what were they doing?
"IT'S NOT FAAAAAAIRRRRRRRR!" Ryuji wailed at the heavens, tears streamed from his eyes. "JUST ONE MORE LOOK, PLEEEEAASSSEEEEE!"
"STAY STRONG, RYUJI!" Akira held back the ex-sprinter's arm, his eyes were bloodshot from crying.
"YOU MUST PERSEVERE!" Yusuke held back his other, snot and tears dribbled down his face.
"THEY DON'T DESERVE THIS!" he flailed uselessly in their grasp. "THEY DID NOTHING WRROOOOOONNNNGGGGGG! WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
"Give it up, Ryuji…" Morgana sat on the windowsill, staring out longingly at his old pothole. His tears had dried long ago. He took a swig from a glass bottle full of an orange liquid. It was just carbonated, non-alcoholic orange juice, but an outsider wouldn't be forgiven for asking why this depressed cat was chugging down Screwdrivers like an old drunk.
Finally, after minutes of agonizing struggle, Ryuji's body went limp. Akira and Yusuke tried to deposit him gently on to the wooden floor of Leblanc's attic, but Ryuji fell to his knees like a soldier on death's row. With the last of his strength, he pulled himself over to the shallow desk where a laptop sat, plugged into 8 hard drives at once and whirring loudly.
"Alexis…Mia…Abella…Nikki…" Ryuji trembled. "Angela…Kendra…Nicole…Julia…"
The computer's fans slowed and a robotic voice spoke: "Hard disk drives cleared. 18.74 Terabytes of space are now available."
"NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Ryuji slammed his fist on the table in utter despair. Years and years of appraising and collecting forever down the drain, much like the gallons of spunk he'd busted in their many, many sessions.
"You are the strongest among us, Ryuji…" Yusuke knelt down to comfort the man. His words reached deaf ears.
Akira joined Morgana by the window. The teenager's tears had crusted up into painful lines streaking his face. The two said nothing for a long while, letting Ryuji's sobs distract them.
"Is this really worth it?" Akira asked the overcast sky.
Morgana held the bottle out. Akira chugged the last of the orange juice like a practiced addict and tossed it into a nearby trash can.
Futaba wasn't able to make out many words from the muffled audio, but all the screaming and crashing coming out her headphones probably meant they were playing a video game or something. Ryuji tended to get heated like that whenever he got a losing streak going, and while Akira could never hope to beat her at fighting games, he was no slouch either. The navigator slipped on her boots and draped a jacket over her shoulders. If anybody was going to make the boys squeal over getting their ass beat at Tekken, it would be her. She cut the feed to Yusuke's phone and began the short walk over to Akira's place with a skip in her step.
"Ryuji…" Akira croaked pathetically. "You alright?"
No response. He was laying face-down on the floor, his only sign of life the occasional twitch of a muscle and a gentle sobbing. Yusuke had his head buried in his arms next to him. Akira sighed. He took out his phone and entered the password for his secret folder. Hundreds of videos and thousands of images of the hottest supermodels and porn-stars known the world over. He selected them all and hit 'delete.' The simple thumb movement required more effort than he'd ever needed to muster. His throat felt like he'd swallowed a blender.
*Pop!* Morgana opened another bottle of orange juice and took a swig. "A damn shame… those were some high-class vids."
"…Yeah." Akira's voice trembled. He would have shed a tear if there were any left.
"-heh…" The other men barely reacted to Ryuji's deranged chuckle. With all the grace of a bulldozer, Ryuji peeled himself off the ground and started laughing maniacally. His voice was full of energy and wobbled dangerously. "Ha…haha…ha-haha…"
The corpse of a man who succumbs to hypothermia can often be found naked. When the human body accepts death it simply gives up trying to centralize its body heat and lets nature run its course. The body heats up again just before its demise, and the delirious dead-man may disrobe in a final act of lunacy before meeting an icy end. As Ryuji rose to a shaky set of legs and stripped down to his underwear, the others could only look away out of respect for the blond who once was their best friend.
"C…c'mon guys…!" like the blade of a guillotine about to be dropped, his voice steadied. "We're all brothers here, right? Haven't ya ever wanted ta find out what it's like? What we're missin' out on? Not like we're makin' it to December anyways… Let's just do it…! hua…hahahaHAHA…!"
Futaba, with no idea of what was really going on, snuck into Leblanc's from the backdoor, taking care to avoid using the front entrance and triggering its bell. Her goal was to startle the boys and announce her presence in the most grandiose way she could, fitting for their soon-to-be digital oppressor. As she smugly approached the stairs, she stealthily took off her shoes and tiptoed up the steps. The redhead could hear small noises coming from Akira's room. She peeked an eye over the top of the staircase and lifted a headphone cup off her ear.
"C'MON, BABY-RYUJI'S BACKDOOR IS OPEN! WHO'S GONNA STICK IT IN FIRST!?"
Futaba almost screamed. Ryuji's ass is open? S-sticking it in!? W-w-what had she just walked into!? She dove back out of sight and covered her mouth. All other noises got drowned out as her mind was sent into a hurricane of confusion.
