Persona 5: Daywatch
Thursday, 4 August 2016
Evening
Chiyoda, Rekisen Park
Hifumi jogged through the trimmed topiaries of the quaint, out-of-the-way park between church and home. These moments away from Mother's iron fist were too precious to waste talking away fans who drooled over her. Her large sunglasses felt like they just made her more conspicuous to people at a distance, but it was the best she had on-hand to hide her green eyes from the fifty percent of boys and every single amateur journalist in Tokyo who would recognize her. Her old, cream-colored dress may have been conservative enough to keep from standing out, but nondescript wasn't quite a disguise. She reached up and tucked the loose strand of her red hair knot back into the headscarf that made it feel even hotter, but also made her less recognizable.
It had been more than a month since she visited, but there was something quiet about this park. It wasn't just the limited foot-traffic, or the fact that Papa brought her here to practice before his matches. There was something cool and sheltered about it that no other place in Tokyo afforded her. Turning another corner of hedges that could use some more trimming, the shogi maestra came to a sudden stop at the most welcome surprise in weeks. "Akira-kun!"
The thoughtful boy jolted in his seat and dropped the Bible in his hands to the stone table. Even his tuxedo cat perched at the center of the table seemed surprised. Akira's steely gaze shot wide and his mouth drifted open for a moment before he caught himself. "Togo-san!"
She would have pouted at the use of her family name, but for the way the corners of his mouth turned up. It made her want to reach out and pinch those cheeks. She sat down across from him instead. "What are you doing all the way out here? I thought you lived down by Minato-ku."
His smile twisted into a frown and that gaze like a lightning storm dropped. His hands closed into tight fists and his shoulders hunched.
The way he talked about his father left little question he didn't come from good places, but the amount of pain she saw him in stirred her to get up and sit down on the bench next to him. "Akira," she started with quite a bit more force than she intended. He stopped turning away from her, but still looked like he was considering throwing up over the corner of the table. She reached a hand, then couldn't decide what might be too far. Would it be too intimate to wrap around his waist and lean in? To take his hand and feel those calloused digits in her own? She settled for pressing her hand against his back and rubbing it in circles. "Talk to me."
Akira opened his mouth, then closed it. He breathed through his nose a few times, leaning against her hand, though she couldn't tell if it was conscious or not. "You ever feel like everything you do just makes things worse?"
Her hand paused, then Hifumi took a breath and kept going. He held her while she went to pieces before. Offering the same support back was the least she could do. "Sometimes it feels like anything I do with Mother is exactly that."
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. He tensed against her, but Akira's glare turned on his cat. "Maybe it would be better to find another way of changing her mind. Three out of four is hardly an acceptable success rate."
The cat stood on all fours, tail standing up with an agitated waver. He meowed back.
The transfer student gave a bitter snort. Hifumi lifted a hand to take his, then decided that might be too far. "Stressed over Medjed's threats against the economy? I know it's all some people are talking about, but there's nothing you or I can do so there's nothing to gain by dwelling on it."
His shoulders fell even more and that gaze like a churning storm fell to his Bible. He fiddled with the bent corner of a page. "Yeah. Nothing you or I can do." His shoulder blades pinched together and his back felt like a rock against her hand. "I guess it's nobody, now."
Akira's cat stepped onto the Bible to look up into the transfer student's eyes, and he gave a clipped meow.
With as much gentleness as possible, Hifumi reached her free hand to take the cat's feet and move them off the Bible. She remembered him mentioning another victim he was trying to help. She wanted to be reassuring, but her own stresses piling up ran ahead of her brain's filter. "Have you saved the girl you were going to help before Mother?"
Somehow, Akira withered even more.
His tuxedo cat gave him a plaintive meow.
"Yeah," Akira snapped, straightening with an anger that burned through his exhaustion but seemed to take more of him with it. "What a flaming success. If today's an example of what we can do, maybe it's better we didn't all charge into her mother's heart."
Morgana thumped a paw onto the Bible to step into view with a hiss.
Akira glared back, though with just a modicum of energy. Those eyes looked so hollow as he said, "She already knows. She's smarter than me, remember?"
