Good Day Readers! Obviously, I do not own anything connected to the Persona series in general or Persona 5 specifically, I DO own Chiba Natsumi and Anais Ouvrard, along with Natsumi's immediate family members and the original Personas that will be showing up on occasion.
I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy
Chapter 49: - A Graceful Faith
It was the day of the dreaded park clean-up and I was quite glad that the sun was out, better this than wet weather, although hopefully it didn't get too hot while we were travelling – especially on the train – in our gym clothes. Ren brought Morgana along as was customary and we tried to distract ourselves on the journey; when we reached the Shibuya station courtyard however, I ended up stopping in place at a scene I saw.
Only a short distance away from us was the red haired first year that I'd kept running into for a while, unlike me and Ren she was dressed in her school uniform which was a bit odd given what was happening today, unless she had some sort of exception. But the concerning thing wasn't her outfit, no it was the creepy man who happened to grab her right as she was attempting to walk away from him.
"Ah!" The red haired girl exclaimed. I did not like where this was going, she was clearly unhappy about being grabbed by the man and yet he didn't seem to be willing to let go of her despite this; I adjusted my bag so that it wouldn't get in the way in case I had to actually intervene and he decided to get violent as a result, he seemed like that kind of horrible person.
"C'mon, there's no need to be shy," The man commented. A slimy aura practically rolled off of him in waves, it actually made my skin itch something awful; the people surrounding us were getting worried from their hushed whispers and expressions but none of them were making any moves in interfere with this scene… at least no one had phones out like they had with Shiho, but it still sickened me.
"Like I said," The girl tried to protest. But the man didn't care he even went as far to get in her face and offer her his phone number to contact him later, ignoring the fact that the first year shrunk away from him and didn't seem even remotely interested in having anything to do with him. "Stop it," The girl pleaded. Her head moving about to look at the people staring at the scene, a few of whom walked away; cowards!
"Let go of my kōhai right now!" I ordered. I proceeded to charge over to the two people with a furious expression no doubt pulling at my face because of this incident, I could faintly hear footsteps coming after me which at least reassured me that Ren was going to be there to back me up in case things went badly for me or the red head.
"What do you want?" The man asked. He had turned to glare at us as we approached, clearly not happy that we had decided to intervene, but I wasn't about to let him do anything that could lead to this poor girl suffering something like what Shiho went through at the hands of Kamoshida; especially since no one else besides my friend was actually going to be stepping up to stop this horror.
"You're hurting her, so let. Go," Ren growled. I didn't bother to send a glance back at the boy, instead opting to keep my gaze glaring sharply at the monster that was hurting this poor girl who had been unlucky enough to catch this horrid man's eye; but I knew that he was probably glaring at the man as well, though whether his glasses were on or not was the only question.
"Don't get worked up. I'm just being friendly here," The man insisted. He didn't seem to be bothered by our presence, so Ren's glasses were likely still on, but I wasn't about to buy into the nonsense that was spewing from his lips; with the way that the girl was shaking, there was no way that he was friendly in her mind. At least he had released his grip on her thanks to us confronting him.
"Friendly? Where I come from, men don't grab a girl trying to walk away and make offers she clearly isn't interested in. That's not being friendly, that's being a creep," Ren snapped. The girl then proceeded to run behind Ren and dragged me closer by the arm – she was much stronger than she appeared – to ensure she peered out over our shoulders but the rest of her was safely hidden from view.
"Oh, what the…," The man commented. He actually seemed surprised by the reaction she had given, which caused me to roll my eyes at his stupidity. "What're you getting so jumpy about? Like you're anything special!" The man snapped. The man turned to walk away, but I swiped my foot out just in time to catch his ankle and trip him up; he almost fell to the floor – shame – but managed to catch himself before he face planted into the ground, though by the time he got up to glare, my foot was resting flat on the ground as if it had never moved, he finished walking away.
"Are you okay?" Ren gently asked. We moved away from the girl once the man had left our vision which meant he wouldn't be capable of retaliating against us or proceeding to hurt the girl who had needed protecting; once he was gone, we stepped forward slightly and turned around to look at the girl who seemed to be breathing heavily.
