Persona 5: Daywatch

Saturday, 28 May 2016
Late Night
Yongen, Leblanc Loft

Akira hit the floor. A jolt of panic seized through him at the darkness and feeling of every limb being restrained, memories of buckles and straps and the sharp pinpricks across his scalp of the EEG reader. He pulled in a deep breath. This was just a sheet. He extricated himself, noting a strange absence once there was nothing wrapped around him.

Morgana shook his head, but stayed on the circular cushion on the lower book shelf. "More nightmares about Kamoshida? You were calling for Shiho."

Heat blazed on Akira's face. Part from the dream Shiho playing hide-and-seek with him across Tokyo, and part in shame that he was still thinking about another man's girlfriend. Shiho made her decision before she ever met him. All that besides a whole Biblical commandment about not coveting his neighbor's wife.

Morgana sat up, the white tip of his tail flicking in and out of his blurred visibility in the dark. "We changed his heart. Don't worry, Kaneshiro's will change too."

Akira sat on the bed. One spring popped underneath him. He stretched his arms just to give his body something to do. "Sure sounds an awful lot like hoping. Which is what people do when they can't do."

Morgana hopped up on the bed next to him, making it harder to avoid seeing the narrow searching quality of his eyes. "Don't say things like that. Didn't Lady Ann say Kamoshida stopped coming to school? We haven't even finished Kaneshiro, but as long as we follow the same procedure I'm sure we'll succeed and he'll change just like Kamoshida. We just won't be as close to this target to get those smaller signals before the big change."

Akira rubbed his face. Despite the racing of his heart from his dream, he felt chilled. "A few days break hardly made up for extorting her for sex." He rubbed his arms. "Do you think that's any different than tricking someone into it?"

The image of another night's dream Ann in lingerie flashed in his mind before the memory of the real one locked to Kamoshida's bed post. He shivered. A little voice in his mind questioned how different he could be from that monster if he desired the same things.

Akira shook his head to drive out the image. The familiarity of Kaneshiro's laser-focused practicality just took its place. "I just need to apply myself to something else." He got out of bed and unrolled the exercise mat for push-ups. When he got tired enough, sleep would come for him.

Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ Sunday, 29 May 2016
Afternoon
Kanda Catholic Church

Hifumi slid her knight onto his gold general's space, switching the tiles with swift precision. "My Lothlorien rangers ambush your battle droids."

Not to be outdone, Akira picked up his lancer. "Well my army deploys its landspeeder, chasing down your ranger."

Hifumi giggled. "You have left your commander open!" Her tile made a snap as she set it down where his rook was. "Check."

The approach of something large and black from his side kicked up the transfer student's fight response before Father Sugiyama spoke, leaning in. "Nothing warms my heart more than the youth in the flame of life, but we do have a few other parishioners in prayer for the members of our community this day of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ."

Hifumi covered her mouth, her entire face turning red. She spoke more in a squeak than a whisper, "I am so sorry!"

Father Sugiyama gave a thin smile. "Nobody's been harmed, Daughter… Son," he nodded to both, then strode back to the confessional booth for the white-haired woman trudging up to it.

Scrutinizing the board, Akira let out a sigh. "I've got five different routes I could go, but you'd have me back in check in three turns at most. Do you have the time to go somewhere else?"

Hifumi checked her phone, then her shoulders sank. She tapped away, then waited. Piano notes emanated from her phone and a frown marred her visage. She looked up, but didn't quite meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, but mother's insisting I meet her. She's scheduled an interview, and I need to be in time for the wardrobe and photographers."

At the cringe in her eyes, Akira opened his mouth to tell her to blow it off like he would, but damn near everybody he'd met treated that like an insult.

The shogi master looked down at her phone. "I… have to go now." She paused to smooth out her dress. "But if I have an opening some evening during the week…?"

Akira flashed her a confident smile. "Like I said the first time. Anywhere, any time."

They exchanged contact information and she departed with a less hunched posture, the past minute sinking in. He stared at his phone for long seconds. He had Hifumi's number. Hifumi gave him her number.

