Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

October 2002

-//-

Tatsuya recognizes the dead woman on the street outside his apartment building. They say she's mad, but there are a lot of people in Sumaru City that people say are mad these days.

He crouches over the dead woman, curled up on the street, pale and still, so thin he can count her bones through her skin, and tries to remember what the rumors say about her. There had been a time in his life when listening to rumors was as vital a survival skill as his skill with a sword, but rumors don't hold the same power these days that they used to. In a life that doesn't give him too many gifts anymore, not being required to listen to those endless whispers is one of them.

This woman has been haunting the neighborhood for years now, though, and Tatsuya has heard something about her. They call her mad because she wanders the streets, wailing, alone except for the child always at her side. Tatsuya doesn't know what's happened to her to make her break like that, but then again they're living in the city that had survived the end of the world.

Sumaru City has survived.

It has not thrived.

It's... better now, technically, than it used to be. The supernatural threats that had led to this in the first place are gone. Rumors don't hold power, and there are no demons roaming the streets. The city is itself again, more or less. As much as a flying city powered by the memory of broken dreams and years old rumors can possibly be. This is a broken, left behind place, almost empty because nearly everyone that could have been here had been pulled onto the Other Side, synching with themselves there, leaving this place behind. 

But not everyone had a self on the other side to synch to. The timelines are different. People moved, or didn't, or changed, and the end result is about 20% of the population that had been here before. Everyone else is gone. Vanished, synchronized with who they are on the Other Side, but not all of them had that option, and so...

So, here they are. Three years later, still here. Still struggling. Making their way as best they can, reclaiming pieces of the city a little bit at into time for farmland or anything else that might possibly help them survive a little longer. There's no electricity, but no one's told the rivers to stop running or the lakes to dry up--some too-smart-for-his-own-good meteorology student Tatsuya met a couple years ago that their water supply comes from something about where they're sitting in the plant's atmosphere, which sounds about as plausible as Tatsuya's theory that so many people had believed this was their salvation that the rumors just haven't faded yet. 

(He's afraid, every day, of what will happen when they do)

(There's no sign it's faltering yet, at least)

Control of the city has stabilized under a few people that can only be described as gang leaders, most of whom are at least sane and sensible enough to realize that more fighting will only make them run through their resources and the people that are loyal to them more quickly than they would have otherwise. Their lieutenants keep a kind of fragile peace on the streets of the city, which is better than it had been in the early months, at least. But the peace that came to Sumaru City at last is a lawless one, and it's not rare to hear screams echoing down the streets in the middle of the night. Brawls and burglaries are common. Starving, desperate people steal from each other, hurt each other.

Some of them end up like the dead woman on the ground. Wandering the streets, wailing, shouting, screaming, because there's nothing else left inside them.

(Tatsuya has spent the past two years trying to help them)

(This is all... well, too much of this is his fault. He's tried to help as many people as he can, and thinks he's doing some good--but it never feels like enough. Not when there are people dying like this)

Tatsuya leans over the dead woman, something in his gut twisting. He wonders if people call her mad because of the crying, or because of the child she held onto so tightly. Having a child in this city is crazy. It does still happen, of course, but mostly as a consequence of the kind of things that men do to women when there's nobody to stop them. Most of the children don't survive long, and Tatsuya wonders how much of herself this woman had given up to keep her child alive this long.

This woman's child survived infancy because his mother is mad enough to give up everything for him, until finally her body had nothing left to give, and she'd died on the street in front of Tatsuya's apartment.

He moves her, carefully, because corpses left on the street will attract animals. And when he does, he finds that what she'd been curled around is her child, still alive. Cold and hungry, shaking as he stares up at Tatsuya from his dead mother's arms, but alive.

There are so few children in the city. A child can't defend themselves. A child is just another mouth to feed.

But Tatsuya recognizes the strength it takes to give up everything for another person, and that's what this woman has done. He moves the woman's body off the street, away from the apartment, and carries the child inside with him.

People watch him as he climbs the stairs--there's about two dozen of them here these days, sharing both the building and as much trust as anyone can manage in this world. Tatsuya's lucky in that he does actually trust a lot of the people in this building. He wants to protect as many people as he can, in this city that's broken (at least partially) because of him. There aren't many people here trying to help others, and Tatsuya had been surprised in his first few months here how that can draw people together.

(He's not surprised anymore)

(Even here, in this broken city, there are still good people left. You just have to know where to look)

The boy in his arms is almost completely still, apart from a fragile shaking. Tatsuya has no idea how he's going to do this. Some days it's almost impossible to find enough to keep himself alive, and bringing another mouth home means there will be twice as much to worry about. And a child will need to be taught things, how to survive and how to take care of himself, how to live in a world that's going to hurt him over and over again. This child has just lost his mother, and even in this world where death is common, Tatsuya doesn't think he's old enough to understand that.

(He isn't sure how to explain it)

His apartment is on the second floor, dark because electricity is long gone apart from a few still-functioning and fiercely guarded solar panels. It's warm though, cut off from the elements outside, and Tatsuya bundles the child into a blanket, sits him down on his own bed. Then he steps back, and opens his mouth, and... blanks, completely. He doesn't know how to explain.

The boy solves this problem for him by making a soft sound that's a little bit like a hurt kitten, and leaning forward with his arms reaching out toward Tatsuya. His small face is dirty and sad, and Tatsuya thinks oh no, because this is the moment that he realizes he's not letting this boy go. 

(Tatsuya is alone, and he is hurt, and he recognizes that same lonely pain in the child's face)

(And he is not going to let him hurt any more)

-//-

December 2006

-//-

The boy's name is Akira.

Just Akira, no family name, because everyone knows that he is Tatsuya's without needing to hear that he's a Suou, too. The people around them know he is Tatsuya's because he protects him and takes care of him--Akira knows that he is Tatsuya's because Tatsuya loves him.

(And, if anyone had asked, he would have liked to be a Suou)

(But names don't mean much here, almost no one has a full family anymore, and no one ever asks)

Tatsuya teaches him to survive, how to fight, how to be careful and look out for danger. These are skills that everyone in Sumaru has had to learn, and it's easier for Akira than it had been for a lot of the previous generation that had needed to learn it all as adults. He's never known anything else, and he drinks it all in, hanging off everything that his guardian teaches him. They're hard lessons sometimes, but they're coming from Tatsuya, and Akira loves him, and so he tries his best to listen.

Until the day, four years after he takes him in, when Akria finds the door.

He's with Tatsuya, because he's not old enough to be out in the city on his own. There's a kind of unofficial market in one of the old strip malls, where people come to barter whatever they have for whatever they need and anything they can possibly get. And Akira knows he's supposed to stay close, he knows this, but he is also six years old, and the door is glowing blue, and he's never seen anything like it before.

He's curious. He pulls away when no one's looking at him, and goes to investigate.

The door lets him in, almost before he wants it to. He reaches out to touch it, to see if it feels as weird as it looks, and suddenly he's on the other side. The noise of the market is gone, and all he can hear is a song that sounds nothing like anything he's heard before. Akira goes tense all over, jumping back in fear and surprise as his eyes dart around the room. There's no other way in or out that he can see, so that's good, but there are other people here. Strange looking people. An old man with a nose so long it doesn't look real. A man with something tied over his eyes, and a woman with a streak of white in her dark hair. The only normal looking person is a man standing in front of what looks to Akira like a very tall, thick sheet of paper.

Only the man with the long nose is looking at him. He's smiling, and even though it seems like his face shouldn't be able to look nice, it does. Akira fights the urge to relax. There's something about the song that makes him feel like he's supposed to be here. And nobody here looks dangerous in the way he's been taught to look for danger, they're just... weird.

That doesn't make any sense to him.

For a very long moment, he just watches the man with the nose while the man with the nose watches him. Then he turns around, to where he's relieved to find the same blue door is waiting for him, and touches his hand to it again.

He's scared of being trapped, somewhere he doesn't know, and with people he doesn't know. The only thing he's thinking about is going home again, and he's hoping that whatever had happened last time he touched the door will happen again now.

Just like last time, it sucks him through immediately.

Just like last time, it brings him somewhere he's never seen before.

Sort of? Because after a moment of shock and confusion at the light and the people and the noise, he realizes this is the same place he'd been in before he found the strange blue door. But there's no market, and all the old stores that have been closed for longer than Akira has been alive are open and have people going in and out.

Everybody's dressed in clothes that look like they've never been worn by anyone else before. They look different from normal people. Clean. No one seems tired or scared.

"Are you lost, sweetie?"

He spins and jumps back, scared. An older lady is standing on his other side, half bent down to talk to him. She's smiling at him, but Akira doesn't smile back. "N-no," he says.

"Where are your parents?" the lady asks.

"Dead," Akira says.

He doesn't think this is a strange answer, but it seems to surprise the lady. She doesn't look like she knows what to say, and Akira doesn't like the way it makes her look at him. The lady is looking him over more carefully now, and she doesn't seem to like what she sees. Her gaze brushes over his clothes--second or third hand, but they fit him, and he's warm, and there's a lot of people that can't say that--and his frizzy hair falling half over his eyes, and then at the hole in the toe of his shoe.

"Who are you here with, honey?" the lady asks. Her voice sounds nicer. "Do you need help?"

Akira shuts his mouth tight and doesn't say anything. He doesn't trust people he doesn't know. She doesn't need to know anything about him or what he's doing here.

(Or anyone he cares about)

(...Tatsuya's going to be worried about him if he doesn't get back soon)

"Let's go talk to someone that can help," the lady says, reaching for his hand. "I don't think you should be here alone."

Akira kicks her in the shin and bolts.

(Tries to)

-//-

December 2006

-//-

Katsuya isn't even on duty (it's his day off, actually, he's buying lunch and minding his own business) when the half-feral looking child comes bolting out from nowhere and slams into him so hard that he bounces back off and hits the ground. 

(He whimpers, just for a second, something vulnerable and scared in the sound)

Then he's up again, trying to run past Katsuya, who isn't having it. There's no reason for a kid this young to be on his own here, and the fact that he's thin as a rail, smells like he hasn't showered in days, and is visibly scared is more than enough reason to stop him from bolting. Katsuya is still looking him up and down and trying to figure out what he is even supposed to do here when a middle aged woman comes huffing around a corner from the same direction as the boy.

"Well," she says immediately. "Is this your child?"

"No," Katsuya says. He doesn't let go of the boy's shoulder, holding tight in spite of the increasingly frantic squirming), but does half turn to face her. "But I'm with the police." He shows her his badge. She sniffs.

"Good," she says. "This little hellion just attacked me. And I was only trying to help."

The boy's struggling is getting to the point where he's only going to hurt himself, and the woman seems like she's working herself up to a really good, long complaint, and honestly Katsuya just doesn't have the energy to handle both of them at once. "Ma'am," he says, holding his free hand up quickly to stop her before she can get started. "I appreciate you bringing this to my attention."

Unstated but clearly implied by his tone is the and now you can move along.

For a second, the woman looks like she's not going to. She opens her mouth again, closes it, and then turns and pointedly limps away. Katsuya watches her go, not... entirely sure how much is an act. But at least she's leaving, and that leaves him with only the problem of the desperately twisting child still trying to get away from him. Katsuya crouches in front of him, moving so he's holding both of the child's shoulders, and hopes he can find a way to get through to him. He has no idea what had upset him so badly, but now that they're on the same level, he can see that there's a lot of fear behind it. Something has scared him badly, and Katsuya doesn't really think it had been the woman that had followed him here.

"My name's Katsuya Suou," he says, doing his best to sound reassuring. "I'm a--"

"Suou?" The boy stops struggling immediately, looking up through wide eyes instead. "Like Tatsuya!"

Katsuya hesitates, then asks, "...how do you know my brother?"

"He takes care of me," the boy says, which is... not true. Katsuya works with his brother these days; Tatsuya had decided to follow him into the police force after finishing school, and physical proximity has brought them closer as brothers, too.

(That, and the fact that Katsuya has never quite stopped worrying about what's going to happen to reality if Tatsuya or his friends ever remember)

(Maya says he's being too careful, that they're seven years on and nothing's happened yet. If the timeline can survive Tatsuya and his friends meeting a year after everything had happened, if it can survive Tatsuya and Jun dating for four years and counting, there's probably not going to be any spontaneous mass rememberings)

(Katsuya keeps an eye on his brother anyway)

And so he knows for a fact that Tatsuya is not taking care of any small, wild looking children.

"What's your name?" Katsuya asks, because he needs something to hold onto, and he's just not finding any other solid handholds in this conversation.

"Akira," the boy says. 

"How old are you, Akira?" 

"Six," Akira says. "And a half." 

He looks much too small to be six years old. 

"When you say that Tatsuya takes care of you," Katsuya says carefully. "What do you mean, exactly?"

Akira shrugs. Katsuya still has his hands on his shoulders, just in case, and feels the skinny bones moving in a jerky twitch, up and down. "He just does," he says, unhelpfully.

"What about your parents?" Katsuya says. "Where are they?"

"Dead," Akira says. "I told that lady too." This doesn't seem to bother him much, which unnerves Katsuya a little bit. He wonders how long it's been since his parents died, and if Akira is maybe young enough to not remember them. "Can, um... can you help me find out how to get home?" And if he hadn't seemed worried about his parents earlier, there is vulnerability in his voice now. "Tatsuya says the police used to help people."

"Used to..?"

Akira nods. "Before all the bad things happened. And now we have to be careful and take care of each other," he says. This last part has the sound of rote memorization, the way that other children might recite a reminder not to talk to strangers or look both ways before crossing the street. "Only..." He looks down, face suddenly flushed. "I didn't do that, I went to go look at the door cuz I never saw one that was all blue and glowy like that, and now I'm here and everything's weird--"

He stops talking abruptly, making a small, hitched noise in the back of his throat that sounds like he's trying not to cry.

(A blue door)

Something in Katsuya's gut twists. He hasn't seen the Velvet Room for years, and Akira's scattered explanation doesn't tell him much. But this is so strange already, and there is something visibly unnatural in the way that door had always looked. So what if...?

And if there's something as strange as the Velvet Room involved in how Akira had gotten here, it's not so strange to think that there could be other supernatural twists to his story. It's not impossible to imagine him stepping into the Velvet Room from somewhere else.

There's another Tatsuya besides the one he'd assumed Akira was talking about, and the last time he'd seen him, he'd been going back to a dead world. Katsuya stares blankly at the child that has stumbled back out of the Other Side, until finally Akira's loses his fight to keep from crying. As his tears finally start to fall, Katsuya shifts his grip on the boy's shoulders, trying to comfort him if he can.

"We'll go look at where you saw the doors," he says. His voice is a little hoarse, and there's a complicated swirl of emotions churning through him. The implications of what's happening here--if what he thinks might be happening here is what is actually happening here--are tied up with a dangerous, strange, and sad part of his life. 

But not, he has to admit, one that had been completely without silver linings. He knows himself better now than he had before then. He'd met good people.

"I don't remember where it was," Akira admits. "I ran away."

"That's okay," Katsuya says. "I think I know."

Akira stays glued to his side as Katsuya steers him back toward the still-empty storefront where he remembers the Velvet Room had been all those years ago. It had disappeared after everything quieted down, when the demons disappeared from the streets and the rest of the city moved on with normal life. He's disappointed (and honestly, a little confused) to see nothing there, but Akira lights up immediately.

"You found it!" he says, and his eyes are fixed ahead of him on something Katsuya realizes he just can't see. Whatever's going on here, it's not for him. Not this time. Instead there's this kid who barely looks old enough for school passing through the Velvet Room, going back and forth between the Other Side and this one.

Akira starts to move, but Katsuya grabs at his shoulder again. "Hold on a second," he says. "Do you think you can do me a couple of favors, Akira?"

"Okay?" he says. His eyes come up to meet Katsuya's for a second, but then flick away again, back to where he'd been looking before. "But I want to go home..."

Back home to a dead world, Katsuya thinks with a little twist of pity and guilt. He's not sure that letting Akira go is the right thing to do. A part of him keeps thinking that it can't be the right thing to do to just let him walk back into whatever he'd walked out of. He looks hungry and lean in a way that implies more than a missed meal or two, and Katsuya's sure that's just scratching the surface of what he's been through.

But on the other hand, they'll never know anything if Katsuya stops Akira from leaving. And in the past, not knowing things has turned out to be very dangerous. 

So he explains to Akira very carefully what he wants him to do. The first is a question he needs to ask, and the second is a letter he needs to carry. Akira listens, but he's just a kid, and Katsuya can tell after a while that his attention is starting to wander. To keep him occupied while he writes out his letter, Katsuya deposits Akira on a bench and gives him the lunch he'd been planning to bring home for himself. They get a few sideways glances from people passing them, but no one seems interested enough in the small, slightly grubby child kneeling on the bench to say anything.

The letter writing takes longer than it probably should; Akira keeps interrupting him with questions. They're cautious at first, a little bit shy, but when Katsuya keeps answering them, he gets bolder. Most of them are some variant of what's that, and paint a not entirely reassuring picture of what life must be like growing up on the Other Side, and all the things Akira has just never had a chance to see before. Katsuya answers his endless stream of questions, and by the time he's handed over the letter, he's realized something.

(This is just a child, doing his best with the world he's been given, one that sounds much more dangerous than the one Katsuya lives in, one where it seems much too easy to be hurt)

(And he is not going to let him hurt any more)

-//-

December 2006

-//-

Akira tumbles back out through the blue door with Katsuya's letter clutched in his hand, repeating the answer to the question he was supposed to ask over and over in his head so he won't forget it. He almost does, though, when he looks around and sees that he's back where he's supposed to be--the relief of being in familiar surroundings crowds everything else out for a second, and Akira almost even forgets to be careful as he goes running through the market, looking for Tatsuya. He's not in the same place he had been when Akira last saw him, but he finds him pretty fast, worried and looking for him, too.

The first thing Akira does when he spots him is sprint at him as fast as he can go, and the second thing he does is grab on and hold on tight.

The third thing he does--after Tatsuya has had his chance to tell Akira that he should know better than to run off, that he needs to be careful--is reach his hand up with the letter still clutched in it, and reel off the answer he's been doing his best to remember all this time.

"He says it's for someday later," he reports. "He says, someday I have to do something, but I'm on the wrong side, and when it happens I'm supposed to know how to do stuff over there."

(This is not exactly what the man with the long nose had told Akira when he asked him why the Velvet Room is letting him in, the way Katsuya told him to)

(But it's pretty close, and Akira's not really as worried about that as he is about being home again, and back with his safe person)

"What?" Tatsuya says. He looks at Akira a little strangely, then seems to notice the letter for the first time. "Who's this from?"

"He says he's your brother."

Tatsuya opens his mouth, then closes it again, then gives Akira a look he doesn't understand at all.

"Can we go home now?" Akira asks, and finally Tatsuya does say something to this.

"Yeah," he says. "That sounds like a good idea."

They don't talk much on the way back, and when they get to their apartment and the doors are locked for safety, Tatsuya sits at the old kitchen table and reads the letter over and over again. Akira, who can't read much (Tatsuya has been trying but there's not a lot of things for him to practice with), ignores the letter and sits on his bed instead, hugging his knees and looking out the window. From here he can see the edge of the city, where it drops off into nothingness, where he is definitely not supposed to go because sometimes people still fall off. 

He hadn't known there was anything in the city like what he'd seen today. 

It had been a lot, and he's happy to be home again where he knows what's going on and how to stay safe, but... 

He kind of wants to see it again. 

-//-

Tatsuya:

I don't know if this letter's going to reach you, but Akira says he's with you, and I can draw certain conclusions from how it seems he arrived here. In case he's not able to explain things himself, it seems like he stumbled on a door to the Velvet Room, and when he left, it let him out on This Side. I could be wrong about any of that, or even where he's from. But it seems like that matches all the facts as I know them.

I'm not sure if it was right to send him back, but if he's going back to you, at least I know he'll be safe. I told him when he goes back through the Velvet Room, he needs to ask them there why he can see it now but the rest of us can't. It might be for the best that it's not... quite as open as it used to be, considering everything, but it would still be helpful to know. Whatever else is going on, that's their domain and they should know why things have changed. Hopefully you'll be able to make something out of whatever the answer is.

I hope you're staying safe, or at least as safe as you can. It looks like things might not be as cut off between us as they used to be, and if that's true, then know you'll always have people here to help if we can.

- Katsuya

-//-

January 2007

-//-

Akira's next trip through the blue door is two and a half weeks later. He's excited by the idea of going back when Tatsuya suggests it, but disappointed when he's told that he'll have to go alone again.

"Why can't you come too?" Akira asks, as they walk back to where the market had been the last time the blue door let Akira in to what he now knows is called the Velvet Room. "It's not fair."

Tatsuya gives him a look Akira can't read. "I don't think anyone else can go in right now," he says. 

"Maybe we could figure something out."

"I don't think so, Akira," Tatsuya says. 

"Then I don't want to go either." 

They're almost but not quite at the door. Akira can actually see it at the end of a long, shadowed hall, casting its dim glow out onto the cracked floor tiles nearby.  Today is not a market day, so they're alone in here. In the quiet, Akira can almost imagine he hears a snatch of song drifting out through the door.

Tatsuya stops when Akira does. "You have to," he says.

Akira answers by crossing his arms and refusing to look at either Tatsuya or the door.

"Listen." Tatsuya turns around and crouches in front of him. "I can't go there. Even if you weren't the only one that can go into the Velvet Room right now, I can't ever go back there."

"Is it a bad place?" Akira asks.

"No."

"Then why don't you want to go back?"

"It's not..." Tatsuya doesn't say anything for a very long time. Sometimes he does that, just goes quiet and won't say anything for a while. Akira knows better than to try and rush him through it, usually, but today he is upset, and makes an unhappy, impatient noise. Finally, Tatsuya says, "It's not about... not wanting to. I just can't."

"But--"

"You don't need to worry about it," Tatsuya assures him. He does his best to smile, but Akira thinks it's a lie.

"Then why do I have to go?" Akira asks.

"Don't you want to?" Tatsuya asks. "You've been talking about it ever since you came back."

"Well..." He has been talking about it a lot. There's not a lot of new things to see in the city, and something about the place on the other side of the Velvet Room feels different. Akira wants to see it again, he just... doesn't want to go alone. "There were a lot of people," he tells Tatsuya.

"There probably weren't all that many," Tatsuya says gently. "There's... not a lot of people here. Anything would seem busy compared to this."

"It felt like a lot."

"I know." Tatsuya takes a deep breath. "But things are better there than they're ever going to be here, and you should get to see that. You shouldn't be stuck here."

A new and very scary thought hits Akira at these words, and his eyes go wide. "Are you trying to send me away?" he asks.

"Akira--"

"I don't wanna go!" He stomps a foot and shakes his head, using that to hide the way the rest of him is shaking too. Everything had turned out okay last time, but it had been scary first, and he'd really thought Tatsuya would come with him. "Not without you!"

He's blinking back tears, trying to be more angry than scared, but to his surprise, he's not the one that cries first. Akira has never, never seen Tatsuya cry before, but suddenly there are tears on the man's face, so shocking that Akira forgets about his half-formed tantrum.

"...Tatsuya?"

"I wish I could go with you," Tatsuya says quietly, reaching out for Akira's hand. "But I can't. And you're just going to have to trust me. Okay?"

Akira nods. He hates that he made Tatsuya cry, even if he doesn't understand why.

"You'll be with my brother again," Tatsuya says. "You remember how we practiced using the payphone?"

"Yeah," Akira says. The payphone Tatsuya had taught him to use doesn't work, it needs electricity, but he'd showed Akira exactly what he needs to do to use it if it had worked. He'd given Akira a handful of the coins nobody uses anymore, and showed him where to put it into the payphone to make it work.

"Okay," Tatsuya says. "So when you go through the Velvet Room, you need to find one of those and call the number we practiced with."

"What does that do?" Akira asks.

"It's been Katsuya's number as long as he's had his own phone," Tatsuya says. "He'll pick up."

Akira doesn't think this is the right moment to point out he doesn't know what the number is for, or what Katsuya is going to pick up, exactly. "I'm sorry I made you cry," he says instead. That seems like the more important problem. 

"You didn't make me cry," Tatsuya says.

"You are too crying."

Tatsuya's smile is a little crooked. He isn't really crying much, but seeing even one tear from him makes Akira feel awful for causing it. "I mean that it's not your fault," he says. "There's just a lot of people there that I want to see again."

Akira hugs him anyway. Tatsuya answers it with a steady arm around his shoulders, holding him close. When he pulls back, Tatsuya says, "I wrote Katsuya a letter. Can you bring it back to him?"

"Yeah," Akira says, and takes the piece of paper Tatsuya hands over. "So... is it time to go?"

He still doesn't really want to.

"It is," Tatsuya says. He stands up, and Akira latches onto his hand before Tatsuya has a chance to move away.

"Will you wait for me to get back?" he asks.

"I'll be here tonight," Tatsuya says. He squeezes Akira's hand, and Akira feels safe. Together they walk over to the Velvet Room, and after taking a deep breath, Akira reluctantly lets go of Tatsuya's hand, and reaches for the door.

He's back in the Velvet Room.

(He's still a little nervous)

(At least no one here seems mad to see him. The man with the long nose meets his eyes and smiles encouragingly at him)

Akira doesn't stop to talk this time. He turns around instead and goes back outside, back to the crowded, too-bright version of the building he'd just been in. There's no Tatsuya, but lots of other people, and Akira skirts around the edge of the open hallway until he finds a payphone. It makes a funny droning noise when he picks it up, one that Akira hadn't heard when he practiced with Tatsuya. He stands on his toes to reach the slot where the coins go in, and counts carefully to make sure he gets it right. They rattle as they fall, and then he puts in the number that Tatsuya had patiently taught him. 

The droning of the phone changes. Something that sounds like a bell rings in his ear, once, then twice. Before it can ring a third time, Akira hears Katsuya's voice.

"This is Katsuya Suou."

So that's how it works. 

There's a brief pause and then Katsuya says, "Hello?" like he's not sure if he's still talking to anyone.

Akira thinks he's probably supposed to say something back. He squeezes the phone tighter. "Um," he says. "This is Akira. Tatsuya said to come back and call you, and maybe you can help?"

"Are you in the same place where we met last time?" Katsuya asks.

Akira nods. Then thinks Katsuya can't see him, and says yes out loud, too.

"Then I'll be there in fifteen minutes," Katsuya says.

"Okay. Um..." He looks down at the hand not holding the phone. "Tatsuya gave me a letter to give back to you, too."

"You can give it to me when I get there," Katsuya says. "Just stay where you are, okay?"

"Kay," Akira says, and when he droning noise comes back, he stands back up on his toes to hang the phone up again.

And then he waits, chin in his hand, watching the Velvet Room door and trying to be brave.

-//-

Katsuya--

Sounds like your guess is pretty much right. Akira was pretty upset when he came back, but it sounds like he talked to Igor, and something big's coming eventually. I guess it's important for Akira to be able to get to your side when that happens, so that's why the Velvet Room opened up for him. I don't know if that's something we can stop before it happens, because I don't want him involved in anything like what we had to go through. But at least it seems like it's not happening any time soon, so for now maybe this is something we can use.

I just want him to be safe. I've been taking care of Akira for four years now, ever since his mother died. I don't want him to get sucked into the kinds of things I went through. Or what any of us went through. But I'm also not sure I could stop it no matter what I do. Things spiraled out of control so fast for us. If Akira ever has to face those things, if we can't stop it and if he really has to be on your side, then I don't want him to be struggling more than he has to be. It'll be hard enough whatever else happens.

If you really meant what you said in your letter about helping if you can, then please help Akira. I think he's scared of how different things are there.  I told him I would wait for him here tonight, but

if you don't let him come back that could be safer
I think it might be better for him if he stays there 
I know things are better on your side, it's just that he wants to come back and I want
this might be selfish

I know it's asking a lot, so thank you for sending him back.

- Tatsuya 

Chapter Text

Tatsuya - 

I've been thinking a lot now that Akira's been coming to visit more regularly. I have no issue with continuing to host him when he's here, but it's been two months, and I think he needs more than just sitting around while he's here. He says he's six years old, so that's old enough to enroll him in school. We'd need to work out some of the details, and come up with a past that explains where he came from, but I think it would be good for him to have something to do. 

- Katsuya

-//-

K- 

I can't believe I'm saying it after how much trouble I used to give you about school, but I think you're right. I've never seen him as excited as he has been since he started visiting you. 

I can talk to him about it, if you can come up with the right excuse to give to the school for where he came from.

-T

-//-

Tatsuya -

I think I have an idea. But I don't know if you're going to like it.

...

...

-//-

March 2006

-//-

Tatsuya is putting Akira to bed when their usual routine is interrupted by Akira pointing out the window and asking, "Tatsuya, 's that where the Other Side is?"

It's funny, Tatsuya thinks, that Akira has picked up his habit of saying This Side or the Other Side when he's talking about the two different versions of Sumaru City. But where Tatsuya has always thought of this floating city as the Other Side, too strange and impossible to be anything but Other, Akira has latched onto the opposite. To him, the more normal Sumaru that's still on the ground is Other.

"...Tatsuya?" Akira asks again. His voice is starting to slur with sleep, eyelids already looking heavy, and when he points out the window it takes Tatsuya a second or two to realize what he means. But he's gesturing more or less at the edge of the city, and past it, to where the still-strange sight of Earth below them is clearly visible. 

"Sort of," he says. Because yes, the other Sumaru City is still on the planet's surface, just not that planet's surface. 

"It doesn't fly," Akira says. 

"No," Tatsuya agrees. "It doesn't." Not anymore, anyway.

"It's weird," Akira says, and then yawns. His hand drops from where he'd been pointing, and he shifts deeper under the blankets. "But nice weird."

Tatsuya sits next to Akira, who immediately squirms closer to him, close enough so that Tatsuya can put a hand on his back and feel his steady breathing. As Akira drifts toward sleep and his breathing gets slower, Tatsuya finds himself thinking about what he's supposed to do next. Akira's made the trip back and forth between This Side and the other one a dozen times in the last two months for a few hours there or a day there, and those brief trips have shown Tatsuya something he hadn't realized before that Akira was missing.

In brief glimpses here and there, when Akira talks about what he's seen on the Other Side, the things he's learned or the new questions he has, Tatsuya gets to see the Akira that might have been if he didn't live... here. Flashes of curiosity, of excitement. Last week, he'd followed Tatsuya around their small apartment for fifteen minutes, telling a very long story that made very little sense but he thought was funny--he'd laughed until he was breathless, giggling through his fingers as he tried hard not to be too loud. It's the kind of silly nonsense that Tatsuya's pretty sure kids his age are supposed to be thinking about.

But Akira doesn't. Not usually. Because he'd been born on This Side, and so he's too busy being afraid, or tired, or hungry. 

He knows that Akira clings to him because he is afraid. That he's always reaching out for him, always seeking touch and reassurance because he's living in a world that can hurt him, one that he can't protect himself from. He's tiny, smaller than Tatsuya thinks a six year old should be. No one here gets enough to eat, but Akira is still growing, and he's probably not growing enough. He's too skinny and too short, his mother had died while he was in her arms, and Tatsuya has never figured out how to talk about that. He's tried to be there for him instead, but...

But this place is dangerous. It's dangerous, and Tatsuya scrapes out a living by trying to make it better, as much as he can. He's fought demons and mechs and his friends' Shadows and worse, he knows how to use a sword. And he uses it now to protect people.

Someday, that's going to catch up to him. Akira will be safer somewhere else, Tatsuya thinks.

Katsuya had sent a longer than usual letter back with Akira last time. It had started with I think I have an idea, and then gone onto a lot of detail about how exactly it would work to get Akira into school. He'd have the chance to meet other people and learn the kinds of things that Tatsuya had honestly thought were a lot less important when he was in school himself.

(Now he just wants his kid to have a chance)

(At... something. He doesn't know what, but how much is there for him here?)

This is hard. This is giving up someone he cares about, because things will be better for them without him. "Akira," he says quietly.

Akira makes a sleepy noise, and Tatsuya wonders if they should talk about this later. When Akira's more awake. But it's easier to start now, when things are quiet. 

"I've been writing to Katsuya," he says.

Akira nods. 

"He thinks it would be pretty easy to get you to be able to officially stay with him," he says. Akira is six years old and visibly malnourished. It won't be a stretch for Katsuya to claim he'd found Akira on something police related. The Other Side's Sumaru City is a much safer place than this one, but there are still people that turn up dead with no one to miss them. Every city has its homeless and its drifters. Easy enough to claim Akira had been abandoned or orphaned by someone like that. Then... well, Katsuya knows people. Child services, things like that. He can make sure Akira ends up with him.

"Like pretend?" Akira asks. He yawns again, but his eyes--which had drifted closed--open a little again to fix Tatsuya with a look that's half sleep and half squint.

"Right," Tatsuya says, after a pause. He's not sure if he's explaining adoption right, and thinks... honestly, probably not.  "Everyone will think the two of you are family," he continues. "You can stay there. You could... you could do a lot of things. Go to school. Make friends."

"Okay," Akira says.

"Okay," Tatsuya repeats. A part of him feels heavy. He wishes, selfishly, that Akira had argued more. 

"And I can keep bringing you letters," Akira says. "I'm helping."

"No--" Tatsuya takes a deep breath. "You wouldn't be coming here anymore. You would stay with Katsuya." He half smiles. "He basically raised me. I know he'd be good for you, too. And he wrote in his last letter that you can stay, so... you could be better off there."

"Nuh uh," Akira says, with all the emphasis of a six year old that completely believes he's right. "I can play pretend and go to school and make friends, and then come home and stay with you. I don't wanna stay there."

"It's safer to stay there," Tatsuya says.

"Yeah," Akira says. He blinks once, twice, the movement slow. Tatsuya can tell he's having a hard time keeping his eyes open, and his voice is just a little petulant as he says. "But you won't come with, so I wanna stay here."

And then his eyes close for the last time, and he's asleep. 

Tatsuya sits there for a long time, listening to Akira's breathing, looking out the window to the edge of the city. He's thinking about how hard it is to live here. He's thinking about how hard it is to get enough food for two people, how hard it is to stay safe, how no one here deserves what they're living through, and Akira actually has a chance to get away. 

Or maybe...

(And he can't believe he's actually considering a plan a six year old had come up with while half-asleep)

(But what if Akira did 'play pretend' at school, and then come home to him?)

-//-

K - 

I think you're going to like my plan even less.

...

...

-//-

May 2007

-//-

Akira's first day at school is six weeks after Tatsuya had first sat down with him at bedtime and talked to him about it. Six weeks is a long time, Akira's pretty sure. It feels like a long time to him, anyway. The grown ups seem like they think it's pretty quick, but Akira is getting excited. Tatsuya's been telling him stories about the friends he used to have when he was little, and Akira likes hearing stories about them. It's funny to think about Tatsuya being a kid, playing with his friends.

(...sometimes the stories make Tatsuya seem sad, so Akira doesn't ask to hear them too much)

He's been visiting the Other Side a lot too, because apparently there's a lot of grown ups that need to talk to him and ask him questions before he can start school. Mostly they ask him about his parents, and if he wants to stay where he is.

Akira knows he's not supposed to talk about home with people that don't know about the Velvet Room. Tatsuya and Katsuya have both given him long, boring talks about how it's really, really important. So he knows he can't tell them about how the side he comes from is hard to live in and scary a lot of the time, but his favorite person is there, and Tatsuya tries all the time to make it better. For him, but also for other people. 

He fights for people that need it. He's a good person. Akira's pretty sure that if more people were like Tatsuya, their side wouldn't be as bad as it is right now.