"Thank you so much! I'm sorry for the trouble!" The girl exclaimed. I felt my eyes widen in shock at the fact that she had actually gone as far as to apologise to us for something that was completely out of control; it was completely mad that she thought that this whole incident was in any way her fault when the real fault was on a completely different person's shoulders.
"You don't need to apologise, he needs to apologise to you," I insisted. That man was completely horrible in everything he had done to her, I wanted to make sure that this girl knew she had done nothing wrong during that whole incident; she had been the victim here, as a victim of unwanted harassment from a complete stranger. She needed to not be so concerned about the situation that had just happened.
"So long as you're okay, that's all that matters," Ren reminded. His expression was gentle and kind, probably trying to ensure that she was as relaxed as possible after the horrible tenseness that had come due to the incident that had just happened; she was still rather tense and was shaking across her shoulders, arms and legs, she was also bowed over slightly while gripping the area that she had been grabbed ever so lightly.
"Yes, I'm fine now. It was pretty scary, though…," The girl admitted. No surprise that she was so scared after that incident, probably most normal people would be scared if they faced something like that. "Ah-um… may I ask you something?" The girl wondered. Both me and Ren nodded our heads in agreement to hearing whatever she had to say to us. "So… what made you step in to help me?" The girl asked.
"It's how I was raised, to help people. I can't look away from something like that," Ren explained. Given that his father was a doctor, it was no surprise that he had it ingrained in him to help people in difficult situations and I was quite glad that such a wonderfully warm person had come to Shūjin when I rather needed the aid to stop Kamoshida's reign of terror.
"No one else was going to step in and you needed help," I admitted. I proceeded to look around at the crowd of people who were slowly dissipating from the surrounding area since the scene had ended but none of them seemed even a little bit ashamed of having simply stood aside and seemed almost willing to allow that horrible man to do whatever he had wanted to the girl.
"I…see," The girl stated. I didn't know if the girl was satisfied with our answers or not from her words. "Well, I apologise for asking something so strange. You're both headed to the clean-up as well, right?" The girl asked. We nodded our heads once again to show that she was right. "The clean-up?" The girl questioned. It almost seemed like she was forgetting something and she then quickly pulled out her phone. "Look at the time!" The girl exclaimed. I glanced at my watch and saw it was getting close to the time of the clean-up's start. "I'm so sorry, I haven't even thanked you properly yet! Oh no! I forgot my gym clothes at school! I'll see you at the clean-up, soon. We can talk more then, if you'd like. Pardon me," The girl rushed out. With that, she bowed and ran off.
"That girl is way too formal," I commented. Once she disappeared, we proceeded to keep moving on our way towards the park that we were being forced to attend by our school; I couldn't help but wonder if that girl would be okay after what happened, especially with how skittish she was acting after that incident, no one deserved such harassment like that but for someone as nice as her to be targeted… well it raised my hackles, probably because all I kept seeing was Shiho in the girl's place instead.
Upon reaching the park, I immediately curled my lips in disgust, there was so much trash littering this place that it was sickening especially when there was more trash here than when I'd visited a few days ago with Ann. It was horrid to see the natural beauty of this place being ruined by uncaring individuals, Ren tugged on my arm and I followed him over to where Ryūji and Ann were standing.
"Yo, what took both of ya so long?" Ryūji asked. He was already in his gym clothes and seemed completely relaxed as he leaned against the tree, at least someone seemed at ease, he was focused upon the two of us clearly wanting to know what had delayed the two of us so much; I'm just glad that me and Ren had managed to make it to the park in time for the clean-up, because I'm betting that would have got us – especially Ren – in trouble which was definitely not needed.
"Did you really come here from home in your gym clothes?" Ann asked. In contrast to Ryūji, the blonde model looked rather tense and her blue eyes were constantly darting to the side as if she was continually checking on something but all I saw was a long line of students; also Ann was actually dressed in her typical school uniform which was a little confusing as I looked at our Fire wielder.