Before Akira could decide what to do, his phone sang with the string instruments of the Goa'uld theme.

He bowed to the parishioner giving him the stink eye in the pew behind. "Excuse me." Once outside, he opened the call bearing the ID President Niijima. "Russian delivery service, Pikup Andropov here."

Niijima made a grunt of consternation, but shoved that aside. "I've been thinking a lot since our first break into Kaneshiro's Palace." She paused, and while he couldn't see her or articulate what he was hearing, he sensed nervous fidgeting. "A lot of the things that happened wouldn't have happened if I was better at understanding the student body. I… I need help prognosticating. You said you were busy attending to equipment upgrades on Saturday and you'd have time Sunday?"

A joke danced on the tip of Akira's tongue, but his old bastard rarely hesitated to make him feel like a fool when he didn't know something. If his games with Hifumi confirmed anything, it was that learning something new should be a good experience, not a chance to humiliate. He leaned against the side of the old Catholic church. "I'm still in Chiyoda right now. Did you need to meet somewhere?"

"I'm at Shujin right now, but I can meet you at Shibuya Station in ten minutes."

"It will take at least twenty minutes to get to Shibuya," Akira said. "I'll text you."

Autopilot almost took him back to Leblanc, but he ended up in front of the blended drink kiosk Vegetarian, still in his Sunday finest.

Never having seen her out of the Shujin uniform, he wasn't sure what he expected from Makoto. The loose and practical white poet blouse and simple black leggings wasn't it. It was… so casual. When she locked eyes with him, she came to a standstill. Her eyes swept up and down and a hint of pink bloomed on her cheeks. "You clea—I mean… you dress sharp."

Akira tugged his dress jacket straight. "That's kind of the point of having a Sunday best to wear to Mass."

"Mass?"

"It's what they call the organized gatherings for Catholics." Akira slipped his hands in his pockets. "I converted last December, so most of it is still new to me."

Nodding, Makoto coughed into her fist, then straightened. "I feel like I've been coasting through all the expectations others had of me for my entire life. When Kiriko-san left, there was nobody to even challenge me for president of the student council."

Akira squinted at a rise in volume from a clump of boisterous kids coming up from the subways. He gestured to the stairs up and she kept pace beside. "You ever play the tuba? You're pretty good at blowing your own horn."

She glared and took another gulp from her red, pulpy drink, then pitched the plastic cup and straw into a trash can. "I'm not trying to boast, just frame how I always thought of things." Her pace slowed and her crimson eyes fell to the floor. "I did nothing for Kiriko, for Suzui, or Kamoshida. I was so concerned with following the rules, I wasn't there for people suffering the rule breakers." She shielded her eyes from the sun as they stepped into Shibuya's central street. "Sometimes it feels like there's a gulf wider than the Akaishi Mountains between myself and my peers."

Shrugging, Akira kept a steady pace out of the crammed market lane towards Station Square. "I don't think you're that bad, Senpai. Though you can't gain street smarts if you're never in the streets."

Makoto nodded, the muscles at the corners of her eyes tense. "I realized that as I was trying to list the things I knew about the student body. I don't even know where most people go for fun."

Akira paused to look at her. The upper-classman seemed weary, like someone with far too many years pressing down on her shoulders. It reminded him of the cringe Hifumi had when she tried to excuse her duty to her family. "Maybe you're overthinking it. What do you do for fun?"

Makoto blinked with surprise, but the hunch of her shoulders remained. "I spend most of my time studying to stay at the top of the grade." Her eyes gazed into the empty distance for a moment. "But Papa and I used to watch crime dramas."

Grinning, he poked her in the arm. "See, there's something. I used to sneak into theaters when I was in middle school, too. Sci-fi, comedy, it hardly mattered what the movie was. Getting in was the main challenge."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Not sneaking in. Papa would buy tickets and the movie would be the main event. He didn't even get popcorn so we could focus on the screen. When Kiriko-san was still talking, she mentioned a whole variety of snacks she'd buy when she'd watch movies with her friends." She hugged her arms around herself. "Thinking about it just makes me realize how much better a student council president she would have been. The student council is responsible for understanding the student body they serve, right?"