"WE AIN'T MAKIN IT THRU THIS SHIT WITH OUR DICKS ANYWAYS! HUAHAHAHAHAHA! LOOKIE HERE, YUSUKE! MAH PANTS'RE DOWN N READY FOR YA…!"
Morgana covered his face in his hands, Akira bit his lip hard enough to draw blood; Seeing Ryuji accept death so willingly sent waves of shame and despair through the others.
"FINE! I'LL BE BIG SPOON! HUAHAHAHAHA! BEND OVER, YA BLUE-HAIRED BITCH! I'M BOUTTA LOSE MY VIRGINITY TO A MAN'S ASSHOLE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! TAKE THAT, LUCIANO, YOU FUCKER! DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT FUCKIN' EACH OTHER, DIDJA?" He shoved Ryuji onto the floor and started dry-humping his ass. There was no life in his eyes, only mania.
"Ryuji, please, stop…" Yusuke was too weak and tired to put up a fight. A tear rolled down his cheek. Akira's face scrunched up terribly at the sight. Luciano's grasp may have finally broken the blond's spirit.
Futaba, who heard nothing in her panic, shook her head hard. She couldn't believe it. Surely, she'd just misinterpreted something. Ryuji doesn't lean that way, he's the horniest and straightest out of anyone in the group! All he ever talks about are how hot Makoto, Ann, and Haru are, if anyone in the phantom thieves is 100% straight, it HAS to be that idiot. Futaba steeled herself. This was all just a big misunderstanding, right…? She looked again.
"That hurts, Ryuji…" Y-Yusuke was on all fours, his rear in the air.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! DOESN'T IT FEEL GOOD!?" Ryuji's crotch was right at Yusuke's bottom.
Time froze for Futaba. She leaped back under the stairs.
D-did he just say 'it hurts!?' Ryuji was totally going down on Yusuke! Morgana and Akira were watching!? In her mind replayed a certain line of dialogue she'd half-managed to make out came from Yusuke during their last trip to Mementos:
'I would prefer […] at the back […] would rather […] big […] than little' The artist had said. She'd brushed it off back then, but now…!?
She couldn't take it anymore, Futaba snuck away as fast as she could, not even bothering to put her shoes back on for her sprint back to her room in Sojiro's house.
She threw off the jacket and dove into her bed, wrapping herself up in the covers like a little girl who'd seen the boogeyman inside her closet. The painfully fresh memories flashed in her head, Ryuji topping Yusuke… was Inari really gay? Would he ever return her feelings!? The air under the covers was steaming up from her heaving breath, and the girl could feel the bedsheets dampening with her cold sweat.
Suddenly, Futaba was very tired. Her body felt weak and her heart was racing.
She passed out into an uncomfortable rest.
.oOo. .oOo. .oOo.
Akira briefly got a giddy feeling in his chest and stomach as he walked through the flashing lights and bustling crowds of Shinjuku. The murmurs of the passerby's blended together and the multicolored neon swirled into beautiful spirals afront a concrete background as he thought of her; The memory of his movie outing with Makoto still lingered in his mind and tugged at all kinds of strings in his body. The way her hair swayed in the gentle breeze, the smell of her perfume, how her voice massaged his eardrums from within…
He caught a public bathroom at the corner of his eye, and his heart pounded louder. He would have rushed in and abandoned it all right then and there, had he not come here with explicit purpose. Last time, it was Makoto who brought him back from the brink of annihilation, but today Akira was alone. Today he was kept tethered to reality by a deep, burning rage.
Akira shook his head and sighed to clear his thoughts. He had to focus. He needed information. Luciano's iron grip on their manhoods had been torture on the Phantom Thieves. It had barely been five days, the boys were already beginning to break, and their journey to defeat Luciano had barely begun. Futaba's analysis helped guide them forward on the front lines, but Akira was intent on using every resource available to him to conquer this 30-day challenge, including mysticism.
Strawberry blonde hair and a dark purple headband caught his eye. Akira had found his target, he rummaged through his wallet.
"Ah! Akira! It's been a while, good to see y-?" The fortune teller, Chihaya Mifune, was interrupted by a pale hand slamming a crumpled 5000-yen bill onto her table.
"I'd like my fortune read, please. Full package." Perhaps Chihaya had a bad habit of letting the emotions of others guide her own, but there was an urgency in his voice and a fire in his eyes that scared the fortune-teller almost as much as a death omen. With her eyes she invited the boy to sit.
Akira could see the woman swallow a lump as she silently shuffled the deck of cards. He dragged his fingers through his palms as he waited impatiently for her to proceed.
"I-I hope all is well…" She didn't make eye contact and her voice was an uneasy whisper.
Akira silently watched the blonde place 7 cards face-down onto the table in a honeycomb pattern. She took a deep breath as she flipped them over one by one. Her expression soured more and more as each card was overturned.
She swallowed. "I've seen everything…Akira…" she closed her eyes. When they opened her brows trembled, she sounded like tears might erupt at any minute "…What have you gotten yourself into?"