(Someday, Akira wants to grow up to be like him, and be another person that makes Sumaru City better)

So anyway, when people come and ask him questions, Akira tells them the sort-of truth. He tells them his parents are dead, because he doesn't have a dad, and his mom is... 

Um.

He doesn't really remember his mom, except that sometimes he has dreams about her crying. He dreams about how she used to sound when she cried, and the night when she finally stopped crying, and how cold she was after.

He tells the grown ups all of that, and they nod and don't look at him, and Akira thinks they're sad too. 

When they ask him if he wants to stay where he is, he knows they're talking about Katsuya, about how he's pretending to stay with him for now until they can decide if it's going to be forever. But he pretends they're asking about Tatsuya, and tells them that yes he really, really wants to say, because he doesn't want to be by himself, he wants to be with someone that makes him feel safe and makes things better for other people too.

The grown ups seem like they like that answer. One of them tells Katsuya later that he should be proud of how much of an impression he's made as a good police officer.

Akira does his best to look like he agrees with this. Katsuya is nice. He does like him. And he's going to help Akira go to school where he can learn stuff and make friends, so Akira doesn't want him to feel bad.

(After that's over, he officially gets to be a Suou, too)

(He doesn't tell anyone how much that makes him happy, even if everyone's going to think that's because of Katsuya instead of Tatsuya)

And now all that is over, and it's time for Akira's first day of school.

He wakes up very early, before Tatsuya, before the sun is even up, and dances impatiently around the dim apartment. It seems like it takes forever for Tatsuya to get both of them ready, but finally they're leaving the apartment, making their way back to the Velvet Room. 

Akira does not let himself squirm around with impatience the way he wants to while they're walking. The city is starting to wake up, and that means there are people on the street, and that means being careful. Akira watches the people they pass, the way Tatsuya's taught him--most of the people they pass are watching the two of them, too, everyone keeping away from each other. Once, they pass a gang of teenagers hanging out at the entrance to a building that's mostly just rubble. The teenagers laugh in a way that doesn't seem nice, and Akira sidesteps a little closer to Tatsuya, holding his hand tight.

Tatsuya puts his other hand on his sword, and makes eye contact with the boy at the front of the group. 

The group drops back.

When they get to the Velvet Room, Tatsuya lets go of Akira's hand. "You know what to do, right?" he asks. 

Akira nods. "Yeah," he says. "Katsuya's gonna come get me when I'm on the Other Side, and take me to his apartment so I can get ready for school, and then I get to go to school."

"Right," Tatsuya says.

"And make friends," Akira adds.

"Yes," Tatsuya says. "But you can't tell them--"

"About you," Akira finishes. "Or the Velvet Room, or here. I know, I know, I know!"

Tatsuya laughs at him a little, ruffling his hair. His eyes light up in a way they just don't usually, and Akira beams. "Will you come get me after school?" he asks.

"I will," Tatsuya promises. Then he hands Akira a letter for Katsuya like usual, and sends him off through the door.

The Velvet Room used to make Akira a little nervous because of how weird it is. It's not like either side, and the people in it aren't like normal people. They're not like the people on his Side that are scared or mean or both, and they're not like the people on the Other Side that don't ever really seem like they understand how weird everything is there. They're their own special kind of weird, and Akira's getting used to them. He waves excitedly as he rushes in. "I'm going to school today," he announces.

The demon painter (who is not, Akira had eventually learned, a painter who is a demon, but a painter who paints demons) chuckles and gives him a sideways look. The man with the long nose, whose name is Igor (and is also not a demon, Akira had checked) says, "It seems you're quite excited about that."

"Yep!" He bounces a little, letting out some of the energy he couldn't when he was at home. "But Katsuya's waiting for me and I don't wanna be late!"

So he takes a deep breath and goes running back out. The area around Velvet Room door on the Other Side isn't really busy this early in the morning, so Akira finds Katsuya right away--he's the only other person around, sitting on a bench not too far from where Akira had left Tatsuya a few minutes ago. 

"Good morning," Akira says. He checks--he always checks--that there's nothing bad around before he lets his guard down. But there's no other people around, and nothing dangerous, so he relaxes.

"I can't believe I let Tatsuya talk me into this," Katsuya says, as he stands up and gestures for Akira to follow him. He doesn't sound angry, exactly, but Akira has a hard time reading all the layers in his voice. It's kind of the same as when Tatsuya talks about the friends he used to have when he was a kid, like he's thinking about something that makes him happy and sad at the same time.

"It's great, right?" Akira asks. He doesn't feel sad. He's just excited.

Katsuya looks down at him, opens his mouth, then shakes his head and smiles a little. "Alright," he says. "I brought you clothes, you can't go to school like that."

Because clothes here are nice and clean and new, so wearing his clothes from home would make people wonder what's wrong with him. But wearing clothes from here at home would make people there wonder where he got anything so nice. Akira's used to the changing back and forth by now, so when Katsuya points him toward the public restroom, Akira is in and out as fast as he can go.

He chatters away to Katsuya as they drive to the elementary school, doing most of the talking as he stares out the car window. Katsuya lets him do most of the talking, slipping in little questions and comments every once in a while that usually just set Akira off again. 

When they get to the school, Katsuya asks, "Do you know where to go when you get inside?"

"Yeah," Akira says. Usually, apparently, school starts in the spring. Since Akira had missed that while they were trying to make Katsuya his pretend parent, the school made them come in once already so he could meet his teacher and see his classroom. She'd showed him where to come find him in the staff room on his first day, and he remembers where it is. "Thank you for helping me get here."

Katsuya doesn't say anything at first. Akira watches him, and the way his eyes keep checking him over, making sure he looks okay. Then Katsuya says, "I know you don't want this to be your home, but remember there are people here that care about you too."

"I know," Akira says immediately. He's met more bad people in the world than nice people, and even out of all the nice people he knows--the other people that live in the same apartment building as them, the people Tatsuya helps--most of them aren't people he really trusts. He trusts Tatsuya, because he's always taken care of him. And he trusts the Velvet Room people, because they're so...

(He doesn't know the words to explain the people in the Velvet Room)

And when he's here, he trusts Katsuya because he understands more than most people here, and he's Tatsuya's brother, and Akira knows he's working hard to help him. 

"Thank you," he says. 

"You're welcome," Katsuya says. "Have a good first day of school, okay?" 

Akira nods.

"And Maya will be here after school," Katsuya says. "Is that okay?"

This time he hesitates a second. He's met Maya a few times, she's Katsuya's friend and also, he thinks, Tatsuya's friend too. She's pretty nice, and Akira's pretty sure that she stays with Katsuya overnight sometimes. Which is really nice of her, because that way neither of them has to be lonely, and Akira doesn't have to worry as much about what might happen if someone broke into Katsuya's apartment overnight. Two people is safer than one person by themselves, after all.

"Yeah," he decides. "And she'll take me back to the Velvet Room?"

"She'll take you back to my apartment so you can eat and do homework if you have any," Katsuya says. "And then one of us will take you back."

Akira nods. This is okay. One of the really good things about being on the Other Side is that there's much better food, and it's a lot easier to get. He's not going to argue about being fed before he goes home. 

"Good," Katsuya says. "So go on or you'll be late for class."

Akira nods furiously, and goes hurrying into school.

He does know where to go, he remembers where they'd gone when Katsuya took him to meet his teacher, and he retraces his steps. Last time the whole school was empty except for a few teachers, but this time there's a few kids going to their own classrooms. Almost all of them are older than Akira, and he keeps an eye on as many of them as he can while he walks.

The staff room is less crowded, and his teacher is nice. She tells him she's happy he's there, and then explains that after the bell rings, she'll take him to the classroom where he can introduce himself to his classmates.

"It might be a little hard to get used to for a little while," his teacher says. "Your father said you weren't in school before this, right?"

Akira looks at her blankly, then remembers other people are going to start calling Katsuya that. He nods with a little jerk. "Right," he says.

"Well if you ever need help with things," his teacher says. "You can come ask me questions."

"Okay," Akira says.

She smiles. "Do your best while you're here," she says. "And you'll fit in just fine."

Chimes ring from somewhere, and Akira jumps.

"That just means class is about to start," his teacher says. "Follow me, we'll go to the classroom together."

There are more kids in the hallway now, a lot of them running, some of them shouting. A few other teachers stand in front of classroom doors, reminding their students to stop running and keep their voices down in the school. Some of them do and some of them don't. 

By the time Akira follows his teachers into the classroom, almost every desk is filled. There's a little huddle of girls in a corner standing together in the back, whispering and giggling about something, but when they see the teacher come in one of them laughs and they all run back to their seats.

"Good morning, everyone," the teacher says, and the students chorus good morning back to her. A lot of them are looking at Akira more than at her though, and a few people start whispering to each other.

"We have a new student with us today," the teacher says. "This is Akira Suou, and he'll be with us for the rest of the year." She looks down at Akira. "Do you want to say something to the class, Akira?"

"I..."

He looks out at the sea of unfamiliar faces in front of him, and something tight squeezes inside his chest. He'd wanted to come to school to make friends, but he hadn't thought about what it would be like to meet those people for the first time. There aren't a lot of kids his age on his Side, because people mostly stopped having babies when the city started to fly. But here...

Akira has never felt nervous before. He's never had to think about what being in a room full of kids that he desperately wants to like him would feel like. But there's a whole crowd of kids staring back at him now, and Akira can't stop thinking about what's going to happen if no one likes him, or if it turns out some of these kids aren't friends, or--

(what if, what if, what if)

He's never felt nervous before about anything like this, but he's lived his whole life being afraid, and this is very close. His brain does the best it can with the sudden rush of anxiety, and interprets it as fear.

He's scared, and he knows what to do with that. 

(Get away from the dangerous thing, find somewhere safe)

He bolts.

-//-

Hi, Tatsuya!

I know you were probably expecting a letter from Katsuya, but he's talking to Akira, so I said I'd write for him. I'm sure by the time you have a chance to open this letter, Akira will have told you all about what happened. But he's pretty upset, and I don't know if you're going to get the whole story from him.

To start with, he didn't make it very far into the school day. I think having that many people around made him nervous, which it sounds like we probably should have expected. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of other kids around on the Other Side, are there?

He's probably going to tell you he doesn't want to go back again. That's what he's been telling us, anyway. But I don't think he should. I think there are too many people that believe in him for him to just give up. If he made it this far, I know he can keep going. 

So anyway, no matter what Akira says, me or Katsuya will be here in the morning tomorrow to take him back to school again. And if he doesn't come back tomorrow, then we'll be here the day after that. 

Take care of yourself, Tatsuya. You and Akira, take care of each other.

- Maya

-//-

Maya -

I wasn't expecting to hear from you, but you sound like you're doing okay. Akira says... well, what he said is that you sleep over with Katsuya so there will be two people around in case anyone tries to break in, but I'm guessing that's not what's really going on? 

He also says he never wants to go back to school again, by the way. You were right about that. I think I really messed up if he's more afraid of going to school than he is of being here, and that's why he's coming back again today. I'm sorry if this is a lot of trouble, and I'm sorry it took a couple days, but you're right. I can't just give up on him.

- Tatsuya

Oh, and

since you're reading this... how are you?

how's everyone else? Are our friends okay?

tell my brother he better be taking care of you.

-//-

Hi again Tatsuya!

I don't know what you told Akira to convince him to come back, but hey, two days off isn't bad! He dragged his feet a little about going in today, but I ended up calling in sick and taking him early so he could get in before most of his classmates. I think that might have helped a little, because it's 1:30 now and he's still there.

This is going to be pretty hard, I think. But hey, we can all do it together, right?

- Maya

Oh, and don't worry about me. I've been doing a lot more taking care of Katsuya than the other way around lately. Akira keeps feeding these stray cats in the neighborhood (my fault I think, I showed him how the first time), and they've started hanging around looking for food even when he's not here. And you know how bad his allergies are.

-//-

Maya -

Well, one full day of school down. I don't know if it went well. Akira says he'll go back again tomorrow, but he's also a lot quieter today. I think he was hoping to make friends, and I don't know if I did a good job of teaching him how that happens. It took all of us a long time to find each other when we were younger, didn't it? And then a long time to find each other again.

Thank you for being there for him until he can figure things out for himself.

- Tatsuya

Please make sure he goes to a doctor if he actually starts to swell up. He used to scare me when I was a kid and he'd have a bad reaction, I don't want Akira to see that and freak out.

-//-

Tatsuya -

You know I'm reading these too, right?

- Katsuya

-//-

May 2007

-//-

Katsuya is at his desk at work, supposedly focusing on a report of a recent incident, but really frowning down at the short letter he'd just dashed off to the Other Side's Tatsuya. He probably should have written more. He's pretty sure that Tatsuya doesn't have a lot of contact with other people where he is, other than these letters and, of course, Akira. 

But Maya's writing something longer, and he'll have time to sit down and write more on Sunday when he's off. Besides, the two of them are worrying about him and his allergies much more than they should be. He's fine.

(And if he's not, it's at least partly his own fault)

(...it's possible Akira hasn't been the only one leaving food out)

(But he's not here every day, and it's just not fair to the cats that they're not being fed when Akira's on the Other Side)

"What's that?"

He startles out of his thoughts when he hears Tatsuya's voice next to him, and he looks up at where his brother is standing there, looking down at the note Katsuya has just finished scrawling to the him of the Other Side. Too slow, and more than a little awkwardly, he puts his hand over the note.

There's a pause.

"Okay?" Tatsuya says. "I just thought I saw my name, that's all."

"Just a coincidence," Katsuya says, sliding the note under a neat pile of completed work. He can't possibly talk to the Tatsuya of This Side about what's happening on the Other Side. He genuinely has no idea if this Tatsuya is even capable of remembering anything that had happened during the time when demons had invaded the city, or whether anything would happen if he ever did. The Other Side's Tatsuya is poison to This Side staying stable, but Katsuya has no idea how dangerous his brother's memories on This Side are.

He's been keeping quiet anyway, just to be safe.

"Alright," Tatsuya says. "I came over for something else, anyway."

"Of course," Katsuya says, relieved for literally any change of subject. "What did you come for?"

"I wanted to ask when I get to meet your kid," Tatsuya says.

Or maybe he's not ready for just any change of subject, because this is something else that might turn out to be dangerous.

"I... don't really know if that's a good idea," Katsuya says.

"I know, I know," Tatsuya says. "You keep telling me he's nervous around people. But he's at school now, isn't he? He must be getting used to being with strangers. And he's your kid, so... I want to meet him."

This is extremely dangerous. Katsuya has no idea if Akira even understands the difference between the two Tatsuyas, or if he'll say something that gives away the fact that the strange arrangement they've come up with is mostly a lie. He hasn't said anything at school, but he also hardly ever talks to anyone there, as far as Katsuya can tell. As badly as Akira wants to make friends, it hasn't happened yet.

The Other Side's Tatsuya is someone that Akira trusts absolutely. If he was going to say anything to anyone, it would be This Side's Tatsuya, and if he says anything to This Side's Tatsuya, then--

"I... want you to meet Jun, too," Tatsuya says. "My, uh... my partner."

Katsuya's thoughts jerk to a stop.

Jun is one of Tatsuya and Maya's friends. One of the group of five that had met as children, gone their separate ways, and reunited when rumors in Sumaru City started coming true. Jun is one of the four that had given up his memories to try and save the world from exactly what Tatsuya and Akira are living with on the other side. Tatsuya had been the only one to hold onto his own memories, and it wasn't until he separated from the him of This Side--leaving This Side's Tatsuya with no memories of his friends, and only a big, blank hole where the disaster of that spring should have been--that thing stabilized.

The only one of that original five that remembers now is Maya. She'd given her own up, and been almost forced to remember when things went wrong again. Katsuya thinks that's why, even as the other four have met up again, drawn together like it's some kind of fate, she's kept distance between them.

The weight of both Tatsuya and Maya remembering together had been too much for the world to bear. It can't happen again, which is why Katsuya takes it upon himself to keep an eye on Tatsuya and his friends, mostly without any of them knowing. To make sure none of them are close to remembering. 

But that's how he'd accidentally found out that his brother and one of the others from back then have started dating. He and Jun Kurosu are being extremely careful, because what other choice do two men have, but Katsuya is trying to make sure they literally do not destroy the universe. He's been more observant than they've been careful. Tatsuya hasn't even told him yet that he's interested in men, and Katsuya has started to wonder if he's ever going to say anything to anyone.

And now Tatsuya is telling him that he wants to actually introduce him to Jun. It's a lot of trust.

"You okay, Katsuya?"

No. He's not sure how to support his brother, he's not sure how to introduce him to Akira, he's not sure how to keep the world safe. 

"I'm fine," he says.

"So then we can all meet after work sometime," Tatsuya says. "This weekend, maybe? You can bring Maya and Akira to my apartment."

"Sure," Katsuya says, after a brief but fierce internal war. "Let's all meet."

-//-

Tatsuya - 

the you of This Side has been asking me why he hasn't been able to meet Akira, and honestly I don't think I can put him off indefinitely without it being really suspicious. Maya and I are going to talk to Akira about all the things he really can't tell that other you, but I'm hoping you'll be able to help with that too.

I also feel like I should tell you Jun Kurosu is going to be there. Maya tells me that the two of you were

I suppose we should have known this was inevitable. All we can do now is hope things go as well as they can.

- Katsuya

-//-

May 2007

-//-

Akira doesn't usually have to come to the Other Side on days when he doesn't have school, but today is an important day. Akira knows that it's important, because everybody has been telling him all week that it is. 

"You don't have to do this if you don't feel up to it," Tatsuya tells him when they're making their usual walk down to the Velvet Room door.

Akira shrugs. "I'm okay," he says.

"Are you sure?" Tatsuya asks. "You know what's going to happen?"

He understands what's happening, just not really why. "There's two of you?" he says, unable to stop his voice from turning it into a question.

"That's right," Tatsuya encourages.

"But the other one is different," Akira says. "Like... like there's two girls in my class at school that are twins and it's hard to tell them apart, but they're not the same person." 

Tatsuya nods.

"But..." Akira fidgets a little. "The other Tatsuya doesn't know about you. So I have to pretend I just live with Katsuya all the time, like we tell everyone else."

"Exactly," Tatsuya says.

"This is weird," Akira complains. "I don't understand why we can't just tell him everything."

"Akira." 

They've been walking but now Tatsuya stops, and looks down at him to make direct eye contact. "You can't tell him anything about me, or about our Side. Can you promise me?"

"But you know about it," Akira objects. "And you're... I mean, you're not twins, you're both you, so...?"

"It's very, very complicated," Tatsuya says. "But it's also very important."

"Why--"

"I know it's hard," Tatsuya says. "But if you can't promise me that you'll keep me and everything here a secret, then I don't think you can go tonight."

That stings a little bit. "I can keep a secret," he says. "I'm doing a good job!"

Tatsuya's face softens a little. "You are," he agrees, putting a hand on Akira's shoulder.

"I promise I won't tell him anything," Akira says. Secret keeping is one thing he actually is good at, he thinks--it's starting to feel like he's not good at anything else, so at least he has that. His school experience had started with the bad first day when he'd run away, and it hasn't gotten a lot easier. The other kids think it's really funny that he'd gotten scared, and so far Akira mostly just gets laughed at when he tries to make friends. And he feels like he's behind everyone else with their lessons, so...

Well, he's still good at keeping secrets.

Tatsuya weighs him up and Akira tries to stand up tall. "I can do it," he insists, and finally Tatsuya lets him go.

And, in the end, when Akira has gone through the Velvet Room, been picked up by Katsuya, changed, and is standing awkwardly between Katsuya and Maya in a strange apartment, he thinks--this isn't so bad.

Everyone keeps making a big deal because there are two Tatsuyas, but it's easy for Akira to tell the difference. This Tatsuya is a stranger, he can tell right away from the way he looks at him. Of course Akira isn't going to tell any secrets to a stranger.

...it is a little weird, though. They look the same and they sound the same, and when this Tatsuya laughs at something his brother says, it reminds Akira with a twisted up feeling that he hardly ever gets to hear his Tatsuya sound happy like that. Sitting between Katsuya and Maya at the table, picking at his food, not hungry for once, Akira finally think he understands what everyone's talking about when they say that this Tatsuya is the same but not. 

He wonders how he can make his Tatsuya sound that happy.

After dinner, when the grown ups talk about things Akira can't follow, he goes to explore the apartment. It's sort of small, bigger than the one where he lives on his Side, but smaller than the one he pretends to stay in with Katsuya. Akira can feel Katsuya keeping an eye on him as he moves around, and he's not sure if he's making sure he's not going to say anything bad to this Tatsuya, or if it's because he just doesn't want him to break anything. Akira is careful about both things, though, and he kind of likes the way it feels like he's being watched over, not just watched. Katsuya isn't someone he trusts as much as he trusts the Tatsuya of his Side, but he's Tatsuya's brother and he hasn't done anything bad. So he's right up there on Akira's list of good people, and that makes being watched a good thing instead of a bad one.

There's a balcony that catches Akira's attention when he's on his way past, and after checking over his shoulder to see if anyone's going to say anything, he pushes open the door and creeps outside. His eyes are wide, because he's never seen something like this before.

The balcony is full of flowers. In little pots and planters, creeping along the walls, and over the metal railing. A few bees drone lazily through the air between the blossoms, and there are so many flowers that the air around them smells sweet.

"Do you like them?"

He jumps a little at Tatsuya's voice, then turns around and nods. "How did they get up here?" he asks. 

"My... Jun planted them," Tatsuya says. "He's really interested in flowers. Always telling me something about how they grow, or what they mean."

"What do flowers mean?" Akira asks.

"All kinds of things, apparently," Tatsuya says. "You should ask him about it, he loves to talk about all that."

"Maybe," Akira says. He looks back over at the flowers. "I was just thinking it's funny because flowers are supposed to be on the ground, so when it's up here it's like they're flying."

"I guess so," Tatsuya says.

It makes Akira think a little bit about the Sumaru City back home. That's supposed to be on the ground too, but it looks a lot sadder than all the flowers here do. He wonders if he could bring flowers back home, and maybe help make everything a little bit brighter.

Tatsuya stays out there with him for a little while after that, mostly admitting he doesn't know much about flowers when Akira points to some of them and asks questions. They're trying to figure out one that's growing over the railing when Katsuya follows them out onto the balcony.

"Everyone doing okay out here?" he asks, and Akira knows from the way his face looks all pinched up that he's worried about what Akira might have said without any supervision.

"Yeah," Akira says, turning around to go back inside.

He really doesn't know why everyone had been so worried about this. He already knows not to tell strangers anything about where he comes from, and this Tatsuya isn't his Tatsuya. He's a stranger too.

Akira doesn't say much on the drive back after, but when he's back home with Tatsuya he tells him all about it. Tatsuya listens almost without saying anything, just nodding a few times. Eventually, Akira figures out that maybe Tatsuya thinks this is weird and he doesn't want to hear about it.

"I know it's not a secret from you," he says uncertainly. "But do you want me to not talk about the other Tatsuya?"

Tatsuya sighs. "It's okay," he says. "It just... sounds nice over there."

"It's okay," Akira allows. 

"Akira," Tatsuya says. "Be honest. That's a world where you don't have to be afraid like you do here. Why wouldn't you want to be there?"

"I'm scared there too," Akira informs him. "I'm just not scared with you."

Tatsuya sighs. For some reason, he doesn't sound too happy with that answer. "You're seven now, right?" he asks.

"Yeah," Akira says. "Probably." On the Other Side, they call his birthday January 1st, because they'd needed to guess something. He thinks it's probably close enough.

"Alright," Tatsuya says. "Well if you're okay with things they way they are for now, I won't keep asking you all the time."

"I want to stay with you," Akira insists.

"Maybe for now," Tatsuya says. "But when you're older..." He shakes ahead. "If you ever decide you want to stay there, I would understand."

"No," Akira says. "You can ask me when I'm older and I'll still say no. You can ask me when I'm eight or nine or ten and I'll still say no!"

"We'll see," Tatsuya says quietly.

But he doesn't ask again for a long time.

Chapter Text

July 2008

-//-

Akira is eight when he finds out when Tatsuya's birthday is, something that only happens because he finally realizes that one thing the two Tatsuyas have to have in common is their birthday. And with the Other Side's Tatsuya about to have a birthday, that means his is, too.

"I'm going to get Tatsuya something for his birthday," Akira tells Katsuya while he eats breakfast at the kitchen table. It's the last day of school before summer vacation, and about a week before Tatsuya's birthday. Akira isn't planning to spend any time here until school starts again, so this is his last chance to get anything. "But don't tell him, okay? If you tell him about it in a letter or something, that would ruin the whole surprise."

Katsuya looks at him across the table. For a second his gaze lands on Akira's only half eaten breakfast, which Akira hasn't been paying much attention to because he's been so distracted. But he knows Katsuya gets worried about if he's eating enough, so he makes a point of picking it up again. 

(They didn't used to do breakfast at the apartment before school, but then Katsuya started reading about how kids do better at school if they have breakfast first, and now Akira comes to the apartment on schooldays for breakfast)

When he's happy with Akira's attempts at eating, Katsuya asks, "What are you thinking about getting him?"

"A present," Akira says.

"Alright," Katsuya says, after the briefest of pauses. "That's fair. But I mean, what are you going to get him as a present?"

"I haven't thought of that yet," Akira admits.

"Just remember--"

"I know," Akira says, slumping back in his seat. "I can't bring anything back to him on our Side that would stick out."

"Right," Katsuya says.

"I'm not going to forget..." 

He's been doing this for a year and a half now, and he's used to the back and forth of living on both sides. School is starting to make more sense, and he's catching up to what his classmates know. Friends are, um...

Friends are still not a thing that are happening for him. 

(It's just--hard. To be the only one that has all these secrets)

(It's like there's an invisible wall between him and the other kids. He can't figure out how to get over it, and most of them don't seem like they want to try)

Anyway, he knows how things work. He knows not to let anyone even guess there's anything weird about him, and that part of that means not bringing stuff from one side to the other, because it's really easy to tell the difference. Nothing on his side looks as new as the stuff people here have.

"I can bring him flowers," he says, after thinking about it for a while.

"Do you think he'd like flowers?" Katsuya asks.

"Yeah," Akira says. "We planted the ones Jun gave us before, and it was fun." He likes other-Tatsuya's friend Jun, who is one of the only people on either side that doesn't know Akira's secrets, but also doesn't seem to care that he's weird. During holidays and whatever, if he has to come in on non-school days and pretend Katsuya is his dad, Jun is always there with Tatsuya. Which makes Akira kind of... sadly-happy, because he knows his Tatsuya doesn't have friends like this.

(But Jun is nice, and it's nice that other-Tatsuya has such a good friend. That's the happy part)

"So that's where those went," Katsuya says. "He brought those as a house warming present when we moved."

"Maya said I could bring them back," Akira says, a little defensively. "Because they're just plants and plants can grow anywhere." 

The housewarming had been four months ago, after Maya officially moved in with Katsuya, and he decided that he needed more room for the two of them and also sometimes Akira. It's closer to the Velvet Room door, too, which is nice because it means Akira will be able to walk there from the Velvet Room when he's a little older.

And yes since the new house is on this side, that means technically Jun had brought the flowers for the house here, but Maya really had said it was okay, and Akira thinks his side needs them more. They'd planted them up on the roof of the apartment building, where some of them had made it and some of them hadn't, and then some of them had just gone crazy and taken up all the space in the planters they'd scavenged and dragged up there, and now the whole roof is full of flowers. He'd watched them come in over the spring, dancing around on the roof every afternoon after school to see them coming back out of the dead dirt, until finally Tatsuya said he was going to give him a heart attack and to not run around on the roof anymore. 

"Anyway," he says out loud to Katsuya. "They're warming our house now, and our house needs it more."

There's a pause.

(Katsuya looks sad, the way he sometimes does when Akira talks about home)

"You're probably right about that," Katsuya admits at last.

"So it's okay if I bring him some more?" Akira asks. "I was thinking--Jun's always talking about how different flowers mean different stuff, do you think I could get some that mean something nice?"

Katsuya nods slowly. "I'll call him and see if he's free to come by before you're supposed to be back on the Other Side today."

Maya joins them at this point from the bedroom, a little late to breakfast because girls have so much they have to do to get ready in the morning. "I don't think we have to worry about Jun saying no to that," she says. "He'll be thrilled someone's interested."

Akira beams. This is a great idea.

He's not the only person that's distracted later that day at school, luckily. Summer break officially starts when school gets out, and everyone has plans for what they're going to do with their month off. Akira half listens to the boy in the desk behind him whispering to his friend all the way through their last lesson of the day that he's going to visit his family in Kyoto, and Akira hears a trio of girls in the front row making plans to go to a water park.

The bell eventually rings, and Akira's up and grabbing for his bag before most of his classmates are even standing. He doesn't have the same kinds of summer plans as the rest of them do, but he's still excited.

It's kind of a long walk back to Katsuya and Maya's apartment from school, but most kids in his class walk back, so he doesn't stick out making the twenty minute trip on his own. It's kind of funny, actually--Tatsuya has been teaching him how to protect himself so he can do the walk between the Velvet Room and their apartment on their side by himself, and he's not there yet but he's close, and Tatsuya wants to make sure he can do that as soon as he can. And then here, Katsuya is always worried about Akira walking home alone, even though all the other kids to it too, and Akira probably knows how to be careful better than any of them.

At the apartment, he calls Katsuya (because Katsuya worries too much) and tells him he's back from school, just like he does every day. When he's done that, though, Katsuya tells him that Jun said he could come by after he gets off work and take him to buy plants.

"You have your summer homework, right?" Katsuya says.

"Yeah..." Last year he'd gotten in trouble at school because he'd left his homework with Katsuya and Maya and then gone back home for a month without thinking about it at all. That's what had started the new routine of Akira staying through dinner time, so he can actually get his homework done before he goes home.

"Work on that," Katsuya says. 

"But it's summer break," Akira complains. "I have a whole month to do it."

"Are you going to be here at all this month?"

"...maybe."

Katsuya sighs. "Do your homework now," he says. "And then you don't have to worry about it for the rest of the summer."

"I wasn't gonna worry about it," Akira tells him.

"Okay," he says. "Then do it now so I don't have to worry about whether you did your homework."

So Akira hangs up, and sits down, and does his homework, until a couple hours later when Jun finally comes to help him buy flowers for Tatsuya. As soon as Akira sees him pull up outside, he abandons his homework on the table and goes charging out to meet him. "Let's go!" he says, suddenly much more excited than he had been thirty seconds ago. "Let's go, let's go, I don't wanna do my homework!"

Jun shakes his head a little at him, and asks, "Katsuya has you starting your homework already?"

"Last summer I forgot about it," Akira says.

"Ah. So this year you're starting early?"

"He said I had to," Akira mutters.

"It could be worse," Jun says. "My father was a teacher."

Akira tries to keep his mouth closed so he won't say anything rude, but his face just ends up saying it instead. Jun sees it and smiles again. "Cheer up," he says. "School doesn't last forever."

"Yeah..."

Jun helps him into the car, and seems to notice that Akira's not really in the mood to keep talking about school. He changes the subject, and asks, "So what kinds of things were you looking to get today?"

"Flowers," Akira says. "Stuff we can plant, but, um--nothing that's too hard to take care of."

"I think I have a few ideas," Jun says, and Akira spends the drive listening to Jun talk about flowers. He doesn't usually hear Jun talk this much at one time, but then again he definitely loves all this stuff. Akira just likes being able to do something with Tatsuya that's going to hopefully make him smile, but Jun really likes it. He tells Akira more just in that car ride than he ever thought there was to know about flowers, but he makes it interesting. Akira can kind of believe his dad was a teacher, because Jun's good at explaining things too.

The store they go to sells nothing but plants, and they spend a really long time there. Jun lets Akira ask a million questions, and then helps him find plants that will be easy to take care of. He tells Akira what they mean, too, a whole lot of nice things because Akira won't take any of the ones that sound sad, even if they look nice and are supposed to be easy. That's not a good present. 

"What are these?" he asks as they're on their way out, passing a pretty blue flower that they haven't talked about yet.

"Forget-me-nots," Jun says. "They mean--"

"Don't forget?" Akira blurts, and he nods.

"I guess the name gives it away a little," Jun says, smiling. "But yes, if you give someone a forget-me-not, you're making them a promise to keep them in your thoughts, and remember them."

It's not a bad meaning, but mostly Akira just likes the way the little blue flowers look in their pot. He's thinking about that more than about what it represents, but when he takes the flowers back with him, hiding them in his bag and taking careful, secret care of them for a whole week until Tatsuya's birthday, he does remember it enough to explain.

Tatsuya listens to Akira's whole excited story, about going to get flowers with Jun to bring home to him, about how to take care of them, and what they mean.

"Forget-me-nots," Tatsuya says, when Akira's finished his breathless explanation. "You and Jun got those for me?"

"Yeah," Akira says. "I--"

And then he stops, because there's something sadder than he's ever seen on Tatsuya's face. 

"Did... did I do something wrong?" he asks.

It takes Tatsuya a few seconds before he can even answer. And at first, he can't actually say anything out loud, he just reaches over and puts his arm around Akira's side. He feels like he's holding on a little bit more tightly than usual as he finally says, "You didn't do anything wrong, Akira. I'm sorry, I was just... thinking about something I should have forgotten a long time  ago."

"What was it?"

But Tatsuya doesn't tell him. Not then, and not in the months and years that follow, as the forget-me-nots find their place on the rooftop garden, taking up more than their fair share of space. 

-//-

October 2008

-//-

Katsuya and Maya never really have houseguests, because anyone spending too much time with them would, Katsuya's sure, eventually notice that the child supposedly living with them, isn't.

Yes, Akira spends time here. During the months when school is in session, he's there every morning to eat breakfast with them and get ready for school, and then every afternoon he comes back to do his homework, to have dinner and take a bath before he goes back home to Tatsuya. 

But he's not really living here. He spends most of his time in the house at the kitchen table, and none at all in the small bedroom at the back that is nominally his. It's important to have that room, Katsuya is convinced, because legally Akira is his child. It would be laughably negligent to let all their secrets come out because they don't have a room for him here.

And, on a more than legal level, Katsuya knows that he is responsible for Akira when he's here. Akria has been coming here for months now, for well over a year. And the three of them in this house, himself and Maya and Akira, have been figuring out what that means. It's not exactly a conventional household, but most of the time it works. In some ways, it even feels close to normal. In the past two years, Katsuya has attended parent-teacher conferences, helped with homework, bought school clothes, and argued with Akira about vegetables. He has no idea where Akira categorizes himself and Maya in his own mental map of himself and his family, but Katsuya had agreed to take care of this child, and he's going to do that to the best of his ability.

(...all of which is to say that in his heart of hearts is a truth he has never and will never admit to anyone else)

(Akira might be Tatsuya's son, but he's their child too)

Unfortunately none of that matters to the vast majority of people that won't understand their situation at all. Which is why they almost never have people over to visit. The only regular exceptions are Ulala and Kaoru, who are in fact the two coming to dinner tonight.

It's important to keep in touch with the people that still remember what had happened back then. You can't just fight alongside people while the world is about to end, and then never speak to them again. In the first few months they'd all, in their own ways, kept reaching out. Some more than others, with Maya doing the lion's share until they all figured out how to keep themselves together now that the threat of the end of the world isn't hanging over them any more.