"One of our underclassmen was getting harassed by a creep so we stepped in and yes," Ren answered. A look of concern flashed across their faces when Ren brought up the scenario that we'd ended up coming across earlier, they only relaxed when Ren informed them of our actions in a concise manner; honestly, I was more concerned for Ann at this current moment.
"I'm surprised you didn't come in them," I commented. We were supposed to be doing the clean-up in our gym clothes, so it made a lot more sense to simply perform the commute in that outfit rather than needing to get here early and get changed at some point; it wasn't that much different to travelling anywhere in our school uniforms.
"Yeah, ain't it normal. And, uh, are you plannin' on doin' this clean-up in that outfit?" Ryūji asked. I seriously hope Ann wasn't considering doing that, our gym clothes were better suited to taking the punishment that would be required for performing a clean-up task when compared to her normal school uniform.
"Of course not! I brought my gym clothes with me. I was gonna change in the bathroom but now there's a huge line," Ann admitted. Ann proceeded to turn her face to gaze at the large gathering of students which I now realise must have been the huge line that she mentioned as being present; Ann shoulders slumped down as she realised that her plan had been basically copied by… I think that was the rest of the school's population of students.
"Ohhh, that makes sense," Ryūji agreed. But it was also a rather common idea given the large amount of people gathered in that general vicinity. "Sounds like it sucks to be a girl," Ryūji stated. I loudly cleared my throat and gave the false blonde a hard stare. "A girl not anywhere half as smart as you, obviously!" Ryūji rushed out. He seemed to be sweating bullets in response to my death glare and I felt slightly placated by that decision, but also a little annoyed that he'd insulted Ann who was currently glaring at him.
"I'd take offence… if it wasn't very true that Natsu-chan is smarter than me," Ann agreed. Her glare relaxed and she proceeded to shrug her shoulders in response, I grinned at her which Ann returned with her own smile; I just glad that Ann didn't take offence to Ryūji's words which the boy seemed to share if his sigh of relief was anything to go by.
"It's such a nice day out that even the weather seems to be mocking us," Mishima commented. All of us practically jumped to turn and look at the boy who had just casually made his way over to the rest of us as if we'd invited him to join us; while I have nothing against Mishima as an individual, I was more concerned by the fact that he'd have heard something important if we'd been stopping Ryūji from discussing our Phantom Thief activities.
"Dude, could you try pushin' your way into our conversation a little less awkwardly next time?" Ryūji requested. There was also the fact that he had done that, while he had been fairly pleasant company yesterday, making us laugh on several occasions and actually making me enjoy recalling my middle school days when he brought up those incidents, it was still very out of place how he'd suddenly popped into our conversation.
"I bet some Kichijoji clean freak hung paper dolls all over and prayed for clear skies today," Mishima stated. I looked up and saw that the sky was indeed fairly clear today with only small puffy white clouds hanging about; but I didn't see what the issue with having such nice weather during this time could be, after all it could be much worse.
"Would you prefer for it to be pouring rain? If I had to pick one, I'd rather clean up in shine than rain," I commented. Ann violently shivered when I mentioned pouring rain and even Ryūji looked at little wary if the stare he shot at the sky was anything to go by, Ren shot a glance at his bag, likely thinking of how Morgana might have taken being out in a shower… which was probably not good; Mishima cocked his head as if seeming to think about the options before nodding his head in agreement with my words, if we cleaned this place in the rain when there was a good chance, we'd all get sick.
"Hey. Morning everyone," A familiar voice greeted. I looked over to see Maruki-sensei had walked over to join us, what was he doing here? Mishima even asked if he was here for the clean-up. "You got it," Maruki-sensei admitted. Ryūji posed the clothing question to our therapist since he was dressed in his typical fashion. "Oh, no. I'm in a different-," Maruki-sensei began to explain. But he was interrupted by two girls coming over and insisting they were starting 'prepping' soon.
"Prepping what?" Ann asked. Turns out the good doctor was a part of the cooking crew who would be providing meals for us after the clean-up was done with, at least we would be able to have some food after such activity; our counsellor proceeded to walk away with the students that had interrupted him and we all watch him walk away.