Akira balled his hands up into fists underneath the table. He said nothing. Chihaya put her fingers on her temples and looked back down at the cards.
"I haven't encountered readings like these in many years, Akira… All six of the outer cards are reversed… Your future is fixed…"
"…?" Akira locked eyes with her. "F-fixed?"
"The path you will take has been set in stone. It will be filled with suffering, misery, and despair…" She pointed to the top-most card in the hexagon and went around them in a circle.
"Reversed Emperor, lack of discipline, inflexibility…" She continued.
"Reversed World, seeking shortcuts…"
"Reversed Tower, fear of change…"
"Reversed Magician, poor planning…"
"Reversed Justice, lack of accountability…"
"Reversed Death, inner purging…" Only one card remained.
Akira had accepted how pathetic he was a long, long time ago. How many liters, gallons, swimming pools worth of spunk had he spank since he'd first learned of the art of self-satisfaction so many years ago? He was not ashamed to admit to himself that the depths of his depravity reached deep within him. He was a Phantom Thief, a bringer of justice and uniter of people, all while jonking his junk almost as often as the o'clock struck. When Luciano appeared and drove a wedge between his asscheeks, all of his joys were taken, violated, and dumped aside like an 18-year-old girl at a frat party. Having the fortune-teller slap his crippling porn addiction back at him meant nothing now, and it would continue to mean nothing if Akira never got the chance to splooge again. He would fight for this until the bitter end.
A small part of Akira reached out from within the recesses of his mind, and told him that maybe this shouldn't be so important. Futaba's words replayed in his head: "Well, how hard can that be, it's only a month…" Maybe she was speaking the truth, maybe it shouldn't be so hard to go a few weeks without masturbating, maybe there was something wrong with him…?
"Akira…Akira Kurusu." Yesterday… Makoto's voice…
Makoto Niijima… that electrifying smile, those silky brown locks, those captivating red eyes…
Akira's dick twitched.
Luciano would die a painful, agonizing death.
"What does it mean?" Akira leaned forwards.
"A challenge, or bet, will present itself to you. You will be forced to play a game where failure means death and victory means survival…"
Akira's toes curled inside his shoes. Dead on the money.
"An adversary will appear to impede you. A tails to your heads, a shadow to your light, a yin to your yang…"
An adversary, it must be Luciano.
"But, not all hope is lost…" She put a finger on the card in the center the honeycomb. "The upright Judgement. Rebirth, Absolution, Inner Calling…"
"A chance at triumph presents itself, reach out and grasp at your blood… A new power has been bestowed upon you and your brothers. It will be your only hope."
Blood? Did she mean his relatives? Akira's parents had tossed him aside the second he was falsely accused of assault, they wouldn't even bat an eye at hearing his story. But a 'new power,' he could understand. That must be the reward Luciano was talking about. Would the reward somehow be the key to victory? Akira waited for her to continue, but she never did. Chihaya looked downcast at the table as she gathered the cards.
"W-wha…?" he blinked. "What else!" he almost screamed, several passerby's turned their heads at them.
"T-that's everything the cards told me! I-I wasn't able to see anything further…" she could not meet his gaze.
"No… No, there has to be more…" he fumbled through his walled and produced another 5000-yen bill and shoved it into her face. "Again. I need to know everything, There has to be more, Chihaya!"
"Akira, I'm sorry, but this is all I have! This is as far as I can see!" she gently pushed his hands away. "A path set in stone, an adversary, and some kind of superpower! I promise I would tell you more if I could, but that is all the cards hold within them!"
Akira's face sank. He sat back onto the uncomfortable stool, hung his head and took another deep breath. He had been hedging his bets on Chihaya's fortune telling, hoping for some kind of clue, any hint he and the others could use to put an end to this misery. Maybe something about Luciano's weaknesses, an idea on how to traverse his labyrinth, anything!
"That's really it, then, huh?" He didn't bother putting much power behind his voice and doubted she could hear him over the city's droning. "Sorry for my outburst, Chihaya…"
After a somber goodbye and a meager attempt from the fortune-teller to calm the boy's nerves, Akira dragged himself back home blearily. Morgana looked terrible, but was already fast asleep, and seeing as there was school tomorrow he decided to follow the cat's lead. It took great resolve to suppress the panic that threatened to overcome Akira whenever he tried to think about his 'fortune', but when he finally got into his pyjamas and let his body go limp underneath the blanket, he found exhaustion easily pulling him into an uneasy sleep.
A/N:
Hello gang, another chapter cranked out! This one's split into two because I didn't want to inflate the chapter count, so I hope the tone shift between the two parts wasn't too jarring! This one was pretty fun to write, specially since I haven't used Futaba's perspective yet. She's an interesting character, and I had fun going into a bit of depth about her and the sort of ways she might interact with the others. By the way, do look up those automatic transmission valve body images, it's a pretty insane thing to behold.
Anyways, we're almost done with the first week of No Nut November! How are you liking the pacing so far? I can't promise every single detail I include will contribute to the story, as I want to flesh out the characters from time to time, but I do give you all my word that every chapter plays a role in building up or developing the plot, so I hope you're enjoying! See you next time!