Chapter Text
Makoto’s dealt with a lot of new experiences before. But never in this multitude, let alone so quickly.
Everything happened so fast. Almost illogical. Hell, very illogical when she paused and backtracked the subject from start to finish.
Cognitive worlds. Distorted desires manifesting to make real, tangible places. Well, tangible to Phantom Thieves, the most insane part of it all.
And her, on top of it, being one of them. The queen of the group too.
Queen.
She can’t help but smile at her homework as the warmth of the connection hits her. It’d been so long since she had friends. She had stopped counting to keep herself from sinking into despair from the depth of her loneliness. It had been difficult for some time with her sister always gone and their father dead, but she knew better to complain.
Top of her class, gifted academically as well as in the arts, Makoto had always known she was what a lot of people either aspired to be or loathed for her vast accomplishments. And for a long time, she had thought it was all that mattered. Or maybe that too had been a lie she told herself to keep herself sane.
It had been easy feigning ignorance and turning a blind eye to anything she didn’t want to believe existed. She was always moving forward -always following the path set before her. Her routine was once so cut and dry, her life void of any great excitement.
But that was a life missing out on being alive- on figuring out what it really meant to be living in this crazy, chaotic planet where nothing was certain but complexity. Nothing was cut and dry. Nothing black and white. The whole world was a huge hue of gray tragically getting stained closer to black with every passing second.
“Not for long.” She mutters to the empty dining room around her. “Justice is on our side.”
And hopefully, so was fortune with exams looming not so far in the distance.
While she had little to nothing to worry about, she hated to say the same couldn’t be said so easily about the other members of the group.
As if on cue, her phone starts buzzing frantically on the wooden tabletop like an SOS siren. She reads Ryuji’s name appearing on the screen and puckers her lips. The bleach blond’s face hits her instantly, and she dreads what exactly the hotheaded, loose-lipped guy wanted from her this late into the evening.
Still, she knows she’s in no position to decline. To hell with it. She’s more intrigued than she could ever be irritated. “Hello?”
A brief moment of static fills her ear as the call connects. “Ah, Makoto, ya gotta help me! I’m beggin’ ya!”
She rolls her eyes at his plea coming without hide nor hair of a greeting or any sort of pleasantry to butter her up. “If this is in regards to exams, Ryuji, I’m afraid if you don’t have the stamina to concentrate on studying, I’ll be of little to no help to you.”
“I’m trying!” The exasperated whine cuts into the receiver of her smartphone. “Really. Ya know that I have to do, er, decent on them so we can, y’know do what needs to be done! I can’t be out raidin’ Palaces if my ass has to be stuck in summer school. Besides, I wanna show the others I’m not just a numskull.” His almost tangible sadness strikes a chord in her empathetic heart. “Or maybe I’m just a numbkull for even thinkin’ I could be anything else.”
Makoto pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs at length. He made it hard to say no. Not that she had really been planning on it from the beginning. While she was smart and often took her intellect for granted, she had to remember not everyone breezed through academically. And Ryuji was right on top of it all. It would hard to function as Phantom Thieves if members of the group started being unable to participate for any reason.
“Very well.” She acquiesces, only to jerk the phone away from her ear when he explodes with excitement on the other end. “But I cannot make you any promises about having you receive any high marks with the short amount of time I have at my disposal.”
He chuckles dryly. “Don’t really think it would be possible even if ya did. Well,” His mood lifts immediately. “Thanks. Really. Only real question is where we should do this.”
“Wouldn’t the school library suffice?”
“Ehhh...” He sounds a little nervous. “Don’t really want any of the others catching wind about this. Not to mention the whole school would practically flip their shit making up crazy rumors. The class president hangin' round a class clown? They’d eat that shit up like crazy.”
She rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath. “And you think they wouldn’t if they saw us outside of school alone and together?”
“Hm? Whaddya say?”