It had taken them a while. But you don't just move on from the people you save the world with, even if they're not the kinds of people you would usually be friends with. Even if they might even be people you might avoid, or even if it might have possibly taken a year and a half to finally get used to some of them having real names (Katsuya is embarrassed to admit that he still says Baofu instead of Kaoru at least once every six months, but the pseudonym is seared into his mind by the stress and trauma associated with the time). 

And now they meet up regularly. And of course they know about Akira, because they're the people that know about the Other Side, and about Tatsuya, so there's no real point in keeping secrets.

And yet, two years on, neither of them has actually met Akira. Katsuya's fairly sure this isn't intentional, no matter how much Kaoru gripes about sticky fingered toddlers. They're just busy people, all four of them, and usually when they meet it's later in the evening, after Akira has already gone back to the Other Side. He gets anxious whenever Katsuya brings up staying overnight, and Katsuya has never been able to drill down to exactly why that is.

(Partly, he thinks it's homesickness--he can remember what it had been like to be six or seven or eight and away from home for the night)

(Partly he thinks Akira is worried about what will happen to Tatsuya if he's not there at night)

(But partly he just thinks Akira is confused by so, so many things that most people take for granted)

Akira is here tonight later than he normally is, because he'd had a doctor's appointment, his twice annual checkup that had been the first one where Akira finally managed to reach an age appropriate height and weight for the first time since he first came to This Side. He's still on the small end of what's normal for his age range, he's still the shortest in his class at school, still weedy in a way that makes Katsuya worry and Maya check to make sure he's eating at every meal. But he's finally healthy, or close enough, and Tatsuya is in a good mood when he takes Akira back to the house to get changed before he heads back to the Velvet Room. 

"There's people there," Akira says, when Katsuya pulls the car into the driveway. "Look, there's someone else already--"

"It's Ulala and Kaoru," Katsuya says. 

"Your friends, right?"

Katsuya isn't surprised when he glances over and sees an expression of intense concentration on Akira's face as he studies the other cars. Two years in, he knows Akira is still the weird kid. His teachers send reports home that Akira watches the door and the windows in class, and doesn't seem to know how to talk to his classmates. 

Akira doesn't have any friends, on either Side. And he's never said he wants them, but Katsuya had watched his little brother grow up with the same desperation for friends that Akira has now, and he wishes he knew enough about making friends to have been able to teach either of them how to do it more easily. The people he's closest to now are the people he'd tried to stop the end of the world with, so...

"That's right," he tells Akira. "They're friends. Do you want to meet them when you come in?"

Akira's concentration doesn't fade at all. "I don't know," he says. "Are they nice?"

"They'll be nice to you," Katsuya says, because Ulala can say the wrong thing sometimes, and Kaoru doesn't like most people, but they know where Akira comes from and he thinks they'll understand.

Akira nods a little bit. "Then I can say hi, I think."

Katsuya parks on the street, because of course Ulala has managed to double park in a driveway somehow, then walks with Akira into the house. 

As soon as they open the door, a warmth that's not exactly physical washes over Katsuya. It's not just that the three people in the house already are his partner and their two friends. It's not just the familiar voices, or the smell of the particularly noxious whatever Kaoru's been smoking. His Persona lights up inside him with a flash of recognition at their presence, a spark of recognition between his and theirs. They might not always get along, but they've been through hard things.

"Oh hey!" Ulala's the first one to speak, turning around from where she's half hanging off Maya's shoulder and catching sight of the two of them standing in the doorway. "This is Akira, right?"

Akira is standing so close to Katsuya's side that they're almost touching. He's visibly nervous, so Katsuya puts a hand on his shoulder. "This is Akira," he confirms. "I'm going to take him home in a few minutes, but he wanted to meet you."

"Still can't believe you two have a kid," Kaoru says, turning around.

"Only on schooldays," Maya quips. "The rest of the time he's Tatsuya's."

Akira nods immediately.

"How's he doing?" Ulala asks.

"Good," Akira says. "Are you his friends too?"

"Yep!" Ulala says. "You should say hey to him for us when you go home."

"Okay," Akira says, and he even manages to smile a little bit. "He probably says hi too. He always writes letters for Katsuya and Maya."

Ulala turns around and looks back at Maya. "Ma-ya!" she says. "You didn't tell me you two are still doing the pen pal thing."

"Yes I did," Maya says.

"Alright," Ulala says, after a pause. "Well, maybe I want to write to him too."

"I can bring him more letters," Akira pipes up. "If you want to say anything."

"That would be great," Ulala says, flashing him a bright smile that seems to make Akira feel a little bit better. Then she asks, "And how about you? You're still getting around through the Velvet Room?"

Akira's face turns from Ulala to Maya, still right next to her, looking for permission in a way that reassures Katsuya. Akira has been lectured ad reminded enough times by now that he should know not to tell anyone about the Velvet Room or the Other Side, but he is only eight. Eight year olds don't always think before they speak. 

(Katsuya knows this for a fact because he lives part-time with one, and had been asked  just this week if he knows how grey his hair is getting) 

(He's pretty sure Akira is the reason for most of those grey hairs, but because he's the adult, he hadn't pointed that out)

"It's okay," Maya says. "We can trust everyone here, Akira."

"Oh," he says. "Um, then yeah. I go through the Velvet Room to get to school."

Kaoru snorts. Katsuya shrugs a little self consciously when he looks at him. That is... just the way things work now.

"So I guess you're going to be really ready for it when you get a Persona, huh?" Ulala says.

Maya makes a little noise and Akira says, "A what?" in the exact same moment that Katsuya leans over and points Akira toward the door of the room he never uses. "Why don't you go get changed so I can take you home?" he asks.

"But what's a--"

"Tatsuya's going to be worried about you if you're too late coming back."

It feels a little underhanded to use Akira's affection for Tatsuya and his worry about not getting home on time against him. But they're not having this conversation right now, and Katsuya doesn't know anything else that's going to get Akira moving as quickly as this is.

He watches Akira hesitate, then turn and disappear into his room to put on the patched and second hand Other Side clothes he wears to blend in there. When the door's closed behind him, he tells Ulala, "We haven't talked to him about any of that yet."

"Huh?" she asks. "But--"

"Why not?" Kaoru finishes. "If the kid's in the Velvet Room, he's already in over his head. It's crazy not to let him know about something that could help him."

"He's eight," Katsuya says quietly. "He doesn't need to know about any of what we all went through."

"You haven't told him anything?" Kaoru asks. "From everything you've said, he's not a complete idiot, so he must have noticed the world ending. Or what does he think the Other Side is?"

"Home," Maya says, before Kaoru can really work himself up. "That's all."

"Home," Kaoru repeats, a little disbelieving.

"You have to understand," she says. "To him, that's the way the world is supposed to be. He was born there, and it's his home. This is the Side that's different and wrong."

"He can't really think that," Ulala says. "Can he?"

"If he didn't," Katsuya says. "He wouldn't keep going back. We're always telling him that he can stay if he wants to. Tatsuya asks him too. He knows he can stop going back any time he wants, but the Other Side is his home." He shrugs helplessly. "And I think he likes being here, but not in a way that's going to make him turn his back on where he came from. So that's why we don't tell him that--" He pauses, glances back over his shoulder at Akira's room with the door still shut, and lowers his voice when he sees the door closed. "We don't tell him that the Other Side used to be like this one, until rumors and demons ended the world. We don't tell him that Tatsuya can't come back here because it would end this world too, and we don't tell him about Persona. He's just..." He feels, unexpectedly, breathless. "He's just a kid, and he's already living in two worlds. That's hard enough without everything else."

"I don't know," Ulala says. "What if he needs to know someday?"

"Someday we'll tell him," Maya says. "When he's... when he's not eight."

When he's old enough, at least, to be able to understand the things they're telling him. Not all of it, of course, because who in their right mind would think that their story is anything more than a fairy tale? One of the old, dark ones, the kind that nobody tells to children. 

Kaoru makes an unimpressed noise. "If you're not careful," he says. "You're going to keep saying that until it's too late."

Luckily, the conversation is interrupted by Akira coming back out, dressed for the trip back through the Velvet Room to the Other Side. Katsuya checks him over out of habit; it's October, and although Katsuya's never been sure how consistent seasons are on the floating Sumaru City of the Other Side, they always try to send Akira back dressed warmly enough. He's in a knit sweater with sleeves that reach past his fingertips though, and Katsuya deems this acceptable. 

"Alright," he says. "You ready to go?"

"Ready," Akira agrees. He half turns and waves back at the other three, then Katsuya steers him back out the door. 

When they get to the place where Katsuya will need to leave Akira so he can take the next leg of his trip alone through the Velvet Room, Katsuya asks him to wait so that he can add a postscript to his usual letter to Tatsuya. Akira does, tamping down his impatience as much as he can, then takes the finished letter as soon as Katsuya offers it to him. He barely pauses long enough to say goodbye before slamming the car door behind him and running off.

-//-

...

...

Tatsuya -

I didn't think I was going to need to add anything else to this letter, but Kaoru and Ulala came by the house today, and Akira officially met them. Ulala lasted five minutes before mentioning Persona, so now he's asking questions. I wanted to warn you before he starts asking you, too.

- Katsuya

-//-

K -

He didn't mention it to me at all. Maybe he got distracted.

You didn't explain it to him, did you? 

- T

-//-

Tatsuya -

No, of course not. He's much too young to know.

- Katsuya

-//-

K -

We'll tell him someday. Just not right now.

- T

Chapter Text

April 2009

-//-

The first time Akira comes through the Velvet Room door and finds himself in an unfamiliar elevator, it surprises him so much that he almost falls over right there in front of the door. He's been using the Velvet Room for three years now to go back and forth between his Side and the Other Side, and it's always looked exactly the same--a big, blank room surrounded by blue curtains. It had looked like that yesterday.

Today it's an elevator, and Akira is nervous. He fights the urge to wrap his arms around himself, because he knows that if there's anything dangerous here, that's not going to help him run or fight. He's nine now, and that means that sometimes he's allowed to go out on his own. He knows how to take care of himself enough to at least know how to run away when something dangerous happens, or fight back if running doesn't work. 

It's just... the Velvet Room is supposed to be safe.

His eyes dart around the new space, taking in the still mostly open layout, and then the three other people that are in it with him. The first is Igor, which makes Akira feel a lot better. The second is a tall man named Theodore that Akira has met a few times. 

(Sometimes there's other people here that Igor says live in the Velvet Room too, and Theodore is one of them)

(Theo is weird and Elizabeth is loud and Margaret reminds him a lot of Katsuya. Lavenza is nice though, and Akira kind of wishes she was around more)

The third person is completely new though, a girl with red hair that notices Akira while he's still busy noticing her.

"Oh!" she says, taking half a step toward him. She's wearing a high school uniform, and Akira doesn't recognize it but he knows that means she's from the Other Side. He's wearing the clothes he wears at home, so he knows he must look dirty and lost to her. "Are you okay?" she asks. "What are you doing here?"

The question could have been mean, except that she really sounds like she's worried about him.

Akira sets his jaw though, and doesn't tell her anything. He's not supposed to talk about anything that happens in the Velvet Room, and he's pretty sure that just because she's here in the Velvet Room, and even though she seems nice, that doesn't mean she's automatically safe to talk to. And anyway, even if he wasn't worried about her, Akira's... nervous. He feels jittery because of how suddenly everything had changed, and he sort of wishes he had an adult here to hide behind while they figure it out.

"Akira is simply passing through," Igor says, as Akira worries. 

Akira gives him a very grateful look, and the girl says, "Oh!" again. "Are you a... a guest here too?" 

"Um," Akira says, and then he has to try again because his voice is very quiet. "Not... really? I don't stay here. I just come in and then leave again." Other than sometimes stopping to talk a little bit to the people that live here, he doesn't spend a lot of time in the Velvet Room. He doesn't think that makes him a guest.

The girl doesn't look like this has exactly answered her question, but Akira doesn't think he wants to tell her anything more. So he's relieved when she seems to notice how nervous he is, and says, "Well... I think I need to go to school right now. But it was nice to meet you. Akira, right?"

Igor already told her his name. Akira gives her an uncertain nod. 

"Well I'm Kotone," the girl says. "Maybe we'll meet each other again, Akira." And then after giving him another sunny smile that makes his face feel a little warm for some reason, she leaves through the door of the Velvet Room. Akira skips backward, almost tripping over himself so he won't be in the way, watching her until she's gone. 

Then he looks back at Igor, and for some reason the first thing he can think of to say is, "I thought I was the only one that could see the door."

"For a while you were," Igor says. He gestures Akira over and he comes, so he can stand in front of the old man and they can talk normally. "But this room has more meaning than you are yet aware of, and the girl you just met has come to make use of it."

"Is that why everything's different?" Akira asks.

"Yes," Igor says simply. 

"But..." Akira wrestles with this. "But this is my place," he says at last. "I mean... if she can come in, why can't Tatsuya? Why can't he come with me?"

"This is not your place," Igor says. "It does not belong to you, just as it does not belong to those you care for. And sometimes it's better for everyone involved if the temptation of these consequences is removed." He says all this gently, but Akira feels off balance from it anyway.

"I know," Akira says. "But..."

He blinks, long, slow movements that he's pretty sure aren't really hiding the tears wobbling at the corners of his eyes. For several seconds he just closes his eyes, and when he opens again, the Velvet Room is back to the way it's supposed to be. Theodore is gone. Igor is still there.

"What are you feeling, child?" Igor says softly.

"I'm okay," Akira says, automatically.

"You do not have to lie to me."

Akira sniffs, and wipes his eyes. There's no point trying to pretend he's not crying. "I thought I was special," he admits. "I can't do anything else right, and everyone has to worry about me because I'm too little to protect myself, and all the other kids are smarter than me, and I can't make friends, and... and I thought I could still be important because nobody else can come here."

It's easier to tell Igor than it ever would have been to tell anyone else. Akira knows that Tatsuya would feel guilty if he ever found out he's thinking all this. Katsuya would try to fix it, Maya would want to cheer him up. But none of them would understand what it's like to not feel...

"I know I don't fit in on either Side," Akira whispers. "I know it doesn't really matter, because I'm safer than a lot of other people, and I have enough to eat, and I have people that care about me, and... and I shouldn't tell them because it would just make things harder for them. But I'm in between just like the Velvet Room is, so I thought... I liked thinking it was just my place."

Igor doesn't answer this long burst of a confession right away, which is good. Akira uses the time to press the heels of his hands against his face, to stop crying, to get to the point where he's just taking very deep, shaky breaths instead. Finally though, he says, "There is nothing wrong with the fact that you have not yet found the place where you belong. Your soul is young, still, and there are many years still ahead of you where you may come to find exactly what it is you want most."

"I want friends," Akira says. "I want to feel like I'm not so weird, and like... I don't want everyone to have to take care of me so much."

Igor smiles. "Have patience," he tells Akira. "And know that even if you are not the only one in the Velvet Room, you are still welcome here. And if I know anything about those who care for most, I might recommend that you tell them what you feel. You may feel less isolated from those bonds if you do."

It doesn't seem like very much, but Akira nods anyway. He feels a little better just saying this all out loud. 

"You may see yet more guests in the Velvet Room," Igor tells him. "You will not be any less welcome then, either."

Akira nods again. Then he says, "Am I ever... will I ever not be allowed to come into the Velvet Room?"

Igor studies him. His eyes are too big for his head, but that doesn't scare Akira the way it used to when he'd been six and little. He's used to it by now, and he thinks Igor is too nice to really be scary. "The time may come," he says. "But if it does, know that it will be because things will be because the time has come when it will be better for you to not return."

"But not right now," Akira says quietly.

"Not for a long time, most likely," Igor says.

"Okay." Akira puts his hands on his eyes one more time, trying to check if they still feel wet. He's sure his face is red, but there's nothing he can do about that. "I should probably go to school."

Igor inclines his head, and watches Akira walk to the door. When he's almost there though, Igor calls his name and Akira turns back.

"You should know," he says. "That the other guest you met today is not from any place you have been to before."

Akira looks at him blankly. He's too worked up from his previous crying to follow this new jump in conversation. "Where is she from?" he asks.

"I have often heard you refer to one side or another," Igor muses, not answering the question. "As if the worlds you inhabit are two sides of the same coin."

"Um," Akira says. "Okay. Does that mean they're not?"

"Perhaps," Igor says. "Perhaps it is easier to say that the coin does in fact have a third side. Or maybe there is another coin altogether."

"So she's not from home or from where I go to school?" Akira asks, a little unsure. 

Igor gives him a small nod. "It may be something to think about," he says.

Akira can't figure this out at all, so eventually he just goes out through the door to the Other Side.

Katsuya is waiting for him there, checking his watch. When he sees Akira he stands up from the bench where he's sitting immediately. "There you are," he says. "You're a little bit late, so I think we better hurry this morning."

He starts to move, but Akira doesn't. Not at first. For a few seconds he stands there, fidgeting with his fingers. And then eventually he blurts out, "I'm feeling really sad because I don't think I fit in anywhere and I don't have friends and it's really hard to go back and forth all the time."

Katsuya stops mid-step and turns back to him. He looks surprised, and Akira immediately starts to feel bad. But Igor had told him he might feel better if he talked to people, and Katsuya is the first one he sees. 

"I don't wanna stop living on both Sides," Akira says. "I just don't want to feel sad by myself anymore."

Katsuya turns around, and looks at him. Then he walks back, and puts his hand on Akira's shoulder. Akira lets it happen, but doesn't let Katsuya see his face while he does it.

"You don't have to feel things like that by yourself," he says. "That's what your family is for."

"But we're not family," Akira says. 

"Yes we are," Katsuya says. "After all these years, we're definitely family." He squeezes Akira's shoulder a little bit. There's just a little bit of a push to it too, spurring Akira into motion. He doesn't say anything else until they're both back in the car, driving back to the house where they'll have breakfast and Akira will put on her school clothes. That's when Katsuya asks, "What do you think family is, Akira?"

"A mom and a dad and their kids," Akira says immediately. "Like everyone at school has."

"Sometimes," Katsuya says. "But a family can also be the people you find that care about you, and that you care about. You have me, and Maya, and Tatsuya."

Deep down, Akira thinks he knows Tatsuya really is his family. But Katsuya and Maya are a little less certain. "Does that mean you didn't just adopt me so we could pretend?" he asks. "For school and stuff?"

"Of course not," Katsuya says.

"Oh."

Well that's... really nice to hear.

Akira smiles to himself for most of the car ride, curled up in the back seat watching the street outside the window. It's only when they pull into the driveway that Akira remembers there's something else important he needs to say.

"Oh," he says. "I forgot, there was something else that happened this morning."

"Oh yeah?" Katsuya asks. 

He shuts the engine off and is halfway out when Akira says, "The Velvet Room looked different when I went in today, and there was another person in there."

Katsuya stops in place. Akira looks over at him.

"Another person?" he repeats. "Who?"

"A girl," Akira says.

"What kind of a girl?"

"Um," Akira says. "Older than me. She had a high school uniform, and she was pretty." When Katsuya keeps looking at him, he adds, "She said her name is Kotone."

"Kotone," Katsuya repeats. "Which uniform was she wearing? Was it Seven Sisters, or--"

"No," Akira says. "I never saw it before." Katsuya still looks worried, so he says, "I don't think she's a bad person. I was nervous too, but Igor was okay with it."

"Alright," Katsuya says. "Let's get in the house, you're not going to school today."

"What did I do wrong?" Akira asks. "Katsuya..."

"You didn't do anything," Katsuya says. "But someone else in the Velvet Room..." He shakes his head. "We need to figure this out now."

-//-

Tatsuya -

We need to start being more careful about sending Akira back and forth in the Velvet Room. When he came in this morning, he told me that he saw someone else in the Velvet Room. He couldn't give me a very good description, but he was able to say that she's a high school student, red hair, in a uniform he doesn't know. I know he's seen students from Seven Sisters and Kasugayama, so I don't think she can be local. On the other hand, Akira said she was worried about getting to school this morning, so he can't be from too far away. I'm doing as much as I can to investigate without drawing suspicion, but it might be a while before I can figure out who she is and what she was doing in the Velvet Room.  Akira says her name's Kotone, but without a last name, that's much too broad to actually find anyone. I'm hoping that eventually we'll figure out what school she's from, but so far we haven't figured anything out.

- Katsuya

-//-

K -

I talked to Akira when he came home last night, and he says Igor is okay with this girl being in the Velvet Room. I know we need to be wary, but I think it might be a little bit of overkill to start trying to hunt this girl down. We've never seen anything dangerous in the Velvet Room, and I don't think that's going to change now. I don't think Akira's in any real danger just because someone else is there.

- T

-//-

Tatsuya -

I'm less worried about Akira being in danger in the Velvet Room, although I'm not completely ready to dismiss it yet. But this is another person in the Velvet Room, this could be someone that's in the middle of something like what we all went through ten years ago. This could be extremely bad.

- Katsuya

-//-

K -

I guess it's possible? But I think you would have mentioned it if cities were starting to float or demons were wandering around somewhere. And you haven't said anything like that, so I'm assuming it's not. 

I told Akira to try and talk to Kotone again if she shows back up in the Velvet Room. I'm very, very aware of how bad things might be if she actually is using the Velvet Room to summon Persona to fight with, because that would mean there are demons around again. I'm living proof of what happens when all that goes wrong. But there's no way you wouldn't know if there were demons wandering around, right?

It's still possible that she's using the Velvet Room for something like what Akira's using it for. I'm not saying you should stop looking, I'm just saying that you're so freaked out about this that Akira's been having nightmares. So let's just make sure things really are wrong before we jump to any conclusions.

- T

-//-

March 2010

For the rest of that year, for all of fourth grade, Akira gets used to the adults in his life being tense and nervous. He's pretty sure that they don't like Kotone being in the Velvet Room, and when he eventually meets a second person there, a boy named Minato who seems sad and doesn't say much, they don't like that either.

Akira likes them, though. Kotone is bright and never makes him feel dumb for how he can't make his words come out right when she's around. And even if Minato doesn't talk much, he's another person on the short list of people that don't seem to think there's anything wrong with him. Both of them, he's pretty sure, are keeping secrets from him. They do something in the Velvet Room that Akira doesn't, and neither of them will tell him what it is. Or maybe that's just his imagination? It's hard to tell, and he never tells his family about it, because he doesn't know for sure, and after all maybe he's just imagining it. 

Kotone and Minato are never in the Velvet Room at the same time. Neither of them even seems like they know the other one, and they're both very confused if he mentions that he knows them both, so eventually he stops doing that.

Theodore is there whenever Kotone is. Elizabeth's always there with Minato. Akira hasn't seen them more than three or four times between when he comes into the Velvet Room for the first time, and when he meets the two of them. But they're here all the time now.

In the real world, Katsuya slowly starts to calm down about Kotone and Minato. Akira... well, he doesn't exactly lie, but he doesn't tell them everything, either. He's seen how much it freaked everyone out the last time, so he just keeps some stuff quiet. He doesn't tell them he thinks they're doing something else in the Velvet Room, and he doesn't tell them when Kotone mentions her family name is Shiomi, or when Minato talks about his classmates at Gekkoukan High. It's silly, probably, but Katsuya is so worried, and Akira is anxious for things to go back to normal, and for the adults around him to stop being upset.

And anyway, when he eventually brings up what Igor had said about Kotone being from a whole other side, that seems to make everyone feel better. They stop trying to find the two other Velvet Room visitors, because they have to admit that if they're not on the same Side, it's going to be impossible to track them down. 

Akira feels way better after that. The people around him stop asking him so many worried questions, and he gets to know Kotone and Minato better. They're not there all the time, but if Akira gets to the Velvet Room and one of them happens to be there, he usually stays longer than he would have, and talks to them.

It's hard to say for sure if they're friends, because they're both in high school and he's ten, but it feels kind of close. They're a lot nicer than any of the kids in his class, and a lot older than the adults that care about him and don't think he's weird. 

(Akira even learns what it means that face feels all warm and sometimes he can't figure out what to say around Kotone)

(He doesn't mean to tell anyone about that part, ever, because it's embarrassing, but he slips up once when Katsuya and Maya have their friends over, and Ulala announces to everyone in the whole house that he has a crush)

(Which he doesn't, it's just that Kotone is nice and also pretty and even if okay maybe he does have a crush on her, he doesn't want Ulala to laugh at him)

Getting to know Kotone and Minato teaches him how to make friends. Even if it's in a weird way, even if he still doesn't know how to do it with the kids at school that he doesn't have the Velvet Room in common with. But they teach him how to do that, and it's important.

And then in January, they stop coming to the Velvet Room.

And then in March, the Demon Painter comes to the apartment where he lives with Tatsuya. Just shows up, like leaving is a perfectly normal thing for him to do. Even Tatsuya is surprised, Akira can tell, when he opens the door and finds the man standing there as casual as he ever looks in the Velvet Room.

"Uh," Tatsuya says, and then it doesn't seem like he's able to do anything other than open and close his mouth several times with no words coming out whatsoever.

"I think there's something you two need to hear," the man says. "Because the rest of them in the Velvet Room don't always look at things like death the same way as us humans, and I wanted to tell you what's been happening."

Akira is banished to a neighbor's apartment for the rest of that conversation. He usually doesn't mind their neighbors, who are mostly people Tatsuya has helped over the years, people that maybe still need help, and have gravitated toward the person Akira is pretty sure is the biggest hero in the whole city. The old lady who lives in the first floor apartment under them, and who is so old she sometimes forgets where she is and what's going on, really is nice. Akira usually even likes spending time with her, and he brings her a bunch of forget-me-nots from the roof every week just in case it helps her. 

But today he just wants to know what's going on, and what's wrong. 

Why did the Demon Painter come to tell them about someone dying? Why isn't he allowed to go upstairs and hear it?

It's hours before Tatsuya comes to get him. The sun's gone down, and Akira's helped to light a bunch of candles to keep the apartment from getting too dark, and then put them in the holders that make it harder for them to be bumped into or knocked over. He's just finishing the last one when there's a knock on the door, and Tatsuya pokes his head in.

Akira says his goodbyes as fast as he possibly can, then runs out. He's determined to get answers, he needs to know...

"Where's the Demon Painter?" Akira asks. "What did he tell you? What happened?"

Tatsuya won't say anything at all, no matter how many questions Akira asks, until they're back upstairs. Then he sits with Akira on his bed, wraps his arm around him, and asks, "Do you remember that you told me you haven't seen Kotone or Minato for a while?"

"Yeah," Akira says. "Why..." He thinks about the Demon Painter's visit, and what he'd said about dying, and feels very cold, even with Tatsuya's arm around his shoulders. Akira hugs himself a little, and asks, "What about them?"

"Something happened this morning," Tatsuya says gently. "And I'm sorry, but the two of them are gone."

A part of Akira had known it already. He'd known it because the Demon Painter had talked about death, and because Tatsuya is holding him like he's trying to hold him together, and because something in him just knows.

But a part of him won't believe it.

"No way," he says, shaking his head hard. "No way, they're not dead!"

"He told me the whole story before he went back to the Velvet Room," Tatsuya says. 

"No..."

"The two of them have been... a kind of sick," Tatsuya continues. "For a couple months now."

Akira is crying. A full bodied cry that makes him feel like a baby, all gross and sobbing, and when he turns and buries his face in Tatsuya's side, he can feel tears and snot and spit all leaking together into the fabric of his shirt. He knows what dying is, people die here a lot. And he even knows that his mom had died, but he'd been so little when that happens that he can barely remember her. When he does still have nightmares about what had happened, they make him feel scared and lonely, not sad. After all, he hadn't really known her. 

But Kotone and Minato had been his friends and they're dead and his heart hurts in a way he didn't know that it could. He cries and cries at how unfair everything in the whole world is, while Tatsuya holds him close and pets his hair the way he had when Akira was little, and tells him he knows how hard this is.

It's very, very late when Akira finally stops crying enough for them to talk. Tatsuya brings him water, and Akira drinks the whole thing, legs tucked up under him, bent over the cup. He feels a little bit like an egg, curled up and fragile, like he's something that might just break and spill everything inside him out. Tatsuya sits next to him again and Akira leans in almost without meaning to.

All around them, the rest of the city is quiet, or at least as quiet as it ever is. There's a distant howling of wild dogs from somewhere, and raised voices from someone on the streets looking for a fight. But in here, where it's just Akira and Tatsuya and a single candle fighting hard to let light up the night, somehow it still feels quiet. Akira doesn't think it ever gets this quiet on the Other Side, probably. Not with electricity humming, and cars on the streets outside, and so many people. 

"Do you want to talk?" Tatsuya asks. "Or do you just want to go to bed now?"

"I want to talk," Akira says. He knows that if he goes to bed, then when he wakes up, he's going to have to figure out how to keep living. Right now it feels like they're in some kind of magic, in between moment where he already knows the worst news, but he doesn't have to figure out what to do with it yet. Where he can just sit here in the darkness with that single, flickering candle, and his safe person next to him to lean on.

"Okay," Tatsuya says. "What do you want to talk about."

"Why did they have to die?" Akira asks.

"Going right for the hard questions," Tatsuya says, so quietly Akira's not even sure if he'd meant to say it out loud. 

"I mean," Akira says. "If they were sick, why didn't they get medicine?"

"It's not that kind of sick," Tatsuya says. "It was... something else."

"Did it hurt?"

"I don't know," Tatsuya says. "It sounds like it might have been peaceful."

Akira swallows. He knows that dying can hurt a lot, because he hears it happen all the time. But he hopes it hadn't hurt for them. "Why..." he starts, and then stops because he doesn't know what comes next. 

Just... why?

Tatsuya doesn't answer. Which is okay, because Akira hadn't really asked a question. Nothing feels like it would be the right thing to ask, and no answer feels like it would make everything okay again.

Akira falls asleep without really meaning to not long after that, still sitting up, held close to Tatsuya's side.

-//-

Katsuya -

I am so sorry that I didn't send Akira back to you for so long. I had a visit from the Demon Painter two weeks ago. I guess humans that live in the Velvet Room are in the same position that Akira is, because he didn't seem to have any issues going in or out.

He came to tell us that Akira's friends from the Velvet Room are dead. And Katsuya, we--

messed up
failed these kids

could have done more
SHOULD have done more

--missed a lot. It turns out that Akira was right when he explained Kotone wasn't on your Side, but Minato is. His family name is Arisato, he would have just finished his second year at Gekkoukan High if he hadn't died. You might be able to find him with all that.

Apparently they've been fighting demons all year. I only got the very, very abridged version, but it sounds like something almost as bad as what we went through almost happened in January. These kids and some of their classmates stopped it, but it took enough of them that they couldn't just keep going.

I don't know what to do now. I just keep feeling so guilty that we knew there were new kids in the Velvet Room, and--

we just

--I just let myself be convinced that it was all going to be okay, like Akira's been okay. But now I'm just terrified that Akira's not going to be okay, and that someday I'm going to be getting the same news about him.

I keep thinking I should just stop him from going back to the Velvet Room at all, but I know he's so much safer on the Other Side, and he just won't leave here for good, so just stopping him from ever going back there isn't going to keep him all that much better long term.

I don't know what to do. 

- Tatsuya

-//-

Tatsuya -

Don't worry about not sending him back. It sounds like things have been hard enough, and I don't think school would have helped him these past couple of weeks.  I heard part of the story from Akira, but it sounds like you didn't tell him everything. I think that's a good idea, but if you can give me the rest of it later, I'd appreciate that.

I think what we do is just keep doing what we have been. As long as Philemon and the Velvet Room aren't asking him to do anything, he's still safe. And Maya is standing over my shoulder reminding me that he needs all his family around him right now. 

I did find Minato Arisato with that additional information. Well, Kaoru did, he pulled up the death certificate and some related records from... some database I'm fairly sure he shouldn't have access to. He was seventeen, and he was an orphan. 

We can't lose Akira to anything like that. I agree that we can't keep him out of the Velvet Room, but I think that whatever they want him to do, we have to do whatever it takes to protect him from it.

- Your brother, Katsuya

(- Love from Maya too <3)

Chapter Text

July 2010

Akira is quiet for a long time after they learn that the two Velvet Room guests he'd befriended are dead. Katsuya mostly watches him and worries, because he doesn't know what else he's supposed to do. He has a sneaking suspicion that Akira's being asked to handle too much; that being ten years old on the Other Side is more than enough for anyone to have to deal with, and then to add school and secrets and then finally the deaths of people he'd known on top of it is a lot.

And the end result of all this is that Akira starts to go quiet. He's never exactly been a happy kid, for easily understandable reasons, but he's always found things to be excited about and interested in. That's happening less and less these days. He doesn't talk much to either Katsuya or Maya, and according to the letters from Tatsuya, he doesn't talk much there, either. At school, his teachers have noticed him zoning out and not paying attention, and Katsuya has actually been called into a conference where it was carefully suggested that Akira might benefit from talking to some kind of counselor about the things that are worrying up.

Of course, they think that whatever's going on with Akira is most likely tied to some kind of PTSD from the things he'd been through before his adoption, or else an early depression. Katsuya knows that the things that are hurting Akira are things he can't talk about to anyone else.

They do the best they can. Maya, who is the most positive person Katsuya has ever met, can sometimes cheer him up enough to get a good afternoon out of him. Tatsuya, it sounds like, is doing the best he can to make sure Akira knows he has someone to rely on when he's on the Other Side. And Katsuya, mostly, tries not to make anything worse while he tries not to see Tatsuya in Akira every time he looks at him.

(Katsuya had been eighteen when his brother was Akira's age, just finishing high school and realizing that their parents weren't going to be there for Tatsuya any more than they had been for him)

(He'd worked hard, gone into the police force even though it was far from his first choice of career, tried to help Tatsuya when he was as alone and quiet and sad as Akira is now)

The week before summer break, Katsuya learns that Akira has been skipping class, then going home and deleting the school's voicemails off the answering machine before anyone else gets back to listen to them. He learns this when he gets an aggravated call from a school administrator to his work number, complaining that none of the school's calls have been returned and that Akira is close to missing enough school that regional regulations mandate that he would have to repeat fifth grade next year.

To be fair, he doesn't definitely learn the part about Akira deleting the school's voicemails before anyone else can hear them, but Katsuya certainly hasn't been hearing them, and they must have been going somewhere.

He'd wondered why he'd eventually stopped getting calls delicately enquiring about Akira's emotional health. It turns out it's because they've turned into calls about his truancy.

Katsuya leaves work early that day. He says he's sick, then calls Maya to tell her what's happened, and goes looking for their kid. He has no idea where to start, no idea what parts of Sumaru that Akira would gravitate toward. Has gravitated toward. Because he's been doing this for weeks. Months, maybe. Katsuya can't pinpoint exactly when Akira going quiet and withdrawing had turned into just not going to school. 

In the end, he doesn't find Akira. He goes home instead and waits, because Akira clearly doesn't want to be caught sneaking around, he's never not been home when Katsuya and Maya get home, so it stands to reason that he'll be back at the same time as he would have been if he was going to class.

A little later, it turns out. He comes in about an hour after the end of the school day, still well before anyone else would usually be there, and jumps when he sees Katsuya waiting. He looks a little dirty, his usually unmanageable hair is even more of a mess, but other than that he looks fine. 

(And guilty)

"You're home early?" Akira says, voice rising a little in a question. His eyes dart toward the phone on the table by the kitchen door, and Katsuya knows he's wondering if he's finally been caught in his lying. 

For just a second, Katsuya thinks about telling him he knows everything. It's on the tip of his tongue, because he's worried about what Akira's been doing, and angry that he thinks this is okay. But he's had all these arguments already. Not with Akira, but with Tatsuya, years ago, and they hadn't done any good then. Katsuya doesn't really think that it's going to go over any better now.