"More like Popular-sensei," Ryūji sneered. Ren poked Ryūji him in the shoulder and gave the boy a bland look at his words, I really didn't understand what was up with Ryūji dislike of the man, Maruki-sensei was a perfectly wonderful man after all; I'd already decided to put him in the safe trust category as with Sōjirō, Kawakami-sensei and Takemi-sensei.
"I'm sure the Phantom Thieves will be even bigger someday," Mishima stated. I don't think any of us knew what to say in response to that as we all exchanged uncertain looks with each other while Mishima seemed pretty happy to simply be standing there among us; a suddenly loud tapping sound thankfully distracted all of us.
"Good morning, Shūjin Academy students and staff," Niijima-senpai's voice rang out. Saved by the bell, so to speak, I turned around to face our upperclassman who was on a box to slightly elevate herself. "Please pick up all trash located in the areas assigned to your group. Once the clean-up is completed, a dinner of miso soup with pork and vegetables will be served," Niijima-senpai insisted. Well, that food didn't sound too bad.
"Ooh, pork miso soup! So that's what Maruki-sensei's fan club is making," Ann commented. She seemed interested in tasting the food, I just hope it was something that was actually edible otherwise we'd probably all be raiding the nearby store; I was quite glad that a certain individual was not involved in the cooking process otherwise I'd have instantly abstained and dragged the others with me just to save them.
"FYI, the school already assigned the groups at random. They're four people apiece, boys and girls mixed," Mishima warned. Ryūji slumped down with a dejected aura radiating from him at those words, it was slightly annoying that they had already decided who was in what groups, especially since there was a high risk of us not being with Ren in order to protect him from any cruel words that others would be most likely to shoot at him.
"Now that those announcements have been made, please break into your groups and head to your assigned areas," Niijima-senpai insisted. I quickly looked at Ren and gently rested the back of my hand against his own, Ren smiled and moved his hand around to grasp my own and gave it two quick reassuring squeezes before letting go of my hand, which continued to tingle with warmth.
"Alright, let's just get this over with as fast as possible so we can chow down on that soup and get outta here!" Ryūji suggested. He was also shooting a concerned look at Ren which Ann was giving him as well, Ren smiled at us reassuringly before turning and heading off to find out his group, we all followed and – as anticipated – we were all separated so I headed over to the area my group was assigned to.
I walked over and spotted an older boy who was probably the third year of the group, I also noticed that one of the first years happened to be the boy I'd overheard the other day discussing the clean-up with an honours student who was supposed to be excused. Which caused me to raise quite the surprised eyebrow when I spotted a third individual and even more so when I recognised the red hair tied into a ponytail that was becoming rather familiar to me by this point.
"And so, we meet again," I commented. I grabbed a tool to help clean up along with a bag as I moved over to the red haired girl, she jumped up and turned around to look at me, allowing me to confirm that it was indeed the girl that I had been running into as of late; upon seeing me she smiled brightly before dipping into a bow.
"Oh, senpai, hello again," The girl greeted. She seemed quite happy to see me though that might have been due to this morning's incident but when I looked over, I thought I saw a sneer on the upperclassman's lips which caused confusion to pulse through me before dismissing it as him just being annoyed that were we standing around talking. Shaking my head at his foolish response, I proceeded to spear a piece of plastic before depositing it into the bag.
"You know, once is commonplace enough, twice is a little unusual, three times is suspect, four times is a pattern and by this fifth meeting of ours, we might as well just exchange names," I admitted. The girl proceeded to giggle at me words before adjusting her tools so that she could hold out a hand towards me which I immediately clasped once my own tools were adjusted to free up a hand.
"Oh yes, I'm Yoshizawa Kasumi," The girl introduced. She happily shook my hand and I was glad to finally being able to stop referring to her as, the girl, since that was slightly annoying in my mind but I'd never heard any part of her name or anything else about her so it had been the only thing I could call her; thank goodness I could actually address her as something else now.
"Chiba Natsumi," I stated. With that we got back to our work on collecting as much of the refuse as possible, I pierced as much as I could before dumping it into the bag while Yoshizawa reached into the awkward areas and pulled out any bits that we weren't able to reach with the stabbing tool; all the while I noticed that the upperclassman was acting weirdly and it set me on edge just a little.