“Nothing.” She lies with an edge of exasperation. “Where do you plan on us meeting? Or did you even think so far in advance?”
“Hey, I may be a dipshit, but I’m not brainless.” He counters irritably. “There’s a hidden little coffee shop a few stops off the orange line in Ikebukuro. I’ll buy ya a drink and pay half the fair. So that way you get somethin’ out of this too. So? Is it a deal?”
Ikebukuro? She tries not to frown. Transferring trains, not to mention the crowds… It seemed more of a hassle than anything.
But if Ryuji had made up his mind, it seemed there was no making conditions on accepting the deal.
“Fine.” She knows she sounds less than excited about agreeing, but hopefully he would focus on the fact that she was agreeing at all. “I’ll take you up on the offer, Ryuji.”
He cheers again. “Awesome! Well, I guess we’ll pay it by ear as we get through this shit with the Metaverse. But if ya ever feel like you’re not up to it, just let me know. I ain’t gonna force a girl to ever do anything she didn’t want to.”
She rolls her eyes again. “Until later then.”
He ends the call with an upbeat farewell that she echoes back a little less than enthusiastic. Ryuji was a nice guy. Stupid academically, but street smart with a good heart to fuel him. She smooths a hand against her forehead. Sometimes it added a little too much fuel to the fire and blinded him to reason. But a deal was a deal.
“Think of it as a challenge.” She tries to inspirit herself. “Who knows? Maybe Ryuji might even teach us a thing or two we didn’t know before.”
**
While Makoto dreaded the whole secretive study sessions at the beginning, with time, she actually started to realize there was nothing at all to worry about.
If anything, she started looking forward to them.
Ryuji made slow progress. Some days, none at all. Still, he was trying, often to the point of exasperation to retaining nothing, and she appreciated his obvious effort more so than his actual aptitude improving. Language would never be his forte- a quite obvious statement from his mannerisms and inability to even speak in anything other than colloquial slang- but he had some hope in history and basic mathematics. His scores would be frown-able even with the small help she seemed to offer, but he seems to be cheerful for any fraction of improvement as it came.
He’s chatty one afternoon as they occupy their usual table in a quiet corner of the coffee shop’s second floor. “Y’know you don’t have to always get that.” He gestures to the plain iced coffee perspiring in a glass cup to her right. “I mean, I’m not the richest guy out there, but ya can get whatever ya want. Deal’s a deal, after all.”
Her cheeks rogue. She had been looking only at the prices when they first came here, knowing it wasn’t right to buy some heavily sugary concoction a few dollars more expensive when a simple drink would suffice. Ryuji’s circumstances were simple at best from what Ann had informed her. Sad, really. A dead-beat father who had walked out on his family, a single mom left to work and raise a child on her own, not to mention the guy watching multiple men come and go from his life without any semblance of permanence to them.
Hers hadn’t been much better. Odd, how much the two of them really had in common. Maybe that was why she tolerated him more so than Yusuke. Her mother dead shortly after giving birth to her, a policeman for a father killed in duty not long afterwards… thank god she had had Sae there. Though even now her sister was beginning to lose her permanence in her life.
“This is best.” She extends a hand to take the cup into her hold. “It’s only a coincidence that the price per ounce is also the lowest for it as well.”
He grins. “Shouldn’t have expected anything else from the good old class prez. Always putting mind before matter. But I’m feelin’ generous today.” He rubs at his one of his shoulders, grin still plastered on his cheerful features. “So how about a slice of cake? Or maybe one of those fruit parfait things girls are always yammerin’ over to keep their calories in count or whatever?”
She averts her eyes while taking a sip of her drink. “You really don’t have to.”
“I know, but I wanna.” He goads her with a sweep of his hand. “And your pick is?”
“Cake.” She blurts out without thinking, only to feel mortified to her core. She dips her chin and tries to hide her embarrassed expression for choosing the ungirly option, even if it had been what she really wanted out of the two. “Chocolate, please.”