Akira snorted as they entered Station Square. "Or grifting as far as their limited power allows them. Secretary at Inuri bought herself a gaming laptop."

A man in a grey suit and white gloves gave the kind of laughs adults made before chiding a child. "Now, now. While there are those who abuse power, the ideal of what politicians are for must remain foremost or not only will we fail to live up to those ideals when it's our turn, but we'll fail to hold accountable those who skirt their duties."

Smiling at the reinforcement, Makoto bowed to the man. "Thank you, Toranosuke-san." She led him to a bench next to the statue of Hachikou. "So what else?"

Akira took off his glasses to clean the lenses. "Well, we had movies. There's themed cafes I hear groups go to. Karaoke if you're trying to show off." He re-settled his glasses and looked her in the eye. "There's athletics or sports." He grinned. "Or if you're really gutsy, hat-snatching. Me and the guys at Inuri used to do that all the time before Officer Ichijou arrived."

Makoto gave a long-suffering sigh. "I'm trying to reach out to those below my station, Akira. Not throw it out altogether. I know well enough I can't just read my way into understanding people." She took a deep breath. "To tell the truth, I don't understand where to start. You managed to find Kaneshiro, even though you didn't grow up here. How did you manage that?"

Akira scratched the back of his neck. "Well, I stumbled across a deal with one of Kaneshiro's flunkies and the doc we brought Ryuji to. She's one of those people we're trying to help, and she stands to lose a lot more than just reputation if we can't change Kaneshiro's heart in time." He crossed his arms. "Though the last break was a journalist at a bar in Shinjuku's red-light district."

Makoto's eyes grew wide as dinner plates. "Y… you met someone in a bar in the red-light district?"

"Uh, yeah? It's not like I drank." He held up a hand as if to hold off an invisible offer. "I already tried that disgusting stuff once. No thank you."

Makoto's eyes went wide as saucers. "You've drank alcohol? That's not legal until you're twenty!"

Akira gave her a swift elbow and looked up. The few pedestrians who gave him disdainful looks kept walking. "It's not technically legal to smoke some green, either. But as much as I'd like another joint, I think you need one more."

A blaze in her eyes, Makoto shot to her feet. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, then closed it a final time before she stormed into the crowd.

Even though Morgana wasn't there with him, Akira could imagine the small team leader reproaching him. "Well if she didn't want to know, she shouldn't ask," he snapped. Sometimes talking to her was like arguing with himself. He stood, straightened his dress shirt, then headed for the trains back to Yongen.

Sunday, 29 May 2016
Evening
Shibuya, Underground Mall

The tides of humanity swirled around him like the push and pull of ocean currents in the midst of a typhoon. Dozens of conversations battered his ears, the smells of perfumes and body odor his nose. Hopping up on his tip-toes, he looked out over the flashing displays and tides of dark-haired people until he spotted a pair of blonde pigtails. He waved even before he was sure who it was, his desperation to meet up and get out growing. "Hey, Ann!"

She stepped out from the crowd, a relieved grin spreading over her face. She typed something into her phone with the rapid speed of practice, then slipped it into her jacket pocket and stepped closer to let the crowds flow around them. "You seem to be handling the crowds better."

Akira leaned back against the tiled wall between Trillion and 37C. With his back no longer exposed, he felt like his lungs could take in a full breath at last. Being in his street casual clothes helped a little. "It's gotten easier to get around since Ryuji introduced me to crowd running. Now that I can think of it like parkour, just with people as moving obstacles, it's way easier to get around." He picked off a fleck of lint from his school jacket. "So why'd you want to meet without Morgana?"

She fidgeted, reaching her hand into the pocket with her phone without pulling it out. Her eyes dropped, rose to the ceiling, then looked away again. "I… I wanted to talk about a few things. Mom and dad's going to be back home for a while in a couple weeks, and I feel kind of overwhelmed trying to figure out how to catch them up on everything that's happened." She brushed one of her pigtails back off her shoulder.