Heart fluttering in her chest, she fought to keep a smile from blooming across her face. He looked in too much pain to let him mistake thinking she was making light of him or his problem. Hifumi's fingers lifted the cat's paw back off the Bible. Then she took Akira's chin – just with one finger, not with enough strength to give the impression she was forcing him to look at her. "Akira-kun. If you're angry with something you think went wrong, don't punish yourself through an animal or inanimate object." She straightened as much as she could without making a point of it. "I'm here. Talk to me."
Those stormy grey eyes at long last locked onto hers, and she felt her own heart clench in her chest at the agony she saw there. Akira's lips trembled for a moment before he spluttered, "I think I killed her."
Morgana yowled.
Hifumi saw a shine come to his eyes, and felt him tense against her. Well, if he thought she was going to just let him go, he didn't know her yet. As close as he seemed to storming away looking like he'd swallowed a knife, she couldn't be cautious. She put her arm around him with a firm grip to keep him pressed against her, even if all it conveyed was that she was going to be there for him whether he wanted it or not.
A sound passed through his throat and the glisten of reflected city light in his exhausted eyes grew brighter. He swallowed and tensed, but couldn't seem to gather the strength to pull away from her. "You shouldn't be here, Togo-san. I haven't even done anything for you. I couldn't even—"
His voice cracked and she lay her left hand against his arm, pressing just a bit to be sure he felt it under his sleeve. She took in a breath so she sounded steady. He needed someone to be steady right now. "I'm here and you're here right now. Sometimes that's all we can do. No boat can rush the tide."
Yongen, Sakura House
Akira stumbled up the stairs, his breaths coming in short gasps. He reached the door with a star field and Earth's point of origin symbol, criss-crossed with Do Not Enter tape, and hurled it open. The frail body of Sakura Futaba swung on a noose hanging from exposed rafters, her head cocked to one side and long empty eyes staring out. He wanted to scream, to shout for her to get down, to say anything, but no breath would pass in or out of his lips.
He took one step in, pushing away the mountains of trash bags piling up around every wall, but more just fell in his way.
Red lights strobed around the blackout curtains, accompanied by the pulsed wail of a siren. Half a dozen cops charged through the door after him.
Akira pushed another step in, reaching for Futaba as if he could undo the horrific act before his eyes. A folded card on her desk, the only neat item in the room overflowing with garbage, proclaimed, 'It's all your fault.'
The trash parted for the cops and they pounded him into the wooden floor with batons, cuffing him without the mercy to pull his eyes away from the hanging body. One of them shouted, "We got the murdering bastard! Now let's put away the rest of the Phantom Thieves!"
Friday, 5 August 2016
Early Morning
Yongen, Leblanc Loft
Battle at the Pyramid sang out of his phone and Akira jerked. He looked around the spacious loft, the window air conditioner whirring away, and wiped at the tears threatening to spill down his face. He threw off the sheet and stood, stumbling through his achy muscles to his phone on the workstation and cut the morning alarm. He pulled up the news.
"…Commissioner General Matsumoto reiterates that Wednesday's data leaks were a small-time attack by opportunistic hackers and that there has been no evidence of Medjed's promised attack against the Japanese economy. Despite those reassurances, the Nikkei 225 opened down two points today, with the only clear winners being water filter makers…"
Akira stopped the video and scrolled through several news feeds, but no reports of Innocent Child Found Dead interrupted the headlines choked with people panicking over Medjed and the stock market.
Once his shaking stopped and he could breathe again, Akira changed out of his sleep clothes, donned his glasses, and put together an average day kit in his leather satchel.
By that point, the team leader who was not a cat yawned, ending with a click of feline jaws, and stretched with the languid ease to make a real cat jealous. "Today's a rest day, Joker. We changed Sakura Futaba's heart. You could sleep in."
"No," he said, tone flat. He unplugged his phone and checked the time. "Sojiro should've been here by now." He shot his temporary guardian a text asking him if everything was okay, and asking about Futaba.
Pacing filled the moments until his phone buzzed with Sojiro's response. [Hold your horses, kid. Everything's normal, just like any other day.]
Akira looked at the time. The restaurateur was a creature of habit, and he would usually be inside stretching and setting up by now even if it was half an hour before opening. [What about Futaba? Is she okay? Has she woken up?]