He returns promptly with a hefty slice on a simple porcelain plate and two forks. “Don’t worry.” He comments when she looks at the duplicate utensils. “Stupid barista must’ve thought we were sharin’. It’s all yours.”
“Thank you.” She can’t help but feel silly when he takes away one of the forks and slides the cake to her end of the two person table. “That was very kind.”
“You’re way too formal.” He laughs. “Come on, Makoto. Learn to let loose sometimes. It won’t kill ya to I dunno, act like a teenager for once.”
She says nothing. The whole teenage thing was a foreign topic. She knew nothing about letting loose. After all, there had been no time in her life when such a thing had been allowed.
“Ya really don’t know how.” He breathes in disbelief as the uncomfortable silence speaks worlds on its own. “Do ya?”
She stiffens. It was a laughable, terrible truth. Eiko had been right. An old man in a girl’s body was exactly what she was. So what? Was it such a horrific crime to be an old soul? To like history, books, and classical music, and not be lost in a world of dizzying hormones, impulsive behavior, raunchy music?
“I’m sorry that I’m…. different.” Her eyes burn with mortified tears. “But I’m trying my best to adapt to everyday life.”
He waves his hands hastily in the space above the table. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with ya. Shit.” He slumps uncomfortably. “Always sayin' what I shouldn’t. I’m a fuckin dumbass.”
“It’s not your fault.” She murmurs. “I just think of it as having a lot to experience.”
“Yeah.” He seems to brighten slightly under her optimism. “Good thinkin’. World’s full of awesome shit. Like video games, and music, and sports, and y’know… whatever!” He grins. “See! Maybe I could even help ya out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Experiencin’ teen shit.” Ryuji leans back in his chair and grins from ear to ear. “If I’m good at anythin’, it’s that.”
She didn’t have to even think twice about agreeing with him. Bleached blond hair, rebellious attitude, rule breaking uniform attire, late night video game binging sessions… Ryuji was by far a model case of what it meant to be a regular teenage boy.
She breaks off another piece of the cake and nibbles in contemplation. Sure, she had been wanting to step out of her comfort zone, but he had been the last person on her mind. Well, Yusuke would have been but he wasn’t even an option. He was as odd as he was eccentric. Not that she could blame him. He was as normal as they came in the artist world.
Still, Ryuji? She can’t help but feel nervous. Akira had been kind on the rare occasion she had mustered up the courage to ask for his help, but she knew he had his hands full. Being leader of the Phantom Thieves, balancing a public and private life, not to mention maybe even a romantic one too… he was a busy guy with a heart of gold.
Which exactly why she admired him. Liked him romantically even.
Just like Ann.
It was no surprise that the blonde, foreign-born girl liked the tall, lanky leader of their group. In all honesty, they made a nice pair. Ann, so bubbly and girly, was a nice contrast to the calm, handsome Akira despite Morgana’s obvious dismay. And hers too if she was being honest. But she understood it was best this way. Like Eiko also pointed out, she would stumble and flunk her way out of anything dealing with love- the most foreign, confusing, frightening of all the topics teenagers were forced to encounter.
One she dreaded as much as she did secretly hope it would actually happen in her life too.
“I guess… it would be nice.” She acquiesces hesitantly. “Only if you truly wish to take on such an endeavor on my behalf.”
He gives an energetic thumb’s up to reassure her he was up for the challenge. “Course. It’d be my pleasure. Hell yeah!” He wiggles with excitement. “I can think of a hundred things right off the bat I wanna show ya.”
“While I’m delighted to hear you so energetic about the topic, the real thing you should be focusing your energies on is your studying.” She points her fork in the direction of the papers he’s completely abandoned in his enthusiasm. His joyful form quickly grows dejected and slumped over. “No buts. This comes before anything else. That was our original deal and what should propel us forward.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He grumbles while picking up his pencil again. “Buzzkill.”