He nodded. "About Shujin after numbnuts? Or Shiho?"

"All of it," she said. She made a quarter turn away, but didn't step off. Her eyes scanned the shoe-worn tile and her left hand reached up to twirl the tip of her pigtail. "Well, I guess life at Shujin's more like how I've been saying it was all along, but I was lying before."

Akira shrugged, standing up from the wall a bit when he felt a brick scrape his shoulder. "Were you wanting to talk to them about how Shujin was before?"

Her finger pulled on more hair. "No. Well, maybe. I mean, I'd kind of prefer to act like it never happened, but… I spent months fighting him off. Coming up with excuses for either myself, Shiho, or Yuuki. Some days I spent more time trying to think up ways to talk that bastard out of something than I did studying. I guess I kind of want to know that I didn't waste all that time hiding from Kamoshida and not talking to anyone."

He gave another shrug. "Eh, people are overrated. I bribed and connived to get mother to take me away for years before she put me up at her rental place for a series of galas at the Ichijou's. Couldn't even leave me there after the year ended. When the parties moved, she left too and Murakami High wouldn't let me apply without a guardian there." He held out his hands. "Didn't matter that I'd been taking care of myself for years." He shrugged and relaxed against the wall again. "On the other hand, the only thing to that school's name was one of its students went crazy and killed a teacher at the other high school, so it might not have been any better than Inuri. How's Shiho doing, anyway?"

Crossing her arms, Ann squinted and looked away. "She's struggling through physical therapy. She's kind of scared me a few times because of how…angry she's been. At the same time, I don't want to shut that down because sometimes that's the only thing that gets her through."

Akira scratched his chin, the image of spittle flying from her lips leaping to mind. "What about Mishima?"

"I didn't mean to!" Ann bellowed, bringing a handful of other pedestrians to a standstill. Her cheeks burned with pink. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight from foot to foot, glancing at the people streaming by beside her.

When several seconds passed with only the unceasing sounds of the crowds bearing down on them, he reached out to tap her forearm so she'd look at him again. "Okay, I know something is going on, but this clearly isn't the place to talk about it. You want more people so no one stops to listen in, or nobody around to listen in?"

She shifted her weight back and forth for a few moments, the faint tinge to her face growing into a more pronounced blush before she said, "Sorry. I thought I could get it over with if I asked you here, but… I want this to be between you and me."

He nodded. "I know a place."

Shibuya, Alley in front of Untouchable

Stepping around an unfamiliar bike, both tires flat and a u-lock trapping its rear wheel, nothing stood out in the relative tranquility. While the unceasing city noise pressed in, this tiny pocket held as little hustle as the teens would ever find. Akira took off his glasses to wipe the lenses, then set them back and looked her in the eye. "So where were we? Mishima?"

The red on her face deepened and she looked away. After a deep breath, Ann leaned back against the wall, though her shoulders hunched in like she wanted to vanish. "I didn't mean to kiss him."

His body nodded, but his mind's train of thought derailed, skipped off the bridge, and tumbled down the mountainside before exploding in a brilliant fireball at the bottom of the metaphorical valley below. "What?"

Ann jerked up from her slouch, her eyes glistening. "The day after we got into Kaneshiro's Palace… we were just talking. Yuuki seemed so sad. He's always been so sweet and supportive, and when I saw how hard he's been working for us, for everything…"

She clutched her hands into fists. "We were already sitting right next to each other." Her hands drifted like she hoped to snag an invisible answer out of the air. "It was always okay being around him before. He was one of the few good guys at Shujin, with that outward calm and inner strength that even won Shiho. I just leaned closer to try… I think just say he should stop blaming himself, but he did the same thing and when his lips touched mine…" She twirled a finger through the tip of one of her pigtails hard enough he feared she'd pull it out. "I didn't even realize what happened until we broke apart for air." A tear slipped out one eye and she looked like she wanted to race out into the street.