No response came and Akira tried to sit down to study, but he couldn't quite get the rafters out of his field of vision and he couldn't stop seeing that frail body dangling from a noose. He threw his pen and trotted downstairs to make himself an omelet. He wasn't hungry, but the effort would take up some of his attention. Minutes slipped by as he diced a tomato and pepper, stirred them in rice, then switched to a pan for the whipped eggs. More to see if he could figure out how the chefs at Amagi Inn did it, he tried to use a couple chopsticks to pull the eggs into a tornado shape, but ended up cutting it into uneven chunks.
He sat down with his breakfast and sent a text describing the strange morning to the group chat.
Makoto's ID winked in. [Are you sure that's so unusual? If everything worked, Futaba-chan shouldn't be in any risk. It might all look the same as any other day to Boss-san.]
Akira cut away the first bite from the omelet, lacking the twist of a proper cyclone omelet or the loose, easy-to-eat bits of scrambled eggs. He wondered what the Amagi Inn kitchen staff would have to say about it. Most of his attempts to led to them pushing him at vegetables so he couldn't cause harm to the immaculate dishes they crafted for VIPs. He typed, [And if it didn't work, it could be days before we all realize how fucked we are.] He could just imagine Hifumi giving him a disappointed sniff. He paused, realizing how pointless that much negativity was, deleted the text, and pocketed his phone. With a grump, he turned to his breakfast.
The instant he cut into the eggs and rice, the bell jingled and the restaurateur strode in. He looked haggard, ground down by the world. Akira shot up from the bar seat. "Is Futaba okay?"
Sojiro gave a weary glare. The sun had yet to rise up above the Tokyo skyline, but there the restaurateur stood without clear sign of lost sleep. "I told you once. Runs out of energy like a battery. Leave her alone and she'll be fine." He turned the television on, then rolled his eyes when the newscaster started droning on about cybersecurity and the falling stock market.
"Maybe the problem was her being left alone," Akira muttered under his breath, but sat down to his omelet.
If Sojiro heard, he gave no sign. He looked down at the dish, then leaned a bit to get a better look into the omelet. "Trying out fancy omrice?"
He pulled another chunk away on his chopsticks. "They used to do tornado omelets Amagi Inn. The tourists seemed to love finding chunks of cheese or veggies in the rice, so it became the thing to do. I've never been able to get the tornado look right, though I haven't tried all that often." Most of his cooking before had been the bare necessary to keep going. Back when he lived under his old bastard, what did he have to look forward to?
The transfer student checked the group chat. Mishima had joined to report this weekend's summer plans. Makoto's last text noted, [Big Sis would kill me if she knew I had been putting off all of summer's school work until now.]
Akira ate a bite of the omelet and sent, [Study group? All of us could probably use the academic help.]
Ann texted back, [Are you trying to show off, Mister Ninth in his Year?]
Pushing back annoyance, he replied, [Still room for improvement.]
Mishima texted, [You know, most people would be ecstatic to have broken into the top ten at all.]
Makoto sent, [How did you do it? Your records just had you above average before Shujin.]
Akira started typing an angry reply. His grades were never high enough for the old man, no matter how many tests he aced. Shujin treated him the same, calling him in to the principal's office to accuse him of cheating. Even his fellow students wouldn't cut him any slack, two thirds believed the cheating rumors and the others wanted him to give them his notes.
"Eat up. Go out and enjoy the summer," Sojiro said, heading to the front to flip the sign and open for the elderly pair waiting outside.
[Inuri failed all the tests I was absent for,] Akira at last sent. If he was honest, his attendance was just one of many reasons his old high school was probably eager to give him the boot. He'd been more focused on pissing off the old man than showing them up. Though Hifumi's tutoring sessions helped. [Hey, maybe we could get together and steamroll through the summer school work.]
[I suppose it couldn't hurt,] Makoto texted.
Ann and Yuuki both threw in their affirmation, so Akira dug into his breakfast as more customers trickled in.