He would call me over at random moments, primarily when I was actually helping Yoshizawa by holding something out of the way or acting as her eyes so that she could grab a piece that couldn't easily be seen from where she had to stand to get it. I always refused and came over afterwards, but he seemed annoyed by me and kind of dismissed me rather rudely – ruder than Ryūji had ever acted – in response, yet still kept doing it. He also kept the underclassman away from Yoshizawa at every opportunity despite the boy trying to come over on occasion.
"The clean-up is officially complete. Thank you for your hard work, everyone," Niijima-senpai announced. I proceeded to stretch my arms over my head and I swear something shifted around in my spinal cord which gave a rather satisfying sound, rather back breaking work that was, certainly worse than fighting Shadows. "Would the leader of each group please come and get the soup for their teams?" Niijima-senpai requested. The third year proceeded to walk away from us as we set our tools aside for now.
When the third year returned, I immediately furrowed my eyebrows in confusion when I spotted that the tray he seemed to be carrying only contained three bowls which was rather strange, even if people thought our group only had three members, surely he should have corrected them. The upperclassman set the tray down before picking up a bowl and giving it to the male first year, the second bowl came to me and he then took the last one for himself.
"And where's Yoshizawa-san's portion?" I asked. The boy proceeded to look at me before allowing a small scoff to escape his lips and I immediately narrowed me eyes in anger as I realised that he had been acting in a manner that was identical to how people were no doubt treating Ren. "I see," I coldly stated. With that icy comment, I proceeded to turn and gently placed my bowl into Yoshizawa's hands.
"Senpai! No! This is your- woah!" Yoshizawa exclaimed. However, her words were cut off when I spun her around and proceeded to gently manoeuvre her away from those two individuals; the audacity of an upperclassman to do that to someone – especially a first year! – for what had to be a completely petty reason in my mind, was absolutely absurd and I could feel my heart thundering in my ears in fury.
"Come on, let's get away from those rude children. Besides, I'm sure you're wanting to thank Ren aren't you," I commented. If I could, I might have been spitting fire at the way that Yoshizawa had been treated just now, she was likely as tired and hungry as the rest of us, yet he had decided that his petty actions were far more important than having some common decency and getting a hungry girl some food.
As I kept moving about, I eventually saw my curly haired friend sat all by his lonesome on a bench; well, he wasn't completely alone as I spotted his bag resting by his left leg which at least meant that Morgana was with him. Of course, there was the distinct lack of not only his other three group members but also a bowl of food. My friend was just sat on the bench with his head tilted towards the sky.
"Ren," I called. At the sound of his name, the boy perked up and tilted his head down in order to see me and his expression was brighter as his lips curled into a smile upon seeing me approach him, I drifted in front of Yoshizawa as I walked up to him. "Let me guess, they ditched you because of the stupid rumours and didn't even bother to get you food," I hypothesised. A dry laugh escaped from him as his smile took on a grim edge.
"Nail on the head Natsumi," Ren admitted. I sighed and shook my head at people's lack of common decency; at that moment Yoshizawa proceeded to come up to stand at my side which caused Ren's eyes to flicker to look at her and his eyes lit up with recognition. "Oh, hello again," Ren greeted. Yoshizawa proceeded to greet the boy.
"I'll fetch food, you two talk," I insisted. With that, I turned and jogged over to where the food was being dished out to the students who were gathered around; once they were all sorted, I managed to reach the front and thankfully Maruki-sensei was stood there with a ladle in hand. "Hello sensei, can I have two bowls? Two people have been left out," I explained.
"Amamiya-san and Yoshizawa-san I bet," Maruki-sensei commented. His expression was rather grim as he said those words and I knew that he must have understood the reasons why they'd been excluded; I didn't understand why Yoshizawa was being treated in such a manner, but it just made me sick at how they were being so cruel to them.
"Yeah, but I gave my soup to Yoshizawa-san, so I technically need some," I admitted. Maruki-sensei's eyes darted to me with a thankful gleam to them as he grabbed two bowls and proceeded to dole out some of the soup into them, thankfully there was still plenty of steam rising from the soup pan which reassured me that the food would still be warm.
