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He makes two cups of coffee after he gets off the phone, and hands one to his daughter when he tells her the good news. She bounces up out of her seat, gives him a giant hug, and runs out the door phone in hand to find her friends and celebrate. The shop is closed, so he sits at a bar stool and drinks his coffee and smiles. He wants a moment - just a moment - to celebrate in peace and quiet.
When he’s ready, he picks up the phone again, and hits a number in his contacts list. They pick up on the last ring.
“Kurusu-san? This is Sakura Sojiro. I wanted to let you know - I guess since I’m his legal guardian right now they called me first, but your son’s been cleared of all charges. He’s being released tomorrow. He’ll be able to come home to you next month.”
The woman on the other end of the line doesn’t sound shrill, or mean, or even tired. “Is that so? Well, thank you for informing us, anyway. Although you can keep him, for all I care.”
His next few words come as a surprise to him, but he means them as soon as he says them. “Sure. I’ll keep him, then.”
Her voice goes up a notch. “What?”
Without thinking much of it, Sojiro hangs up the phone.
He realizes within a couple minutes that he should probably have asked first, and he has to ignore a small mountain of phone calls, emails, and voicemails for the next 24 hours before he goes to pick the kid up. When the party wraps up, and the other kids leave Leblanc, he takes him home - really home, sets him up on his couch, sends Futaba upstairs. Stays up chatting with him till midnight before he gets up the courage to ask.
Akira starts crying. Doesn’t try to hide it, because there’s no use. He says yes.
It’s easier the second time. He knows this dance already, where to get the papers, how to fill them out. There are some new forms, different hoops to jump through, because his parents are still alive, but he calls the lawyer who helped him with Futaba and between him and Sae Niijima things go as smoothly as can be expected. Leblanc is closed often. He spends a lot of time in offices and court rooms.
Akira stays home with the cat as much as possible. Holds his sister’s hand when either of them has to testify in court. Doesn’t talk to his parents unless he has to. Talks about them, to lawyers and judges and Sojiro, plenty.
Making it official takes months, as does adding a third bedroom to his house. Akira stays in Tokyo for all of them.
That spring, Futaba and Akira start at Shujin together. Sojiro spends more hours than he could have imagined sitting in offices with counselors and administrators talking about plans and goals and progress. He gets used to men with radios and notebooks roaming Yongen-Jaya’s backstreets, suspiciously close to his doorstep. They stop coming after Sae Niijima, on her way to or from the cafe, starts greeting them personally, sometimes by name. Akira still helps him run the store some nights, runs it by himself occasionally on Sundays. Tells his teachers that that’s what he wants to do when he graduates, and when asked about college, replies that he’d prefer to keep a low profile. Which is rich, coming from the kid who still has the Phansite open on his phone constantly, still has Ann and Ryuji and Yusuke and Futaba, and Makoto and Haru when they’re around, over for hours long discussions over coffee in the now-abandoned cafe attic.
Akira does, actually, stay at the cafe when he graduates. With some of the guests he sees come around nowadays, he’s not sure that constitutes a low profile, but he doesn’t question him about it. Anyway, it’s nice to see Leblanc making a profit from all the increased traffic. Whatever he’s doing, Akira’s good at it. So good, in fact, that it’s only summer when Futaba starts bugging him about when he’s going to “retire already.”
He raises his eyebrows. “I’m fifty-four.”
She raises hers. “So?”
He doesn’t actually give Akira full run of the place until he’s fifty-six.
He talks it over that evening with Sae at a bar in Shibuya. He was getting kinda tired of the customers anyway, if Akira changes his mind and goes to school and closes the shop it’s no skin off his nose, etc.
Sae smiles at him. “Sure. But what are you going to do now?”
It’s a fair question.
He could go back into the private sector. Make more money. Try not to work on projects where people get murdered again. Make new friends, stretch his skills. He’s kept up with what’s going on in the field, even though he’s been out for a while. But he doesn’t really want to. Bizarre though it may be, particle physics doesn’t seem important enough any more.
