Persona 5: Daywatch

Saturday, 7 May 2016
Morning
Shujin, Class 2-D

Idle chatter reverberated through the room. The door at the head of the class rumbled open, the squeaky wheel guiding it down the track faltering as Kawakami shoved it open. More and more of the students looked up to her in silent anticipation. When she dropped her binder on the desk at the front of the room, all conversation ceased and every eye focused on her.

She scanned the room, something sharper in her gaze today. Squaring her shoulders, she set a hand on her hip. "Easy, everyone. I'm a little early and I've got some work to get done before we begin." Disappointment and relief both flowed through the class before she added, "Kurusu-kun, I do need to speak to you."

What calm had come to the class fled at his name. The students on both sides of Akira bandied ideas about what crime he was about to be expelled for.

From his comfortable hiding place inside Akira's desk, Morgana's ears twitched as he followed the conversations. "Just act normal. There's no need to raise suspicion."

Sighing, Akira shoved his seat back and stood. He slid the chair back up, leaving just enough space for Morgana to slip out before trotting to the front of the class.

Kawakami-sensei wrote something in red on one of the literature quizzes from the other day, then covered her yawn with a fist. Finishing with a little shiver, she glanced up at him with some form of concern that only increased his worry. She jerked her thumb at the door, led him out, then closed the door before turning to face him. "There's quite an uproar with everything around Kamoshida. Detectives are interviewing faculty and the students who called to report him last Tuesday."

Akira held his hands up, eyes widening and brows rising in feigned shock. "Somebody else reported him?" He shoved his hands in his pockets, expression becoming dour. "I didn't think anybody else in this school had the balls."

Kawakami crossed her arms, her narrowed eyes on his. "This is no laughing matter, Kurusu-kun. Detectives aren't just questioning staff after-hours, they're interviewing students. And you're first on the list today. Student Guidance Office. You're excused from class until they finish, but please don't say anything unnecessary. Just give enough to answer the questions and get it over with quickly."

Akira gave a sharp nod, then turned for the guidance office. A single seat rested against the wall a couple steps from the door, but he found his palms sweaty and couldn't make himself sit in it.

After a few moments, the door slid open. A man in a dressy but worn brown suit poked his head out. He frowned. "Kurusu?"

The transfer student clenched his hands in his pockets. "My name is Akira." But when the suited man stepped inside, he followed and closed the door behind him.

A stoic detective with a dark, ash-grey suit shuffled paperwork as Akira stepped into the requisitioned student guidance office. He pointed to the chair across the fold-up table. "Thank you for your time. Kurusu Akira?"

"I go by Akira." His eyes dropped to the folder the detective skimmed through. It felt like the heat in the room turned up when the detective turned a page in the manila folder. Most of his incidents had been brushed under the rug without any formal reprimand. Those who didn't give up on hearing the name Kurusu did after their phone call to the Institute. "What's that?"

"Complaints and demerits," the detective said, taking a long moment of reading before straightening and looking the delinquent in the eye. "It's standard procedure to research a little about a person of interest before an interview. We were expecting to get to you yesterday, but as part of due diligence I always call to get a sense of an interviewee's background." He turned another hand-penned page. "I've never had an interviewee with sealed incidents in his background, but your principal confirmed that the expulsion wasn't the first time you'd gotten into a fight."

Akira gave a shrug, neither confirming nor denying the statement. He leaned back until it tipped, the creak of metal resonated through its frame.

The detective in brown, standing almost unnoticed in the corner, stepped up and slammed the back of the chair, knocking it back on all four legs. "You'll show proper respect to the police."

Akira shot up but stopped himself halfway up and tugged to straighten the chair under him.

Dark Suit cleared his throat, then flipped forward a few pages, tracing his retracted pen down the handwritten pages and reading in a moment of silence. "Witnesses report you had a dispute with Kamoshida-sensei?"

A huff escaped Akira's throat and he scratched his temple. "When was that?"

Dark Suit's eyes flicked to the side of the page. "Thursday. The fourteenth of April." When he met Akira's eyes next, they held a laser-like intensity.