Adjusting his glasses, Akira tried to think but found his train of thought still burning in the valley floor. "Uh… you like him and Mishima likes you. I don't see the problem." Shiho dumped him at the hospital, didn't she?

Ann's eyes blazed with energy as intense as a blizzard trying to batter through the window. The tears brimming only made her look more dangerous. "You don't understand. He's Shiho's soul mate! They're like…the only perfect couple in existence!" She clamped her hands on his sleeves. "How could I do that to her?" Tears slipped out both sides of both eyes. "She's my best friend. She's laid up in the hospital and I made out with her boyfriend!"

Akira pulled his hands back, feeling heat on his face as he looked down the alley. "To tell the truth, I haven't been able to get Shiho out of my mind since that first day." Ann sniffed, but waited for him to continue. "When she looked up from that text and smiled… I'd never seen anyone look like that before. Never knew that I wanted it so badly." He couldn't figure out how to say he couldn't see Shiho like that anymore.

"But you didn't trick her into cheating on Yuuki!" Ann paced down the alley for just four steps before reversing and pacing back to him. Her hands curled into fists so tight her knuckles paled. "Do you know what the first thing Shiho said to me at the hospital when she woke up? 'I'm sorry.' She was sorry for not telling me about Kamoshida, about all the things he was doing to the team." She paused to sniff, which didn't do much to help her catch her breath. "I'm worse than Kamoshi—"

Akira grabbed her by both sides of the head and forced her to look him straight in the eye. "Don't you dare say that. Kamoshida did what he did. Blaming yourself for everything isn't going to fix shit. You can't undo what was done by treating yourself like you're responsible for it. Even if you made one mistake, it's nowhere near the level of him." He lowered his hands as she brushed at her pigtails. "As for Yuuki… Sounded to me like Shiho brushed him off. And you talk about him almost every time we meet. You like him. I don't see how that's some bad thing. As far as I can figure, what you and Yuuki are is what you and he decide to be." He raised his hands. "I don't think anyone else can decide that for you."

Crossing her arms, Ann stared at the ground, but she didn't look like she wanted to run into traffic anymore. "I don't know how you can look at everything like it was so simple." Her mouth twisted into a partial forced smile. "But thanks. After we finish Kaneshiro, I think I'll talk to him."

Akira came to a stop next to her and leaned to shoulder-bump her. "I know I'm not the best person to say this, but Big K told me once…don't wait too long. You'll never know when you might lose an opportunity. I never knew how true that was until that drunk asshole."

Monday, 30 May 2016
Early Morning
Shibuya, Station Square

Yoshizawa Kasumi side-stepped to try to get around the unsavory man in a dark shirt, but that just cemented his attention. "Excuse me, sir."

He looked her over, his dark eyes pausing on her skirt. "Say, you go to Shujin? I heard about a teacher going crazy there. Wanna go… talk about it?"

She suppressed a shiver. One of those people. Why was it so hard to just blow them off and go her way with grace? "Thank you for the concern, but I'm in quite a hurry." She bowed as she'd been taught from childhood – always be polite – but that gave him the opening to get closer and grab her wrist. She gasped, but a cold feeling washed over her and her strength failed her.

The middle-aged man pulled at her, a hint of slurring to his syllables. "No need to play shy. I'll put my number in your phone and we can make it a date later."

She tugged back and tried to speak, but her voice came out as a squeak, "S-stop it." She noticed a couple onlookers stare her way, but also a few that paced by as if nothing unusual were happening. Why wouldn't anyone do—?

A hand clamped down on the middle-aged man's wrist and brought all motion to a stop. Grey eyes glared through black frames under a mess of short, unkempt black hair. A voice spoke, low and promising consequence, "You're hurting her."

The middle aged man pulled at the familiar boy in a gym uniform, managing just a tremble for his efforts. "H-hey, leggo. I'm just bein' friendly."

His tone just above a growl, the grey-eyed transfer student stared unflinching into the middle aged man. "Then try actual friendly. Or I might get unfriendly."