"That's very kind of you," Maruki-sensei admitted. He passed me the two bowls and I returned to the other two, I found the two of them sat beside each other and they appeared to be silent which a slightly awkward air between the two of them. I reached Ren and handed him a bowl before sitting down on Yoshizawa's other side and we proceeded to dig into the food which was actually quite good.
"Thanks for the food," Yoshizawa stated. We had finished the food off and we set them down on my other side since that was the only free space on the bench and we'd be less likely to forget them there unlike if they were on the floor. "I wanted to thank both of you again for this morning. That man was even more frightening than he might have appeared to you… so I truly appreciate what did for me! Thank you so much," Yoshizawa admitted.
"Don't worry, it was nothing," Ren stated. I could see Yoshizawa look surprised by how calmly he had said those words which caused my lips to pull into a smile at how he was acting so calmly; I rested a hand on Yoshizawa's shoulder which caused the girl to primarily focus her attention upon me instead of lightly flicking her head like she had been when she thanked us for helping her out.
"He's right, you're our kōhai so looking after you is part of being a senpai. Besides, it's also a basic part of human decency… though that seems to be lacking recently," I agreed. Though I did mutter the last bit under my breath, of course the two sat with me heard my words and Yoshizawa frowned deeply while Ren scowled slightly at the truth in my words; I'm starting to think that dark aura that the Velvet siblings had warned me of might have something to do with it.
"There's one more issue I need to address… I'm also so sorry for what happened the other day!" Yoshizawa exclaimed. She had moved her head so that she was looking at Ren as she said this so it must have been to do with him, although Ren looked very confused by this exclamation. I had no idea about what they could possibly be talking about either, so I was in no way able to help them understand what was going on.
"You're going to have to clarify," Ren requested. It was probably the best way to get any kind of understanding about the situation that Yoshizawa was referring to, though given how Ren was so confused I could only assume that it was something that had completely slipped his mind; I focused on the red headed girl who was looking quite uncomfortable.
"The run-in we had outside of the guidance office," Yoshizawa clarified. That only got a confused exchange of glances and a shake of the head from Ren. "Kamoshida-sensei had just told me about you a moment prior, so I sort of spoke without thinking there… I heard some of my classmates gossiping about you, too," Yoshizawa explained. That much have been when she came to me about the rumours.
"That?" Ren asked. He suddenly snorted and started laughing slightly, a relaxed expression on his face which caused Yoshizawa to untense her muscles. "That was hardly even something I paid attention to, no need to apologise," Ren insisted. A breath of relief rushed out of Yoshizawa knowing he wasn't offended by that incident. "Well, what did you think when you heard I was a dangerous criminal," Ren asked. His tone just fighting off the darkness that edged in whenever he thought of his unjust punishment.
"I was surprised, but I don't like gossip or rumours like that. But hearing from a teacher… well I found Chiba-senpai and asked her about you. She told me to use the moment we interacted at the train station to evaluate you, not the rumours," Yoshizawa admitted. Ren shot me a thankful look and I gave him a smile. "And I know this'll sound strange since I just met you, but you don't seem like the kind of person they describe. It'd be a different story if all those rumours were actually true, though," Yoshizawa added on. I was feeling a little worried about what these rumours where. "What were all the crimes I'd heard? Burglary, murder and… elephant tusk trafficking, was it?" Yoshizawa mentioned.
"I get falsely accused of hitting someone and this is what happens," Ren muttered. He hung his head in dismay and I understood exactly where he was coming from; while burglary might be people playing a game of telephone, I don't understand how they came up with the murder charge since Ren would be imprisoned if that was true and where the trafficking rumour came from… people's minds were truly baffling sometimes. "I swear, I have done none of that and hearing that is a first for me," Ren promised.
"It's absurd, isn't it? Rumours can't be trusted at all, yet everyone starts shaking in their boots whenever they hear your name," Yoshizawa admitted. At least she did seem to care about what was being said about Ren which had me feeling relieved about that fact. "You know what, it just hit me, I haven't introduced myself yet!" Yoshizawa exclaimed. So, she finally remembered that Ren didn't know her name yet.