Straightening in his chair, Akira folded his hands on the table and swallowed. "Oh, right. That was the day Suzui-ch—san was driven to suicide." His hands curled tight, his heart thundering in his throat. "That bastard raped her. I knew it the instant I saw her eyes as she lay there, splayed on the packed turf." His hands trembled. "She was scared. She was hurting, violated like I never was even by my old bastard. But she didn't want to die."

Dark Suit scribbled onto the notepad next to his file. "This Suzui-san and you were close?"

Blushing despite himself, Akira's eyes fell to the ground before he shook his head. "I… wasn't sure where I fit in here. It was still the first week of school." Settling in his seat, he took off his glasses and wiped the lenses before settling them back on his face. He wasn't wiping away any tears. "She deserved better than she ever got here." Akira flexed his shoulders. "Kamoshida on the other hand… when he started bawling up there on that stage and asked for someone to call the police, it was the least I could do."

Brown Suit took a heavy step closer, lip twitching up. "So what about your fight on the fourteenth?"

The familiarity of the hostility brought a smile to his face and Akira held up a hand with his index finger extended. "The alleged fight."

Dark Suit sighed, flipping a few sheets back while holding his place with his finger. "According to witnesses, you said at a very loud volume, 'you rapist pig'." He shot a nonplussed look to Akira. "We've already got enough witness statements that a recording would be unnecessary. Kamoshida himself has already given a thorough statement. Could you skip the whole 'alleged' dance and give your side of events?"

Akira slouched in his chair, tapping his fingers against the table. He wasn't sure if he should be disturbed or comforted that his heart rate slowed to a steady at the familiar setting of adults trying to bear down on him. "He fucked me by leaking my record, then he literally fucked her. And I'm s'posed to be quiet about it? Damn right I said it for all Shujin to hear."

Brown Suit with his brutish lack of restraint and Dark Suit's 'we already know everything' play tag-teamed Akira as he told most of the day's events until his voyage into the Metaverse.

Brown Suit crossed his arms. "You were seen with that girl's friend later. The cute one with pigtails."

The image of the two girls sitting across a corner from him in the cafeteria sprang to his mind. "She's Suzui-san's friend. And nice in her own right."

Brown Suit grumped and they spent the next few minutes talking him in circles about his time in Tokyo. About other students. About the teachers. He had little to say about most of them, Kawakami was the only one who knew his record for sure but climbed off his back.

After what felt like hours, Dark Suit gave a nod and closed Akira's file. "I'm sorry for taking so much of your time."

Akira slumped back, feeling more like he just finished a champion fist-fight against Big K than an interview.

Packing up Akira's file, Dark Suit glanced up. "One last thing. What do you think about the rumors of the Phantom Thief?"

Akira stopped, hand on the door handle. "I don't know if Shujin should throw a parade or if we should all come wearing black."

Brown Suit scratched his head. "You're not a fan, even with all the loose ends this tidies up for you?"

Akira stared at the door handle. "Pity not the land that breeds no heroes. Pity the land that needs a hero."

Brown Suit snorted. Akira stepped outside and closed the door. Energy sapped from the interview, Akira leaned against the door. When he heard faint voices, he turned to listen in.

"Think he could be involved?" Dark Suit said, shuffling papers.

Brown Suit chuckled. "He's all mouth and no control. No way could he have blackmailed Kamoshida."

Akira pushed off the door and headed back for class 2-D. "Not guilty by reason of mental defect." He let out a bitter chuckle. "This far away and the old bastard's still got me wrapped up." He reached into his pocket for his phone, to the screen with the Nav, then put it away. He muttered, "Why's it so hard to live right?"

Saturday, 7 May 2016
Evening
Yongen-Jaya Station

The train trundled to a stop, and the doors slid open with jerky motion. Akira dove out and widened his pace to keep ahead of the crowd. Everybody else seemed too absorbed in their little worlds to notice the transfer student with a metaphorical storm cloud hovering over his head. How many of them jogged on to their fathers' abuse?