Friday, 5 August 2016
Afternoon
Shibuya, Bikkuri Boi Diner
Morgana shook out his head to work a kink out of his neck. Not that he was trying to act like a cat, it was just his distorted body acting against him! The murmur of scattered conversations gave a pleasant lull to the cozy space. Lingering smells from the Nostalgic Steak ordered as lunch still tickled his nose. As usual, Joker and Nightrider powered through lesson after lesson like machines. The way they egged each other on, ever locked in competition, helped push the group, but it dredged up concern about how they'd act the next time they ventured into the Metaverse.
Joker tapped the lovely Lady Ann. "'Scuse me."
The ever graceful, beautiful young woman stepped out, then plopped back down when the transfer student headed to the bathrooms.
Waiting for the bespectacled boy to get out of ear-shot, Morgana popped up, paws on the table to give himself a little more stature. That class representative was near, sitting to his left while the upperclassman scribbled away at his right, but if he picked up on the conversation he might be able to reveal something the others had missed. "Hey, have you been paying much attention to Joker? He was finally starting to loosen up and settle into his role as a normal student in the real world, and our jack-of-all-trades in the Metaverse… but has he seemed…" He struggled to find the best words. "Like he regressed? At some point since we started Futaba's Palace?"
Nightrider tapped her pen against the table. "After he stitched that first memory back together?"
Lady Ann scratched her head. "You think he's jealous of Futaba's mom?"
"Envious," Nightrider corrected, her crimson gaze staring out, unfocused. "And no. I don't think he even 'gets it' enough to be envious. His mom wasn't a monster like his father, but she was still pretty horrible to him."
Mishima's deep, brown eyes widened at her. "You got him to tell you about his family? I figured he'd start the zombie apocalypse because he'd come back just to keep from opening up to the coroner."
Lady Ann spluttered a laugh, nervousness laced in what should have been the lovely woman's light energy.
Nightrider's analytic gaze swept over the table peppered with papers. "He seems like he's always fairly wound up. But while we're in a Palace he seems like there's no problem. It's the exact opposite of what I'd expect from… anyone. Almost like he's more comfortable in combat than walking down the street."
Mishima set his phone down, which had to be a first the team leader had seen. "He seemed steady as a rock when he came up to the roof to talk to me on the day of Kamoshida's confession. Granted, I wasn't in the best state to observe then."
Lady Ann's slender digits slid across the table towards him as if considering taking a hand just a little too far away, then she pulled back. "He… seems worst between defeating a person's Shadow and when the change of heart goes public. He's always reassuring when I run into him on the subway, but I wonder how much he believes it."
The upperclassman's crimson gaze fell to the team leader next to her. "How's his sleep been?"
Morgana's ears twisted back. "Well… he's been better with the AC unit, but it's been pretty inconsistent. I must have missed him texting her, but he met that shogi idol last night when he went out to read in a park. That seemed to calm him down some."
Nightrider gave a nostalgic smile. "Togo-san is quite the kind soul. I'm sure her expertise in shogi appeals to something in him, too."
Mishima's eyes widened at her. "Shogi… Togo… Wait, you know the Venus of Shogi?"
Nightrider crossed her arms. "The media dubbed her that after a photo shoot she didn't even want to do. After having seen the way some men treat her, I understand why she doesn't like it."
Morgana licked a paw and brushed at his ear, then realized what the action looked like and straightened with his chest thrust out. "You seem to know an awful lot about her."
The upperclassman forced a shrug. "Akira introduced us and she came by the dojo last week. She just doesn't seem to have the… spirit for martial arts, even if she was polite enough to ask. Even after I showed her the form, she couldn't commit to a throw."
Lady Ann's head tilted, those fluffy pigtails swaying in a mesmerizing way. "Really? I never pictured him going for those silent, demure types."
Nightrider's eyes widened, taken aback. "Oh, if you'd ever played shogi with her you'd know she is not the meek type."
The two just seemed weird to Morgana. "Regardless of that, what do we do about Joker?"
A ponderous silence fell across them until the upperclassman tensed and called out Akira's name more as a warning to the group than greeting, and he seemed to pick up on it.
More rattled by the sudden tension than the others, Lady Ann popped up from her seat and gave a fake smile that wouldn't have fooled a toddler. "W-we're done with homework, so let's go for a walk!"
Friday, 5 August 2016
Late Afternoon
Shibuya, Central Street
With the previous customer stepping away from the register, Ann hop-skipped the rest of the way. "Double chocolate cream for me."