So he decides to try something else instead. "Oh," he says, like nothing's wrong. "I took a half day today."

"How come?" Akira asks. "You never do that."

"I had too much time off saved up," Katsuya lies. "You use them or lose them, so I just thought I'd come home early tonight. Maybe we can make something for dinner."

Akira shrugs. He's been nervous but interested in the time since he got home--probably interested in finding out if he's in trouble, but at least interested. Now that it seems like he's not going to be in trouble, that fades away. Akira drops his gaze, shrugs, and says, "I have to do my homework."

Katsuya almost asks what homework he could possibly have when he hasn't even been to school, but bites his tongue a second time. For the rest of the afternoon, he lets Akira sit at his usual spot at the table, writing something that he doesn't seem to want to let Katsuya see. He hunches over a little black journal, and turns the page whenever Katsuya is close, and when Maya gets home later and asks what he's working on, Akira just says "Homework," and shrugs at every other question.

That night, Katsuya sends him home with the usual letter.

-//-

Tatsuya -

I know this is a little out of the ordinary, but are you okay with Akira staying with us overnight? I think there's something we need to talk about, and it's not going to happen in Sumaru. 

I'm sorry this is a little vague, but I'm still putting things together and I would rather write it all out in a couple days when it's over, and not give you any incorrect information now. 

- Katsuya

-//-

K -

I trust you, and if you need to do something tonight then I'll come pick him up tomorrow instead. But let me know if everything's okay, please.

- T

-//-

"You're not going to school today," Katsuya tells Akira when he gets in the car.

Akira freezes. Obviously he knows that he's not going to school today, but Katsuya isn't supposed to know.

"Yes I am," he says.

"No you're not," Katsuya says. "We're going to take a trip."

"A what?"

"A trip," Katsuya says. "You and me and Maya. We're going back to the house, we'll grab some things to stay overnight, and then we're leaving."

"Overnight?" A sharp spike of fear jabs at Akira's gut, and he stares at the back of Katsuya's head in shocked disbelief and betrayal. He's never spent the night away from home before, and he doesn't want to now. "But Tatsuya--"

"I let him know already," Katsuya says. "He's not expecting you until tomorrow."

"But..." Akira struggles for words. In the end, all he can manage to ask is, "Why?"

Katsuya won't tell him. He doesn't explain anything while they go back to the house, grab bags, and then go back into the car. Either Katsuya or Maya has picked out things Akira will need, so they're just... leaving. They're gone. And Akira is just sitting in the back of the car, hugging his bag of things because he needs something to do with his arms, seeing something outside Sumaru City for the first time in his life.

He's quiet, watching. He's spent plenty of time here over the past four years, he's seen movies and read books, he knows there's a whole world outside the one city that is his world. But he's always kind of assumed that world isn't for him. He's tied to Sumaru City because that's where the Velvet Room door is, and that's the only way he can get back home. Even though he knows the Velvet Room door is still waiting there behind them, that he can go home as soon as he gets back, Akira feels restless and itchy. This is a good world, he knows that, because... again, he watches TV, and he reads books. He sees stories about the end of the world, and some of them look better than the world where he was born. He knows that he's supposed to like it here more than he likes it there.

But he doesn't. He likes books and air conditioning and grocery stores full of food, but it's not home. 

They drive for a long time. Long enough that they have to stop to eat and use the bathroom before getting back on the road. Akira starts to think about what it's going to be like to not be home tonight, and really wonder where they're going to be instead. And then they finally stop, and Akira realizes they're at a cemetery.

The little hairs on the back of his neck start to stand up, and Akira feels actually a little afraid as he looks at the two adults in the car with him for guidance. "Can you tell me where we are now?" he asks, and his voice is too quiet and too high. 

Maya gets out and comes around the side of the car to let him out too, smiling at him. She smiles a lot, and Akira knows her smiles well enough to see that this one is sad. "First of all," she says. "We didn't want you to be upset. I'm sorry if it was a little strange to suddenly be brought all the way out here, but we thought you might be upset if we told you right away."

Akira is kind of upset anyway, but he gives her a tiny nod because he wants this to all turn out to be okay, somehow. Whatever else is going on, he's here with only two people that he knows at all, and he wants to keep trusting them. 

"So Kaoru actually looked up your friend Minato a while ago," Maya says. "After we found out that he died. And so we know where he's buried, and Katsuya thought it might help you to come here and see his grave."

"Oh," Akira says. He looks down at his hands, and feels a lot of things he didn't think he could feel all at the same time. 

"We don't have to see his grave if you don't want to," Katsuya says, and Akira looks up again to see that he's gotten out of the car too. 

"I wanna see him," Akira says, and then realizes this isn't a him this is an it, because the only thing here is a grave. 

And then after that he realizes that no, he'd still meant the sentence he'd said because he still wants to see him. He wants to see Minato, and Kotone too. These two people that he'd known for a year, and only ever in the Velvet Room. He wants to ask is this what having friends really is, he wants to know if they miss him, or if he's just a little kid that they hadn't thought was as important as he thinks they are. 

Maya doesn't comment on the slip. Instead she just walks him into the cemetery with Katsuya only a step away off to the side. There's a little bit of a wait because the two adults aren't sure exactly where Minato's grave is. But they find him eventually, and Akira is surprised by the sudden sense of relief that hits him so hard it's like he's just crashed into a wall.

Minato's dead, but he's also right here. In a way it matters to see that he's real, not just someone Akira had imagined into the Velvet Room. He reads the name on the stone there, and it says Minato Arisato, and that's the name of his friend.

"That's him!" he blurts, voice too loud in the quiet of the cemetery. "Maya--" He looks up at her, because he knows she'll be excited too. Maya is the kind of person that always gets excited for other people's excitement. "Maya, look!"

"I see," she says, and she looks happy for him like he'd thought she would be.

Akira looks back at Minato's gravesite. And he feels... better. Sad in a way that doesn't hurt as much as it used to. 

He cries a lot that afternoon. He cries in the cemetery, and then more in the hotel about half an hour away where they end up staying that night. The last time he cried over Minato and Kotone had been the night he found out they'd died, and this cry feels a lot better than that one had. It feels like he's finally starting to heal.

When it gets dark out, Akira sits on one of the two beds in the hotel room, while Katsuya and Maya try to decide where they're going to go out and get dinner, and a TV rumbles softly in the background, Akira says, "I haven't been going to school."

Both of them stop and look at him. Katsuya nods and says, "We know. Someone at your school called me at work yesterday."

Oh. Akira's been really careful to always check the answering machine at the house for messages when he gets home, but it's been more than a month now and he'd kind of convinced himself that's all he's going to need to do. Since the school keeps calling Katsuya at home, he hadn't thought they'd eventually start trying something else. 

"Why haven't you been going to school?" Katsuya asks, and he doesn't sound happy.

Akira shrugs, and kind of wants to back up and run away from this conversation. But he's decided to start, and he doesn't want to just stop. Probably Katsuya wouldn't even let him if he wanted to. "What's the point?" he asks. "No one there likes me. And I'm not learning anything that's ever gonna help me at home. I used to like school, because I just liked learning all this new stuff, but now it's like... there's no point."

"There's a point," Katsuya says. "Because when you go to school, and learn the things your teacher tells you, you're finding new things that you might not ever have thought about on your own."

"So?" Akira asks. "It's not stuff I can use."

"The point is that it's making you a better person," Katsuya says. 

"Who cares though?"

"Every one of us cares," Katsuya says, and he's getting really worked up, a little bit angry. "We want you to be the best person you can be because we love you and we care about you and we want you to be able to do anything you want."

"But--"

"So just go to school, Tatsuya!"

Akira shuts up, startled. Maya looks surprised too, and reaches out to put her hand on his arm. Katsuya takes a deep breath and shakes his head. "I'm sorry," he says, more quietly. "I'm going to go pick up dinner."

Akira flinches a little as the door closes, then looks pleadingly at Maya for help. For a second he catches her looking after Katsuya, worried. Then she looks back at him. 

"I guess I should go to school?" Akira says, voice small.

"You should," Maya says. "But I'm sure he didn't want to get upset like that either."

"He called me Tatsuya," Akira says. "Why did he do that?"

"Mmm..." Maya taps her chin, considering. "Well, he used to be the one that would try and get Tatsuya to go to school, you know. I think he feels like he didn't do a good enough job then, and now you're not going either." She smiles at him. Another sad-smile. "It really is because he cares about both of you, you know."

"Yeah..." Akira mumbles his answer. "I just--there really isn't a point, is there? I wanted to go to school to make friends, and I can't do that. And even when I do make friends, they just d-die."

Maya moves over to him, and rubs his back comfortingly. "Maybe you started school because you wanted to make friends," she says. "But that's not really what it's for. You go to school to learn, and to figure out what you want to do." She smiles. "I wouldn't be a journalist if I hadn't gone to school. Katsuya wouldn't be a police officer. And we have no idea what you can be someday, Akira, but you're more likely to figure it out if you let yourself be open to new things. And school is a great place to do that."

"Okay," Akira says. "But when I'm back home, how is any of that going to help?"

"I don't know," Maya says. "That's up to you to figure out. But you're the only one from the Other Side that can come here, and that means you're the only one that has this chance. It would really be a waste if you threw that away."

"Yeah," Akira says quietly. "I guess I didn't think about it like that."

"Be positive," Maya says. "Don't think that school is just somewhere that you learn things that aren't going to help you on the Other Side. Try to think of it as something that you can use to find a whole new way of maybe doing something good for the Other Side."

"I can do that," Akira says.

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah!"

She smiles a real smile. "Alright then," she says. "And maybe you can tell Katsuya that when he comes back." 

It takes Katsuya forty five minutes to come back, and when he does, he says it was because he got turned around. Akira's not sure if that's true or not, but Katsuya definitely isn't going to say if he doesn't want to. But he seems calmer, and a little embarrassed, which is weird and kind of awkward because Akira is the one that should be apologizing to him. Which he does, right away, before Katsuya has a chance to get past his explanation of why food had taken so long to bring back. 

"I'm sorry," he blurts out. "I'm gonna start going back to school again. Maya helped me see that it might be good, actually. Um--that it definitely will be, I mean."

"Oh good," Katsuya says. "I wasn't sure what else I was going to be able to say to convince you." He drops into a chair next to the bed, shoulders slumping. Akira feels bad.

"It's okay," Akira says. "Maya did."

"Alright," Katsuya says. "I think we can all live with that." 

Things get less tense while they're eating, eventually even relaxing enough that Maya asks Akira what he's been doing instead of going to school all this time.

"I've been going some days," Akira says, hedging.

"And on the days when you're not?"

"Um... mostly I go to the parks so I can be by myself. I've been practicing climbing trees."

"You're going to hurt yourself if you're climbing trees with no one around," Katsuya says.

"No way!" Akira says. "I've been getting really good." But he thinks that probably it's a good idea to not talk about trees right now. "Or sometimes I find other places to hide. My teacher at school gave me a journal to write in so I do that a lot."

"What do you write about?" Maya asks.

"She said to write down when I'm sad or scared," Akira says. "She asked me if I wanted to talk to her, and I said no 'cuz I can't, so she gave me the journal and said to write it down instead."

"Is it helping?" Katsuya asks.

Akira shrugs and then nods. He still doesn't write down any of the secret things that are hurting him, because somebody could still find it and read it. He doesn't want to give everything away just by being dumb and careless, so he writes about the things that happen to him very, very vaguely, and about the things he's feeling in so much detail that it sometimes takes up whole pages. 

"Is that what you were doing yesterday when you said you were working on homework?" 

"Yeah," Akira says. "But my teacher said I don't have to ever actually turn it in, she just wants me to write in it."

"Then you should keep writing in it," Katsuya says. "And you should go back to school. And if you start to feel like you want to skip class again, I want you to come talk to us instead, so we can help you. Okay?"

"Okay."

"And you absolutely can't start sneaking around like that again," Katsuya says. "I was really worried about you yesterday when the school called, and I found out no one had any idea where you were."

Akira nods, and tries to keep his expression very, very much under control. The truth is that only the second or third time he decided that instead of going to school he was going to leave through the hole in the fence behind the building, he'd run into Katsuya and Maya's friend Kaoru. He'd thought he was going to get in trouble right after that, but Kaoru never turned him in, even when Akira had started showing up at his lair (Kaoru calls it a lair, which is really funny) on rainy days to stay dry. He's happy he'd had somewhere to stay out of the rain when he needed to, and doesn't think Kaoru should get in trouble for it. He just isn't sure if Katsuya or Maya will think that anyone needs to get in trouble for it.

They end up not talking much more about Akira skipping school for the rest of the night, which is probably good. Akira thinks he could have gotten in a whole lot of trouble for it, but it seems like everything's going to be okay for now. Katsuya does remind him (twice) that he has to be careful from now on to not miss any more school at all if he doesn't want to have to repeat fifth grade all over again, but Maya stops him before he can bring it up a third time, and not too long after that Akira accidentally falls asleep.

He doesn't really mean to, but it's been a long day, and he's cried a lot, and maybe he's more tired than he thought he was. He falls asleep, and doesn't even have dreams. 

He's just out like a light until the next morning, when he wakes up to someone's hand on his shoulder. Akira cracks his eyes open, sees somewhere that is not his and Tatsuya's apartment, and freaks out. A flood of adrenaline sends him rocketing backward away from the hand, and he falls with a thump onto the floor, blankets tangled around him. 

"Akira, it's okay!"

But he doesn't calm down until he's kicked his way out of the blankets and stood up on his own two feet, where he can get away from whatever bad is coming for him. 

...which turns out to be nothing at all, actually, because he's just in the hotel room where he's staying with Katsuya and Maya. He's still safe, he's just somewhere different.

"Sorry," Akira says, face heating up. He doesn't usually wake up anywhere except at home, and Tatsuya doesn't shake him awake either. "Um..." Suddenly, he wants to go home very badly. Last night he'd felt so much better than he has in a long time that it hadn't bothered him much, but all of a sudden the feeling of being homesick just hits him really hard. "Are we... going back now?"

He starts to feel better when they're back on the road. Going toward home feels much less stressful than going away, and Akira even starts to feel okay enough to have fun watching all the different things outside the car window, and also to ask Katsuya why it's not okay to skip school, but it is okay when Katsuya wants him to go away for two days. 

Katsuya tells him that's different, and Akira asks how, and then Maya starts laughing behind her hand so Akira never actually gets his answer.

(He does feel better though, so maybe it really is different)

-//-

Tatsuya -

We took Akira out to Minato's grave. It's not anywhere near us, which is a little concerning because of what that means about how easily demons can spread around the country, but it seems like it helped him a lot. 

He also told us that his teacher has him writing in a journal to help process some of what he's been going through, which is probably a good idea considering how much he has to deal with, and how he can't actually talk to anyone about it. I'm not sure if he can do anything like that by you, but considering that you've been able to write us letters for all these years, I'm hoping he'll be able to keep working on his journal on the Other Side too. I wanted to let you know in case that helps you.

- Katsuya

-//-

October 2010

Tatsuya gets to hear all about Akira's first trip out of Sumaru City because Akira tells him what sounds like every single detail of it. Which is a nice change, honestly, from how unusually quiet Akira's been ever since they found out that his friends had died back in March. Tatsuya starts to get used to Akira chattering away while they're doing other things together, and their apartment feels a lot less empty now that Akira's coming back to life again. Akira talks about school and the things he's learning, and he reassures Tatsuya every single day when he asks (because apparently this is something he actually has to ask now) that yes he's been going to class. He seems determined to stick to it this time.

Akira is getting excited about things again, which is good.

Mostly.

Except that in October, the city holds the first festival since it had been unceremoniously launched into the sky. Normally, Tatsuya would have heard about this and avoided it. The festival is being... sponsored, for lack of a better word, by a few of the more powerful gangs that (for better or worse) control most of the city between them. A kind of unofficial truce, and also a chance for the various groups to show off their resources and strength in front of the rest of the city.

If all goes well, it'll be the first chance the city has had something to celebrate in the past ten years. If it doesn't, then Tatsuya is wary of how much could go wrong. If there's one thing human beings are very good at, it's finding ways to make alcohol even when they have almost nothing else. Tatsuya remembers reading once that every ancient civilization had come up with their own version of bread, and their own version of alcohol--whatever else they might or might not have had, those were the basics. Up here, the alcohol part of that mostly translates into something very strong that Tatsuya's pretty sure would have been illegal in a society that still had laws.

There will be alcohol, and crowds, and Akira is only ten, and Tatsuya just isn't sure if he trusts the rest of the world enough to let Akira out into the parts of it that look like this.

Realistically speaking, Tatsuya doesn't think most people are going to be dumb enough to start anything in the middle of the festival. None of the gangs are going to dare to try anything, because they'd have to deal with the combined forces of all the other ones. And for the people like him that have managed to stay out of the gangs' reach, it would be something close to suicide to start making trouble. 

But.

It's not like it's impossible.

And if Akira hadn't been begging and begging to go, Tatsuya doesn't think he would have said yes. Not that he gives in right away, he does tell Akira no the first several times he asks. Then he suggests that Akira should stay overnight with Katsuya and Maya again, because there will be much better and safer festivals on that Side that he could go to. Akira still says no, insisting that he wants to go to a festival here, with him, on This Side. 

He's so excited again. He's had such a hard year. And honestly, they so rarely get to do good things together that a selfish part of Tatsuya wants to be able to do something fun with his kid. So eventually, after weeks of Akira nagging at him, Tatsuya gives in and says yes.

On Earth, October would have been chilly for a festival. Up here, where the city floats well over the surface of the planet and seasons don't mean much, it's not any worse than any other time of the year. And even if it had been, Tatsuya's pretty sure it wouldn't have had much of an effect on the people crowding out into the streets. 

There's food, and games, and groups of people showing off talents they probably haven't had a chance to bring out since the world ended. There are makeshift stages peppered around the edges of the festival area, where people sing or play music. Later in the night, there will possibly even be fireworks--apparently, somebody has dug out a stash that had been put in storage before the end of the world, and testing one had ended without anyone dying in a horrible explosion, so...

There's a decent amount of kids there too, which surprises Tatsuya until he really stops to think about it. Not many of them are Akira's age, because he'd been born within a year of when the city took flight, and there hadn't been too many people having kids back then. But there are younger kids that had been born after things eventually started to settle, and older teenagers that had been just about old enough to stand up for themselves. And Tatsuya has to admit that he's seen more kids during the past few years, it's just that in some way he hadn't really processed it until he finally had a chance to see so many of them together.

They're still rare. There's still less of them than Tatsuya would have expected if things were normal and they were all living somewhere on the planet. But things are plodding along, there's kids here, and things feel... they feel so tantalizingly close to normal. At one point, Tatsuya even sits back and watches as Akira gets pulled away by a group of other kids. A few teenagers and one girl that actually looks close to Akira's age. And they're just... kids. Running around, shouting at each other, having fun. Tatsuya keeps an eye on him, of course, but at least for right now, Akira seems to be doing okay. Actually relaxed for once. 

Forgetting, just for one night, to be careful, and wary, and anything other than a kid.

Tatsuya waits until dark to call Akira back so they can find a place to watch the fireworks from together. The festival is starting to break up anyway, people filtering away in small groups to do exactly the same thing they're doing, and find better vantage points for the fireworks. 

"Did you have a good time?" he asks. 

"Yeah!" Akira says. "It was great! And the fireworks are gonna be so cool, I saw some once on a video at school--"

"Shh," Tatsuya reminds him, and Akira lowers his voice.

"I saw them on a video and it was so cool!"

"What kinds of videos are you watching at school that have fireworks?" Tatsuya asks.

"It was a couple years ago," Akira says. "But now we're going to see them for real, right?"

"Right."

They end up on the roof of their apartment building, where a few of their neighbors have also climbed up to be able to see the sky better. Tatsuya sits near one of the planters full of forget-me-nots, listening to them swish against each other in a gentle wind, imagining that the sounds are not quite audible words, feeling the familiar pang of knowing where they'd come from and who had helped Akira to choose them. 

Thinking of Jun brings Tatsuya's mind wandering back to earlier memories, to the days when they and their other friends had first met. That had been at a festival too, when they weren't that far off Akira's age now.

"Make any friends today?" Tatsuya asks. "It looked like you were having fun with the other kids."

"I had fun," Akira says. "I guess everyone was more excited about the festival than they were worried about if I was weird."

"You're not weird."

Akira shrugs. "Anyway," he says, matter of factly. "I decided to give up on making friends. It hurts too much when it's over."

Tatsuya looks sideways at Akira. "It's not always like--"

"Look, look, it's starting!" 

Akira's finger shoots upward, following the arc of the first launched firework. When it bursts, Akira cheers and jumps up, visibly excited in the way that a ten year old should be seeing fireworks for the first time. He seems happy, and that's... it's honestly nice after how little Tatsuya's gotten to see that lately. But the whispered rustling of the forget-me-nots is still there under the explosions, this gift from one of his oldest friends whispering the accusation that he's gotten something wrong. That Akira deserves the kind of friendship they'd all had once, before everything went wrong. 

Tatsuya watches Akira watching the fireworks, until finally it's over. Akira, who doesn't look like he's blinked this whole time, suddenly looks back down at Tatsuya and frowns. "Were you looking?" he asks.

"No," Tatsuya lies. "Of course not.'

Akira apparently sees right through the lie. "Tatsuya!" he says. "This might be the last time we ever even get fireworks here, and you weren't even watching?"

"I've seen fireworks before," Tatsuya says.

"Well these fireworks were the best," Akira says. "You don't know what you're missing."

Neither do you, Tatsuya thinks as he takes Akira back down into their apartment to put him to bed. You don't know what you're missing, and we need to find a way to show you that friends can be good.

-//-

April 2011

The months pass. Fall rolls into winter and then spring. Akira pulls his grades up, and manages to move on from fifth grade to sixth with the rest of his classmates. He writes in his journal, and most days he doesn't feel as sad as he used to.

And then one day in early April, as he's passing through the Velvet Room on his way back from school, he finds that it's transformed itself into a limousine. 

Chapter Text

April 2011

There's a boy in the limo, older than Akira by a few years, wearing a high school uniform Akira has never seen before, and looking at him uncertainly from across the small space. Akira opens and then closes his mouth, and in the end turns to look for Igor instead. He finds him on a seat at what feels like the front of the limo, watching Akira and the strange boy with a little smile on his face. Margaret's there too, sitting with her back perfectly straight and a book lying flat on her lap, and across from her is a girl that looks like maybe she's another person from the Velvet Room--she's on their side, and there's hints of Velvet Room blue on her clothes.

Having decided that the girl is probably safe, his eyes flick back to the older boy. He looks confused in the same way he remembers Kotone and Minato had looked the first few times he saw them. The same way Akira had probably looked confused when he found the Velvet Room for the first time. This is someone that's never come in through the Velvet Room door before, and Akira knows on instinct that this stranger is not like Igor and the other Velvet Room people who live here and belong here. And he's not like Akira, who's always just passing through. He's like Kotone and Minato, who had died.

"What's going to happen to him?" Akira asks Igor, before he can think that maybe this is a bad idea. His voice wavers a little, because he's been through this already. He knows what happens to the friends he'd made in this room.

"That," Igor says. "Is a question that only time can answer. As time will eventually show what happens to all of us."

"But is he going to die?" Akira asks.

"Akira," Margaret scolds.

Akira hesitates, wavers. His gaze jumps from Igor to Margaret, and sees her obvious disapproval of his question. He wants to know what's going to happen, and in this place he really feels like he might have been able to get an answer. Anywhere else, he would have felt stupid for even asking, but here?

Well, he does kind of feels stupid now, because of Margaret's reaction, but the people here know more than mot people do about stuff they shouldn't. 

"Hey--" the stranger says. Starts to say.

Akira darts out the door before he can hear whatever the rest of that sentence was going to turn out to be. He's not ready to have the same thing happen all over again, he's just barely starting to get a handle on the fact that he's lost friends, but that he can still find a way to keep going anyway. That he's going to have to.

It doesn't mean he has to open himself back up to something that's going to hurt all over again.

There's no school the next day. Akira doesn't have to worry about running into the stranger until he has to go back on Monday. He doesn't say anything to Tatsuya over the weekend, although he thinks Tatsuya notices that he's being more clingy than usual. He can't help himself though. This feels dangerous in a way that he kind of just wants to run away from. And because Tatsuya doesn't ever directly ask, just lets Akira know that if he's worried about something they can always talk, Akira doesn't say anything. 

He doesn't say anything to Katsuya or Maya on Monday, either. And when he continues to not see the new boy for days and then weeks, not saying anything starts to feel more and more like the right choice. Maybe he can just ignore all this until it goes away. Maybe it already has gone away. There's another new person that's starting showing up sometimes in the Velvet Room, a cranky girl who says her name is Marie, but she seems more like Igor or the other people that live there. Not, in some way that Akira can't explain, like Yu.

He does ask Igor about Yu once, cautiously, after weeks of not seeing the new boy again.

"Yu is following his own path," Igor tells him. "One that may perhaps still intersect with yours."

"Is that his name?" Akira asks. "Yu?"

Igor nods at him. "His contract has been signed," he says. "And he is doing what he sees needs to be done."

"Is he going to die?" Akira asks. He'd asked Igor before, but he hadn't gotten an answer then, and Margaret isn't here now.

"I cannot see the future, child," Igor says. It could have sounded impatient, but it doesn't.

"It's going to be like last time," Akira says.

"It is not," Igor says, still perfectly calm. "The situation is different. The parties involved is different. The threat Yu faces, although dangerous and, yes, potentially deadly, is different as well."

"Does he know he could die?" Akira asks.

"He did have several questions of his own after the things you said in your meeting with him," Igor says, and Akira flushes slightly at the reminder that oh yeah actually he had kind of blurted out a lot of stuff about dying when... when Yu had still been new to the Velvet Room. "Now, I may be wrong, but if you linger much longer aren't you in danger of being late for school?"

And that's all he ever says about Yu, and Akira is too scared to ask about him again.

So he just focuses on pushing Yu out of his mind, and hoping that maybe things will somehow be okay, until eventually something happens that (eventually) ends by making it impossible to keep ignoring Yu.

(This is what happens)

(First: A group of four looters breaks into their apartment in the middle of the night, surprising Akira and Tatsuya)

(Second: The looters are driven off. Tatsuya is scary when he needs to be, and three of them are gone before they have time to do damage to anything but the door)

(Third: The fourth one gets past Tatsuya, dragging Akira out of his bed, slashing him across the face with what turns out to be a shiv made of mostly broken glass)

(Fourth: Akira, who has been learning to fight since he could hold a knife but hasn't had to actually fight anyone yet, gets away and manages to stab the fourth looter in the leg, driving him away too)

(Fifth: He takes a middle of the night trip through the Velvet Room because Tatsuya says his face needs to be looked at right now, Akira, seriously, which scares Katsuya and Maya when he just shows up at two AM, and leads to a long, long hospital trip where he gets stitches all the way up the side of his face and questioned by a worried doctor that doesn't exactly seem to believe he'd just had an accident)

He's been around violence all his life, but this is the first time it's come for him, and Akira is a little surprised at how much it ends up not bothering him. He'd been scared, and it hadn't felt good to stab someone, and his face had hurt, and still hurts, and the doctor says he'll probably have a scar there forever, across the side of his face from his eye to his jaw.

But in a weird way, it's also a relief. He's not just a little kid anymore. Tatsuya's always told him it was important he learned how to defend himself so he wouldn't freeze if something happened, so he'd know what to do, and it turns out that's right. And now that it's over he can just think list it in his head like one, two, three, four, five, a set of things that had happened but they're over now and he's okay. The worst part is that the kids at school think his face looks funny now, and have added that to the usual teasing. And if that's the worst thing that had come out of it, then that's okay. Akira gets a little more self-conscious on the Other Side, it gets a little harder to be around people at school, but it could have been so much worse. He's fine.

Yu, it turns out, has other opinions.

Yu, apparently, has heard that he got hurt, and is worried.

(Akira's trying not to think about the fact that Yu might just die like Kotone and Minato had, and Yu's worried about him instead)

It's after school, again, and Yu is sitting in the same seat that he'd been in the first time they'd met. This time he has a notebook open on his knees, which he's writing in while looking back and forth between that and a textbook on the seat next to him. Homework or studying, Akira thinks, only he doesn't know why anyone would do that in the Velvet Room. 

Yu jumps a little when Akira enters the Velvet Room, but his face is relieved when he says, "Oh hey. You're here."

"Um..." He hadn't been expecting this. He's been focusing on the fact that he stabbed a man during a break in, and on doing his best to pretend that Yu doesn't even exist. But here's Yu looking at him like they're friends.

"Marie mentioned that you'd gotten really hurt," Yu says, his gaze landing on the still healing scar on the side of Akira's face next to his right eye. It's red and raised, uneven because of the number of stitches it had taken to close up, and Akira braces, waiting for more of the same kind of comments he's been getting from his classmates. 

(The most popular one right now is Frankenstein)

"Are you okay?" Yu asks.

"Huh?" Akira says.

"That looks like it hurts a lot," Yu says. "And I haven't seen you here since that first time, so I thought I'd camp out here until you showed up again."

Akira squints and then crosses his arms, looking away. They'd had to shave his hair short when he went into the hospital, so it wouldn't get in the way of the stitches, and without his usual messy hair to hide the scar, he makes sure to turn the other way now so Yu won't be able to keep looking. "Why?" he asks.

"Well we're both here together," Yu says. He sounds awkward now. Which Akira doesn't care about because they are not friends. "No one else can get into the Velvet Room. And I know you must have people that care about you outside of here, but I was worried anyway."

The way Akira has had to turn his head to keep his scar out of sight, he can't avoid looking at Igor. The old man smiles at Akira from under his long nose, expression looking almost encouraging. 

Akira feels like he has to say something, after that.

"You're wrong," he mutters.

"Sorry?"

"You're wrong," Akira says again. "We're not the only ones that can use the Velvet Room, it's just that the last people that were here died."

He risks a look back at Yu. The older boy nods. "You said something about dying last time," he says. "I'm guessing that has something to do with fighting Shadows?"

Akira, despite himself, looks back at Yu. "I don't know what that means," he says.

Yu looks surprised.

"I just know they were my friends," Akira says. "And then they died, and now I don't have friends."

Yu's surprised expression melts into something worse, and Akira wishes furiously that Yu didn't look so sorry for him. "We could--"

"I don't want more friends," Akira says sharply, in case that's where Yu's going with this. "I don't ever want to have to do that again, losing friends is awful."

"It is," Yu says. "But having friends is very good. And just because I'm in the Velvet Room, it doesn't mean I'm going to die."

"You might," Akira says. 

"Anybody might," Yu says. Very gently, he adds, "It looks like you got close."

Akira starts to lift his hand up to his face, then forces himself to hold still. He has a scar because he hadn't died and to him that seems like a good thing, but he's tired of other people laughing because they only see that it's ugly. "No," he says. "I'm okay."

"Sorry," Yu says. "If you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to."

"I don't," Akira says.

"And we don't have to be friends if you don't want that, either," Yu adds. "But if you're going to worry about what happens to me, will you let me be worried about what happens to you, too?"

Akira thinks about it, then gives a little nod. "Yeah," he says. "That... seems fair." 

"Okay," Yu says. "Then why don't we try and meet here once a week or so? Maybe on Mondays after school."

"I don't come here right after school," Akira says. "I have to finish my homework before I go home."

"Then what time works for you?"

"Seven?" Akira says. He usually comes back at around the same time every day, because Tatsuya still won't let him walk back to the apartment alone, even though he's sometimes allowed to walk to and from Katsuya and Maya's house on the Other Side. Then again, he's never had to stab anyone on the Other Side, so maybe that makes sense. 

"Okay," Yu says. "Then I'll be here every Monday at 7:00, and we can both make sure we're okay."

-//-

July 2011

Katsuya is a police detective.

He is a police detective that has already let important things slip past him when it comes to Akira, and is not going to let that happen again. So he knows Akira is keeping secrets weeks before Akira eventually comes to him and Maya and says he has something he needs to ask them.

"It's kind of important," Akira says, twisting his hands nervously as he sits across the table from the two of them, ignoring his dinner.

"We're always here to listen if you have problems," Maya reminds him. She's looking at his face, at where the puckered skin of where some unknown bastard in another timeline that Katsuya will never meet had sliced Akira so badly that he'll probably carry the scar for the rest of his life. He knows what she's hoping for, because he's hoping the same thing. 

Akira's told them what happened. They know that someone had broken into the place where he lives with Tatsuya, that there had been a fight, and that Akira had been hurt before the looters were scared away. 

But Akira keeps telling them he's fine, and that's a lie. He'd stabbed someone, And none of them are questioning that it had been necessary because of the circumstances, but Akira still can't talk about it without a shake in his voice.

"It's not my problem, exactly," Akira says. "Um..." the nervous finger twisting continues. "If... if you guys had known that Minato was on This Side before he died, do you think you could have helped him?"

This is not the question Katsuya had expected. It's been a while since Akira mentioned his friends from the Velvet Room that he'd lost almost two years ago now. Not to say that he's forgotten them, but he at least seems to be healing from it. "I don't know," he says. "From what the Demon Painter told Tatsuya, and then what Tatsuya wrote to us, things were complicated."

"We would have tried as hard as we could to help, though," Maya says. 

"Okay," Akira says. "So... so if it was happening again, do you think maybe you could help?"

Something in Katsuya feels cold. This keeps happening. "Does that mean it is happening again?" he asks, trying to keep the dread out of his voice.

Akira nods. "His name is Yu Narukami," he says. "I don't know where he lives, but we've been meeting in the Velvet Room every week, because one of the people there told him I got hurt and he was worried. And I really tried not to care what happened to him, but..." He shakes his head hard, like he's trying to chase away an unwanted thought. "But he's really nice, and he's really worried about me, and I don't want him to die too!"

Under the table, Maya reaches for Katsuya's hand and squeezes hard. The gesture communicates the same thing he's feeling himself. This keeps happening. And if Tatsuya had seemed too young to have to deal with all this twelve years ago when he was in high school, Katsuya keeps thinking that the kids the Velvet Room keeps pulling inside are even less ready. Maybe he's just getting older, maybe it's sitting across the table from Akira every night at dinner, but kids today that are sixteen or seventeen years old just seem so much younger. They're not ready to fight demons and die.

"We'll do whatever we can to help," Katsuya promises. "Tell us what you know about him."

Akira nods, and does. He knows Narukami's name, obviously, but not the name of the town where he lives or the school he goes to. He knows that he's in high school, and sixteen, and what his school uniform looks like. He knows that Narukami's parents are out of the country this year, and so Narukami is living with an uncle and a cousin.

(He is very, very worried about making sure Narukami lives)

When he's given them absolutely everything he can, and Katsuya and Maya have both promised him that they'll do anything they can to make sure Narukami comes through the Velvet Room safely, Katsuya sends Akira home, and calls Kaoru.

He and Ulala find missing people. They can certainly find one high school student. 

When Kaoru has picked up the phone and given a little grunt to show he's paying attention, Katsuya says, "There's someone else in the Velvet Room."

"Again?" Kaoru demands. 

"Again," Maya says, and gestures for Katsuya to put the phone on speaker so they can both hear. "Akira just told us."

"I'm hoping you'll be able to track him down," Katsuya says. 

"I'm not exactly going to say no," Kaoru says. "Not with what that kid's probably dealing with right now." There's some muffled tapping on his end of the line, something that sounds like a keyboard. Probably is a keyboard, considering how much information Kaoru can pull out of a computer. "What's his name?"