The middle-aged man opened his hand and the transfer student let go a heartbeat later. Kasumi hesitated for a beat at the intensity exuded by the transfer student, the almost hopeful note in his voice as he delivered his threat, before dodging behind him. Her heart hammered in her chest and her breath still came too fast to form words.

The man grimaced at her, but slunk back from the transfer student and pushed into the crowd. The bystanders decided the incident was over and the crowd returned to its bustling normal.

Still short of breath, Kasumi scuttled back from the transfer student who maintained an imposing countenance despite the bright gym suit, then bowed to him. "Th-th-thank you! S-sorry for the trouble!"

The transfer student pushed his glasses back up. "What are you apologizing for?" He looked out at the people churning around him, fists clenched and hackles raised as if expecting that slimy man to return. "Fucking cowards."

She flinched. As much to try to move herself on as to reassure the transfer student, Kasumi waved her hands. "I-I'm all right."

His eyes flicked to the benches to one side and she followed him there, where they both took a moment to catch their breath. He looked more tense than while facing down that scary man. Then he took in a sharp breath and reached out a hand, palm-up. "How's your wrist?"

His clipped, professional tone reminded her of Coach Hiraguchi and something about that settled her nerves despite the clear tension remaining in his frame. She held out her right hand and the transfer student took it with a far lighter touch than she expected, pushing her sleeve up a bit to examine before letting go. "Doesn't look like he had any rings to leave abrasions. Do you tend to bruise easily?"

She shook her head. Now he sounded like a meet doctor. "No, me and my—" A sudden pain shot through her skull and she clapped her hand over her head, but the spike passed as quickly as it came and she shook it off. "I'm tougher than I look." She gathered her courage and looked the transfer student in those stormy grey eyes. "Can I ask… why did you help me?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it and straightened the sleeves of his gym uniform. "I just can't close my eyes."

A dubious, "That's it?" slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it. This guy must have nerves of steel if he could walk up on a spiraling fiasco in public without flinching. Kasumi cleared her throat, hoping she could smooth that gaffe over. She bowed. "Sorry for…" She wasn't sure why, but her eyes traced up and down the bright red of his gym uniform. "Um… why are you in your gym clothes?"

He gave her arched eyebrows. "Uh… that was the uniform for cleanup day according to the email from Makoto."

Kasumi's eyes snapped wide. "Was it? I assumed it was the regular uniform!" She pulled out her phone and almost groaned at the time. Alas, the transfer student was correct. "Oh no, I need to get my gym clothes from school." She bowed to him. "See you at the cleanup! Pardon me!"

Morning
Inokashira Park

Akira craned his neck left, then right. With the sun out, today would have been an excellent day to go running rather than slave labor for a school just trying to show off how rehabilitated they were to investors. The thought still nudged him to seek out the track star, and he spotted the bottle blond in a gym uniform under a large tree, chatting with the natural blonde in the regular school uniform. "Yo."

The runner flashed him a too-perfect grin, but Ann gave him a bemused look. "You came here in the gym suit?"

Akira scratched his head, wondering what was so odd about it. "Those were the instructions Makoto sent out. I'm trying to do things right now."

Ann rolled her eyes. "That's not what I meant." Their phones buzzed, and the phantom thieves drew them to see a text from Makoto reminding them to stay hydrated so they could make progress in the bank after cleanup.

"Geez, she nags just like Ma." Ryuji put his phone away with a shrug, then looked to Ann. "You doin' cleanup in that?"

Akira took a pose and threw out his hand. "I know, red is so not your color."

The glare she sent him could have frozen the Pacific Ocean. "Never do that again."

Falling back, Akira clapped his hands together and gave a shallow bow. "I beg forgiveness."

Ann straightened her satchel on her shoulder. "I was gonna change in the bathroom, but there's a giant line."

Ryuji shrugged. "Sucks ta be a girl."

Ann shielded her eyes, then spotted an opening and dashed for the park bathrooms.

Mishima trotted up, hands in his pockets and eyes avoiding the direction Ann went running. "Hey, guys." He looked at the runner, taking pains to keep his posture straight despite the tree he leaned against. "How's the ribs?"