Akira, completely deadpan, tells him to get a girlfriend. Futaba tells him to adopt another kid. “Maybe, you know, an actual kid this time, instead of a gang of lawbreaking teenagers.”
What he does is some quick calculations with his savings. Despite a few years of losing money on Leblanc, they’re still pretty considerable, not to mention some old investments he’s got sitting around. It’s not as much as he needs, but it’s a start, it’s enough to get other people to sign on. To get the down payment on the land. It takes making a few more partnerships to get the construction started, if only so he can get to know some people who actually know what they’re doing. He’s not hesitant to explain to his business partners that he doesn’t, but impresses on them that he’s committed anyway. They don’t need much convincing. Akira says he “exudes sincerity”, and Sojiro replies that he has no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but to be honest, he does.
It’s mostly a day center, but there’s a few beds too. Less than he wants, but there’s room to grow there. Not too many staff. He’s careful about who he hires, and he does all the hiring, with help from Akira, often with tips from Akira - half of the staff ends up being old acquaintances of his. He names it after Wakaba, and there’s a plaque with her name on it at the front steps.
Akira sets him up to do an interview with a local journalist ahead of its opening. Another old friend of his - he’s not sure how his kid got so well-connected, but then nothing Akira does surprises him any more. She cheerfully asks him (on-tape, no less) what it was like being the phantom thieves’ dad, and he nearly spits out his drink, and Akira laughs for a whole minute when Sojiro later tells him the story. They’re sitting in Leblanc, with the door sign set to closed, pouring over the newspaper article together.
Yongen-Jaya businessman opens center for troubled youth
In collaboration with several nonprofit organizations, Tokyo local Sakura Sojiro is opening an overnight center in Yongen-Jaya for use by youth aged 12-19. Sakura began work on the business after turning over ownership of his coffee shop Leblanc to adopted son Akira Kurusu.
Sakura, 59, says the decision was inspired by his daughter. “She said I should adopt a kid when I retired. I guess this is kinda the next best thing.” He laughs. “I’ve met a lot of kids out there that don’t have anywhere to go sometimes. I wanted to help give them an option they could trust in. We don’t ask a lot of questions - we want young people to get the help they need without any obstructions.”
The center’s overnight capacity currently peaks at 10, but Sakura says he has plans to add more beds over time. From the hours of 7 am to 8 pm, the shelter is open to all individuals aged 12-19 without registration. Available services include meals, bath, laundry, and a dedicated staff of lawyers, education professionals, and social workers who work with youth to connect them with resources.
Further funding for the center was provided through a grant from the Wakaba Isshiki foundation, after which it was named.
The remainder of the article is information about business hours and contact info for the various staff.
Akira scowls, setting the paper down on the table. “How come I’m your adopted son but Futaba’s just your daughter?”
“You can ask Ohya that. I didn’t write the article.”
Akira shrugs. “You think anyone still recognizes my name?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
“Are you nervous?”
Sojiro shrugged. “If it loses money, it loses money. I’ll make do. I just hope it gets used, you know?”
“It’ll get used. Don’t worry.”
Sojiro mulls over Akira’s face from the opposite side of the bar. “Maybe I should’ve named it after you. You’re the reason it exists, after all.”
“Technically I’m the reason the whole universe still exists.”
“Smartass.”
“I’m just being honest.”
Sojiro shrugs. “So much for keeping a low profile.”
Akira hesitates. “I’m really proud of you for this. You know that, right?”
He doesn’t know how to tell him, without getting emotional, how much that means to him. How much he means it, that the place only exists because of him, because he agreed to take him in and then his whole life changed. Because Akira taught him how not to be a bystander. Because he and his sister gave him something to protect, and in the same breath showed him what protecting something really meant. And he couldn’t stand to keep living unless he started living the way Akira taught him to, he wanted to do whatever he could with what he had, with this useless wad of money that his old life had brought him at the price of Wakaba’s life. It’s too many words to use for something they both know. Too much to talk about when neither of them likes to cry in front of the other.
“I’m proud of you too.” He says instead.
Akira smiles.