"Yu Narukami," Katsuya says. "I don't know where he is, but I do have a description of his school uniform."

There's a sigh. Then Kaoru asks, "Do you know what kind of person hangs out on the parts of the internet where you can find a database of high school uniforms?" he asks. "It's a lot easier to find girls' uniforms than boys', if that helps."

"I can imagine," Maya says. "But we need to know who he is, Kaoru. Can you help?"

Another sigh.

"Please?"

"You know I will," Kaoru complains. "But we had better be able to help him, this time. I've lost sleep over what happened to those kids in Iwatodai too, you know."

So has Katsuya, if he's being honest. 

"It's not going to happen again," Maya says, and somehow her voice is completely sure, the only positive one here. "We didn't know last time, and now we do."

"Then I'll see what I can do. What does this uniform look like, exactly?"

Katsuya describes what Akira had told them, doing his best not to leave out any details or add any of his own speculation. 

"That should be enough," Kaoru says. "No promises, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

He hangs up.

All of forty four minutes later, he emails Maya with the name of a school in a small town out in the middle of nowhere that Katsuya has never heard of. 

"Yasogami High School," she reads from her computer.

"That's pretty much what Akira described," Katsuya says, leaning over her shoulder to see the email too. "The school's logo matches."

"Then that's probably it," Maya says. She taps her fingers against the table for a minute, then says, "Akira starts summer break next week. We could make the trip down while he's on the Other Side then."

"You think it would be better to go without him?" Katsuya asks.

"I would take him with us in a second if he'd agree to spend his vacation here," Maya says. "But we both know he won't."

Katsuya nods. After the break in he'd genuinely hoped Akira would consider spending his month off on This Side. He'd been hurt, he'd been put in danger--although they don't know exactly what the looter had used to slash his face open, Katsuya thinks it might have been some kind of improvised weapon, probably cobbled together from glass shards.

If that weapon had cut an inch higher, Akira would have lost an eye. If it had cut deeper, it would have killed him. Katsuya doesn't think he's fully realized that, and he's not going to be the one to make what had happened worse. But things could have turned out extremely badly, and Katsuya wants to keep Akira out of the Other Side as much as physically possible.

For a few days, it had really looked like Akira was thinking about it. The attack had shaken him. But he'd gone home, and he'd thought about it, and he'd said that he wasn't going to leave. 

("Tatsuya kept me safe," he'd told them. "And... he gets it.")

(The implication that Katsuya and Maya don't isn't lost on either of them)

(...but since Katsuya can't even imagine choosing to stay on the Other Side, maybe it's true that they really don't get it)

"So since Akira won't be here anyway," Maya says. "And since there's always a chance that this won't be easy, I think it might be easier to talk to Narukami without Akira there."

"You might be right," Katsuya admits. 

"So we'll go next week," Maya says. "As soon as Akira goes home for summer break."

-//-

Tatsuya -

I don't know if Akira's told you, but there's someone else in the Velvet Room. Again. We're fairly sure he's on This Side, and we've tracked him down. Maya and I are going to the town where he lives while Akira's on break, to see if we can talk to this new person in the Velvet Room. Hopefully we'll be able to get more information on what's going on. 

Obviously now that Akira's home for summer break we won't be able to exchange letters for a while, but I'll let you know how it goes as soon as school starts up again. In the meantime, please stay safe. As safe as you can. And as always, if you need to send Akira back early, we'd be happy to have him here.

- Katsuya

-//-

July 2011

Katsuya would have been happy to confront Narukami at his home address. He knows it now, because Kaoru and Ulala have been doing more of their investigating, and they know that now. But Maya had pointed out that whoever Narukami is staying with probably won't know what he's up to, and a visit from a police officer from halfway across the country could be easily misconstrued.

Her plan is to just visit the town and see what they can find when they're there. To hope for the best, basically. 

This typically works out for her, so this is the plan they're going with.

Inaba turns out to be a small town with not much there to see. Maya has a knack for figuring out the places where high school kids would hang out--she laughs this off and blames her time writing for Coolest magazine, when Katsuya asks--and by early afternoon they're at the town's one department store. Not the place Katsuya would have assumed any teenagers would want to hang out, but that just shows what he knows. There's teens everywhere, hanging out at the rooftop food court, or stocking shelves, or loitering near the displays.

They find Narukami in the produce department, stocking shelves with a friend wearing a set of headphones around his neck. The two of them are talking about something, animated and laughing, looking like any other pair of teenagers, and not at all like one of them has been in the Velvet Room. As soon as they get close, without knowing what Narukami looks like, without hearing this boy's name, Katsuya knows this is who they're looking for. His Persona stirs, sharpening his focus on the stranger, recognizing something in him that is the same--a Persona-user, and someone that has been in the Velvet Room. He glances sideways, at Maya, who has clearly sensed the same thing he has, and then returns his attention to the boy that must be Narukami.

He's looking back at them, a kind of uncertain surprise on his expression, because of course he would have felt the same thing that Katsuya and Maya had. His friend says something to him, twice, before he manages to get Narukami's attention. Whatever Narukami says is enough to make his friend glance over at Katsuya and Maya and then leave. By the time they reach Narukami, he's standing a little straighter and waiting for them. 

"Hello," Maya says, taking the lead before Katsuya has time to do more than open his mouth. Which is probably for the best, considering that Katsuya has something in mind that's a little closer to an interrogation. "You're  Yu Narukami, right?"

The boy nods. "Yeah," he says. "That's me. Who are...?"

"I'm Maya Amano," Maya says. "And this is Katsuya Suou."

Narukami's expression is still wary. Polite, too, but he's obviously still not sure what to make of them.

"We need to talk," Maya says. "We know that you've been visiting the Velvet Room."

"How do you..." Recognition sparks in his eyes, and he looks at Katsuya. "She said your name is Suou," he says. "Are you related to Akira?"

"He's my son," Katsuya says, because legally he is. But then he adds, "I adopted him when he was six," because it never feels right to really claim that when all of Akira's loyalty is to the Other Side and Tatsuya.

"Oh," Narukami says. His voice is suddenly flat. "I don't think we have anything to talk about."

He turns, slipping past Katsuya and Maya. His face, in the brief glimpse Katsuya gets before he's past them, is suddenly set into something like anger.

"Wait," he says, striding after the teenager. "I don't know exactly what you've been going through for the past few months, but you have to be feeling overwhelmed by everything." He keeps his voice low, mindful of the fact that there are other people around. "But things like this have happened before."

"I told you," Narukami says, still walking away. "We don't have anything to talk about."

"Don't be stubborn," Katsuya tells him. "People have died getting involved with these things. People have worse than died."

"We're not going away until you at least listen to what we have to say," Maya adds, in the same tone she uses when she informs Kaoru that yes, actually, he is coming to dinner whether he wants to admit he has friends or not. Cheerful, but unrelenting. "We might as well just have this conversation now."

Narukami does, finally, stop. He takes a deep breath, as if steadying himself, then turns around, looking right at Katsuya. "I'm not going to talk to you," he says flatly. "You're abusing your son and I don't care what else you have to say."

The words hit Katsuya like a blow, unexpected and painful, so ridiculous that they feel almost divorced from reality. Katsuya shakes his head. "No," he says immediately, almost before Narukami has finished speaking. "I would never hurt Akira. I wouldn't hurt any child. I'm a police officer, not some kind of--of monster."

"I don't think being a police officer would stop someone from being a criminal if they wanted to," Narukami says. "My uncle's a detective, and I don't think he'd ever lay a hand on my cousin, but before I came to stay, he didn't have a problem leaving her home on her own or having her do chores that are way more than a six year old should be doing. No one questions that because he's a police officer. I bet a police officer could get away with a lot more, if they wanted." 

"Katsuya hasn't done anything to Akira," Maya says. "Things are just... complicated."

Narukami frowns. "I've seen Akira," he says. "He doesn't trust people, he's afraid that they'll be hurt, he wears clothes that look like they're older than he is, and someone--" He says this with emphasis, and is still looking at Katsuya. "Someone hit him so hard it looks like they were trying to slice him open."

Katsuya half closes his eyes and shakes his head, letting out a breath. In a way, he can't blame Narukami for jumping to conclusions. He only ever sees Akira when he's in the Velvet Room, leaving the Other Side or on his way back, wearing the kinds of clothes that fit in there. That's his choice, to keep going back to a world he loves, but is dangerous enough to have almost killed him. 

"He talks about being hungry," Narukami continues quietly. "We meet every Monday, after school. He just mentioned once that he doesn't always like school, but at least he doesn't get hungry. He said he usually doesn't have as much on the weekends. And I don't know why you think it's okay to just not feed him, or hurt him, or do whatever else makes him seem so scared all the time, but it's not and he deserves better."

Silence sits between the three of them. Maya has her hand over her mouth, Narukami's expression is set in a frown, and Katsuya feels unexpectedly attacked. It's not true, he's never hurt Akira and he never would. But he lets him walk back into a world that had almost killed him, and that's not the kind of thing any responsible parental-adjacent figure would do. Honestly, maybe Narukami even has a point. The doctors had asked questions when he brought Akira in to have his face stitched up. If he hadn't been with the police, there might have been a report filed. The questions might not have stopped when Akira told his story about a broken window and a shard of glass.

(He has never been able to do enough)

"I'm helping my friend out here at Junes this week," Narukami says, after a beat. "I should go see what else he needs me to do."

The clear implication is that he's done talking, and that he's hoping they won't still be here when he comes back out. Katsuya and Maya watch him leave.

Maya says, "He doesn't know the full story."

"I know," Katsuya says.

"It's a good thing, really," she says. "It's only because he cares about Akira. And he probably would have had harsh words for me too if he knew we're living together."

"Probably," Katsuya agrees. Even if Maya doesn't have any kind of official connection to Akira, and won't unless and until they officially marry, she's had as much influence on him on This Side as Katsuya has. 

"You aren't failing Akira."

This time, Katsuya doesn't say anything.

-//-

August 2011

Akira hears about what had happened between Katsuya and Maya and Yu when he comes back to the Other Side at the end of summer break. Neither of them wants to tell him, so it takes a couple weeks to hear the whole story, but it does come out. In little bits and pieces, some stuff he overhears and some stuff he figures out from how they never answer his questions about if they're going to be able to help Yu. They don't tell him enough, which confirms way too much, and after a week Akira thinks he has enough of it figured out.

So when he goes to the Velvet Room at 7:00 on Monday, Akira is ready to let him know exactly how wrong he is. 

(Even if parts of it are things he's not really supposed to talk about)

"Katsuya and Maya are really good people," he says, literally the second he's in the Velvet Room. 

Yu is there already. He's usually there before Akira, and today he looks not at all ready for Akira to charge in, already angry. "Akira--" he starts, but Akira doesn't let him finish.

"They're good people," he says. "They're not my parents, and they don't have to help me, but they do. They didn't hurt me, and if it was up to them I'd never go back home where I might get hurt again. They've been trying to convince me to stay for years but I won't do it because where they live isn't my home, and I don't want to stay there."

"Wait," Yu says. "What?"

"I have to use the Velvet Room to go to school because I don't live on the same Side as you or them," Akira says. 

(He's going to get in so much trouble if anyone ever finds out he's saying all this)

"You'd probably hate where I grew up," Akira says. "Everyone on your Side that knows about it does."

"Side...?"

"It's like a different reality," Akira says. "The world pretty much ended before I was even born, and there's not a lot of people left. A lot of them are mean. One of them did this." He points at his face. "But it wasn't Katsuya, okay? I asked them to help you because the last people that came to the Velvet Room died and I didn't want that to happen to you, and you said they hurt me and you're wrong."

"I'm sorry," Yu says, after a long silence. "What did you say about... about a different reality?"

So Akira tells him everything.

He knows he's not supposed to, but to him it doesn't seem like it's as bad to tell someone in the Velvet Room--Yu has obviously already noticed there's something different about him. And anyway, what's the worst that could happen just from one person finding out about the Other Side? Akira's mad at him for thinking Katsuya had hurt him, but he also likes the way they've been meeting, and he...

He thinks they might have ended up being friends anyway.

It takes a while to tell Yu everything. Akira's not sure that he believes him at first, but eventually the disbelief is replaced by a kind of horror. Which does sort of hurt, because his Side isn't that bad, but at least it looks like Yu believes him. "You shouldn't have said anything about Katsuya," he finishes at last. "And... I should probably go home before anyone worries about me, but I think you should apologize. Um." He shrugs a little. All the anger has poured out of him as he told his story, and now he just feels kind of quietly empty. "It would just be nice because Katsuya's been really quiet since I came back from break."

"I'll..." Yu lets out a long sigh. "I didn't think anything like this could be going on."

"It is," Akira says. "I mean--it's a secret, so don't tell anyone, but it is."

"I won't," Yu says. "And I will apologize. To him and to you."

"It's okay," Akira says. "Are we friends, Yu?"

"Yes," Yu says, after a second in which he seems surprised by the question.

"Okay then," Akira says. "It's okay because you're my friend. And you can make it up to me by not--" He tries not to think about Kotone, and Minato. "By not dying, okay? Katsuya and Maya really will help."

He ends up giving their home phone number to Yu, who promises he'll call. Then, because Tatsuya has to be wondering why he's taking so long to get home today, Akira leaves the Velvet Room.

-//-

April 2012

Things never quite stop being awkward when Katsuya talks to Yu. Even after Akira apparently tells Yu about the Other Side (which earns Akira so many lectures from Katsuya, and Maya, and even Tatsuya, apparently, that he gets cranky and promises that okay, fine, he'll never do it again), the awkwardness hangs around. The tension at least eases and finally fades completely, but the shadow of their first encounter lingers, always, even after an apology and more than one conversation over the course of the school year. Once, in December, Yu even calls and says that things might be about to go very bad for him and the friends he's been fighting demons (or Shadows, to use his word, but they sound like basically the same thing to Katsuya, who does not update his choice of terms). Katsuya gets the word out--several Persona-users make the trip down to the small town of Inaba, but by the time any of them gets there, it's all over, and things are safe again.

(In the aftermath, Katsuya sees Yu again for only the second time, and he's so much more tired, he seems so much older than he had only a few months ago at Junes)

Yu and his friends survive whatever it is they've been dealing with all year. They never explain exactly what it was, and Katsuya's not sure if that's because of that bad first encounter he and Maya and Yu had gone through, or just the natural inclination of teenagers to think they can solve their own problems without the help of the adults around them. Luckily it turns out that in this case, at least, the teenagers are right. All of them come through and out to the other side. None of them die, none of them are trapped in another reality. They're okay. And when a second disaster comes in February, that's over and done with before any of the kids even have time to call for help.

And then Yu leaves Inaba, and he leaves the Velvet Room, and Katsuya is left watching Akira warily for how he's going to react to not being able to see his friend anymore. In a way, it's almost a relief that this is the biggest problem he has--it really could have been so much worse.

"We're going to be penpals," Akira tells Katsuya a couple weeks after the end of the school year, when Yu is back with his parents and Akira has already had to say goodbye to him. "We decided after Christmas."

"That's good," Katsuya says. "I'm glad you're keeping in touch." Yu isn't, really, a bad kid. He'd jumped to a very wrong conclusion over the summer, but Maya had been right about the fact that he'd only done it because he was worried about Akira. And since Katsuya has heard enough to know that a police officer had been arrested for a series of murders connected to what Yu's been doing with his Persona all year, he'd probably been right not to care what Katsuya's job was when he accused him of hurting Akira. Katsuya can at least respect him for trying--not just then, but with everything he's done fighting demons and trying to prevent more murders this year--to do the right thing. He fights hard for what's right.

"Yeah," Akira says. "Hey, Katsuya?"

"Yeah?"

"He told me that I should ask you and Maya about something called a Persona," Akira says. "I don't know what it is, but he said you do and you should tell me."

...sometimes, Katsuya wishes Yu would fight a little less hard for what he thinks is right. Because he'd asked Katsuya in December why Akira doesn't know about Persona after all these years in the Velvet Room, and Katsuya had told him it's because Akira is much too young. He'd thought that was the end of the conversation, and Yu had apparently disagreed.

"Does he," Katsuya says flatly.

"Yeah," Akira says. "What is it? I remember Ulala said something about it once too, when she came over to the house and we met for the first time."

And Katsuya isn't any more willing to explain things to Akira now than he had been then. "A Persona is..." He looks down at Akira, who is looking back up at him with an expression of frank curiosity. But Katsuya's eyes are drawn, as they too often are, to the ugly scar that tears one side of his face in half. It's healed now, the stitches have been removed and the angry red has faded out of it, but it's still the first thing most people will see when they look at his face. It's still a reminder that Akira already lives a life that's much too dangerous. "It's something I'll tell you about when you're older," he says, and doesn't relent even when Akira starts to complain.

(He's still too young)

(And it's not Katsuya's decision, anyway, and it's been a long time since Tatsuya has brought it up in any of their letters)

(Of course, Tatsuya has a lot of other things to worry about, on the Other Side...)

(No. No, he's twelve, and he's just a kid, and he's still much too young)

Chapter Text

February 2015

The first two and a half years of middle school speed by.

Akira's busier than he ever has been, because school is starting to take up more and more time as he and his classmates get close to high school. There's more homework to finish, more studying to do, and in the February of their third year, entrance exams. 

Sometimes, Akira feels like all the worrying about what high school he's going to next year is just an enormous waste of time, because it's not like it's a matter of life or death, and everything else sort of pales compared to that. But then other times, it feels like the most important thing in the world, because he wants to figure out the best way he can to help the world he'd been born in, and he still doesn't know what that is. A good school is going to teach him more, and give him a better chance of finding out what he's supposed to do.

Tatsuya tells him that no matter what high school he goes to, he's proud of him. That he's working hard and doing great, and he'll keep doing that no matter where he ends up.

Katsuya tells him pretty much the same thing, but with an undercurrent of stressed exhaustion that Akira has noticed the parents of a lot of his classmates have too. High school entrance exams aren't just tough on the students taking them, and Akira's pretty sure Katsuya will be happier when they're over, no matter how they turn out.

Maya tells him to be positive, and that there's no point worrying about whether he'll get into a top school when he can do something about it other than worry. She helps him study too, which he appreciates.

Yu tells him that he's going to be fine no matter what school he goes to. He points out that he'd switched schools twice in his three years of high school, leaving Tokyo for Inaba and then going back again. He says, through the letters he and Akira are still writing to each other three years later, that even though Yasogami had been the objectively least impressive of the three, it's the one that had taught him the most.

His classmates tell him he's going to Cuss high with the other delinquents, and he shouldn't even bother trying to get in anywhere else.

There are two high schools in Sumaru that pretty much everyone knows about. Sure, there are other smaller ones around, but these are the two biggest, and the ones that most of them are looking at for next year. Seven Sisters, or Sevens, is a good school. It's the one Akira wants to go to, and the one most people want to go to. Kasugayama High is not a good school. Or at least, it's not a school with a good reputation. It's been called Cuss High for so long by the time Akira starts looking at High Schools that no one really even remembers when it had started.

It was founded as an all boy's school for, mostly, delinquents. It's not just a boy's school anymore, it had started admitting girls five or six years ago. And it's supposedly not just a school for delinquents anymore, either. The current principal is trying to improve the school's image, something that the rest of the city (and most relevantly to Akira, the current class of third year middle school students) has completely ignored.

Akira doesn't want to go there. And in the moments when high school entrance exams don't feel completely unimportant because he's not going to literally die if he fails, avoiding Cuss High sometimes feels like the most important thing he will ever have to do in his entire life. 

"It's really not as bad as it seems right now," Tatsuya tells him one night while Akira complains to him. "The stress is awful, and the exams are bad, but then they'll be over and you'll actually be in high school, and you'll just have to deal with whichever one you get into."

"I just want to show everyone they're wrong about me," Akira says. "Because they think I cut class and get in fights, but I cut class in fifth grade because my friends literally died, and I don't get in fights!" He says this with all the righteous outrage he can muster and then, when Tatsuya does not look particularly impressed, adds, "Unless other people start them," in a quieter voice. "Anyway, that only happens on This Side, so no one over there even knows about it."

Except that he still shows up bruised sometimes. And he still has a scar across his face that he can't hide (and he has tried--he's even started wearing glasses he doesn't actually need just so there will be something else on his face). And he's started carrying a knife with him on This Side because he's old enough now for some of the gangs to be interested enough in him to either try and recruit him or start picking fights. He leaves it with Katsuya and Maya instead of bringing it to school, he's not dumb, but one of his classmates had seen him with it once when they ran into each other while Akira was walking back to the Velvet Room.

"If that's why you're choosing your high school," Tatsuya says. "You're wasting your time. People that want to believe the worst about you aren't going to be convinced that they're wrong just because you get into the right school. Do you actually want to go to Sevens, or is it just to prove everyone wrong?"

"Can't it be both?" Akira asks. "It's complicated."

Tatsuya laughs at him a little. "It can be both," he allows. "But try not to let it be too much about what anyone else thinks."

"Where did you go to school?" Akira asks.

"Sevens," Tatsuya says. "Although honestly a lot of the time, the better question would be which school I was ditching when I didn't show up."

Akira half smiles. "Yeah," he says. "Katsuya's mentioned that a couple times."

"I bet he has," Tatsuya says. "Just don't do that when you get into whatever high school you go to, and you'll be fine."

-//-

April 2015

Akira is accepted into Sevens, and it's a huge relief for all of about a week, until he remembers that a lot of the classmates he went to middle school with are also at his high school, and oh look, they still don't like him.

(It turns out Tatsuya's right, and being accepted into the good school does basically nothing to convince them that they'd been wrong about him being a delinquent in training)

In middle school, his classmates had teased him about ending up at Cuss.

Now that they're in high school, they ask him when he's going to get kicked out and sent to Cuss anyway.

He's not exactly having a good time in high school, is the point, and although he doesn't ever get as low as he had in grade school when he just stopped going to class for a month after Kotone and Minato had died, it's still pretty rough. The people around him (that care about him) definitely notice, and Akira tells himself every morning that he can get through three years of high school with their support. This is important to him and he's going to do it.

And then the Tatsuya of the Other Side hears from Katsuya that Akira's first year of high school isn't going well, and decides to try and be a good uncle and cheer him up.

For obvious reasons, this is awkward.

Akira hasn't spent much time with the Tatsuya of the Other Side, because it's just kind of weird to be around someone that he knows very well at home, but who doesn't know him at all here. it's weird seeing how different Tatsuya could have been without the stress of living on a floating city at the end of the world. Other Tatsuya looks younger, and better fed, and his hair hasn't even started to show any grey. He smiles more, too.

And he's waiting outside for Akira when school lets out at the end of the first week of class.

Akira doesn't even see him at first, actually--he's thinking about his homework, and weighing up how long it's going to take to get through. Middle school had ended the routine of Tatsuya waiting for him by the Velvet Room door, because there's just so much more homework than there had been in elementary school for Akira to be able to reliably make it home at the same time every day.

(This is also part of the reason the number of fights he's been in over the past few years has started going up)

(It's nothing he can't handle so far, and the kind of thing that Tatsuya can't protect him from forever, but it's still a pretty big change)

And then a too-familiar voice calls his name, and Akira jerks his head around, looking around like an idiot while he tries to figure out why he's hearing Tatsuya here. Then he sees him, sees that it's other Tatsuya, and relaxes. Sort of. Because he still has no clue why he's here. "Hey," Akira calls back. "Um... why are you at my school?"

"I heard you were having a rough first week, Tatsuya says. 

Akira makes a face. "Was K--was Dad talking about it?"

(Nine years on, he still hasn't gotten used to calling Katsuya his dad)

(Around this Tatsuya, who shares his Tatsuya's face but not his knowledge, it's even weirder)

"Just a little," Tatsuya admits. "He's worried about you."

Akira offers a weak smile in return to this. There's a lot he could say, mostly along the lines of how it shouldn't bother him at all if some kids at school want to spread rumors about him behind his back, but it really sort of does. This isn't his Side, but it is where he spends a lot of his time. And since most of his time here is at school, if would have been nice if he wasn't as disliked as he actually is.

"I had an early shift today," Tatsuya says. "So I thought maybe I could come by and see if we could do something."

"Oh," Akira says. "I mean..." There's a reason he and other Tatsuya don't spend much time together, and it's mostly because he's been avoiding him. It's just weird, and the less time he spends with other Tatsuya, the less well he knows him, and the harder it is to see him as a fully separate person from the Tatsuya that's raised him. It's a viscous circle.

"I know," Tatsuya says. "It's kind of out of nowhere, but I mean... high school's hard. And I figure you might need the extra help."

"I'm okay," Akira assures him.

"You sure?" Tatsuya says. "You're still a little young to actually get a license, but I was thinking maybe you'd want to learn to ride my bike so you can do that when you're old enough."

Akira's mouth is already open to keep saying no, but there is something about motorcycles that is just intrinsically cool. "Okay," he says instead.

Which is how he ends up spending the rest of the afternoon in the parking lot of a mostly abandoned strip mall with other Tatsuya, getting a crash course on how to not crash a motorcycle. Katsuya is probably going to kill him when he finds out, but Akira's surprised by how much better it makes him feel when it's over. It's something totally new that he's never tried before, and while he's fully focused on that, there's not a lot of space to be worrying about what happens at school, or if he's going to run into anything dangerous at home, and he can kind of see this ending up as something he could want to get good at.

They don't stop until it starts to get a little bit dark, when inexperience might be more dangerous, and by that point Akira's starting to feel more relaxed. There are differences between how Tatsuya at home had taught him to fight, and how this one is teaching him to ride a motorcycle. Similarities too, obviously--they're the same person, sort of. But they live in completely different worlds, and that changes people. Akira is sort of starting to see the differences.

"So how was your first week actually?" Tatsuya asks, before they go their separate ways.

Akira hesitates, fingers toying with the strap of his bag. "Horrible," he admits at last. "But middle school was bad too, and so was elementary school. There's no real reason to think high school's going to be magically better."

"High school isn't known for magically making things better," Tatsuya agrees. "No."

"I heard you didn't go much when you were my age," Akira says. He's fishing a little, because honestly, he'd heard that from his Tatsuya. And even after all this time, he has no idea what the connection is between the two versions of them. One of them knows about the two Sides, the  other one apparently absolutely cannot ever find out, according to the thousand reminders he'd gotten growing up, and there's a lot of differences between them because of that. But as far as he's ever been able to tell, they'd lived pretty much the same life, if not exactly the same life, between the world on one Side ended. So he wants to see if this part's the same too.

"Sometimes," Tatsuya admits. He's smiling as he says it, but the smile doesn't last. "The first couple years, anyway. I drove your dad absolutely crazy, which I'm guessing is why you heard about it."

Akira shrugs noncommittally.

"Well," Tatsuya adds. "That, and whatever happened in my third year."

"What happened in your third year?" Akira asks. He hasn't heard anything like this before.

"I have no idea," Tatsuya says. "There's a couple months from right before graduation that I just don't remember at all. I woke up in the hospital a couple weeks before graduation and the doctors said I'd just been found."

"Like--just randomly on a street or whatever?"

"Yeah," Tatsuya says. "I never found out why, or what I'd been doing. 

"That sucks," Akira blurts out, before he can stop himself. 

"Yeah," Tatsuya says. "I just woke up, and I had all these new bruises, and a tattoo, and sometimes I just feel like if I could remember, all the parts of my life that  stopped making sense in high school will just..." He shakes his head and shrugs one shoulder in the same gesture Akira's Tatsuya makes when he realizes he's said more than he meant to. 

Akira, trying to make him not feel like he's somehow made it awkward, says, "I don't think life makes sense in high school."

"No," Tatsuya admits. "You are... probably right."

"Mine doesn't, anyway," Akira says. "I don't feel like I fit in anywhere. There's stuff I want to do, someday, but I don't know how I want to do it, and right now things sometimes just feel like--" He realizes, without really meaning to, that he's making the same one shouldered I said too much shrug. "I just don't fit anywhere," he finishes, anyway.

"You'll find somewhere you fit into eventually," Tatsuya says. "Start by finding the people you fit with, and that'll help."

"Yeah," Akira says, even though he knows what this Tatsuya doesn't. That he's really limited in the people that he'll ever be able to be truthful with, and this the people he fits with are probably pretty much the ones that he already knows. He can't just cross his fingers and hope he'll find someone at school that he can just spill all his secrets to. 

"Well," Tatsuya says. "I should probably take you home be fore your dad starts to worry."

"I have a ton of homework," Akira agrees, more or less on autopilot. He starts to follow Tatsuya, then stops. Something that's been turning away at the back of his mind for years now is waving for attention, and this seems like a good chance to ask. "Um... what you said before, about finding your people."

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure," Tatsuya says.

"It's really personal," Akira says. "You don't even have to answer if you don't want to."

"I'm curious now," Tatsuya says. "Shoot."

"You and Jun," Akira says. "You're not just roommates, are you?"

For a second, he doesn't think Tatsuya's going to answer. Eventually he does though, with a question of his own. "Did Katsuya tell you that?"

"No," Akira says. "I just... noticed, I guess." Mostly, what had made him think that is the way his Tatsuya sometimes talks about Jun, even now, after all these years. He still misses him, more than Akira thinks would make sense if he was just an old friend. And since this Tatsuya and Jun have been living together for longer than Akira's known them, he's wondered.

"We're not just roommates," Tatsuya tells him. "No."

"You're, um... you're together?"

Tatsuya nods. "Does that bother you?"

Yes, sort of, but mostly in a complicated why-does-one-Tatsuya-deserve-to-be-in-love-and-the-other-one-doesn't kind of way. It bothers him that no one's ever told him. And that he'd been dumb and oblivious enough when he was a kid to bring his Tatsuya flowers from Jun. But that's not what he means, so Akira shakes his head. "I'm glad you ended up finding your people," he says.

"You will too," Tatsuya says. "Someday."

Akira only shrugs, and then heads home to work on the homework he should have started hours ago.

He's still in the middle of it when Katsuya gets back from work. Akira, who is in the middle of a math assignment he doesn't want to do, looks up in relief at the distraction. For a few minutes they make small talk, and then Akira mentions seeing Tatsuya after school (although not what they'd done, yet, because Katsuya is definitely not going to like it). They're talking about that, and how weird Akira still thinks it is to talk to another version of someone he knows so we'll, when he asks, "Do you know why there's a Tatsuya on both sides?"

"I'm sorry?" Katsuya says.

Akira shrugs. "I mean," he says. "There's not another me here, and there's not another one of you back home. So why is there another Tatsuya? Why's he different?"

Katsuya suddenly won't look at him, which piques Akira's interest immediately because he knows Katsuya is a terrible liar. "I have no idea," Katsuya says.

"He said he doesn't remember a lot of what happened when he was in his last year of high school," Akira says, prodding further. "Does it have something to do with that?"

"I don't think anyone knows what happened to Tatsuya while he was missing," Katsuya says, and Akira's pretty sure it's a lie again. "That was all a long time ago, anyway."

Akira puts his chin in his hand and watches Katsuya over the table. "You know," he says after a while. "I don't think I ever asked when I was a kid why you and Tatsuya and Maya weren't all that surprised when I started going between one Sides. But it's pretty weird." It just isn't something that he's ever really stopped and questioned, because when he'd been a kid it had felt like of course the adults around him already knew everything. And by the time he got old enough to realize that oh no adults don't actually know everything, it had just become a normal and accepted fact of his life.

"How's your homework going?" Katsuya asks, with an air of quiet desperation that tells Akira he's probably asking the right questions.

"Why do you all know about the Velvet Room, anyway?"

Akira doesn't get an answer to this question--as if he'd gotten any answers to his earlier ones--because Maya comes home at that point too, just in time to walk in and hear what Akira had said.

"I'll tell you when you're older," she says, in a tone that says she's joking but also somehow completely serious at the same time--she's phrasing it as a joke, but also she is absolutely not going to tell him.

"I'm fifteen," he says anyway, because he'll never learn anything if he doesn't at least try.

"Older than fifteen," Maya says, smiling. "Finish your homework, Akira."

-//-

Tatsuya -

I think we might be running out of time to actually tell Akira what happened in 1999, before the Other Side split from This Side. We're lucky he never questioned it too much when he was a kid, but he's getting older, and we're going to have to tell him something before he starts trying to figure it out himself. If nothing else, he knows that friend of his from Inaba has information, and I don't think Narukami's going to stay quiet if Akira keeps asking.

One of us should tell him soon.

- Katsuya

-//-

K -

You're not wrong, I just don't want to ever have to tell him. It's bad enough knowing there are other people that have been going through the same kind of thing we did back then, and that it seems like it keeps being kids. I don't want one of those kids to be Akira.

How about this. He's still getting used to high school, and we know that hasn't been going as well as it could, so let's just give that time. We've seen this happen to two groups of kids in the last five or six years, and we know from Akira that the people he's met in the Velvet Room were all around sixteen. Akira's not there yet, so let's just give it until the end of the school year.

We can tell him when he finishes his first year. That shouldn't be too late, and it gives him a little bit more time before we have to add another thing to worry about onto everything he's already dealing with.

-//-

Tatsuya -

Alright. At the end of the school year.

- Katsuya

-//-

March 2016

-//-

Akira is one week away from the end of the school year when everything goes horribly wrong. 

It's still dark out when Akira has to leave the apartment at this time of year. Dark, and a little cold, and Akira's thinking about finals more than anything else. He keeps most of his school stuff at the house on the Other Side, so he throws on warm clothes, grabs a knife--hidden in a sheath under his clothes now, because he'd learned his lesson the first time a classmate on the Other Side saw him with it and the rumor mill went crazy. It takes maybe ten minutes to get ready, yawning his way through the usual morning routine while Tatsuya does his own morning thing. Akira's about to yawn a goodbye and head out for the Velvet Room when Tatsuya calls him back.

"Hey," he says. "First day of finals today, right?"

"Yep," Akira says, not bothering to try and muster up any enthusiasm.

Tatsuya laughs at him and Akira groans. 

"I'm sorry," Tatsuya says. "It's just nice to see some things haven't changed." He gives Akira a sort of one armed hug. "It'll be over soon, at least."

"I feel like everything I learned this semester is leaking out of my brain from too much studying," Akira complains. "I barely even know which subjects are today."

"Well whatever ends up happening," Tatsuya says. "I know you're ready for it. You'll do great."

And that's the last thing Tatsuya says to him.

Because while exams are in fact horrible, they're not the worst part of the day. The worst part comes after the day's tests are over, after Akira has gone back to the house and spent a few hours studying for the disaster that will be day two of exams, after it's gotten dark and he's started the walk back to the Velvet Room--

That's when he hears the woman crying.

Akira stops in his tracks at the sound, because it's not the kind of noise he associates with the safety of This Side. At home, yes. But this Sumaru City is supposed to be a safe place to walk around, even after dark, and Akira shouldn't be able to hear the wild, half-desperate sounds of a woman afraid.

He breaks into a run, following the sound away from the main roads. He's not exactly sure what he's thinking right in that moment, except that he knows what that kind of horrible misery looks like, and it doesn't belong here. Doesn't belong anywhere, really, but it's shocking here in a way that it somehow isn't at home.

At least, that's the best way he'll be able to explain it after. In the moment, all he's thinking is that someone is screaming and that's bad so he's going to help.

There's a man and a woman in the dead end of a street where all the businesses have already closed for the night. There's a car, too, and the man is obviously trying to force the woman into it while she cries and struggles to get away.

Akira stops dead in his tracks for a second, taking in every detail. The woman's shirt is already a little torn; the man's eyes are bloodshot. He's drunk, and she doesn't want what he obviously wants, which is to go somewhere out of sight and do things to the woman that she just as obviously doesn't want. 