Ryuji let out a sigh. "Like a goon tried to cave in my chest last week." He turned a harder gaze to the model, then transfer student. "You guys are goin' back in today, right? We better not let that fuckwad Kaneshiro get away. Ma thought she saw someone tailin' her at the grocer's."

Crossing his arms, Akira cleared his throat. "We'll get him, Ryuji. We just need to get through this park cleanup bullshit and we'll be on to the next step."

Ryuji scratched his scalp, then let out a sigh. "I ain't tryin' ta pressure you guys. If it was just me I'd be like… I can take it. But Ma's all I got."

Akira wished he knew what it was like to be that close to someone, but all he could say is, "We're doing this for her. And everyone else under Kaneshiro's shadow."

Afternoon
Inokashira Park

Akira stepped out of the park bathroom, shaking off his hands. Despite Makoto's explicit instructions for team leaders to get food for their groups, he was unsurprised to see less than half of the students left. And no sign of his cleanup team. Dicks.

"Oh!" chirped the voice of Cute But Annoying. He looked aside to see the red-head herself walking out of the women's bathrooms. "I was hoping to run into you."

"Good to see you made it safely," he said, heading to the nearest park bench to sit down so he could find out when Makoto would be available to head back to Kaneshiro's bank.

Without invitation, she followed. "I wanted to thank you properly for this morning. I was in such a panic at showing up in the wrong uniform, I didn't take the chance to say it like I should. Especially when you went out of your way to help me." She glanced around. "Where'd the rest of your group go?"

He waved his arm off towards the park.

"Ah," she said, at last going with a simple and non-obsequious response. "Mine too." She forced a smile. "Why don't we eat together?"

Makoto's answer buzzed in at the top of the Phantom Thief chat. [I have to observe take-down of the staging area. I'll be an hour after the rest are released.]

Akira closed the chat. It seemed he had time, so the only reason not to humor the underclassman was if she wasn't being genuine. "Careful, I'm the fearsome rumored delinquent. You might risk your reputation taking a hit."

A gloomy expression passed over the girl's usual chipper face. "I don't even like gossip myself, so I should have been clear-sighted enough not to pay attention to the rumors about you. I'm sorry about the other day."

Akira wondered what she meant, but all the apologizing was starting to rub him the wrong way. "You seem to have a fixation on apologizing for problems you aren't at the root of."

She blinked at him, her feet steady but the mind behind those innocent eyes whirling. Then she settled back on her feet. "I… may have paid too much attention to what I overheard from my classmates, too."

"For real?" Akira said.

Inogami Train

Ryuji sneezed.

Inokashira Park

Akira stood and slipped his phone into his pocket. "You can tell me all about it over soup."

Cute But Annoying blinked at him, posture straightening a little even as she stared. Then she caught herself and said, "O-okay, Senpai."

He led the march up to the staging area where Maruki and the girls not fawning over the big dweeb were serving pork and onion miso soup. He spotted Makoto there, but she was busy taking reports and lost items from the last team leaders. Wanting to preserve his mental energy for the bank, he chose a bench rather far from the staging area to sit down.

The red-head settled onto the other side of the bench. "Thanks for the food!" Instead of digging in, she looked up at him. "I want to thank you again for this morning."

Akira settled the bowl on his knees. "You already did. There must've been fifty people there, and every damn one of them should have stepped up." He clasped his hands for a brief prayer of the other Phantom Thieves' safety when they broke into Kaneshiro's bank this afternoon. Then he picked up the paper bowl and spoon.

He caught Cute But Annoying staring at him with that 'what do I make of this?' he saw a lot of at Tanizaki Middle School. She gave a sudden blink, realizing she'd been caught, then said with a faint, embarrassed flush, "Well, still… I've never had to deal with a stalker or grabber before, so I blanked on what to do."