Akira growled, grit his teeth, and slapped his transit pass against the reader on the turnstile. As soon as he paced through, he broke into a jog.

Before he even got to the narrow alley weaving to Leblanc's street, a little boy dashed out of it and turned around with an irritating, happy smile on his face. "C'mon, papa!"

A man on crutches paced out after, a grin on his face. "I'm coming, kiddo. Not so fast."

Akira hung back, watching until they disappeared into the public baths. A smiling child and his father. Why did that feel so alien?

The bell rang as he pushed open the door to Leblanc and trudged in. An overweight woman snoozed over the booth table, the only occupant left besides the proprietor working on a crossword puzzle.

Sojiro looked up at the bell, but settled into a resigned pose after he recognized the transfer student. "Oh, it's you."

"Sorry to disappoint," Akira, sounding even more monotone than he intended, "but I haven't mastered the art of spontaneously becoming Risette when entering small businesses."

"Ugh," Sojiro spat. "I'm not asking for a song and dance endorsement deal, just… try practicing common sense things you'd do whenever you want something from them. Give a service smile, say hello, that kind of thing."

Morgana looked up at him from within the satchel. "Boss has a point. By getting better at getting people on your side, you wouldn't have to work so hard at being on guard all the time."

Akira grunted and muttered, "Not like people aren't inclined to stab you in the back anyway." He trotted up the stairs and changed out of his school uniform.

Morgana hopped up on the stack of 'books to keep' and curled his tail around his feet. "Why don't you go downstairs and see if Boss has any other helpful advice? You've been moody all day, maybe it'll be good for you."

Akira rolled his eyes, but it was either that or get more lectures from the guide-trapped-in-a-cat-body. "Fine. Anyway, it's not my fault we haven't found any solid leads on that yakuza boss." Walking downstairs, he heard the bell jingle and noticed the napping woman gone and Sojiro stirring the curry. Akira slipped his hands in his navy-blue shorts and leaned against the fridge. "So, uh… you want a hand down here?"

Sojiro gave a smirk, but beyond a short exhale he gave little further response. After the spoon finished another circuit in the delicious, aromatic curry, he lifted it out and tapped clinging drops back into the pot. "There aren't exactly any customers in the way. How do you feel about the different bean types?"

Akira flexed his fingers, still feeling tension in his limbs from the day at school. Even after the interview, if felt like everybody was waiting for him to lose it. "Well, even though they're more expensive it looks like you mostly have the Arabica variety."

The corners of the owner's lips turned up and he set down the spoon. "You've got a good memory. Come over here." He waved and paced to the narrow glass containers sitting over a flame. "Fundamentally, coffee's not extremely complicated. It's in the details where the problems arise."

Akira snorted. "Just like families, then."

Sojiro's gaze slid from the coffee grinder sitting beside the siphons. "Families are all about relationships you can't entirely control. In that way, they're even worse than politics." He tapped a shallow tin measuring cup against the grinder outlet, then drew out the tray and dumped it into a small compost waste bin under the counter. "Same as poker. Even life, when you think about it. You can only play the hand you're dealt."

Harrumphing, Akira paced to the sink but stopped before turning the water on. "The world doesn't give you what you want unless you grab it by the throat and take it."

A chuff emanated from Sojiro and the transfer student turned a glare on him only to see the adult smiling. "C'mon, kid. Relax. Nobody gets respect with threats and force." His smile vanished. "I had a… coworker who thought that way." Sojiro shook his head and picked up a polishing rag. "That's fear." He picked up a siphon over an extinguished flame and wiped at it.

"Though fear goes plenty far." Akira turned back to the sink and started on the dishes.

Sojiro pointed the siphon at him. "Fear only gets you what you want as long as you've got that sword of Damocles hanging over them. There's plenty of ways of getting things. You trade shifts. You talk your way into getting that last pocky stick."

Akira nodded. "You buy that car or that minister spot."