Akira checks that he has his knife. It's strapped flat against his back under his clothes, in a place that's easy to reach but not visible, and he almost pulls it out. If this was a fight on the Other Side, he would have had it out already. But here? He's not exactly sure what the consequences of stabbing a man to protect someone else from him would be, but he's pretty sure they're not good. There are laws here, and police.

He drops his hand back to his side and shouts something out as he walks closer. "Hey!" he calls. "What are you doing?"

They both look up, and the woman spots him first--she doesn't say a word, but her eyes are screaming at him for help. Then Akira gets closer and the man sees him too. 

"Get out of here," he says, words slurring, enough alcohol on his breath for Akira to smell it from three feet away. "You damn brat." He turns without letting go of the woman's wrist and she whimpers.

"Let go of her," Akira says. "She obviously doesn't want to go anywhere with you, so just--"

"Don't tell me what to do!" the man says snarls, except that it's so loud it's really almost a shout. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

"No," Akira says, even though it's obviously not a question he's expecting an answer to. Still, when Akira does answer, it actually enrages the man enough that he does finally let go of the woman to take a swing at Akira.

He takes a quick step back, adrenaline buzzing, thinking about knives again, but before he can even decide whether or not to fight back, the alcohol takes the decision away from him. His wild, almost comically bad punch knocks him off balance, and just like that, he's on the ground.

Akira steps around him to get to the woman, and asks, "Are you okay?"

She doesn't answer--she's breathing too fast, and her eyes are wide, pupils dilated. Not that Akira can blame her for feeling freaked out, he can see a bruise already forming on her skin where the man had been holding onto her too tightly.

Behind him, the man groans, and starts cursing as he tries to drunkenly lever himself to his feet.

And then it turns out that Akira's not the only one that had heard the screaming, because that's when he hears a squawk of sirens from the street, and the police show up.

(All three of them are dragged down to the police station)

(Akira is interviewed, and questioned, and then interviewed all over again when they find out he's armed)

(He learns later that out of the three of them, he is the only one to actually be arrested)

-//-

March 2016

Akira is held in a juvenile detention center for a week. During that time he's questioned again, formally charged with assault, and told that both the man and the woman he'd seen are claiming that he'd attacked them unprovoked.

(Akira has... no idea whatsoever why the woman would lie)

(During long days spent waiting to find out what's going to happen to him, he stares up at the ceiling, remembering the way her eyes had screamed help me, and trying to figure it out)

He's not allowed visitors. According to one of the more sympathetic officers involved, a middle aged woman that says she's worked with Katsuya, he's not technically allowed to see anyone other than family until he can go in front of a judge. And the only legal family he has are Katsuya as his adopted dad and This Side's Tatsuya as an adopted uncle, but apparently that would be a conflict of interest since they're both police officers. And Maya isn't married to Katsuya so she can't come, and Jun can't even publicly admit he and Tatsuya are in a relationship, so there's literally no one that's allowed to see him.

It's just Akira, and his thoughts, and--eventually--a judge he's taken to see, who informs him with a complete lack of interest that he's reviewed the case file and determined his guilt. Akira is given a year's probation and transferred to the supervision of the juvenile court in Tokyo.

Tokyo.

It's not fair. He hadn't done anything wrong, he'd literally refrained from stabbing that guy specifically so that nothing like this would happen. And it's happening anyway, he's on probation, and the probation has to be in Tokyo for vaguely cited bureaucracy reasons that no one is able to adequately explain to him, and Akira just wants to scream at the unfairness of it all. 

He's released back into Katsuya's custody in the afternoon the day after his sentencing. Katsuya signs what looks like a hundred forms while Akira sits on a bench, watching and saying nothing, and then they're finally allowed to leave. They're both quiet on the drive back to the apartment, and Akira has no idea what Katsuya's thinking, but he can't stop panicking over the idea of Tokyo.

He's supposed to leave Sumaru City by the start of the new school year. He's supposed to just go to Tokyo, which he can't do, because Tokyo is hours away by train, and there would be no way to get back and forth to the Velvet Room every day. He's not just abandoning his whole world like that.

(This just feels like the worst possible way for his time on This Side to end)

(And it's going to end, isn't it? He can't just ignore the whole probation thing, except by disappearing back to a world that doesn't care about any of that)

"I guess you should just drop me off somewhere by the Velvet Room," he says eventually, looking determinedly out the car window so he can avoid making eye contact of any kind whatsoever.

"Don't be ridiculous," Katsuya says. He sounds exhausted, Akira thinks. Which probably explains the brusqueness in his voice now. "We'll go back to the house."

Akira shrugs, despondent. It's a movement that's carefully executed to not let any of the internal chaos tearing through him show. "What's the point?" he asks. "I can't go to school in Tokyo. I can't go to Tokyo at all, that's not where the Velvet Room is."

"It might be worth considering doing it anyway," Katsuya says. "You wouldn't be able to go home every day, but you could find somewhere to stay. It'd only be for a year."

Akira doesn't say anything. He just watches the other cars on the road, and thinks about how weird it's going to be to not get to see any of this again. 

"You've worked so hard on everything at school," Katsuya says. "And I know you want to do something to make the place you came from better. This is just probation. And it's just for a year. You can still do what you want to do."

Akira is suddenly glad that he's not looking at him. There are tears welling behind his eyes at the thought of how badly he wants this. How much he wants to help, and how that's all been taken away now. He's been here ten years, going back and forth between this Side and the one he'd been born on, never actually fitting into either one, hoping that at the end of it all he'd have something good to bring back to a place that desperately needs all the good it can get.

And now he's never going to be able to do that.

"I didn't even do anything," he says quietly, voice starting to break. "That guy they said I assaulted? I didn't touch him."

"I believe it," Katsuya says grimly. "I read that report, it sounds more like he fell over than that he was pushed."

"He did fall over," Akira says. "He was drunk and yelling at this woman to get in his car, and not letting her leave. All I did was tell him to leave her alone. Everything else was him just being drunk and stupid."

"There you go then," Katsuya says. "He was stupid, you weren't. Don't let someone else being an idiot ruin your life for you."

Akira shakes his head. "Look," he says. "Can you just... drop me off at the Velvet Room anyway? Maybe... I don't know. I can think about it or something. But I've been locked up since the arrest anyway, I'm sure Tatsuya's worried over there. I should at least go home and tell him what happened."

"But you'll come back," Katsuya says.

"Maybe," Akira says.  

Katsuya sighs, and doesn't say anything else until finally he pulls into the parking lot nearest to where the Velvet Room door is. When Akira starts to get out of the car though, he's stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

(He twitches for a second, natural wariness and a week's worth of stress feeding into the reaction, but Katsuya is one of the people he really trusts. So he doesn't do anything more than twitch)

(Honestly, he really needs the comfort that hand on his shoulder is offering)

"Give this to Tatsuya when you get home, alright?" Katsuya says, handing Akira a letter. "So they know the whole story."

"Fine," Akira says, and gets out of the car.

(He leaves his bag of things behind, because... it's all over now, whatever Katsuya might try to tell him)

(It's over, because there's no way he can go to Tokyo)

He gives up, and goes home.

-//-

March 2016

Katsuya sits in the car for several minutes after Akira leaves, feeling overwhelmed and bitter. This isn't fair, and it's unfair in a way that Akira only understands the bare minimum of. He only knows that he hadn't done the thing that had gotten him arrested and put on probation, but to Katsuya, the blatant bias is... concerning. 

Akira should have gotten a trial. He should have been allowed to face the person accusing him. That accuser shouldn't have been able to stay anonymous, and Akira shouldn't have been shuffled off to Tokyo for the duration of his probation. But nothing had gone the way its supposed to, and Katsuya's been on the police force long enough to recognize corruption when he sees it. He just doesn't know why, or who would have that kind of influence.

"Fuck," he mutters. And then again, louder, "Fuck," because that's his kid walking away, in a way that is complicated and confused by Akira's relationship to Tatsuya on the Other Side. But Katsuya's had a hand in raising him, in taking him to school and  in showing him how this world works. It's awful that Akira's being being driven away by something he hadn't even done, and Katsuya has no idea what to do to stop that.

(This is awful)

(This is him failing someone that should have been able to count on him, all over again)

He's still thinking about how blatantly unfair it is that any of this had happened, that this might be how everything ends, when he looks out the window and sees Akira coming back.

Katsuya sees him coming, and sees the expression on his face, and gets out of the car before Akira can reach him. "What's wrong?" he asks.

He's seen Akira upset before. Shaken, scared, grieving, all of those. And ten minutes ago, he would have said he's seen Akira at the lowest he could possibly get, half broken by his unfair brush with the justice system.

But he would have been wrong, because Akira's face now is orders of magnitude more devastated than it had been when he walked away. Behind his glasses, and the slash of a scar that crosses one side of his face and makes him look tougher than he is, Katsuya sees the sad shadow of the lost boy he'd found outside the Velvet Room ten years ago.

"The door to the Velvet Room," Akira says. His voice is dull, and Katsuya would have said it sounded uncaring except that he thinks the opposite is true--that Akira is feeling so much right now that he's just overloading. "It's gone."

Chapter Text

March 2016

Tatsuya doesn't see Akira for a week. 

He's never done this before. Never just not come back when Tatsuya expects him. Days pass, horrible days, enough of them for Tatsuya to realize that if he could still see the Velvet Room door, he'd have charged through it to the Other Side to find out what's happened to his kid without batting an eye. The world would probably end, but he's not sure he'd be able to resist the temptation to try and keep him safe.

But he can't, so instead he lives every day with a vice around his heart, wondering. The Other Side is safer than life here, but things happen. He could have been in a car accident, could have gotten sick, could have been hurt in a hundred ways that Tatsuya imagines, one at a time, in vivid, horrible detail.

And then finally he finds out his kid's really not coming home when the Demon Painter shows up at their apartment door one day at dusk.

He's probably the last person in any world that Tatsuya had expected to see, and for a second he literally doesn't believe what he's seeing. Just stands in the doorway, staring, for long minutes longer than is polite.

(All he can think of is the last time he'd talked to the Demon Painter, six years ago when he'd come to explain that Akira's friends are dead)

"Can I come in?" the Demon Painter asks.

"Yeah," Tatsuya says, standing to one side to let the man past him. "Of course." He waits until they're both inside, then shuts the door behind then. "Is Akira okay?" he asks. "It's been a while." Too long. "I've been wondering if he's... if anything happened."

"Not to him," the Demon Painter says. "At least, not as far as I know, I'm not sure what's been happening in the real world. But the Velvet Room has been invaded."

Tatsuya sucks in a surprised breath. He hadn't expected that.

"Something more powerful than Igor has claimed it," the Demon Painter continues. "And whatever it is, it isn't good." He frowns. "The Velvet Room isn't safe for humans right now. That's why I was forced out."

Something tight squeezes in Tatsuya's gut. "What's going to happen to Akira then?" he asks.

"I doubt he's getting back in anytime soon," the Painter says.

"He wasn't in the Velvet Room when that happened?" Tatsuya asks.

"No," the Demon Painter says.

That's good, at least. If he wasn't in the Velvet Room when it was attacked, he would have been on the Other Side, where at least he'll be safer than he ever has been here. The tension eases a little.

"Unless this is why the Velvet Room is open to him in the first place," the Painter adds. "Something is certainly happening. Perhaps the Velvet Room knew he would be needed someday, and this is why it's been open for him all this time."

The tension is back again, just like that. Tatsuya's always been a little worried about Akira using something as exceptional as the Velvet Room for something as mundane as going to school. But it's never been a problem so far, and Tatsuya really does think that the Velvet Room appearing to Akira in the first place is a fairly good indication that he is on some level meant to be there.

For what, he doesn't know.

At least he and Katsuya have already talked about explaining everything to Akira when he finished his first year of high school. That'll be done now, which means that if something's really happening with the Velvet Room, Akira's about to learn everything he needs to know about it. Or everything they can teach him, anyway, which isn't exactly the same thing, but will hopefully be enough.

(It has to be enough)

"He'll be alright," the Demon Painter says, snapping Tatsuya out of his thoughts.

"I hope so," Tatsuya says. 

(He's going to keep worrying until Akira is home again anyway)

The Demon Painter, who has been sitting at Tatsuya's kitchen table while he explains all this, stands up. "Well," he says. "I think it's time for me to leave."

"Where are you going to go?" Tatsuya asks. He tries to remind himself that there are other things in the world to worry about than Akira, although that feels hard right now. "You can't get back to the Other Side without the Velvet Room, can you?"

"No," the Demon Painter says. "But there's no need to worry about me."

Tatsuya looks him over. He's never seen the Demon Painter do anything other than... well, paint. But something about him still makes that statement believable. He's human too, but there's something of the Velvet Room in him.

"Okay," he says. "Well if you need anything--"

"I'm sure you'll see me around," the Demon Painter says.

Then he leaves the apartment, and Tatsuya is very, very alone.

-//-

March 2016

There's no question of what to do after finding out that the Velvet Room door is gone. Akira doesn't have any way to get home, so he goes back to the house with Katsuya instead. 

He has a room in Katsuya's apartment, because even casual visitors would wonder why if he didn't. But apart from storing his school things there, Akira never uses it. He sits on the too-soft bed now though, and looks around the clean, mostly empty room. Thinks  about how grateful he should be to have something like this. Anyone back home would love to have a room like this.

A selfish part of him loves it too. There's a lot of good in this world, and he's gotten some good out of it.

But a louder part of him would still throw it all away in a second if he could, because he just wants to go home. 

Akira buries his face in his hands, leaning forward with every muscle tense, pressing himself into something small that maybe the world can just overlook for right now. He feels like he's been battered from every direction over the past week, and he just wants to find a safe place to hide from any other horrible surprises finding him.

He's going to have to go to Tokyo now, whether he wants to or not. This is the only world he has any option of living in right now, and this world has decided that he's done something wrong, and deserves punishment. So even this place is going to be taken away from him. It's not home, but it's familiar at least, and that's more than he can say about Tokyo. Or anywhere outside Sumaru, really. The only times he's ever left had been when he was ten and had been taken to visit Minato's grave, and then a few years later when he'd gone with the rest of his class at school for a trip.

(That had gone badly)

(He'd been sent home after one night because he'd panicked when one of the other boys thought it would be funny to wake him up after Akira said not to, and Akira had panicked and punched him)

(He'd been banned from the remainder of his middle school's trips, and mostly avoided anything in high school through a combination of notes from Katsuya and just ditching)

Akira isn't ready for this. He knows how to exist in this world but not how to live in it, and the horrible feeling of being in the wrong place, of not belonging here or not deserving to be here, rises up like it's going to choke him. He feels uprooted and untethered and claustrophobic and lost, all at once, and he can't stop thinking about what Tatsuya must be thinking back home. Being forced to go away to Tokyo on top of everything else just feels unbearable right now, and Akira can't even imagine how he's going to handle it. 

There's a knock on the door, and Akira does his best to pull himself together before telling whoever it is to come in. Judging by Maya's expression when she comes in, he doesn't think he's doing too good of a job.

Luckily, Maya's a good enough person not to say anything about how awful he probably looks. "Do you need anything?" she asks instead. "We're about to head to bed, but I wanted to make sure you have what you need before then."

Akira's blank for a second, then realizes from the view out the window that it's gotten dark, it's apparently a lot later than he'd thought it was, and he must have been sitting here spiraling for a while. "I'm okay," he says. "But um... thanks. And thanks for letting me stay here."

"Of course you can stay here," Maya says. "Just because you've never chosen to stay here before doesn't mean it's not your home here."

It's not home, but Akira appreciates the sentiment anyway. He forces a smile, then asks, "So what... happens now? Not tonight, but just... how long do I have before I have to go to Tokyo?"

"It's going to need to be pretty soon," Maya says. There's a desk in the corner of the room where Akira works on homework--it's the only place in the room that regularly gets used. It's still scattered with the notes and textbooks he'd been using to study for exams. Maya leans against it now, facing him. "You're supposed to be there in time for the new school year."

"That's... really soon," Akira says.

Maya nods. "The good news is that I've been on the phone with the juvenile detention center most of today," she says. "They were able to recommend a school that apparently might be willing to take a last minute transfer with--"

"With a criminal record?" Akira finishes for her.

"Yes," Maya agrees. "It's called Shujin Academy."

Akira shrugs. This doesn't mean anything to him.

"So we're working on that," Maya says. "You'll probably have to make up your exams, just to make sure you pass last semester. But other than that, it looks like they'll probably be okay with you going there for your second year."

"That makes sense," Akira says. 

"The harder part is going to be finding you somewhere to stay," Maya says. "But we're working on that, too."

"Thank you," Akira says again. "I wouldn't even know where to start with any of that."

"Of course we're going to help," Maya says. "Please count on us while you're here, Akira. I don't know what's going on with the Velvet Room, but while you're on This Side, we're family."

Akira makes a noncommittal noise. He knows exactly what she's saying--that she and Katsuya are happy to support him, because he's been coming here for a decade, and they care about him like family. Most times, he would have agreed. He doesn't know exactly what his feelings are for them, they're complicated by a hundred different factors, but he would have agreed that they're something important to him. 

It's just that right now, admitting that they're family feels like he's trying to replace Tatsuya, and home, and that hurts too much to even think about. He has no idea if he'll ever see home again, and that only makes him cling to it more tightly. 

"We're not really family though," he tells Maya, not looking at her. "So if there's anything I can do to make it easier or make it up to you, I want to be able to do that."

"Akira..." She seems like she's going to say something more, but in the end she just finishes with, "It's been a long day."

"A long week," Akira says. And it's only going to be a longer year.

"You're not wrong," Maya says. "But... sleep well, Akira. We'll talk more in the morning."

"Yeah," he says quietly. 

He doesn't sleep well, though. He barely sleeps at all. 

-//-

April 2016

The next week is frantic.

Katsuya and Maya spend most of it trying to figure out where Akira's going to stay for the year. They ask everyone they know, they even consider whether one or both of them can possibly move to Tokyo themselves for the year. Work makes that impossible though, and losing their jobs isn't going to make anything better. So they go back to trying to find someone to take Akira in.

It would have been nice if they could have afforded to be picky. Akira is a contradictory sixteen year old, stronger in some ways than most sixteen year olds, and incredibly vulnerable in others. He's stubborn, smart, and determined--he does very well in school. And he's a fighter, not just literally (although Katsuya knows Akira is literally fighting too, more than he likes to admit to the adults in his life), but in everything he does. Most people wouldn't be able to face the kinds of things that have been his every day life for ten years now.

But he's isolated and lonely, too. He's living a double life where he has to lie every single day, where he can't make friends, where he bounces between a normal world and a dead one. Every other part of him is built around the things he's had to do to make that double life work. Now that's been taken away, Katsuya can see cracks in Akira that he's always been able to tell himself aren't really that bad. That Akira has enough family around him to make up for his lack of friends. That he's learning the things he needs to, that he's going to be okay.

Those cracks are bad, it turns out. Akira spends most of the week hiding in his room, moody and quiet, except for the three days he spends making up the exams he'd missed after being arrested. 

Katsuya doesn't know what to do to help.

"At least we don't have to tell him about demons now," he tells Maya one evening, when Akira has gone to bed early, and the two of them are huddled over the kitchen table, trying to figure out the mess that all their lives have been turned into in the last two weeks.

"What?" Maya looks up from her laptop, apparently having only half heard him. 

"Demons," Katsuya repeats. "Persona, everything that happened back then. The Velvet Room's gone, and whatever was going to happen obviously isn't now. He doesn't have to know what happened."

"He absolutely does," Maya says. She glances at Akira's bedroom door--so does Katsuya--and lowers her voice. "He was going to learn about it at the end of the school year. He still needs to."

"No he doesn't," Katsuya says. "He's not going to do anything in the Velvet Room if it's not even here. He's safe."

"He's been going back and forth between here and the Other Side since he was six," Maya says. "Even if he's never going to have to fight demons or have a Persona, what happened back then has shaped his entire life. He deserves to know."

"He--"

"You and Tatsuya agreed," Maya says, interrupting him. "You can't go back on your word now."

"That--" Maya's expression tells him all too clearly that she's not going to back down, and Katsuya's a little taken aback by her conviction. To him, not telling Akira about what had happened in 1999 now that they don't have to is just common sense. If they can spare him at least one painful thing, they should. "Do you really think it's a good idea to add something else for him to stress over?" he asks.

"He deserves to know," she insists.

"He's barely keeping it together as is," Katsuya says. "We can't just tell him something that horrible and then send him to strangers in Tokyo."

Maya doesn't say anything.

"Nobody should have to deal with this on their own," Katsuya says. "And he's going to be alone in a few days."

"You're right," Maya says reluctantly. "That's... a lot to have to tell someone." 

"He won't have us around to ask questions if he needs to," Katsuya adds. "It's not fair to him to tell him now."

"Alright," Maya says quietly. "But we can't just never tell him."

Katsuya disagrees, but at the very least they can wait to continue the discussion until Akira's not in the same building. 

Anyway, there's a lot of other things to worry about.

They've finally find someone that's willing to host Akira for the school year. Well--willing  might be a little bit of a stretch. But Katsuya finds someone at work that used to be in a government department with a guy that apparently runs a cafe in Tokyo now. Katsuya and Maya reach out, refuse to accept the first no they get, and keep asking until finally something is convincing enough for him to say yes.

He doesn't seem like the best choice in the world, if Katsuya's being honest. Sojiro Sakura is gruff, unimpressed by Akira's story, and worn down more than he is convinced.

(Make sure your kid knows to stay out of trouble while he's here, Sakura had said. If you do that, I'll take him)

Shujin follows through with their agreement to enroll him, too. So he has somewhere to stay, and somewhere to go to school, and all that's left is to get him as ready as he can be. Some of this is relatively easy--getting his new uniform, packing the few things he says he's actually wants to take with him. 

Some of them are harder.

For example, Akira does not want a cell phone.

"You can't go to Tokyo without a phone," Katsuya tells him, for at least the fourth or fifth time, while they're on their way to actually buy the phone Akira doesn't want. 

"I've never needed one before," Akira says.

"You've never left the city for a year before," Katsuya says. "Look, Akira, I'll buy the phone, you can put it in your bag and only use it in emergencies. But we need a way to contact you if something happens."

"There's probably going to be a landline there," Akira says. "The guy I'm staying with runs a coffee shop, right?"

"Yes," Katsuya says. "He does, so he probably will have a landline. But you're not going to be there all the time, and this isn't going to be like Sumaru. There are millions of people living there, you need a cell phone."

"Where else am I going to be?" Akira asks. "I mean, school I guess. But you're not supposed to have a phone out in class anyway."

"And what about when you go anywhere else?" Katsuya asks. "You're going to be there for a year, you're going to find other things to do."

"I'm not."

Katsuya pulls into the parking lot. Stops the car and turns to look at Akira. He's slouched in his seat, arms crossed, looking out the window. "This doesn't have to be the worst thing in the world, you know," he says.

Akira doesn't say anything.

"This might be a chance for you to just..." He pauses as Akira, almost hesitant, looks over at him, too. "I know you're scared that you can't go home. But you can't just give up on everything. You still have a life, and people that care about you, and I don't want to see you give up."

"What am I giving up, though?" Akira asks. "I already can't go home. I can't see Tatsuya, I can't do the thing I've always been trying to do, I can't take what I'm learning here and try to make my home better, so what... what am I even doing?"

"Akira..." 

"I can't do that now," Akira says. "I just can't do it. I can't do this thing I've been trying to do for my whole life, so what am I supposed to do now?"

"I don't know," Katsuya says quietly. "But you don't need to know your whole life's purpose when you're sixteen. Maybe the Velvet Room will come back someday. I really, really hope it does, because you're not the only one worried about the people there." He can't stop thinking about Tatsuya on the Other Side, alone again. "But you're sixteen."

"I'm almost an adult," Akira says.

"But you're not there yet," Katsuya says. "And there's nothing you can do about the Other Side right now. Akira--no, Akira, look at me. Please."

He waits until Akira's dragged his gaze back to him before continuing.

"Your life has value beyond what worlds you might or might not be able to access," Katsuya says. "You're a person with your own values and your own very strong opinions. You aren't just someone that exists for the benefit of the Other Side. You're in a bad situation, but this year might end up being a good thing. You might find something in Tokyo that you can love even if it has nothing to do with the Other Side." Something, Katsuya hopes, that will smooth over the cracks that make Akira look like he's been falling apart ever since the Velvet Room door disappeared.

He looks defeated and lost, and Katsuya has never really thought about how little room there's been in Akira's life for anything outside the movement between This Side and the Other Side. And as strange as the Velvet Room's sudden disappearance is, as worried as Katsuya is for Tatsuya, now unreachable, he can't help hoping that this probation might at least give Akira a chance to just be Akira.

"I..." Akira seems physically unable to keep looking at him, and raises his hands up to rub his eyes under his glasses. "I can't imagine what it's going to be like there, and I'm so scared that now that I can't go home, This Side is just going to replace everything I care about at home. And no one else even knows  it exists, so if I don't remember it, then it's just... it's gone forever." He shrugs. "So I don't want a phone, I don't want all this stuff that's going to make it easier to forget where I came from."

"The Other Side isn't gone," Katsuya says. "You know it's not gone. It's still there, and it's still your home. But please, Akira. This isn't your fault. Don't punish yourself for the fact that you're here. Get a phone, and... maybe even try to live a life that makes you happy. I know you're going to keep worrying about the Other Side, but don't let it take everything away from you."

Akira doesn't say anything for a little while. Then he lets out a long sigh, wipes his eyes again. "You never get this sappy," he says. 

"I don't want you to look back on this and have regrets," Katsuya says. "And I don't want to regret letting you think you have to suffer by yourself. You are always going to have family with you."

"Okay," Akira says.

"You believe me?"

Akira doesn't answer. He looks like he's thinking about it, but he doesn't answer.

"Alright," Katsuya sighs. "For now, let's just get the phone."

Akira, he's realizing, is going to have a much harder time with this than Katsuya has been assuming. They haven't even talked about the probation, which just goes to show how deep the problems go with this entire situation. 

(He's messed this up so badly)

(He should have noticed a long time ago how little Akira has in his life outside of the Other Side)

Akira follows him out of the car without another word, and Katsuya decides to take the purchase of the cell phone as a good sign, hopefully.

-//-

April 2016

Maya's the one that takes Akira to Tokyo. They've already sent his stuff on ahead to Sakura, so they don't need to worry about any of that. It's just the two of them on a series of trains, speeding away from Sumaru so much faster than he'd expected. He feels like there's a rubber band between him and the city he's lived in--in one form or another--for all his life. And eventually he's just going to get too far away, and it's going to snap, and he's going to be left on his own.

Akira spends most of the trip with his journal. He's kept one ever since elementary school, because it turns out that it's actually really helpful to be able to get his thoughts down on paper, even if some of them he can't share with anyone else, ever.

In the weeks since his arrest though, he's mostly started writing letters to Tatsuya. Just in case. If he ever does go home again, there's no way he's going to remember all of this, so... he writes letters. The same way Katsuya and Maya and Tatsuya have written letters back and forth to each other for him to carry for them.

He's never opened a single one of those letters, even though sometimes he'd desperately wanted to. But it's none of his business, so he's never done more than wonder what might be in them. Now that he's just as cut off from Tatsuya as they have been all this time, he thinks he understands. Their letters are probably a lot like his. They probably say the same thing, more or less, at the bottom of everything.

(I miss you)

(Please be safe)

-//-

Tatsuya -

Today's the day. I'm going to Tokyo. 

I haven't even talked to the guy I'm going to be staying with, so I have no idea what he's going to be like. Or like... the whole rest of the city, I don't know what that's going to be like either. I freaked out on Katsuya already once, so I've been trying to keep it together, but I don't think I'm doing great. Maya's taking me to see my new school and meet this guy I'm staying with, and she keeps giving me these looks like she wants to say something. 

It's going to be okay, right? 

I keep thinking about how the last thing you said to me was that whatever ends up happening, I'd be ready for it. And I know you were talking about my exams, not about my whole life is just upside down now, so it's not exactly the same thing.

But I just keep thinking
I'm hoping that maybe if you knew what was going to happen, maybe you would have said it anyway.
I really need to feel like you believe in me

Anyway. I'll write you again later when I know more about what's going on.

I miss you. Please stay safe.

- Akira

-//-

Maya taps him on the shoulder when the train gets close to their stop, so he puts his journal away and follows her out after the train slides into their station. 

"We have to get to another station to get on the train that goes by your new school," Maya says, scrolling through something on her phone. "Help me keep an eye open for the station?"

He looks over her shoulder at her phone screen, seeing the listed out directions there. Stations and transfers ending in Shujin Academy. "Remember when I was just stressed about not getting into Cuss High?" he asks. "Now I kind of wish I was at a whole school full of delinquents. At least I wouldn't stick out."

"It's not a school full of delinquents," Maya says. "Jun went to school there."

"Okay," Akira says. "I mean, Jun's cool, but I just--at least if I went there, I'd just be one more kid with a record. And I could have stayed home, and--"

"And that's not what's happening," Maya says. "There's no point in thinking about what-ifs, right? We just have to be positive about the situation that exists now."

"You're way better at that than I am," Akira says. 

"Practice makes perfect," Maya says. "You should--"

Something happens.

They're at a busy intersection, a wide crossing packed with other people hurrying through the city. It's loud and chaotic, and that just makes it that much more obvious when suddenly it all cuts off at once. Everything. The sound of people around him, cars waiting for a green light, literally everything just goes quiet all at once. Akira stops in place, looking around at a world that seems suddenly frozen in place. 

A flash of something ahead of him catches his attention and he turns to see blue fire, drawing itself up into a shape he can only vaguely make out. Something humanoid, with wings, something that looks at him and laughs, and then the something has his face, there's a rush of whispers that he swears he can almost, almost understand--

"Akira!"

Maya's voice cuts through the silence and Akira stumbles back. Sound and movement rushes back into the world, and when Akira looks back up, the flaming something is gone.

"Are you okay?" Maya asks.

"Fine," Akira says. "I'm just--I don't know." Stressed, probably. That has to be it, doesn't it? He keeps staring at the place where the whatever it was had been. There's no way he could have imagined that. But there's no way it could be real, either.

"Well come on," Maya says. She glances in the direction Akira's still staring, a slight frown on her face. For a second Akira thinks about asking her if she'd seen anything, but of course there's nothing there now, and she's not going to see things he's imagining. "The light's about to change," Maya says then, and they have to get moving quickly.

They hurry the rest of the way across the street, and then it turns out they're about to miss the next train, so they have to hurry to that, and then they're actually at Shujin being lectured about their low expectations for him.

(That's not exactly what they say, but it's pretty clearly what they mean)

(When it's over, just out of curiosity, Akira asks Maya how positive she's feeling about his new school now)

(He doesn't get an answer)

So after all that, after a long, anxiety filled train ride, some kind of hallucination, and a meeting with teachers that seem like they hate him already, Akira's not expecting much from Sakura. The bored looking proprietor that barely notices them walk in is actually a relief, just because he doesn't seem actively hostile like the adults at Shujin, or on fire like the hallucination.

"Right," Sakura says, looking Akira over. "I was starting to wonder if you were going to make it today."

"We had to stop by his school first," Maya says. "You're Sojiro Sakura, right?" When the man nods, she continues. "I'm Maya Amano, and this is Akira of course,"

"Right," Sakura says. He frowns on hearing her name. "I'm sorry, but when you called, I thought you were his mother."

"His adopted father is my partner," Maya says. "He couldn't get the day off, so I said I'd take Akira up and get him settled."

Sakura nods, and turns his attention from her to Akira, who tries not to flinch under his gaze. It's hard, and not particularly sympathetic, and Akira can guess what's probably going through his mind. Sakura hadn't wanted him here, he knows that, because it had taken Katsuya and Maya ages to convince him. And now that they're seeing each other in person, Sakura's probably thinking he'd been right all along to not want to be saddled with some weird kid for a year.

Akira looks away.

"Well," Sakura says. "Your stuff came already. I moved it upstairs."

"Here?" Maya asks.

"It's the only place I have room," Sakura says. "There's nothing wrong with it. I just don't have space for another person at my place."

Maya looks like she's going to argue, and Sakura's face is setting into an expression that Akira doesn't think is going to mean anything good for him. "It's fine," he blurts out, before either of them can escalate this into something that's going to make life here harder for him. "Let's just go see it, okay?"

He can feel Sakura's eyes on his back as he and Maya head down what turns out to be a short hall at the back of the shop, then up a set of stairs to an attic room. Maya makes a noise, but Akira brightens a little at what he sees. The room had obviously been used for storage before being recently and hastily turned into a bedroom. He'd been expecting that coming to Tokyo would mean staying in somebody's bland guest room, but this actually feels a lot closer to home than he'd expected. Not that he's planning to tell Sakura that this reminds him of his home in a flying, post-apocalyptic city, but it does.

It's creaky, and a little bit old, and Akira can actually imagine himself existing here.

"I don't know if this is technically legal," Maya says, looking around at the space. "I don't think you can just set up a bedroom over a cafe and say that's good enough."

"But it's better than actually staying with a stranger," Akira says. He glances back toward the stairs to make sure Sakura hasn't followed them up, and lowers his voice. "I mean, look what happened that one time I went on a school trip."

"You did punch your roommate," Maya admits, after a pause.

"So this way I don't have to worry about being freaked out by having anyone else around," Akira says. He's always been a light sleeper, which he assumes has something to do with the kinds of sounds he'd grown up hearing outside their apartment. But after his and Tatsuya's apartment had actually been broken into in the middle of the night, he's gotten really uncomfortable having other people around while he's sleeping. 

(Which is why he'd punched the kid in middle school who thought it would be funny to wake him up)

(And why it's probably really good no one else is going to be sleeping in the same building as he is)

"That doesn't mean this is okay," Maya says. "It's a bad sign for the way he's going to treat you for the rest of the year, if it's starting out like this."

"Okay," Akira says. "But we don't exactly have any other choice, right? Like... this is the only person that was willing to take me?"

Maya sighs. "We can keep looking," she says. "We have to know someone in Tokyo."

"I don't think it matters who you ask," Akira says. "There's not that many people I'd actually trust, and I have space here so I don't have to worry about being surprised and freaked out. Let's just..." He shrugs and looks down the stairs again. "Let's just not make a big deal out of this?"

Maya sighs. "Alright," she says.

"Thanks."

"But I do just have a few questions for him," Maya says, and goes back downstairs before Akira can think of an argument to keep her here. He can half hear her grilling Sakura about meals and privacy and showers and a dozen other things Akira probably wouldn't have thought about until after they started being problems. So... probably it's a good thing she's here.

(It still makes him a little worried that Sakura's just going to get annoyed at her and take it out on him)

(...but also it's good to overhear Sakura explaining that there's a bathhouse down the street, and that yes he will be making sure Akira gets the correct amount of meals)

Eventually, Maya comes back upstairs to report that Sakura seems okay. "He's really set on the idea of not having you in the house for some reason," she says. "But everything else seems okay."

"Maybe he just doesn't want a kid that stabs people in his house," Akira says. "Shujin obviously doesn't want me there, why would this guy want me in his house?"

Maya gives him a look. "Don't say things like that," she says. "You've never stabbed anyone on This Side, so no one needs to know about it if you don't say anything."

"Okay," Akira says. "Then maybe he just doesn't want a kid that assaults people in his house."

"You didn't do that either," Maya says. "You were just accused of it."

"It seems like most people think that's the same thing."