Akira paced behind her. Just like every time they'd defeated a Shadow, she could feel the tension roiling off him. Why he was more skittish after defeating someone's Shadow than before she would never understand. Not that this was the best place to ask. After a beat of scanning that damn shogi app, he dragged, then tapped on the screen and looked up. "I'm not hungry."
Ann's jaw tensed, but she decided not to insist when the line behind them grew.
Shibuya, Clothing Boutique Bronxx
Ann stepped out of the changing room, her yellow polo changed for a shoulderless white shirt for the moment. It was way more showy than she would have worn before, but now that the pervert blackmailing her for sexual favors was behind bars she felt like trying out something new, something her. She struck a pose as if the transfer student was one of her agency's photographers. "What do you think?"
Akira's eyes flicked from her hair to face to chest before he looked away with a blush. He coughed into his sleeve.
If only he wasn't already smitten with a church girl, he would be so fun to tease. Would it be worth teasing him anyway? Decisions, decisions…
Akira lifted the sleeve of a dress with an angled stripe pattern. "Who would wear something like this?"
Ann's minor disappointment was washed away by a tingling of nostalgia. The cut reminded her of something. She checked the sign, and sure enough… "Ah. It' s a Hiiragi. This brings me back. Did I ever tell you she was what got me back into modeling?"
He let go of the sleeve, then tugged at his own as if afraid to let his arms see the sun. "I thought you modeled to feel closer to your parents?"
Ann nodded, then brushed a pigtail out of the way. "Well, that's true too. But I meant back into modeling. I pretty much stopped when we moved to New York because there was so much competition there, it got so cut-throat it wasn't something I could enjoy. But when I read that Hiiragi said she wanted people to be a light to people, I realized I wanted to do the same thing." She smiled at the warm feeling of clapping under spotlights, before that led to drawing that perverted coach's attention. Ugh. How did that bastard still make her feel like she wanted to shower and burn her clothes? "Come on."
Harajuku, Takenoko Street
Ann pranced through the usual crowd streaming through the streets, her earlier stress forgotten and a feeling of control thrumming through her veins.
Behind her, paper shopping bags in both hands, Akira stumbled through the crowd with the grace of a newborn gazelle. How somebody could be so fluid in the Metaverse but so turned around in a simple crowd escaped her. While running, he seemed to have little problem.
A thirty-something man wearing a bright red shirt stepped out of a jewelry store, shouldering into her companion. "Hey! Watch where you're goin', cretin!"
Shopping bag still in hand, Akira raised a fist in reflex.
Ann hopped around the jerk to catch her friend's hand before he could do anything. "Easy there, Akira." She let out a sigh and they leaned against the jewelry shop storefront, with her joining a moment later. "I used to come here at couple times a week to people-watch with Shiho. Well, when she was available. The crowds can be a bit much when it's a really heavy day, so I understand why you might have problems. Like, what gives all these people the right to be here?"
Akira tapped the paper shopping bags against each other. "I'm pretty sure breathing and being a carbon-based lifeform are enough."
She chuffed, but she knew the sound of somebody delivering a line he thought was expected. "I thought you hated crowds?" She looked out, a sea of dark-haired heads bobbing by as women and young men rushed to and fro. The occasional wig or strange dye job popped out, but with enough frequency it reminded her of the winking lights on the edge of street ads. It was so weird that he wasn't big on crowd watching, he was always on the lookout. "I tried coming out here once after Shiho… well… but it felt wrong without her. Like I was the weird one."
He nodded, his expression just a little too serious. "Much better to bring friends so we can all stare at them. Nothing creepy about formation staring."
She gave him a playful punch, but didn't bother to hide the smirk on her own face. Ann was pretty sure some of his groaners were more for his sake than theirs.
He looked a bit less tense as he leaned back against the brick work next to her. "One thing's for sure, you hardly stand out here. Even if they're wigs, I'm seeing blonde, fluorescent pink, even blue."
A passerby woman with a blue pageboy cut brushed back some bangs with the hand not holding a laptop bag. "This… is my natural hair color." An awkward moment ensued before she trotted into the glove shop next door.