"Kick 'em in the knee," Akira said with ease before taking his first spoonful of soup. He spared a moment to wonder what Hifumi did. She mentioned interviews and photographers, so that meant a wide circle of awareness. Inevitably that meant attracting the attention of some creeps. He glanced aside and noticed her looking at him. "I can tell you've got something else to say. My answer is: I'm sorry, but I charge for autographs."

She let out the squeak of a laugh of somebody amused but thought she wasn't allowed. "You're certainly nothing like the person rumors make you out to be. It would be one thing if the rumors were true…"

Akira swallowed a chunk of pork. "I'd have to be in more places than Moby Dick. What kind of crimes have I done?"

Some tension crept into her face and she looked down to her bowl. "Burglary, murder, and…" she tapped her chin with her spoon, "…elephant tusk trafficking?"

Akira lowered his spoon. "Ivory smuggling? The other stuff is old rehash, but that one is creative!"

She blinked. "You're not mad?"

"I drive without a license, too."

This time she let out a giggle that sounded natural. "It's hard to believe the number of people who shake in their boots when they hear your name."

He slurped his next few spoonfuls with a little more force. Being feared was easy. Being dismissed out-of-hand hurt. "Gives a measure of power, if you think about it."

She gave a sound of affirmation as she set aside her empty bowl. When had she had time to drink all of it? She had a full-body shiver. "Oh my, I haven't introduced myself!"

Akira swallowed his spoonful of miso soup. "Kurusu Akira. Feel free to call me Akira, when I hear Kurusu I still expect people to be calling for my old bastard."

She flinched at that, a faint wrinkle of distaste passing over her face before a child trotting down the path in front of them tripped, losing her grip on a red balloon. The red-head launched up, soared over the fallen girl, snatched the balloon, and tumbled to a neat finish on her feet on the other side of the path.

Morgana stood up out of the transfer student's school satchel. "She's even more dexterous than you are in the Metaverse!"

Akira stood, collecting the smart phone and fallen school pocketbook on the way. "You can keep that from happening easier if you tie the end in a loop. That way you can hold onto it in a few ways and it's less likely to get lost." He handed the fallen items to the red-head and took the balloon, tied the end so it had plenty of room for the girl's hand, then held it out. The girl took it with a shy nod of her head, then scurried off.

"You can tie knots, too? You're a man of many talents, Akira-senpai," she said, accepting her things. "I'm Yoshizawa Kasumi."

Akira pointed back at the girl with her balloon. "You grabbed that balloon out of the air and you think tying a basic locking knot is impressive? I think you have things backwards. You even had a really tight tuck-and-roll landing."

She preened. "Oh, you're familiar with gymnastics, Senpai?"

"Parkour. We played it sometimes back at Inuri," he said. When he noticed that look of incomprehension, he explained, "Ah. I guess a lot of people don't know the name. In Japan, we invented karate, the art of fighting with improvised or no weapons. In England, they invented pugilism, the art of fighting without weapons. In France, they invented le parkour, the art of running away."

She snorted with laughter.

Akira crossed his arms, feeling lighter than he had in a while. "Say… at the risk of being too forward, would you mind teaching me a few techniques? Clearly you're an experienced gymnast."

Yoshizawa clapped a hand over her mouth and stars shone in her eyes. Gymnastics must have held a special spot in her life. "You're really interested?"

He nodded. "There might even be a few shared techniques, at least in landings and balance control. Then I could teach my friends a few pointers."

She recovered her wits. "I'd be honored!" She slipped her phone and pocketbook away, then looked him in the eye, a determined light in her eyes. "In exchange, would you be willing to help me out from time to time?" Her gaze fell. "I practice competitively, but my recent results have… not met expectations." She held up her hands. "I-I'm not asking for technical coaching, just someone to help me work through if I'm overthinking things."

Training he might be able to pass on to the rest of the Phantom Thieves in exchange for just being a sounding board? Akira didn't need to consult Morgana for this contract. He gave a polite incline of his head. "Deal."

AN: Reviews make a big difference. Not only are they an indication of interest, they also provide valuable feedback. Thanks for kind words and constructive criticism, those are the most valuable things fanfic writers can receive.