"It's not," Maya says. "Don't forget it, and don't let the rest of the world convince you that you did something wrong."

She hugs him then, which is a little unexpected, but also its Maya so Akira can't exactly be upset. 

"I guess you're leaving?" he asks, when she steps back.

"I'm going to have to if I want to catch the train back," she says. "But you know you can call anytime you need us."

Akira glances at his phone, which he's already tossed on the bed and abandoned. He'd added in the contact information for Katsuya, Maya, and Yu, and other than that he has not touched it. But it is going to be a long year without being able to talk to any of them. He looks back at Maya, and nods. "I know."

"Good," Maya says. "In that case... I'll talk to you later, Akira." 

She turns to go, but hesitates halfway to the stairs. "Akira," she says, almost reluctantly. "Did you see... back at the crossing earlier, when we were running to make the train for Shujin, did you see anything weird?"

He remembers the figure wreathed in fire, the whispers he couldn't quite hear. But there's no way that's what she's talking about. That had just been stress and maybe even a lack of sleep over the past few days. "No," he says.

Maya makes a thoughtful humming noise and nods. And then with one final goodbye, she's gone.

Akira takes a deep, shaky breath, listening to the sound of the door downstairs opening and then closing. The invisible rubber band connecting him to Sumaru, the one that feels like it's been stretching out thinner and thinner ever since he left the house this morning, finally snaps.

He's never felt more alone than he does right in this second.

The rest of the afternoon passes slowly. Akira unpacks his things, and at one point actually does call home. He ventures downstairs to find the bathroom, and has a short conversation with Sakura after. Mostly, the man just seems a little bemused by the questioning he'd gotten from Maya before she left--Akira explains she's a reporter, and that's just kind of how she is. Sakura seems to accept this, and passes Akira a plate of curry for dinner.

(It's very good)

At night, when Sakura has closed the shop up and left him for home, Akira digs into the bottom of his box of things to pull out the new knife he'd made sure to buy before leaving Sumaru. The old one had never been returned by the police, but he's not just going to a whole new city where he doesn't know anyone without having something to protect himself with.

He puts it under his pillow, just in case, and is about to doze off when his phone bleeps loudly at him.

Akira fumbles for it, trying to figure out which of the thousand settings turns the sound off, and gets distracted by the bright red icon on the screen shaped like an eye. He knows for a fact that the only things he's put on the phone so far is contact information for the few people he wants to talk to, so he has no clue where the eye could have come from.

He can't find the volume, so he just turns the phone off and puts it down somewhere out of the way. He can deal with whatever's going on with that tomorrow.

When he sleeps, it's a restless, and dreamless.

And when he wakes up he's still in Tokyo, still alone, and still needs to figure out what he's going to do here for an entire year.

Chapter Text

April 2016

It's raining the morning of Akira's first day at Shujin Academy. He packs his bag, moves his knife from under its pillow to the sheathe at his back, and grabs an umbrella. Then he starts his new commute to school.

There's no Velvet Room. He just walks to the station at the end of the street, takes the train to Shibuya, transfers train lines, and gets off at Aoyama-Itchome station. It's a little more complicated than his usual trip through the Velvet Room had been. Louder, too. Busier. There's more to keep track of. But Akira had taken most of this trip with Maya already, so he knows where he's going, and manages to get off at the right station without any mistakes.

The mistakes start piling up after he gets off at Aoyama-Itchome.

First there's the girl. She's wearing a Shujin uniform and a frown, and Akira makes the mistake of stopping next to her so he can duck under an overhang and wait for the light to change before he can cross the street. It's a mistake because he's still standing there when a car pulls up next to them, giving Akira a good look of a man with a self-assured smirk that Akira doesn't like. The man looks Akira up and down before pointedly offering the girl, and only the girl, a ride to school.

Akira says, "You shouldn't go," before he can stop himself.

(That's the second mistake--saying something)

"What?"

The girl stops, and looks back at him. Over her shoulder, Akira can still see the man in the car, glaring back at him. There's something in him that reminds Akira of the kinds of people he'd go out of his way to avoid if he saw them on his walk between his apartment and the Velvet Room. People who are confident enough in their own power to flaunt the fact that they can take whatever they want.

"Don't go with him," Akira says. 

She actually hesitates. Looks like she's thinking about it.

The man in the car honks impatiently. "Don't you want the ride to school?" he calls. "We can talk about your friend's starting position."

The girl mumbles something at Akira and turns back to the car. When she's inside, the driver gives Akira a cocky, see what I can do look as he drives off. Akira's still staring after them, at the hunched figure of the girl in the passenger seat, wondering if not trying harder to stop her from leaving is another mistake, when someone comes running straight at him.

Akira sees him coming in his peripheral vision and steps back, just in time to avoid being trampled by a blonde boy in a Shujin uniform. "Damn!" the boy says. He stares after the car too for a second, then looks at Akira and demands, "Can you believe that guy?"

"The guy in the car?" Akira asks.

"Kamoshida, yeah." The boy, who doesn't have an umbrella, hunches his shoulders up against the rain. "Thinks he can do whatever he wants."

"Yeah," Akira says. He's a little unsure what's going on with this conversation, or even why he's having this conversation in the first place, but it kind of seems like this guy might have started ranting to anyone that happened to be in the area. He doesn't really seem to care that Akira's a stranger. "I... kind of got that impression." Something in his stomach twists. "Like he thinks he's some kind of king."

"Kind of his own stupid castle," the boy agrees. 

(A vague wave of something like nausea passes through Akira)

(He ignores it, and that's his next mistake)

"Or king of Shujin, I guess." He scrubs a hand through his wet hair and makes a face. He looks at Akira too, and for the first time seems to take in any detail about him. Akira sees his eyes snag when he notices the scar across his face, but then his eyes jump down to Akira's uniform. "You're at Shujin too, right?"

"Starting today," Akira says.

"Guess that's why I don't remember seeing you around," the boy says. He looks out at the rain, and kicks a rock into a nearby puddle. "Want to make a run for it?" he asks. "I know a shortcut, we might not get too wet."

Akira doesn't answer for a second. He's not used to this, just... casually running into classmates and walking--or running--to school together. Sumaru is full of gossip and rumors, and everyone knows that he's just the weird, delinquent kid. This is a stranger, who doesn't know anything about him, and for the first time it hits Akira how powerful it is to be unknown. "Yeah," he says. "That'd be great."

The other boy grins and then takes off running. Akira follows, noting almost automatically that the boy in front of him favors one leg, that he's been hurt before. It should have been easy to keep up with him because of that, but it isn't. Under the injury, he knows how to run.

That's why Akira is half a step behind him when the older boy goes around a corner, out of an alley. 

And stops.

Akira runs into him and they both fall. Akira is up and back on his feet almost right away, but before he can turn to either offer help or ask what the heck's going on, he sees for himself.

There's a castle in front of them.

"Wait," he says. "What?"

"There is not supposed to be a castle here," the other boy says. "That's not what the school usually looks like."

"I know," Akira says. "I was there a couple days ago, it was normal then."

They look at each other. 

"Should we go in and check it out?" the other boy asks.

"No," Akira says at once. "This is crazy, why would we go in there?"

"Well where else are we supposed to go?" The other boy gestures to the castle. "That's where the school's supposed to be."

"We can try and come in the main way," Akira says. "I mean--it's not that I don't believe you that it should be here, but we shouldn't just go marching in without trying something else."

For a second it looks like the boy's going to argue, but then he gives in. "Fine," he says. "We'll go around the other way."

So they retrace their steps, back through the alley and out onto the street outside, which suddenly seems too quiet. And the rain's stopped, and there's something off about the light.

"My name's Ryuji, by the way," the boy says, as Akira's starting to think that there's something unnatural in how quiet it is. "Ryuji Sakamoto."

"Akira Suou," Akira says. "Have you, um... have you ever seen anything like this happen, Ryuji?"

"Nope," Ryuji says. "It's fucking weird."

He's not wrong.

They go around and back toward the school through the main streets, and this time Akira recognizes for himself that they're in the right place. It's the same spot he remembers seeing when he'd come here with Maya. But...

"It's still a castle," Ryuji says. "I think we have to go in."

Akira's mind is racing. He has no idea what's going on, but it's not the first weird thing that's ever happened in his life. This is a million miles away from the Velvet Room or the Other Side, but at least it's not the first thing that's ever happened to him that's weird and impossible. And he's been lucky enough to see what weird and impossible looks like when it's good...

And this isn't it.

"Okay," he says. "So... you're probably right, we probably do have to go in, but we should be careful."

"Yeah," Ryuji mutters. "This is already giving me the creeps."

Akira reaches back and touches the sheath under his uniform, making sure his knife is still there. Katsuya would have probably killed him if he'd known Akira had brought it to his first day of school, but look what's happening. He looks over at Ryuji, and half opens his mouth to say something, but then doesn't know what to say. Hey, if we run into anyone dangerous, please let me take point because I'm ready and willing to stab them doesn't seem like something you tell a person you've known for forty five minutes.

He eases his hand away from the knife and stays quiet. He stays behind Ryuji as they make their way up toward the castle. Which... can't seem to decide whether it's actually a castle, or if it might be a school after all. 

"Did you see that?" Ryuji asks, as the world flickers.

Akira blinks, hard, like that's going to force his eyes to only see one or the other. "Yeah," he says. He keeps his voice quieter than Ryuji's, because it's not impossible to imagine that if this really is a castle, there might be someone in it that doesn't want them here. "So... this really is the school?"

"No way." Ryuji takes a deep breath. "Maybe we should go further in?"

Akira's about to tentatively agree, when he hears a weird clanking noise that makes him grab Ryuji's shoulder and pull him back, out of sight. "Someone's coming," he says. And sure enough, they've barely made it back into the shadows when three people come into the room.

Two of them are dressed in actual suits of armor, which is the reason Akira had been able to hear them coming. And that's weird enough but the third one is the man that had lured a high school girl into his car this morning. Kamoshida, Akira remembers.

He is currently dressed in a flowing cape and his underwear, which Akira absolutely does not remember.

"Holy shit," Ryuji says, and it's way too loud. The three that have just walked in all turn in their direction at the same time.

Akira says, without thinking, "Run."

Luckily, Ryuji doesn't argue.

Unluckily, this is when they make the next bad decision of the day, and bolt further into the castle instead of out. Which means that they can only get so far before they run out of space, and the fact that they end up running into a set of dungeons really doesn't do them any favors.

Akira is half a step behind Ryuji, so when someone finally catches up to them, he gets his hand around Akira's shoulder first. Pushes him up against a wall, slamming him so hard against it that Akira sees stars, just for a second. He's pinned with a hand over his throat, too--Akira is panting already from the run, and he's struggling to suck in air as the grip around his neck gets tighter.

It's Kamoshida, still horrifyingly naked, his grip like iron in a way that it really shouldn't be. He's smirking, and saying something, but Akira can't hear any of it over the ringing in his ears. At first he thinks it's oxygen deprivation, but then he realizes it's something else. Fear and anger mixed together, and...

And something...

There's a whispering just on the edge of his hearing. Like the one he'd heard the first morning he came to Tokyo, crossing a street with Maya. It's the last thing Akira should be paying attention to right now though, he really needs to be focused on slowly getting away from this weird naked man slowly choking the life out of him. He needs to do something, and he needs to do it now.

(The whispering is getting louder, more insistent)

(There's a voice somewhere in the center of it all that he doesn't recognize but knows, with an intimate familiarity that he can't place, but which almost hurts. A stranger's voice with an echo of something he's supposed to know)

"Will you do nothing, and let this be the end of your story? Have your misfortunes, and the unfairness of those around you sapped your will to rebel?"

No, he's not ready to stop fighting. It's not fair that the Velvet Room is gone, it's not fair that he'd been arrested and sent away for trying to help. And maybe he'd let it crush him for a while, but in this moment of real danger, he can feel something burning inside him that says he is not going to just give up.

"Very well, then--"

Akira's pinned to the wall but his hands are free. He reaches back behind him, pulls out his knife and stabs Kamoshida, burying the knife as deeply as he can in the man's forearm. 

He is not giving up.

(There's a flicker of something like exasperation from the voice, a mental throwing up of its hands)

(Akira doesn't have time to think about that)

Akira tumbles away from Kamoshida, coughing. The knife tears back out in a way that doesn't quite feel right, like it's just been stabbed into something other than an arm. Akira glances down on it, and sees a perfectly clean blade, no blood at all, and decides it's probably time to start running again. Faster this time.

"What the fuck?" Ryuji demands.

"Run," Akira says. "More running." His voice sounds hoarse and gravelly, but luckily Ryuji doesn't argue. 

They jerk around a corner, then another one, but there's not a lot of places to duck out of sight and hide, which is what they really need right now. Instead they tear down a flight of stairs, to a lower floor that turns out to be full of jail cells. 

Some of them are empty, and Akira thinks there's absolutely no reason that those empty cells would have to be locked. He grabs at Ryuji as they're stumbling past one of them, shoulders the cell door open, and both of them press back against the wall, just barely out of sight. 

Akira can't see what's going on behind them, but he hears footsteps, and the clanking of armor, and knows they're still being followed. 

The footsteps are close when a new voice shouts, "Hey!"

Akira looks at Ryuji, who looks back at him, and whispers, "Who's that?"

It sounds like a kid, but Akira has no idea what a kid would be doing here. Of course, he has no idea what he and Ryuji are doing here either. 

"Hey ugly!" the voice shouts again. "What are you running around down here for?"

The footsteps falter. Stop.

"Show more respect to King Kamoshida!" one of the guards says. His voice echoes unnaturally, more than Akira thinks it should even with the helmet on. There's a bang of metal against metal, and Ryuji leans out a little so he can see behind them.

"Ryuji!" Akira whispers.

Ryuji doesn't listen. He leans out for several seconds, then pulls back again. "It's a cat," he whispers.

"It's a what?"

"A cat," Ryuji repeats. "I think? Like, some kind of monster cat, maybe."

Akira can't keep his absolute bafflement off his face.

The voice that apparently belongs to the monster cat laughs. "You idiots don't deserve respect," it taunts. "You're letting those other guys give you the runaround."

Akira and Ryuji exchange another look, because shit. They hadn't been looking for anyone else that might be around while they were running away from Kamoshida and his guards earlier. 

"If you know where they are," the guard says. "Tell us!"

"They snuck back upstairs while you guys were running past," the cat says. Then he adds another smug, "Idiots," just for good measure.

There's a pause of several seconds that feel longer.

Then the footsteps retreat back upstairs at full speed.

Akira and Ryuji wait until the sound has completely faded, then head out to investigate the cat monster.

...which really is a cat monster, apparently. Akira honestly can't think of a better description. 

"You're welcome," the cat says, crossing his tiny arms over his chest. "Now how about you two return the favor and get me out of here?"

Akira weighs this for all of two seconds. Then he nods. This situation stopped making sense the minute they first saw the castle, but the cat had lied to Kamoshida and his guards to help them, and they definitely owe him for that. "We'll help," he says.

"We got time for that?" Ryuji mutters.

"Do you know a way out of here?" Akira asks the cat.

The cat nods his weirdly large head. 

"Then we definitely have time," Akira says, and Ryuji doesn't argue. 

There's a ring of keys on the wall by the cell; they get lucky, and the first one they try opens the cat's cell door.

"Perfect," the cat says, bounding out. "Now pay attention, because I don't want to get thrown back in there, and you guys really don't want to get locked up."

"And you seriously know a way out of here?" Ryuji asks.

"Of course," the cat says. "This way!"

He dashes off ahead of them. 

Akira says, "I have... a lot of questions for that cat."

"No kidding," Ryuji says. "Think we can trust him?"

"More than anyone else we've seen in here so far," Akira says. "Should we go catch up to him?"

They spend what feels like probably the next hour running after the cat. It might have been less time, except that they keep running into one disaster after another. First there's a bunch of people locked up in cells being beaten black and blue with volleyballs, which the cat explains aren't actually real people, but something calls cognitions. Then it's a stop in the middle of a hallway while the cat yells at Ryuji for calling him a cat. Apparently he's a human that just looks like a cat. And has lost all his memories. And his name is Morgana.

(...okay, sure, this is not the time to argue)

And then just as they get back to the ground floor, it's a pair of guards.

Not the same guards as the ones that had chased them down to the cells, Akira's pretty sure. Or at least, they don't have Kamoshida with them, so they're probably a different two. 

"Stand back," Morgana says, leaping forward and puffing himself up. "I got this!"

"Sure you do," Ryuji says. "That's why we had to break you out of a jail cell, right?"

"That was--" Morgana gapes at him for a second, but then rallies. "That was an infiltration, I would have gotten out on my own."

"Yeah?" Ryuji says. "How--"

"Watch and learn," Morgana says. "You see these two guys?"

And that's when the two guards melt, and suddenly they're not guards anymore. Ryuji curses creatively and Akira takes a step back, eyes wide. This is way beyond any level of weirdness he's seen before, and his brain goes completely blank as he struggles to fit this into anything he understands. 

And then Morgana jumps up, one paw stretched up, and shouts, "Persona!" and something amazing appears out of thin air at his side. Akira watches as the thing, the Persona, takes out both guard things. 

"See?" Morgana says. He's panting a little, and he looks scratched up, but he's still here, and the guards aren't. "Easy!"

"I have so many questions for when we get out of here," Akira says.

(And he doesn't think they're all going to be for Morgana)

(...)

(He's heard that word before. Persona)

"Maybe we can work something out," Morgana says. "I kind of want to know how you two got in here, actually."

Ryuji makes a face. "So do I--hey, look out!"

Akira spins around, but he's not fast enough, and more importantly, neither is Morgana. Kamoshida is right there, stomping around the corner and looking pissed. He's on top of Morgana, literally, before he has time to react--he brings a foot down right on top of his small chest and pins him to the ground. Akira takes a step forward immediately, knife already in his hand, because he has no idea what's going on but Kamoshida is the actual worst and Morgana is on their side. And yes, he will stab Kamoshida (again) to help Morgana if he has to.

But Ryuji gets there first.

"Have you completely lost it?" he demands. "What are you doing?"

"You've caused enough trouble today," Kamoshida says. "Not that I should have expected anything more from Ryuji Sakamoto, who ruined the track team through your own selfish impulses." He kicks Morgana aside (he makes a noise that sounds for all the world like an injured cat as he rolls toward Akira) and turns his attention to Ryuji. "Maybe I should break your other leg this time, huh?"

"You--" Ryuji's expression twists into something so complicated and painful, and at first he only manages a kind of awkward spluttering. 

Then the expression shifts, and Akira sees surprise, pain, and then determination in quick succession.

And then after that he sees nothing at all, because there's suddenly a mask on Ryuji's face.

-//-

April 2016

Katsuya isn't expecting a phone call from Akira on his first day at the new school. He's expecting that Akira will have enough on his mind without remembering to check in with them.

(Also, it would mean admitting defeat in the ongoing battle of whether he needs a cell phone, and Akira is much too stubborn for that)

So he's surprised when his phone rings almost as soon as he walks in the door that evening. The caller ID comes up with Akira's name, and something in Katsuya's gut twists in foreboding. There hasn't been enough time for something to go wrong already, has there?

He picks up the phone and strives to keep his tone as casual as possible. "Akira," he says. "How was school?"

There's a beat or two of silence, and then Akira says, "Okay so first of all, my homeroom teacher said she's not going to report that I missed school this morning, because I guess that would just end up making more paperwork for her."

This conversation is off to a terrible start.

"Are you skipping class again?" Katsuya asks. Maya's not home yet, so he turns off the alarm system and starts turning on lights. "Akira, I know Tokyo's a big change, but you also know what happens when you stop going to school." He hasn't had any issues since grade school, but this is a tough situation.

"No," Akira says. "I mean--something happened, and I couldn't make it to school until the afternoon."

"What kept you that long?" Katsuya asks.

He hears Akira take a deep breath over the phone. It hits him suddenly that he's never had to call Akira before, and the line makes him sound younger than seventeen. "I'm... not exactly sure," he says. "It started out--I don't know. I ran into another kid that goes to my school, and he said he knew a shortcut."

"Okay?" Katsuya says, bracing to hear whatever trouble this new kid has gotten Akira into.

"But when we got to where the school was supposed to be," Akira continues. "It wasn't there."

"You got lost?"

"No," Akira says. "It... turned into a castle." He hurries on before Katsuya has a chance to say anything at all. Not that he has any idea of what he would have said. "We went back, and avoided the shortcut, and when we went through the main road I recognized where the school was supposed to be. But it wasn't there, it had seriously turned into a castle. And there was something... I don't know. There weren't as many people on the street as there should have been, it was really weird."

"Please tell me you didn't go in," Katsuya says. He's having trouble picturing what Akira's describing, but in his experience castles don't just appear out of nowhere unless there's something bigger going on. They'd seen that happen back in 1999, and it had been very late into that whole sequence of events. 

"Um," Akira says.

Katsuya stops where he's standing and closes his eyes. "You went in."

"We didn't know what else to do," Akira says. "So um... we went in, and there was this guy there, Kamoshida. I actually found out after I got to school this afternoon that he's the volleyball coach, but in the castle he was, um..."

"Akira?"

"He was mostly just naked," Akira says. "And the guards there were treating him like a king."

"Guards?"

Akira's voice is a little shaky when he answers. "Yeah. Guards. They saw me and Ryuji, uh--that's the kid I ran into--and I sort of got in a fight with Kamoshida."

"Sort of?"

"He tried to strangle me and I stabbed him. But it didn't actually hurt him, and they just started chasing us. So we went down to where the dungeons were in the basement of the castle--"

"Dungeons? Akira..." He doesn't even know which part of this to be upset by. There's too much bad news being delivered in too short of a time frame.

"And there was a prisoner there that sent Kamoshida and the guards off in another direction," Akira continues. "We got him out because we sort of owed him for helping us get away, and the three of us got out. And then we went to school and it was almost 1:00, which is why my homeroom teacher is mad at me. But, um..."

He stops. 

"There's more," Katsuya says, and it's not a question.

"There's more," Akira agrees. "Do you remember, a long time ago, when I met Ulala and Kaoru for the first time, she said--"

"She talked about Persona," Katsuya says. "I remember." Vividly. And this shouldn't be happening now, the Velvet Room is gone, and he'd finally thought Akira would be safe from all that.

"And the prisoner we met in the cells had one," Akira continues. "And Ryuji does now too. And I don't have Ulala's number, but it seemed like everyone else knew what she was talking about, so I thought I'd call you and see if there's--" He cuts himself off and sucks in a deep breath. "Sorry. But I'm still really freaked out, and if there's stuff you know, then I want to know it too."

Of course he does. And after ten years, Katsuya can finally admit that he needs to know. There's no more getting around it. No more telling himself that it might not matter, or that it's still far enough in the future that they can afford to wait.

"Are you somewhere that no one's going to walk in on you?" Katsuya asks.

"I'm at Leblanc," Akira says. "Sakura's downstairs, but there's no customers."

"Do you think he might listen in?" 

"I don't think so," Akira says. "But I've known him for like a week, so I guess I don't know."

This isn't good enough. "Call me back when he closes up for the night, and you're alone. Maya will be home by then, and we can tell you everything."

"Okay," Akira says. "It'll probably be like... I don't know, seven, seven thirty."

Two hours doesn't feel like long enough to get everything put together, but to be fair, they've had ten years to figure this out and they haven't. 

"Hey," Akira says. "Katsuya. Is this... I don't know what's going on. But how bad is this? Are things going to be okay?"

"It's not good," Katsuya says. "But we'll have to figure out exactly how bad it is together."

"Okay," Akira says. "Then I guess I'll talk to you in a couple hours."

-//-

April 2016

It's a long two hours, lying on the bed in the attic room over Leblanc, waiting for Sakura to close up so he can call Katsuya back and get the info dump of whatever he and Maya know about what had happened today.

About Persona.

That's the thing Akira can't stop thinking about. More than fake-Kamoshida (definitely fake, they'd run into the real one on their way back into school and he hadn't looked stabbed at all). More than the app that Ryuji had figured out had brought them there (the one with the red eye for an icon that Akira had noticed his first night in Tokyo, which has apparently spread like some kind of virus to Ryuji's phone too). 

And he knows himself well enough to know why he cares so much.

After Ryuji awoke his Persona--to borrow the word Morgana had used--something had changed in the dynamic between the three of them. The sheer power of Ryuji's Persona showing up had driven Kamoshida and his bodyguards off, but there had been other fights between them and the exit. Just a couple. But they'd been there, and Akira hadn't been able to help at all. He'd been stuck on the sidelines while Ryuji and Morgana used their Persona to electrocute and punch things. 

The two of them can do something amazing. Akira's back to just being the delinquent that brings a knife to school. It shouldn't be important compared to everything else, but for a wild few hours Akira had thought the three of them were forging some kind of bond between them. Like--they were doing something crazy, something that put all of them in danger together, and it had felt like somewhere that he was starting to fit.

Until Ryuji awoke a Persona, and everything shifted sideways. 

It's stupid. But he's been in fights before, he's been attacked before, he's... well, he's never seen a castle pop up out of nowhere before, but he did grow up in another dimension. So it's probably not as hard for him to take it in stride as it might have been for most people. The hard part for him is the social parts. The feeling of being an inch away from being part of something, and then--

"Would you write yourself out of this story already?"

Akira makes a noise he's glad no one else is around to hear, and jerks up from the bed. It's the voice he'd heard in the castle, the one that had come out of nowhere when he was being strangled by fake Kamoshida. He'd almost forgotten about the voice, because everything else that had happened since had been kind of a lot, but here it is. Back in his head, and this time there's no one around cutting off the oxygen supply to his brain for him to blame it on.

He sits on the edge of his bed and buries his head in his hands, eyes shut tight, like that will help him focus in on this voice. "What are you?" he asks.

"I am thou," the voice tells him, and a shudder runs up the whole length of Akira's spine. "I am the child lost. The child found, and loved, and nurtured, and still so terribly alone."

Akira finally realizes why the voice sounds so familiar. It's his voice, only... stronger. Missing the tangled up doubt and worry that weigh him down. And it should be terrifying to hear someone else speaking in his his head, using his own voice, but it's not. It feels a little like a flashlight in a cloud of fog, illuminating some part of him that he's never been able to see clearly before.

He realizes he's holding his breath.

"I am the soul caught between worlds," the voice continues. "The life torn in two. I am the ragged patchwork of every lonely day and every nightmare of a sleepless night. I am the desperate need to make a better world, and the hole where hope should have been given room to grow."

He feels every word in a way that seems like they're tracing a line around the outline of his soul. Like this voice in his head can see right through him into the life he's cobbled together from the two worlds he'd grown up in, and all the things he's missing.

(A year ago now, he'd walked out of school to find This Side's Tatsuya waiting for him with a motorcycle)

(He'd told Tatsuya then that he didn't feel like he fit anywhere, and it's never felt more true than it does now, in Tokyo)

"I am the strength of a soul ready to rebel against every unjust force in every world it comes across," the voice says. "I am rebellion. I am thou, and you know my name."

He does. He knows it, suddenly, and at the same time he thinks that maybe he's always known it. "Arsene," he whispers, and it's like something strong, something steady and powerful and unbreakable solidifies inside him at the word. 

"Do not," Arsene says. "Be so eager to believe you deserve no place in what is about to happen here."

"Hey, kid!"

His eyes snap open at Sakura's shout. "Yeah?" he calls back. His voice cracks on the word.

"I'm heading home," Sakura says. "Don't cause trouble."

The bell over the door downstairs jingles, and Akira listens until at least it fades away into silence. He's supposed to be calling Katsuya now, for an explanation about Persona, and maybe some other stuff too. He's shaking from the way Arsene had just announced himself, and at the way he can still feel some of that steady truth somewhere deep down inside him. He'd thought today couldn't get any weirder, and it turns out he'd been wrong.

He calls home. He's never needed to hear a familiar voice more desperately than he does now.

Katsuya picks up on the first ring, and says, "Maya's here too."

"Hi, Maya," Akira says. His voice is quieter than he means it to be. 

"It sounds like you had an eventful day," Maya says. It might have been a joke, except that she sounds so sad as she says it.

"Did Katsuya catch you up already?" he asks.

"I did," Katsuya confirms. "And now... I think we owe you an explanation."

"I would really like for something to start making sense," Akira admits. 

"I'm not sure that's what's going to happen," Maya says.

And then she tells him a story. It's the story of how the Other Side had come to exist, and how the floating Sumaru City that Akira had been born into had been lifted off the face of a dead planet.

He listens, tucked into the corner of his makeshift bed, as Maya explains everything she'd gone through with her childhood friends, the demons they'd fought and the impossible tings they'd done along the way.

(...they'd stolen a blimp?)

(They'd crashed a blimp)

Maya tells him how that world had ended. And how they'd been promised a chance at a new one if they would only agree to forget each other. She explains, her tone suddenly gentle, that Tatsuya hadn't forgotten. That when he'd clung to his friends, he'd made himself into a paradox, someone with all the memories of the way things used to be, slowly destabilizing the new world around him.

Katsuya joins the explanation here. He talks about how he'd seen his brother acting strangely, avoiding school and disappearing, and how he'd eventually gotten drawn into the fight to keep This Side from ending up just like the Other Side. The two of them, and Tatsuya, and Ulala and Kaoru, had saved this world.

And then Tatsuya had gone back to the Other Side to stop things from destabilizing all over again, and that had been the last they heard from him until Akira stumbled out of the Velvet Room seven years later.

They tell him about Persona. They explain what the Velvet Room is really for. Katsuya reminds him of what he'd been told to ask Igor on the day they first met. 

"You told me to ask him why I could see the Velvet Room door," Akira says quietly. There had been a lot of other things going on that day, but he remembers what Igor had told him. He'd looked at him, very seriously, and told him that someday he would need to do something on the Other Side, and there were things he needed to know, to be ready. "He was talking about this?" he asks. "Whatever's going on with Kamoshida, and the castle, that..." He leans his head back against the wall and pulls his glasses off, rubbing at his face underneath them. "I'm supposed to do something about that."

"No," Katsuya says.

"Yes," Maya says, at the same time. "It seems like that has to be it. Katsuya, how can you say no?"

"Because there's no supposed to here," Katsuya says. "This isn't some destiny thing. Akira, you're sixteen. You can't do this. You don't have a Persona."

(I am thou)

"Um," Akira says. "About that."

"I think I might... be able to have a Persona?" he says. "That's--something happened while I was waiting for Sakura to leave so I could call." He tells them about the voice he'd been hearing, about how it had known things about him that he can barely see.

(He does not tell them what Arsene had said)

(...that feels personal)

"Does that sound like the same thing?" he asks instead. "Because if it is, I think he might have been trying to show up back at the castle but I stabbed Kamoshida instead."

"Akira."

"He tried to kill me first!" Akira protests. 

"Either way," Katsuya says. "This is exactly why you shouldn't be the one to have to deal with any of this. We can go up there."

Akira thinks about what he's just learned. The Other Side exists because of something just like this, and when he thinks about doing something that's going to make a dead world like the Other Side all over again. Or maybe something worse. 

Worse than--

"Is this how Kotone and Minato died?" he asks. "They were in the Velvet Room, and you just told me... were they doing the same kind of thing?"

"Yes," Maya says.

"But so was Yu," Akira says. "He was in the Velvet Room too. He's alive. He's doing good."

"I don't want to take the chance that you don't end up that lucky," Katsuya says. 

(Do not be so eager to believe you do not deserve a place in what happens here)

"I think I have to try anyway," Akira says. "Without you guys. Or... I don't know. Maybe just let me figure out what actually is going on."

"That's not your job," Katsuya says.

"What if it is?" Akira asks. "I spent ten years jumping between This Side and home. I gave up pretty much everything to do it. I don't have friends, I don't have hobbies, I don't have a life. When I heard that voice in my head back in the castle, the one that's supposed to be me? I didn't know it."

Even Katsuya's quiet on the other end of the phone call. 

"If this is the reason I lost everything else," Akira says. "Then I'm doing it. I'm finding out what's going on, and--and who I am. And when I figure it all out, and figure out what I do need help with, then... then I'll ask. But I have to do this."

He's talked himself into it just now. He's going back to that castle, he's going to get to know that voice in his head, and the next time it reaches out to him, he's going to say yes.

He is not going to back down. He'll be as stubborn as he needs to be, because he thinks--or he's hoping, maybe--that Katsuya's wrong. That maybe this is his job. Or it can be.

"I think that's fair," Maya says.

"Maya..." Katsuya's voice is barely audible.

"You know I'm right," Maya says. Then, more directly into the phone, she says, "Akira, you know that we're only a call away when you need us."

"I know," Akira says. 

"And we promise to come," Maya says. "Whenever you need us. As long as you promise to always tell us when those times come."

"I promise," Akira says. He hesitates, then says, "Katsuya?"

There's a very, very long silence. Then Katsuya says, "Be careful, Akira."

"I will be," he says. 

-//-

Tatsuya -

So Katsuya and Maya just told me everything.

I miss you. I really need to talk to you. 

Please stay safe until I can find a way home.

- Akira

Chapter Text

The next two weeks are pretty much terrible.

Akira stays more or less isolated, something that's a lot easier to do after someone digs up his arrest record and starts spreading it around the school. He overhears classmates whispering that he'd been arrested for assault, that he carries a knife to school, that this isn't even his first arrest, all kinds of things. He catches people staring at him in the halls or during class, telling each other stories about the scar on his face, or the way he keeps his distance from everyone else. 

The worst part are the rumors that he's bringing a knife to school. First of all, because he does bring a knife to school, up until he hears the rumors and immediately stops before a teacher decides to check. And second, because the only person that knows about the knife is Ryuji, and Akira can't figure out why he'd turn around and tell anyone after everything they'd been through in that castle.

If he's honest, that's probably why he makes such a concentrated effort to avoid Ryuji during those two weeks. When it starts to be pretty clear that Ryuji is trying hard to get him on his own, Akira doubles down and makes sure to always be somewhere that Ryuji is not. 

Apart from avoiding Ryuji and ducking rumors, Akira spends the rest of those two weeks trying to figure out what to do about the castle where the school's supposed to be. He knows he can get back into it, because he's tried. He'd taken the train out to Shujin on a Sunday, because sitting around in Leblanc all day makes him twitchy. He's not used to having a ton of free time he needs to fill, and there's only so much studying he can stand to do when there's this whole mystery that still needs to be solved.

Not that he's made any progress on figuring out what he needs to do to actually solve it. He hadn't gone any further than the entrance to the castle on his last visit, because he knows there's dangerous things inside, and he doesn't exactly have anything to protect himself with. He's not actually sure that he could awaken Arsene if he really needed him, and so common sense tells him not to take the risk.

(He'd sat outside for a while, trying to call his Persona)

(But he's pretty sure it doesn't work like that, he can't just force his Persona out just because he wants to)

(Or at least... it's easier to believe that than letting the worry creep in that he's doing something wrong, and driven even Arsene away)

In the evenings he talks to Katsuya and Maya, or writes letters to Tatsuya, or calls Yu. They spend hours talking, and Yu seems relieved to finally be able to tell him what he'd been going through five years ago when they used to meet each other in the Velvet Room. Akira doesn't know if he likes hearing that his first instinct as an eleven year old had actually been right, and that Yu had really been in danger of dying while he and his friends went looking for a murderer in Inaba.

He doesn't love Yu's advice, either, which is to stop avoiding Ryuji and talk to him about what they'd seen in the castle, because there's no way he's going to be able to figure out what it means without help. Akira points out that Ryuji had immediately turned around and started making the rumors about him worse.