Akira glanced at her, looking like he wasn't sure where to look or how to hold his body again. "You try coming on your own? I mean, it sucks that Shiho can't come out with you like the old normal, but it seems like a good place. I mean, people may have stared because of your hair at Shujin, but I bet we could walk around in duplicates of our…gear and people wouldn't even give us a second glance."
Ann gave a smile at the awkward boy. He was trying. "True. The wild hair or clothes are half the fun." She crossed her arms. "I came around to places like this because I thought if there were tons of people, I wouldn't feel lonely. But the bigger the crowd…"
"The more alone you feel," he said, voice thick.
Ann turned to the transfer student. While she very much preferred Yusuke's even-keeled calm, even he had his spastic moments. And the more time she spent around Akira, the more she understood the floundering boy just trying to make his way through life without a roadmap. She took in a breath, but held in her comment. No point wondering might-have-beens, he only had eyes for Shiho then. And even if it wasn't for the Nadeshiko beauty he'd fallen for, Ann and Akira bounced off each other like a stone over a pond. At least Yusuke was always willing to set down both what he was doing and thinking to listen to her. After a beat, she leaned closer, her shoulder brushing up against Akira's, and they looked out at the crowd. "There's a lot to like about this place, but I think part of the magic is that there's so much weird on display that we don't stand out here. I'm just glad I get to experience it with someone else."
Several seconds passed as Akira stared out, and the muscles in his arm never relaxed. "Big K would say the best things in life are shared. Doesn't feel like it when the only things I ever got were hand-me-downs nobody else wanted."
His little speech about not fitting in at the Wilton buffet echoed in Ann's mind and she snatched for the first thing to say to try to change tracks. "I wonder what these people are thinking right now."
Akira clasped both his hands at his front, a hint of a smirk's shadow on his lips. "Shit, did I leave the stove on?"
She stood straighter and bumped him with her elbow. "You can play the odd man out if you want, but even you wanna be part of the party." She focused back on the crowd, following a girl with medium-length hair done up in long spikes, shouting at a boy who hunched so much he started to disappear into the crowd. "Check out the row there! His girlfriend's totally going for a knockout!"
Akira shielded his eyes and searched. "She's insisting he pay for it?"
Ann thwapped him. The fight in the crowd broke up and streams of happy shoppers passed by. "I'm glad we started what we did. All those people are just trying to make it through the day, looking for a smile when they can't fake it. I hope we can give one to each one."
A clump passed and he pressed back between two decorative pillars, then reached to his day satchel for a paperback book with a battered cover.
She reached over to push it back into his satchel. "Just enjoy the neighborhood."
He gave her the stink eye but let it drop back in. "It's just until some more of the tides of humanity move on. You just don't appreciate a good book. They help calm me down and give me something to think about."
She rolled her eyes so hard her pigtails jostled. "Ugh. At least pick something that isn't boring if we gotta wait."
"Boring?" Akira bristled and presented the cover. "Hong Gildong is the seminal Korean folk hero story! He's almost as cool as Arsène. Both steal from corrupt aristocrats."
Ann thrust her arms out at the bustling shopping district. "We've got the great outdoors all around us and you spend all your time in fake places? You need to appreciate the chance to get out. Stop listening to all that depressing news about the stock market, that's not the real economy anyway. I'd have thought a mountain boy like you would love the prospect of a hike or camp… as much as is possible in the city, anyway."
Akira let out a puff of air. "I did that plenty, the times I ran away. You do that shit because you have to, not because you want to. If the great outdoors were so great, why would humanity spend so much effort building the great indoors?"
She thought for a beat. Ann made it another beat before she burst out laughing. "The great indoors, ha ha ha!"
He crossed his arms and pouted. "I was actually being serious that time." He pulled out his book, but she was too busy laughing at 'great indoors' to get annoyed at him this time.
Friday, 5 August 2016
Evening
Yongen, Bathhouse
Akira rubbed at his head with a towel, then tilted his head and poked the corner of the towel at his ears to get out that waterlogged feel. He stepped into the changing room and tossed his towels into the woven bamboo baskets along the inner wall, but before he could even get his boxer briefs on he heard Alliance Force, Assemble! sing out from his phone. "Stubborn asshole association, this is Jerry Atrics."