"I'm Amamiya Ren," Ren introduced. He was just being polite, yet Yoshizawa's face turned almost as red as her hair while her eyes when wide with some kind of emotion that I didn't know what to make of it; it seemed to be a rather extreme reaction to have simply to hearing Ren's name, unless these two somehow knew each other but that would be a heck of a coincidence to be happening right in front of me.
"Oh, I'm sorry to make you go first Amamiya-senpai. I apologise this was such a long time coming, but I hope we can get along well!" Yoshizawa apologised. She was flustered over not introducing herself first… too formal. "I believe you already learned from our meeting at school that my-," Yoshizawa began to introduce but a sudden cry escaped us nearby; the cause of this was a child who lost hold of their balloon.
Yoshizawa reacted immediately. She sprung from her seat and once on two legs, she jumped. Her legs stretched out as if she was a ballerina and she deftly grabbed the balloon string. As gravity reasserted its' pull on the girl, she snapped her legs together and curled them. This allowed the balls of her feet to impact the ground first and Yoshizawa easily curled into a ball to roll forward slightly.
"Wh-what the hell just happened!?" Morgana exclaimed. Not that I can blame him since I was staring after her in surprise at what she had just done. "Oh look," Morgana pointed out. I followed his directions and saw that on the ground was a Shūjin pocketbook, Ren reached down and flicked it open, seeing a picture of the girl – albeit with brown hair instead red but an exact match none the less – with Yoshizawa's full name inside of it.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to run out on you like that," Yoshizawa apologised. She must have returned from catching the balloon and I had some questions to ask her about how she had managed such a thing since it seemed like she was quite skilled; Ren proceeded to flick the pocketbook closed as he lifted his head to look directly at the first year.
"It's fine, Yoshizawa Kasumi-san," Ren stated. He then held out the pocketbook towards her, I watched the girl to see how she would react to Ren suddenly knowing her name and I saw that her eyes were wide and rather unblinking as she stared at the boy in silence as she seemed to be processing his words before finally blinking her eyes after what felt like a long time but was likely only seconds.
"Huh?" She expressed. Yoshizawa turned to look at me, but I shook my head and then pointed in the direction of her pocketbook, Yoshizawa looked down and understanding filled her eyes and she took the object back from him to file it away. "I guess you sleuthed me out before I got to tell you," Yoshizawa stated. Ren nodded his head in agreement before seeming to shift his focus suddenly.
"That was impressive, by the way. Are you an athlete? I think my homeroom teacher implied you were," Ren wondered. It was the most likely possibility as she had moved in a manner that spoke of quite a long time of practice and the way she had held that split leg pose seemed to imply some kind of dancing movements were involved in whatever it was that she happened to be a part of.
"Figured that out too, huh? Well, yes. I compete in rhythm gymnastics," Yoshizawa explained. Ah, that would explain the movements that she had made, since that sport was rather close to dancing in its' style. "It's not that difficult once you get the hang of it, just a hop, skip and a jump," Yoshizawa explained. She seemed pretty dismissive of her skills which didn't sit well with me.
"That would explain why it looked like a ballerina pose," I acknowledged. Yoshizawa nodded her head in understanding as I proceeded to shift my position slightly to look at Yoshizawa more directly. "Also, don't sell yourself short. All skills are things that take hard work and effort, you've clearly put a lot of time and energy into refining your ability," I chastised. She should have more faith in her capabilities especially with how elegantly she had moved to retrieve the balloon.
"Thank you senpai," Yoshizawa admitted. But she didn't look happy, her lips were pinched and she was staring off to the side as if something I had said was actually causing her pain which caused my eyebrows to furrow at how she happened to be acting; I don't know if I had said anything that should cause her to look so upset but I just have for her to be acting this way.
"Gymnastics huh? Hey, don't you think some of those moves would be awfully useful? I was just thinking about how the Phantom Thieves need to get some sweeter moves, too," Morgana suggested. It did seem like something that would be useful to us, if we could learn how to move as flexible as a gymnast could then it would benefit us if we ever needed to escape from an ambush.