"Hey!" Sojiro said, his snap lacking genuine hurt. "Government positions can't be bought."

The student's flat stare could've crumbled granite. "Tokyo University up for any smartass off the street?"

Sojiro paused wiping the coffee siphon. "Okay, I've gotta give you that one." He resumed wiping. "You've got a lot of unusual opinions for a high-schooler. Not what I would've expected for a probate waxing philosophical about fathers with a cat."

"Hey!" Morgana said from underneath one of the bar stools.

"So, I'm a freak." Akira shrugged and wiped at a plate with a blob of dried curry. "My mother and old bastard taught me a lot about what I don't wanna be." Finishing with the few remaining dishes this late in the day, he rinsed his hands and shut off the water. "Isn't that everybody?"

Sojiro shook his head. "I can't believe that Kurusu would've raised a kid who talked like that." He scrutinized the student as he put dishes away. "Isn't there anything good you learned from your parents? My mother taught me how to cook and my father taught me how to keep the supplies up but the budget down."

Akira paced down the bar, positioning the sugar shakers at even intervals. "The only thing my old bastard passed on was attention to detail. And if I could be as laid back as Ryuji, I'd trade for it even if it came with his lack of attention." He turned on Sojiro, feeling heat spread over his face and chest. "I don't get what it is with you people always thinking I should worship the ground my old bastard walked on. Fuck, knowing someone should be basic grounds for not liking them, but especially him. He never read me bedtime stories, or took me to the beach. Everybody's always on about how nice or generous dads are s'posed to be, but his version of generous was saying 'I'm not even charging you for the electricity.'"

The bell on the door interrupted Akira's rant, and a middle-aged man in a cheap sweater trotted in. He bore a smile, but his pace was measured and his eyes scanned the shelves behind the counter with an appraising look Akira knew from hanging out with plenty of thieves at Inuri. The chubby man waved a hand at Sojiro. "Been a long time, Sakura-san! A pity you didn't tell me you had a nice place like this. Great location." His eyes paused only a moment on Akira. "And you've even got help this late, business must be good."

Sojiro came to a stop halfway to the register, folding his arms and making no move to hide his glare. "What's your order?"

Akira quirked an eyebrow at Sojiro's lack of hospitality.

The man in the sweater crossed his arms and trotted in a few paces, pausing to take a deep sniff. "Amazing how smells bring back memories, huh? Smells like you're still stuck on her."

Sojiro's hand tightened into a fist and his jaw clenched.

Sensing something strange, Akira stepped up to the register and pasted on a fake smile like Ann did. "I'm Tatsumi. Who're you?"

The overweight man's smile dimmed, and a piercing gaze swept over the transfer student. "Isshiki. Me and Sakura-san go way back."

Sojiro came to a stop behind Akira, arms crossed tight. "You here to order anything?"

"Tsk, tsk," Isshiki said. "You didn't used to be so cold. I just thought I'd drop by." He brought his hand to his brow for brief moment, the motion too sloppy to be a clear anything salute. "Be seeing you." He turned and trotted out.

Akira turned around to see Sojiro fuming, something out of character for the adult who had to have a stash of cannabis hidden somewhere. "Who's the scout?"

Sojiro jerked, as if only now noticing the student wearing the green apron. "Scout?"

"Scout," Akira repeated, leaning against the bar counter's inner side. "I've seen plenty of people scoping out a mark. You have insurance, right? Against burglary?"

One corner of Sojiro's lip pulled up, but at least his crossed arms loosened. "Well, at least you got the right general idea of Isshiki Youji."

"Isshiki… Like the head of research, Isshiki-sensei?"

Sojiro's jaw clenched, and he forced his molars apart before flexing his jaw. Tension lines still stood out on his neck. "You're too attentive to detail sometimes. Yes, he's Wakaba's older brother. If you see him again… don't trust that smile."

AN: Even with the research center covering up Akira's troubles so they don't reflect badly on his father, almost nothing is ever truly sealed in the past. Of course, some of his experiences help arm him against other troublesome characters he'll come across.