Makoto released a frustrated growl. "Honestly, Akira?" A beat passed with packed train noises in the background. "Has Futaba-chan woken up yet?"
"Not as far as I know," he said, stepping into his pants. "Sojiro gave the usual 'leave her alone' thing this morning, and I've been out most of the day."
Makoto spoke at a raised volume to keep above the train on her side, "I've been concerned since we left her on her bed. I know what Boss-san said, but we just collapsed her Palace and I need to know we didn't cause a mental shut-down."
Akira reached for his long-sleeved shirt. "I asked him this morning and he told me to mind my own business."
"I thought we might be able to get something from Boss if we tried together." There was a tension he couldn't explain in her voice.
"If you could give me a few minutes, I just got out of the bath. I'll finish changing and meet you at Sakura's house." He waited just long enough for a tone of acknowledgment before hanging up and getting dressed. He took a minute longer than normal to make sure his clothes were straight and tidy. It didn't have anything to do with his upperclassman, or potentially being seen by Futaba.
On most days, the coffee shop would still be open. Why Boss kept it open to such ridiculous hours, Akira couldn't fathom, but the lights were off and the door locked today. Akira slipped in with his key and put his dirty set of clothes into the hamper upstairs before heading back out, flipping the sign so it said Closed, then heading up to the Sakura house. Morgana trailed behind. The upperclassman must have already been on the way because she stood against the gate, hunched as she scrutinized something on her phone. "Hey."
Makoto gave a nod. "Akira-kun."
He returned the greeting and opened the gate, striding through with her at his left. His knocks at the door sounded lighter than the last time the Thieves came to check on the Sakuras. With any luck, they'd have good news.
After a few moments, the clack of unlatching locks came from inside and the door swung open. A commercial for virus protection played on the television inside. Sojiro stood in the entryway, wearing white sweat pants and a beige T-shirt, both more casual than Akira had ever seen the man. "What are you kids doing here?"
Makoto took a step forward and bowed to forty-five degrees. "Please excuse the intrusion, Boss-san. But we've been concerned about Futaba-san. I never apologized properly for scaring her that night we barged in, thinking you'd had a heart attack."
Sojiro's lips pressed together, a tightness over his face like he wanted to tell her off and get her head out of the doorway, but he rubbed the back of his neck and let out a long breath. "Listen, kid. I believe that you didn't mean anything, but Futaba's my kid to take care of. She's still asleep. It's a little longer than usual, but not outside the norm."
Akira noted a twinge below the restaurateur's eye as he said that. His gut twisted as he remembered holding the frail girl. "She hasn't woken up since…?"
Sojiro sighed and let his hands fall. "You need to go take care of yourself, even more than most people. Don't worry yourself over somebody else's problems."
"I just want her to be okay," Akira said.
Sojiro backed into the hall. "Me too, kid." He hesitated for a beat, then said, "Go home." The restaurateur closed the door and feet padded away.
Makoto shuffled on her feet for a few seconds.
Akira paced to the gate. "That was fucking useless."
She let out a breath and took the one step to come alongside him in what little 'entry courtyard' the humble city home had. She toyed with her fingers. "Well, at least we know she hasn't had a mental shutdown."
"Yet," Akira snapped. He breathed in and flexed his gloved hands, but when he started again his voice rose in speed and volume, "Maybe you were right and we just got lucky the other times. How do we know that we wouldn't just kill Togo's mother?"
"Joker!" Morgana shouted from his perch on the wall. "Don't be so fatalistic. We did everything like with Kamoshida. Calling card sent, her Shadow rejoined her real self…"
"Her Treasure, which was her self – her Palace – blew up!" Akira hissed.
She looked to the team leader for backup, only for Morgana's jaw to drift open, then closed. He shrugged. "We did everything the same as the other changes of hearts. She should wake up with her distorted desires gone, just like the others."
"Right," Makoto said, trying to tug Akira aside by the elbow and gesturing for quiet. "We pulled this off, just like the last ones."
Akira's shoved the class president into the modest home's property wall. "Loss of consciousness, complete lack of responsiveness… Open your fucking eyes! We inflicted a mental shutdown. We killed her! And we'd kill Hifumi's mother just like we killed Tosa Kotomi!"