"What's the matter senpais? Wait… is there a cat somewhere around here?" Yoshizawa-san wondered. Ren adjusted himself in order to put his arm over his bag as casually as possible so that Yoshizawa wouldn't get suspicious, nor would she realise that Ren had a cat with him which could get back to the teachers and get him in trouble if they later found our healer at the school with Ren.
"Would you be able to teach me how to do that?" Ren asked. Thank goodness he had diverted her attention with that as Yoshizawa's wandering eyes immediately focused back on Ren and she seemed almost delighted by what she had just heard if the gleam in her brown eyes was anything to go by; I was curious about expanding my repertoire as well, so I shifted slightly to lean my elbows on my knees.
"Both of us, actually, that was pretty incredible," I added on. This caused Yoshizawa's expression to start rivalling Ann's in its' brightness as a smile made its' way onto her face; she seemed rather happy to hear that we were interested in learning about her sport, although I don't think it was enough for her to start rivalling the sun with that bright smile, but I was glad that she seemed so happy compared to be scared or slightly sad earlier.
"Does that mean you're both interested in gymnastics?" Yoshizawa asked. We nodded our heads in answer to that question, even if we had different reasons than any she might think of. "That makes me so happy! I'd be honoured if you'd allow me!" Yoshizawa cheered. She certainly seemed to be energised after hearing our request to learn but then her expression darkened slightly. "The only problem is… I have a favour to ask for myself as well if you don't mind," Yoshizawa wondered. Me and Ren shook our heads to show we had nothing against this. "Lately, I haven't been getting the results I want from my performances and I'm worried that I'm overthinking things. So, it would be wonderful if you could give me some advice whenever you have the time," Yoshizawa admitted.
"Sure… but why me? Natsumi already gave you good advice, so she makes sense, but why include me?" Ren asked. It did seem a little odd to ask for advice, especially considering it was with a subject that neither of us had much knowledge of; I might be able to help a little bit more since I could identify physical aspects of her routines given my dad's training, but I don't know how much help I'd be.
"I… don't know, actually. I just get this feeling, that you two would give some really good advice," Yoshizawa admitted. I could understand that reasoning, Ren gave me some pretty good advice and sometimes he could see straight to the heart of a matter while the rest of us got a little bit confused and lost trying to solve it. "Though, it might be best if I trained you two separately, that way I could really concentrate on each individual," Yoshizawa added on.
"This sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me, what do you think?" Morgana asked. I had nothing against such a thing, the separate training sessions would honestly be best for us since it would enable Yoshizawa to focus on each of us as individuals to better access our abilities and then we'd be able to give her the best advice we could as we learned about her as an individual.
"We have a deal/Looking forward to it," Ren and I spoke at the same time. It seemed that we would have something new to start learning and I would have to find a way to pass it on to the others, I didn't want to overwhelm poor Yoshizawa especially if she had to deal with Yusuke and Ryūji's personalities; plus, it also mitigated the risk of someone accidentally blabbing to her about our activities.
"Yes sir, ma'am!" Yoshizawa energetically replied. That seemed a little bit much but at least she was enthusiastic about us learning. "Wait that's a little overboard. But I promise! I'll glean as much as I can!" Yoshizawa declared. I chuckled slightly at her energy which seemed to rival Ryūji's normal bouncy energy. "Oh, why don't we exchange contact information," Yoshizawa realised. She then pulled out her phone but then looked down at it in confusion which took away that bright energy. "Huh? It shut down… sorry, my smartphone's been acting up lately," Yoshizawa admitted. Well, that was rather strange, I wonder why it was randomly acting up, I couldn't see anything odd about the phone from where I was sitting so it didn't look damaged. "Ha, it's back! Okay, I'll contact you when I've got free time, if that's fine!" Yoshizawa decided. I decided to ignore how strange that situation was as we quickly exchanged numbers and an announcement came that the clean-up was ending soon so we were to bring our empty bowls over.
"Since we're already here and it's a nice day, plus we're in our gym clothes, do you want to get the first lesson in, Yoshizawa-san," Ren suggested. Our new friend agreed and she had us do some stretches before moving on to core exercises.