Despite no Tartarus outlet to dispense of the buzzing cluttering his brain, the next week is a blur. Visiting their potential new recruit at the hospital with Mitsuru, helping her chase some paperwork for Kirijo and SEES, catching up on a French essay and of course club activities take quite a chunk of his time.

He barely sees Minako's reddish blur pass here and there in the vicinity, papers in hand or glued to her twin with Junpei, and it somehow helps to choke down whatever entered his mind like a burglar during the last operation.

Boxing also comes into play, the sweet mindless release of punches and sparring, sweat glistening down his cheek and the exhaustion of a good workout keeping his thoughts blank, focused. He is at his best when he has no distractions, so he practices with renewed ferocity to reset his wires, drawing awe from his peers.

It takes until Yamagishi is released from the hospital and formerly brought to the meeting room for Akihiko to settle back more permanently at the dorm and everything seems back to how it was before the last daring entry into the Dark Hour.

The lithe, mousy girl accepts to join fiercely, as if she is fleeing a home situation, hopefully nothing as dire as Junpei's. From what he could gather at the hospital, she is a gentle soul, devoid of any malice and until quite recently, bullied for her qualities. She would be safe with them, knowing the juniors they would fold her into their clique in no time.

The next dawn, he put his running shoes on and makes his way outside the dorm under a cloudy sky. Minako rises from her seat in the stairs outside and faces him, wearing loose sport pants and a hoodie with well-worn baskets. Her hands were tied together behind her back and she almost bounced in place like a little kid.

"About time, was wondering when you would show up. Sun's been showing for a bit."

Had she been waiting for him?

"Uh… what do you mean?"

"Didn't you mention you needed a good running partner? Told you I'd train with you!"

A strange time dissonance almost erases all the days in between this moment and their previous sprint to the shrine playground. He smiles, hops down the stairs to join her and they start their run in sync, silent.

It only takes about 5 street corners before she giggles and zooms ahead, daring him to keep up, and the whole run turns into a competition of small, intense bursts of speed to catch up to each other.

While he never quite hits his limit, what was initially planned as a light premise to more training turns into a drenching endurance course that leaves them both panting near the playground, energy spent, the undercurrent of static muted at the back of his brain. The clouds were billowing above and would probably break before noon, but the slight early morning chill felt nice.

Still catching his breath, Akihiko does two graceful spins on the horizontal bar and perches his frame on it in a fluid motion, while Minako lays her back on the cool metal, too tired to even try and join him. Locks of damp hair are sticking to her sweating face, lips red and parted to breathe in a huff, eyes vaguely focused and locked on the trees beyond.

The clouds above part, letting the sun shine above the horizon, the sudden burst of light bringing with it a profound insight. The girl next to him, silent and eerily motionless for once, is usually one to exteriorize her joie de vivre outward, especially around her twin, as if to compensate for his quiet demeanor. It's a mask she rips inward once she drops her guard, concentrating all her lifeforce within instead.

She looks fragile in her current state, like a single prick of his finger would break her picture into a thousand glass shards and release a sunburst in her stead. Akihiko grips the metal of the bar with white knuckles, fixated on the silhouette standing just below him, barely a hair of space between his knee and her shoulder. She might be like this often, in the privacy of her relationship with Minato, and he is humbled at her trust in him as to reveal such vulnerability in his presence.

It could have been minutes or hours but eventually Minako sighs, eyes closed, a tired half smile painted below now dry strands of hair. She doesn't look back at him but raises her right hand to touch his left one on his perch, not quite pulling on the tip of his fingers. Instinctively answering the unspoken call to walk back to the dorm, he obliges and leaps down the bar to accompany her.