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Despite carrying the label of a delinquent with a conviction for assault, at first glance Akira Kurusu was merely an unassuming, soft-spoken student, yet Makoto had learned first-hand how sly and crafty he could be when he wanted to.
It all started when Principal Kobayakawa adjured her to investigate the identities of the Phantom Thieves back in June. Her instinct had instantly led her to the newly formed trio of misfits consisted of the former track athlete, the loner blonde girl and the infamous transfer student. Kurusu’s aura of mystery had piqued Makoto’s interest in particular, which was why she chose to tail after him to see if she could pick up any evidence to verify her hunch.
After a few days of tracking Makoto found out her kohai’s after-school activities usually involved Sakamoto, Takamaki and sometimes a Kosei High student named Kitagawa. They liked to hang around Shibuya, doing nothing evidently suspicious -- just normal teenager pastimes like getting crepes and burgers, playing in the game center, and shopping in the underground mall.
There were days when Kurusu was exploring the area alone, and Makoto must admit he was skilled at blending in with the crowds and the surroundings. The guy was tall and lanky, with a shock of disheveled hair and a cat sticking its head out of the bag all the time. It shouldn’t have been difficult to spot him amid the flock of people, but somehow she kept losing sight of her target.
And so, Makoto decided to take a bolder approach by narrowing the distance between them. With her adept trailing skill and so many pedestrians as her covers, she was quite confident Kurusu wouldn’t be able to notice her presence. Even if she accidentally entered his line of sight, as long as she avoided direct eye contact and kept her face hidden behind the magazine she pretended reading, the chance of him recognizing her would be very low.
Kurusu now seemed to be engrossed in the rows of books lined on a shelf in front of a bookstore. Makoto took that chance to rush ahead and hide behind a pole but bumped into a middle-aged lady in the process. She hastily apologized to her before resuming her hiding position. The whole scene took only a few seconds, yet when she returned her attention to the storefront, that mop of messy hair was already gone from the crowds.
Wait, where’d he go again!?
Makoto quickly scanned the vicinity of the bookstore. Kurusu was nowhere to be found.
“Looking for someone?” A deep voice came from behind her.
“AHH!” The disgraceful shriek Makoto let out was a foreign sound even to her own ears. She whirled around, and Kurusu was standing right there casually with his hands in his pockets, his black cat settled on his shoulder (Is it snickering at me…??). He was looking at her with a small smile, and Makoto swore she caught a tint of smugness for a brief second before politeness took over his expression. She could feel her face heating up, both from exasperation and embarrassment.
“I, I--Er…” Makoto tried to come up with an excuse, preferably something smart to retaliate, but words refused to form in her mouth as she was still flustered by the fact that Kurusu had sneaked up on her. Stealthily and silently like a cat.
“Sorry, Niijima-senpai, did I startle you?” At least he had the decency to look apologetic, even if only slightly so.
Makoto faked coughing into her fist, buying time to calm herself and retrieve her usual face of the composed, authoritative Student Council President. “N-Not at all, Kurusu-kun. What a coincidence to run into you here.” She added a laugh for good measure. It sounded natural enough to her own ears, but Kurusu grimaced slightly, as if saying he could see right through her lie.
“Right, what are the odds…”
“An-Anyway, I should get going. I’ll see you around at school.”
“Wait, I think you dropped this.”
Kurusu handed her a notebook. Her notebook. The one she’d been hiding behind the magazine she faked reading while following him. The one full of her scribbles on information that tied Kurusu and his friends to the Phantom Thieves.
Makoto snatched it from his hand at lightning speed. The heat rising once again from her toes to the tip of her ears was nearly as fast.
“It’s upside down, you know,” Kurusu added.
“H-huh?”
“Your magazine. You’re holding it upside down this whole time.”
“WHAT!?” She wasn’t sure which was more humiliating – her target obviously noticing she’d been stalking him all afternoon, or how foolish she was to think her trailing was skillful enough when she couldn’t even tell herself had been ‘reading’ the magazine the wrong way.
Makoto’s cheeks were on fire. It felt like smoke was coming out from above her head.
Now Kurusu was looking at her with an amused expression. Makoto’s brain told her to flee the scene before further disgracing herself.
“T-Thank you for your kind reminder, Kurusu-kun.” She tried to summon up a natural expression. “Have a nice day!”
As Makoto stomped off, it felt as though Kurusu’s (and the cat’s) mocking eyes and smirks were drilling holes into the back of her skull.
——
Having learned her lesson the hard way that day, Makoto gave up tracking Kurusu. It was no longer necessary anyway because a week or two later, her suspicion of their identities as the Phantom Thieves was confirmed by her overhearing their conversation in the school backyard, and she ended up joining the group.
Makoto had recommended herself as their strategist citing their lack of planning in the Meteaverse, but she knew full well in her heart that it was more about making herself feel useful than strategic reasons. In spite of the group’s impromptu course of action, the fact that they had managed to clear two palaces before her enlistment was enough to prove their capabilities. And after her failed attempt at stalking Akira, there was no doubt in his nimble wit and ability as their leader either.
What she didn’t expect was how Akira’s feline agility and slickness amplified in the cognitive world. A few hours into exploring Kaneshiro’s Palace as their latest member, Makoto had lost counts of how many times the leader effortlessly maneuvered his lithe frame into narrow shafts, deftly leapt onto hard-to-reach locations, and lock-picked treasure chests and locked doors with practiced ease.
Right now, Akira was trying to reach the electrical box at end of the hallway to disable the CCTV cameras. Crouching around the corner at the start of the corridor was the rest of the team. They watched as the leader sneaked his way past a dozen of security guards and cameras without setting off the alarm. Not even once.
The way he stealthily moved from one blind spot to another, perfectly concealing his lean frame in the shadow reminded Makoto of a black cat snooping around in the dark.
“I must say, Joker never ceases to impress me.” Yusuke made a frame at the leader with his fingers, looking mesmerized. “The aesthetics in his polished gaits is comparable with those of an Olympian artistic gymnast.”
“He’s not our leader for nothing,” Ryuji said proudly, rubbing his nose.
“But Queen,” Morgana turned to Makoto. “You don’t seem that surprised by Joker’s dramatic performance.”
“Yeah, we all had our jaw-dropping moments when Joker showed off his fluid moves for the first time,” Ann recalled.
“Me?” Makoto said. “Well…I already had the pleasure to witness his talent outside of the cognitive world,” she explained vaguely, her gaze never shifted away from the leader. He has just reached the end of the corridor. At a flick of the switch, all cameras on the hallway were deactivated.
Akira turned around to give his team a smirk and a thumb up, and suddenly a Shadow emerged from the corner. But he already saw it coming; he did a graceful flip then hopped up on the Shadow’s shoulders before ripping off his mask, all in one sequence of smooth movements.
“Show me your true form!”
The rest of the team took that as the cue to dash to Akira’s side. And it was at that exact moment Makoto knew that she made the right decision joining this group of misfits, that she would follow the leader anywhere he led her.