One trembling hand grabbed for her, but Makoto's practiced reflexes snagged his wrist and reversed the surge, slamming him against the Sakura home. Before taking time to get full control back of her hiked breathing, she snapped back, "You think you're the only one who's scared about what we might do? You think you're the only one who has a heart you want to change more than anything?" She let go and he turned just in time for her to shove her phone in his face.
He was about to shout back at her when he read the Metaverse Nav open on her screen. In its search history sat Niijima Sae, Mementos.
She gave him a few seconds after she seemed certain he'd read it before drawing back her phone and closing the app. "We had an argument about whether the Phantom Thieves are just a while ago. She'd always been sensitive about Dad since he died in a suspicious car crash a year and a half ago, but…" For the first time he'd ever seen her, Makoto trembled and looked like a regular, frightened girl.
From his perch on the slim property wall, Morgana stood. "Why didn't you tell us? The Phantom Thieves help each other!"
She cast her fists down at her side, a glint in her eyes. "Because I didn't want to abuse my position as a Phantom Thief! This is personal!"
It had been so long since he had seen someone scared for another human being, Akira wasn't sure what to say. He crossed his arms. "I understand, I think. If you want to change your sister, I'll help."
Makoto's crimson eyes snapped wide. "Huh? After everything…"
Raising his hands, Akira shrugged. "I can't think of a funny way to say this, so I'm going to be straight up. Compared to me, you guys have your lives sorted out. For all of the Kant, Kierkegaard, or Rousseau that I read, I don't feel like their vision of 'right' is something that can line up with the world I see around me. I rely on people like Hifumi and you to clarify that stuff, so helping you guys out shows me a lot more about where I should be."
Makoto blinked, silence permeating the courtyard growing dark as the sun sank behind the skyline of Tokyo. After what felt like minutes, she cleared her throat and forced herself to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry."
Akira back-stepped. "Why?"
Despite already having apologized, she gave a momentary bow. "I know we had poor first impressions, but I let myself believe that you let your anger at your past direct everything you do. You put a lot more thought into your life than that. I haven't even read any of those, even if I had to memorize their names for exams."
Akira tugged at his shirt to try to stop the feeling of it sticking to his sweaty skin in the summer heat. "Well, don't praise me too much. I haven't even been Catholic a year and only started reading Kierkegaard in juvie. Bibles were forbidden, but the library had a copy of On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates." He lifted a hand, then wavered for a few moments before lowering the limb. "Have you been holding back nominating your big sister because of all the confusion with Futaba-kun?"
Makoto crossed her arms and backed up to the property wall. "No, I was trying to hold off until we had a lack of targets because I didn't want the appearance of personal benefit. Big Sis has always been driven, but seemed like she was easing up after Masachi Marai confessed and the other names we passed along started falling in. Then we got busy with Futaba and the list of names ran out and she's been… pushy." She took in a deep breath and looked to the transfer student. Whatever she was searching for in his gaze, she seemed to find it since she straightened and turned to the team leader. "How long does it take for a person with a Shadow to… make a palace?"
Morgana sat on the end of the wall next to the gate. "That all depends on how quickly they feed their repressed desires. The only problem is whether we can get to her Shadow, but we'd have to check Mementos for that. And I'd rather wait until Futaba regains consciousness first."
Makoto uncrossed her arms and nodded. "Understood, Morgana." She glanced to the transfer student. "I should go. Message us when she wakes up." She trotted through the open gate and jogged for the train station.
The team leader stood. "And you… have faith in Futaba. And in us. As much as possible, we followed the same procedure and it worked. We confronted her heart's distortion and changed her heart. Awakening a Persona is proof of a changed heart."
Akira turned around to look up at the small residence's overhang, guessing where Futaba's room was. Then he crossed himself and whispered, "Please wake up, Futaba-kun."
AN: If this story was set just one year later I'd have fudged the news to take advantage of the 2018 admission of Japan's cybersecurity minister admitting he'd never used a computer. The tendency not to let men (or women) into leadership there until they've started to ossify is a real problem and one of the flaws that Shido exploits in the game. It's a bit more clear in the Japanese, but he does make general calls to give the boot to the old men in the establishment in the English as well.