"Did he?" Yu asks. "Or are you just assuming he did because you don't want friends?"

Which is a question Akira has no idea how to answer. He doesn't think he doesn't want friends, exactly, but...

But if the first friendly person he's met in Tokyo turns out to really be kind of a jerk, isn't it better to just cut ties immediately, before anything worse happens?

So school keeps being a thing that is terrible. Akira manages to avoid Ryuji. He briefly gets a break from being the center of Shujin's rumor mill when a girl jumps off the roof to try and kill herself, but that's so awful that Akira can't even bring himself to appreciate it. 

(It's weird, because jumping off the edge of the city back home is... sort of a common way out for people that can't keep going any longer)

(Because it's so easy for desperate, miserable people to just... let go, and drop back down to Earth, and imagine that they'll get one last look at where they'd come from)

(But those deaths had never left bodies, and Akira hates the glimpse of the broken girl he'd seen in the school courtyard)

A couple days after the girl jumps, one of her friends, Ann, approaches Akira after school has let out, and asks if he can help her out with something. 

He shrugs. "Sure, I guess?" She sits in front of him in class, so it's maybe not the weirdest thing in the world that she'd have asked him, but Akira's still not really sure why she'd be going to the school's resident delinquent instead of literally anyone else. "What do you need help with?"

"Moving some stuff for Kawakami," she tells him. "I think it might go faster if there's two sets of hands, you know?"

There's something a little too... much about the way she says it. Something just a little unconvincing. But Akira had seen her crying after her friend jumped, and she'd actually been the one to ride in the ambulance to the hospital, so Akira convinces himself that she's probably just putting on an act to make it seem like she's doing okay. So he nods, grabs his bag, and follows her. 

Akira doesn't realize that she's lied to him until she leads him up onto the roof, where Ryuji's waiting.

He stops in the doorway, a little flash of hurt confusion bursting through him like fireworks. Then he asks, "...what's going on?"

Ryuji had been leaning back in a chair, scrolling through his phone, but he straightens up and puts it down on the desk in front of him. "Sorry about all this," he says. "But I figured Ann might be able to get you up here, since you've been ignoring me."

"I didn't realize the two of you were friends," Akira says, after a pause. 

"It's sort of a new thing," Ann says, walking around to sit in one of the other abandoned desks near Ryuji. "And I'm sorry for lying to you," she says. "But it's sort of..." she trails off, glancing over at Ryuji. 

"It's really important!" a third voice says, and Akira jerks back a step in surprise as a cat jumps up out of Ryuji's bag. 

"Morgana!" Ann says.

"Wait," Akira says. "Morgana?"

"Yeah," Ryuji says. He rubs a hand at the back of his neck a little awkward and embarrassed. "This is, uh--he looks like this in the real world."

Akira stares at the cat. Then he looks at Ryuji. "He's talking," he says.

"Well yeah," Morgana says. "It's not like I'm going to just stop talking because we're not in a Palace."

"It's true," Ryuji says. "He never shuts up."

Morgana flicks his tail, but draws himself up into a proud posture and ignores him, addressing Akira instead. "Ryuji's been trying to talk to you for weeks, but you're obviously avoiding him. So what's going on with you?"

"Nothing," Akira says. He looks back at Ann, not sure what she's doing here, or why she's okay with a talking cat. He doesn't know if he's okay with it yet, and he'd actually seen Morgana in the castle, when he'd looked more like a monster cat than a regular one.

She notices him looking, and says, "I followed Ryuji into the Palace after Shiho..." she pauses, clenching her hands into fists at her side. It takes her a second or two to relax. "After she jumped," she says at last. 

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "Ann's cool, you don't have to worry about sayin' too much in front of her."

"Oh," Akira says. He looks at Ryuji and Morgana. "Wait, so... that means you went back to that castle?"

"Yep," Morgana says. 

He doesn't know why he's surprised, since he'd gone back too. But he wouldn't have ever thought about letting anyone else know, and it's sort of weird that Ann's here now too. 

"That's sort of why I've been trying to talk to you," Ryuji says. "Mona thinks he has an idea for how we can use Kamoshida's Palace to stop him and his screwed up shit from getting any worse, but there's only three of us trying to get through it, and we could sort of use a fourth person fighting with us."

"Does that mean you have..." he looks at Ann.

"I have a Persona," Ann says, nodding.

"Oh," Akira says. 

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "So like I said, getting through the Palace is sort of why I wanted to talk to you, but also what's going on with you?"

"What do you mean?" Akira asks.

"I mean we found a whole other dimension together," Ryuji says. "We both almost got killed, and I figured you were probably the only one that would believe me enough to want to go back. But it's like you've been going out of your way to avoid me."

"I mean," Akira says. "Yeah."

Ryuji looks  surprised, and then upset. Which doesn't seem fair, actually. He's the one that had gone around spreading rumors. 

"You went and started telling people that I'm a delinquent that takes a knife to school," Akira says. "I figured you were done with me."

"You seriously think I'd go around and start trouble like that?" Ryuji asks. "I haven't told anyone about you except Ann, and she knows about everything else anyway."

"No one else knew I brought a knife to school," Akira says. "At my old school when people started talking about that, it was because I was stupid and let someone see."

"Okay," Ryuji says. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to do something like that. It's not like anyone here needs the extra motivation to just make shit up ever since Kamoshida leaked your criminal record."

"He did what?"

"Technically he made Mishima do it," Ann says. "You know, in our class?" She waits until Akira gives an uncertain nod, then continues. "We found out when we were trying to figure out more about what Kamoshida's doing to the volleyball team. I guess since you're new, he got bored and just..." She flicks her fingers in a dismissive gesture that leaves Akira with no doubt whatsoever how she feels about what Kamoshida had done.

"I dunno what happened at your last school," Ryuji says. "But I didn't have anything to do with the rumors here."

Akira searches his expression, not quite willing to believe that it's just going to be that easy. He knows how this has gone in the past, and he's ready for it to go the same way now. But Ryuji's face doesn't show any hint that he's lying, and if anything he just seems hurt that Akira would think he'd done something like that. Finally, Akira looks away. "Okay," he says. "So... you didn't spread those rumors. I'm sorry."

"It's cool," Ryuji says. "But hey, you know how you can make it up?"

Akira looks back at him. Based on the conversation so far, he has a feeling he does. "Something to do with Kamoshida's Palace," he says.

"Yep," Ryuji agrees. "See, Morgana says that castle we saw is actually called a Palace, and it's his heart or whatever--"

"It's a reflection of the distortion in his heart," Morgana says, in the exasperated tone of someone that's already had to explain this several times. 

"Sure," Ryuji says. "Whatever. But the point is, there's supposed to be this thing there that's like the center of his whole messed up way of looking at stuff. And if we steal that--"

"It's called his Treasure," Morgana says, with so much emphasis on the last word that Akira can hear the capital T.

"Then that'll change his heart," Ryuji continues. 

"And he'll pay for what he did to Shiho," Ann says. "And everyone else at this school he's been abusing."

"What has he been doing, exactly?" Akira asks.

They tell him. It takes a while to get through the story, all three of them tripping over each other in their rush to explain the physical abuse of the volleyball team, the sexual abuse of the girls that caught Kamoshida's attention, and the way the teachers and principal have been covering it up. 

By the time they're done with the whole explanation, Akira has somehow ended up sitting with them, a little space between them so he's not quite but almost a part of the huddle of desks clumped together in the middle of the roof. And from what the three of them are describing, Akira kind of has to admit that forcing Kamoshida to change his distorted view of the world doesn't sound like a bad thing. It sounds like a good thing.

(He's not sure what Katsuya or Maya would have to say about any of this)

(It feels almost... selfish? To be trying to use the castle to make things at school better, when he knows now how wrong things can go)

(But Kamoshida is awful, and Akira wants to do this)

"So you're up for it, right?" Ryuji says, when Akira's finally had the whole thing explained to him. "I don't think we should go in today, it's getting sort of late, but we can give it a shot tomorrow."

Akira hesitates. "Here's the thing," he says slowly. "I don't know how much help I'd actually be. You guys all have Persona, and mine..."

"It's okay if you don't have one yet," Morgana says, as Akira struggles to find the words to explain Arsene. "I think you can do it." He looks up at Akira, surprisingly serious. "I don't know why, but I have a good feeling about you."

"That's not it exactly," Akira says. Whatever kind of feelings Morgana might be having, he knows that the way things are right now, he's only going to be slowing them down. "I went back to the Palace on my own too. My Persona's... he's there, I just can't..."

"Wait," Ryuji says. "So you do have a Persona?"

"Not really," Akira says quickly. He feels a little flare of indignation from Arsene over this answer, and winces. Because while it matters to him that he has this voice in his head that understands him in ways nobody else does, that's not what any of the people here are going to care about. They need someone to help them fight, and Akira can't do that until he figures out how to actually call Arsene. "I can't like... summon him, or anything."

"Yeah, but you'll get it," Ryuji says. "If it's anything like me and Ann, it's probably not just going to happen. You have to be really pissed off first."

"A Persona represents the spirit of your rebellion," Morgana adds. "You can't just do it because you want to. Probably."

"I can't, anyway," Akira says. "Are you sure that's what a Persona is?" 

"Yep," Morgana says. "Why?"

Because he sort of has a hard time imagining some of the people he knows with Persona having that much 'spirit of rebellion,' honestly. But Morgana looks so absolutely dead set on his own explanation that Akira just shrugs and says, "No reason."

"Anyway," Ryuji says. "Even if you can't do anything with a Persona yet, it seemed like you knew how to fight?"

"Yeah," Akira says, and doesn't elaborate.

"So there you go," Ryuji says.

"You probably won't be able to do as much damage without having an awakened Persona," Morgana says thoughtfully. "But if you do have one, even unawakened, you should be able to do something."

Which means the only question left is if he wants to. If this feels okay to do, if it's what he's supposed to be doing.

"It would really help us out if you'd come with," Ann says. "Kamoshida found out we were asking questions about him, and..."

She hesitates, looking at Ryuji. 

"And?" Akira says.

"And he's going to recommend us for expulsion at the next school board meeting," Ann says. "So we're kind of running out of time to change his heart."

He gives in. "Okay," he says. "I'll come tomorrow and see if there's anything I can do to help."

"Great," Morgana says, before either of the other two can react. "And I'm coming home with you tonight."

"No," Akira says, immediately.

"Yes I am," Morgana says. "You need, uh--" There's a flicker of hesitation before he comes up with a reason. "You need a crash course on everything we've been doing so far. You missed a lot."

Ann laughs at him. "You just don't want to spend another night with Ryuji," she says.

"Hey!" Ryuji protests.

"Okay," Morgana says. "Maybe, but he doesn't clean his room, and I have to keep hiding whenever his mom comes in."

"Yeah..." Ryuji mutters. "Well, I don't really know how I'd explain it if she saw you. It's not like she'd even be able to understand you, she'd just think you were a normal cat."

"I'm not any kind of cat," Morgana says. "I'm a human."

"Of course," Ann says, and shoots a look at Ryuji when he opens his mouth, probably to argue.

"Why doesn't Morgana stay with you?" Akira asks her.

"We're not allowed to have pets in our apartment," Ann says. 

"I'd stay with Lady Ann if I could," Morgana says. 

"Lady...?"

Ann mouths please don't ask at him from behind Morgana.

"But I can't without getting her in trouble with her parents," Morgana says. "Which I would never want to do."

"Okay," Akira says. "But that doesn't mean you can stay with me."

"Why not?" Morgana asks.

"Because I'm not really used to having anyone else sleeping in the same room," Akira says. "And sometimes when it happens and I'm not expecting other people around when I wake up, I kind of... freak out on them."

There's a beat or two of silence, then Ann says, "What?"

"The last time I had to share a room with someone was a middle school trip," Akira mutters. "The guy I was rooming with woke me up, so I panicked and punched him."

"Why?" Ryuji asks. "What'd he do?"

"Nothing," Akira says. "I just..." The scar on his face throbs as if in memory of the night he'd been forced awake by looters breaking down their apartment door and pulling him out of bed. 

He has no idea how to explain that.

"Well if you just don't want people to wake you up," Morgana says. "Then it's easy. I just won't wake you up."

"But--"

"It'll be fine!" Morgana says. "Anyway, my reflexes are great."

"Cat-like?" Ryuji suggests.

"Hey!"

Morgana bristles, fur standing straight up, and Akira realizes that no matter what else is going on, at the very least Morgana can't go home with Ryuji. They look like they might actually just murder each other if they have to be roommates any longer.

"Fine," Akira says. "But I'm staying at a cafe, so I'm pretty sure it'd be a big deal if the guy I'm staying with found out about you."

"You're staying where?" Ann asks.

"In an attic over a coffee shop," Akira says. "The owner isn't there overnight, so it'll be fine then. I just can't let anyone see Morgana while it's open."

"I can deal with that," Morgana says. 

(A part of Akira had still been hoping he wouldn't want to stay, since he's going to have to hide almost as much at Leblanc as it sounds like he has been at Ryuji's apartment)

"It sounds better than hiding in Ryuji's laundry pile for sure," Morgana says. "More like what a Phantom Thief should be doing."

"Like a what?"

"Oh yeah," Ryuji says. His expression, which had dropped a little after Morgana's comment about his laundry, brightens again. "That's what we're calling ourselves."

"Phantom Thieves?" Akira asks. 

"Yep," Morgana says. "That's our group name! It was my idea. We have codenames too."

"I'm kind of feeling like you're not taking this whole thing seriously enough," Akira says. 

"Nah," Ryuji says. "Don't worry, we're taking this seriously."

"...sure," Akira says, not totally convinced, but also not willing to argue it until he's seen how they actually work together in the castle. Palace. Whichever. "So I guess we're going in tomorrow?"

"Yep," Morgana says. "Can I ride home in your bag?"

-//-

Tatsuya -

So...

I've been avoiding the other kid I went into the castle with, but today he and one of my classmates cornered me about it. It turns out them and the cat have this whole plan that they need the castle for, and I guess I'm helping them now. And I don't know if I should be doing that, because like... something's obviously going on! And what if it turns out to be something that ends the world (again) or something? But then what if it's something that's going to end the world because we just start messing around with it? 

I kind of think they're doing the right thing, honestly. Apparently it's going to help Kamoshida see what he's been doing more clearly, so hopefully he'll realize why it's wrong. And it seems like it's really wrong. I think that if I hadn't already talked to Katsuya and Maya, I would have jumped right in. I want to know what's going on and why this is all happening, and I want to stop Kamoshida, but what if things go as bad as they did with you? I don't want this to end up with another Other Side.

I just want to help, and find out what's going on. I don't want to be stuck on the sidelines. This feels like something maybe I am supposed to do, and I don't even know where to start on my own. Maybe this is good?

- Akira

-//-

Akira doesn't sleep well that night.

He has a lengthy negotiation with Morgana about how the unexpected roommate situation is going to work, to start with. The only decently comfortable place to sleep is the bed, which Akira isn't going to budge on not sharing. He doesn't want to hurt Morgana, so the safest thing to do is keep him far away. But Morgana obviously doesn't want to get stuck on the uncomfortably ancient seat next to the TV, so Akira ends up sacrificing a pillow, which is set up on the table next to the stairs for Morgana to sleep on. 

He's very aware of Morgana keeping one eye on him for most of the night. Akira is tense and awkward, not used to sharing his personal space with people he doesn't know well, and Morgana keeps giving him looks like he doesn't know what to make of Akira, specifically. 

Akira does his best to ignore this. He sits down, does his homework, and ignores a call from Katsuya that comes in at around 7:00. After the conversation today, he's pretty sure he needs to tell everyone back home what's going on. He just... doesn't want to do it in front of Morgana, because that's going to raise all kinds of questions about how much exactly he knows. And he trusts the people he's known most of his life more than the people he's known a couple of weeks.

So he ignores the call because he doesn't want to talk to Katsuya in front of Morgana, and ignores his following text because he doesn't know where to even start to explain this in a message as short as a text message apparently has to be. 

(He will... grudgingly admit that if he'd gotten a phone years ago, he might be more used to using it, but as it is he feels like he's fumbling whenever he does much more than make a phone call)

(He will never, ever admit this to anyone in Sumaru)

"Do you really sleep with a knife under your pillow?"

This question comes as Akira's getting ready for bed, and it's one he'd honestly expected and braced himself for. So when he nods, he's not surprised, and he thinks he pulls it off relatively casually. "Yeah," he says. 

"Why?"

"Just because," Akira says. "If anything happens, I'd rather have something right where I can grab it and not have to worry."

"What do you think is going to happen?"

He shrugs.

Morgana starts to ask something, but then stops. He tries again a few seconds later, but again the words don't come out. Akira looks back at him, and thinks he sees pity on Morgana's expression. Or maybe it's just his imagination--Morgana might claim he's not a cat, but he still looks like one, and it's going to take a while to get used to how to read his face.

"So when you said you punched a roommate once," Morgana says at last. "Was that before you started sleeping with the knife, or...?"

"My dad told me I wasn't allowed to take it on the trip." 

Katsuya had flipped, actually, which isn't really a thing that happens often. But he'd flat out banned Akira from taking it, and in fairness it had probably turned out to be a good thing. He doesn't actually want to have stabbed a classmate. And he doesn't actually want to stab Morgana either, he just...

He'd been grabbed in the middle of the night once by a guy that would have been happy to kill him, probably, and had left him with the scar across his face. Having something within reach makes him feel like if it ever happens again, it's not going to go any worse for him. And the fact that he knows he's not on the Other Side right now doesn't really help, because nightmares don't care much about which reality he's in.

"I'll just stay over here," Morgana mutters, and Akira wonders if he's reconsidering leaving Ryuji's apartment.

(He wouldn't blame him)

At least it's not as hard to actually fall asleep with Morgana in the room as Akira had been afraid it would be. Even if he knows Morgana is... well, whatever he is that isn't a cat, he's at least an unintimidating, cat-like shape. From the back corner of the room, Morgana's just a dark smudge that Akira can just about forget is even in the room with him. He falls asleep without any trouble.

And has nightmares. Not the usual kind, the background noise of sixteen years in a world a lot more dangerous than this one. This is something new. And, in its own special way, a lot worse.

He wakes up in the Velvet Room.

For a decade of his life, the Velvet Room has been a safe place. It's an in between space, neither one Side nor the Other, and not a single person there has ever given him a reason to not trust him. Which is saying something, because Akira struggles to trust, but... 

But it's the Velvet Room, and it's always been something he can count on. Until tonight, when he squints his eyes open to the sight of a blue tinted cell, and the roar of something unimaginable nearby. The shock of it blasts Akira's exhaustion out of him and his hand goes on instinct to the place where his head's resting, looking for the knife he'd gone to sleep with. But it's not there, of course, he's not in the attic room over Leblanc anymore, and his questing fingers instead close around-- 

He's only just felt the edge of something hard and smooth under the pillow when he gets his wits together enough to notice something that completely drives that problem out of his mind. He freezes, just for a second, then pushes himself to his feet and turns around to face the bars of the cell. The whatever it is hangs forgotten from one hand, ignored for now because everything else in his brain is crowded to one side in favor of staring at the view outside the cell.

And at the swirling, roaring chaos outside.

Akira has seen the Velvet Room change before, but never like this. The elevator where he'd met Kotone and Minato, and the limo where he'd reluctantly made friends with Yu, those had both been calm, safe places. This is not, this is a ring of stone cells around a swirling, chaotic void, with only the vaguest outline of a shape in the middle of it all.

(This is terrifying)

And then a voice comes from the center of that swirling chaos. From the first syllable it digs into Akira's head like physical claws digging into him, the sound feeling like claws spearing his brain. And then he hears what the voice is saying, and that's even worse.

"Welcome," it says. "To my Velvet Room."

My Velvet Room? Whose Velvet Room? He's heard Igor welcome people in before, but never with those exact words. And never in that voice. 

"Who are you?" Akira asks. Shouts. His own voice sounds small in comparison to the one that's just boomed out from the center of the new Velvet Room--the chaos steals his words away and sends them tumbling into the void in front of him. Louder, fueled by fear, he repeats, "Who are you?"

The voice laughs. A low, rolling sound like thunder that shakes Akira's bones. Shakes something deeper inside him, too, something he's not sure if he should call his soul. He can feel himself mentally drawing back, away from the situation, only to find Arsene there like a wall to keep him from backing down or averting his eyes.

"I am your enemy," the voice says, matter of fact. "Or perhaps it's fair to say that I would be, if you were any kind of real threat to me, worthy in any way of my attention."

The thought that this is the kind of thing Katsuy and Maya had warned him about trickles through Akira's awareness. He thinks about the worst kinds of things they'd told him they'd faced, and is afraid of this maelstrom in front of him.

(But there's also the thought, somewhere behind it all, that there must be something about him that this swirling storm cares about, or he wouldn't be here)

"This game is already over," the voice says. ""This place is mine. I offer you the chance to retire from the board now, rather than face your drawn out and inevitable defeat." 

Akira has no idea what he's talking about, but he's scared. He can feel himself shaking all over, and the hand that's grabbing the thing he'd found under his pillow hurts from where hard edges are digging into his palm and fingers. This is not the kind of power that a scared kid  with no Persona can face. 

The dark cloud of chaotic energy feels like its sapping away his strength. Just outside the bars of his cell, winds howl and shriek, and a place he loves is corrupted and torn to pieces. 

In the face of this overwhelming show of power, Akira feels unbearably small, and almost completely worthless. Two weeks ago, he'd told Katsuya and Maya that he was going to go back to the castle, and figure out what's going on, and figure out what it means that he'd been allowed into the Velvet Room from the time he's six years old. And since then, what exactly has he managed?

(He'd messed up with Ryuji, assuming the worst instead of just doing the normal thing and trying to talk to him)

(He'd completely failed to awaken his Persona, to summon enough of his own rebellion or whatever it is he needs to bring Arsene out of his mind)

(He's completely freaked out Morgana within about six hours of bringing him to Leblanc, so it's probably only a matter of time until he tells the rest of the group Akira isn't worth their time after all, actually)

"Surrender now," the voice booms. "And you will be spared the pain of defeat."

He's so tired, and all he wants to do is go home. If he can't do that, then what's the point of fighting? What is he fighting for, and why is he the one fighting? There are other people that can face whatever's going on, and do it better than he can. He doesn't think he's capable of shouldering one more burden. 

"I..."

And then he realizes, in a barely conscious sort of way, that he can hear something. Behind the booming voice, and the whirling chaos, is a song he's heard a thousand times before. Reaching out to him from the hidden depths of the Velvet Room, Akira can hear its song. The clear notes that ring out from Nameless's piano, and Belladonna's voice soaring over it. The song is so, so distant, so hard to hear, but Akira closes his eyes and focuses.

He doesn't know what's going on here, who had invaded the Velvet Room and what he's done to the people that should be here. But they're still reaching out to him, from wherever they are, and that means they're still here. Still worth fighting for. 

"No," Akira says.

The word falls into sudden quiet. The whirling chaos outside the cell pauses in its deafening wail. For a moment, the only sounds are Akira's rejection, and the persistent song of the Velvet Room, strong and powerful and rising as if in encouragement. It's only for a moment, it doesn't last, but it happens. 

There is a moment when Akira makes a choice, and the strength of his decision forces the chaos away.

Then it all comes crashing back in, and the voice says, "Then you are free to struggle. To suffer. To drive yourself into the depths of despair, overwhelmed by regret and your own mistakes. And then you are free to fail, and to fall."

Akira wakes, back in the attic bedroom, chest heaving, feeling sick. He stands, kicking off his blanket, suddenly desperate to be somewhere safe, away from where anyone can see him breaking down and splintering into pieces under the weight of all the things he can't handle all on his own. And Morgana's right there, probably still asleep, and doesn't deserve to have to deal with Akira's middle of the night freak out on top of everything else.

He sits in one of the booths, back against the wall, legs pulled up against his chest, trying to figure out what it means that the Velvet Room has been invaded. It's middle of the night quiet, and Akira doesn't know how long he just sits there, overwhelmed. But eventually he's forced out of his thoughts by Morgana leaping up onto the table in front of him.

"Sorry," Akira says. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

Morgana completely ignores this. Instead he sits, facing Akira, his tail tucked around his paws and his head tilted slightly to one side. "You're... not okay," he says. "Are you?"

"No," Akira admits. "I'm not okay."

"Do you want to talk about whatever it is?"

He probably should. He probably needs to tell these other people that have awakened Persona that they're not at the beginning of a fun adventure where they stop their power hungry gym teacher from hurting people. This isn't going to be the kind of story where good things happen, because he's heard from others what can go wrong when demons show up, he's lived through the consequences of when even strong people with powerful Persona aren't enough to save the world.

But not tonight. Tonight, he just wants to be able to digest what he's learned, and figure out what he feels about it, other than afraid.

"No," he says, voice breaking a little. "Not right now."

Morgana considers this for a long time. Then he says, "Well, when you are ready to talk, we can. I know you're new to being a Phantom Thief, but you should know we have a deal."

"I'm not a Phantom Thief," Akira says. "That's all of you guys who can actually fight. I haven't even been back to the castle with you yet."

"Of course you're a Phantom Thief," Morgana says dismissively. "You were great in the Palace before, and when you have your Persona, you'll be even better." He hesitates a second, then stands up and walks across the table to lean against Akira's shoulder in a gesture of sympathetic comfort that almost knocks Akira over in how badly he needs it. He can feel the gentle rumbling of a purr from Morgana's chest, and it reminds him strongly of when he'd been a kid, delighted by the neighborhood strays that he'd leave food for. 

Happier times. 

Eventually, Morgana asks, "What's that, by the way?"

"What's what?" Akira says.

"The thing you're holding," Morgana says, and Akira looks down at his own hand. He's clutching something in it that he doesn't remember picking up. He frowns at it for a second and then his breath catches as he realizes where this thing must have come from.

It's the thing he'd picked up from under the pillow in the Velvet Room, in the place where he always keeps a weapon when he sleeps in his real bed. This isn't a weapon, so it shouldn't have been there. And it hadn't come from reality, so it shouldn't have followed him back out of his dream.

But here it is. Akira unclenches his fingers, and stares down at a slender white mask, just large enough to cover the eyes and a little of the side of the face of anyone wearing it. Something about the sight of it excites him, and more importantly excites Arsene. Akira can feel his heartbeat speed up in response to his Persona's reaction, and from somewhere deep inside him comes the conviction that this is a gift. That it hadn't been--can't have been--left for him by the Velvet Room's invader, but by someone that wants to see him succeed. Somehow, he thinks, that would have been happy to see him tell that thing in the Velvet Room no.

"It's a mask," he says, for Morgana's benefit.

"Where'd you get that?" Morgana asks.

"I don't... know," Akira says slowly, which is both honest and not. The mask had come from his dream of the Velvet Room. The mask cannot possibly have come from his dream of the Velvet Room.

"Put it on," Morgana urges. 

"What?" Akira says. "Why?"

"Because it's a mask," Morgana says. "What else are you going to do with a mask?"

Which is a good point, honestly. Akira looks back down and cups his hands around the mask, holding it as gently and gingerly as he would an injured bird. Very slowly, feeling Arsene's anticipation grow, he raises the mask. Hesitates for just a second, and then presses it across his face, over his eyes.

Every neuron in his brain feels like it sparks at once, and Akira screams.

For a stretched out eternity, he is not himself.

Or maybe it would be truer to say that he is his best and truest self, the person he could have been, without the chains that life has wrapped around him. In this moment, his brain on fire and his soul bursting free from every weight he's piled on himself, he feels the wild and terrible freedom of allowing himself to want more than what life has handed him.

And into this moment comes Arsene's voice. His own voice. His other self, loud and clear.

"You have known hunger," Arsene says. "And pain, and loss, and fear. And you are called now to face a power that would offer you worse than that, and call it a gift. You have met that power in its stronghold, and denied it what it wants, and now the only shackles holding you back are the ones you place on yourself. Will you truly be the end your own rebellion?"

(He remembers the moment in the Velvet Room when he'd refused the invader's deal, and feels a surge of something strange and unfamiliar, something like pride, burn its way through him)

(He wants to keep doing that)

"No," Akira says, forcing the word out, past the pain that is consuming every iota of his self. "No, I will not!"

He has never felt like this before. This sense of having the power to see something wrong in the world and truly believe that he can change it. To believe, even, that there's a point in trying. 

"Then let us sign our contract at last," Arsene says. "End this hesitation, and show the world your strength."

The mask is heavy, suddenly, an impossible weight that Akira finds himself desperate to get rid of. He claws at it, at his own face, straining for a grip on a mask that suddenly seemed attached to his skin, like a part of him, and he understands that this mask is more than a mask.

(It's the wall he puts up between himself and the rest of the world)

(It's every person he's ever turned away from because friends feel impossible and no one could ever want him around)

(It's his fear)

(His secrets, the lies he tells to look normal when he's not and never will be)

His fingers find purchase. His back arches against the booth, a heady, electric energy surging through and out of him. The mask tears away at last and Akira breathes, taking a deep breath in, blinking away blood dripping from where it's been ripped off.

"Come," he calls, "Arsene!"

And there's a surge of ethereal fire, a flash, and Akira comes back to himself. The intensity of his earlier feelings fade, leaving him a strange mix of exhausted and elated. Leaving him changed, in a way he thinks he could spend the rest of his life trying to understand.

He's wearing clothes he's never seen before, he realizes. A long black coat, and bright red gloves. An outfit that is a costume and feels like armor against everything in the world that might ever try to stop him. And he's standing, not sitting, in the empty space where a table has been blown back and away by the strength of--

Of his Persona awakening.

Akira turns on the spot, slowly, until he comes face to face with the floating specter of Arsene in the air behind him. He's never seen him before, but feels no surprise at all at what his Persona looks like. This is him, Akira. This is his the strength he has within him.

Arsene inclines his head in a nod of acknowledgment.

"Well done," he says.

And then he fades. Akira's costume fades. He's left standing in the middle of a wrecked cafe booth, holding a mask that he's starting to think might have been left in place of a knife because it is, in its own strange way, a weapon. 

"How did you do that?" Morgana asks. "How--we're not even in a Palace!"

"I have no idea," Akira says. It probably doesn't honestly matter all that much--there hadn't been Palaces in Sumaru twenty years ago, and there hadn't been any issues for anyone summoning Persona then. He looks down at the mask, then around at what he and Arsene have done. "But, uh--I don't think Sakura's going to be too happy that I did it."

Chapter Text

Katsuya wakes up at a little after 3:30 in the morning because his phone is ringing about six inches away from his ear.

For a second he doesn't realize the relevance of this, and is only annoyed that he's being woken up when it's still middle of the night dark out. Then it hits him that his phone shouldn't be ringing, it's set to be silent overnight unless certain specific people call. And there's really no reason that any of those people should be calling, which means that something's wrong. 

He sits up, careful to avoid hitting Maya as she starts to stir too. It's Akira's name on the caller ID, which is not, deep down, a surprise. Something had clearly happened today, because Akira hadn't picked up when Katsuya called earlier, or responded to the worried text Katsuya sent afterward. So something had happened, and it's not good.

"Akira," he says, as soon as he picks up. "What's wrong?"

Maya rubs at her face and leans over to switch on the light before coming back to listen in. 

"I might have a problem," Akira says. His voice is a whisper, and there's a pause before he admits, "I do have a problem."

"Is he okay?" Maya asks.

"Are you okay?" Katsuya repeats.

"I'm good," Akira says. "I, um... I awakened my Persona."

"Oh," Katsuya says. He can hear in Akira's voice that he thinks this is a good thing. It probably is. It gives Akira more options to fight if anything happens. And it looks increasingly likely that something is going to happen. Is already happening, even, that Akira's not going to be able to dodge. So it's good. Probably. He just doesn't have it in him to not worry about what this change means.

"Yeah," Akira says. "Only, it happened here in the cafe, and it was a little bit destructive, and there's like... scorch marks all over the place that I don't know how to clean up, and that kind of feels like the most important problem right now. I don't want to get kicked out."

"No," Katsuya says. "That would be bad."

Maya pokes his shoulder. "What's going on?"

Katsuya puts his phone between them, on speaker. "Akira has his Persona now," he says. "But it sounds like it did some damage."

"Oh, Akira," Maya says. "That's good!"

"We'll see," Akira says. Still whispering, and a little nervous, but excited. 

"Why are you whispering though?" Maya asks. "I thought you were on your own there, is someone else around?"

"Yeah," Akira says. "It's a long story? He knows about Persona too, but I don't know if you want him knowing about you guys, so I sent him upstairs for rags or whatever to clean things off. But I don't know how long he'll be gone, so we should probably stop talking about this stuff."

Katsuya exchanges a look with Maya. He suddenly has so many more questions. 

There's a second voice on the other end of the call suddenly, sounding younger than Katsuya would have expected as it announces something about finding the rags. Akira breaks away from the phone conversation for a second, and while he goes back and forth about the rags, Maya pulls out her phone and starts looking up ways to get burn marks out. By the time Akira's picked up the phone again, Maya's ready with a recommendation of toothpaste mixed with baking soda.

Akira puts his phone on speaker too, and the next hour or so is just a slightly frantic conversation about how well it's working. At some point Akira gets his phone switched over to a video call, which shows Katsuya and Maya a dim coffee shop in disarray, and (importantly) Akira still in one piece.

It also shows them a cat, who is... visibly talking. Akira points the camera at the cat, who is in the middle of a lengthy ramble about toothpaste, then aims it back at himself. He shrugs and raises his eyebrows, almost apologetically.

(He has a talking cat with him)

From the way the cat is talking, he obviously doesn't think anyone other than Akira can hear what he's saying. It's... marginally rude, but not in a particularly aggressive way. He just keeps reminding Akira not to say anything important before he hangs up, because they can't let anyone else know about what's going on. Akira mostly nods and looks guilty and quickly redirects the conversation onto getting things cleared up.

By the end of the phone call, Akira's mostly managed to get the area around where he'd apparently awakened his Persona cleaned up. The furniture has been pushed back into place, the walls are more or less clear, and the few marks that had proved stubborn are hidden behind some hastily rearranged wall hangings. It's not perfect, but on the bright side, Katsuya's pretty sure no one would ever guess what had happened there overnight.

It's close to 5:00 by now. Katsuya has to be awake soon to get ready for his shift, and there's no point in trying to get back to sleep. He makes Akira promise to be careful, and he does. Then, just before he's about to hang up, Akira says, "We should talk again soon. There's been... a lot of stuff happening."

"Something bad?" Katsuya asks.

Akira nods, quick and emphatic movements.

"Of course," Maya says. "We'll call you after you get out of school tonight."

"I--sort of have somewhere to be today," Akira says. "I can call you?"

They agree to this, and Akira hangs up as the cat starts asking him what story he'd supposedly given Katsuya and Maya to explain this. Katsuya doesn't hear the answer, but he looks over at Maya and says, "He has a talking cat."

"Jealous?" Maya asks, almost smiling.

"Confused," Katsuya says. "And I think we really need to talk to Akira when the cat's not around. I don't like that he's getting caught up in lying to another Persona-users although..." He hesitates. "We don't know what's going on with that cat at all. Maybe Akira has a reason for lying."

"I also wouldn't be surprised if it's just his default reaction," Maya says. "He's been keeping the Other Side a secret for a long time." She toys absently with her phone, thinking it through. "So I just don't think we should read too much into the fact that he's not saying anything now. Maybe he has a good reason not to say anything. Or maybe he just doesn't want to say anything to anyone about anything."

"One of us should go out to Tokyo," Katsuya says.

"Or we could let him ask for help when he needs it," Maya says. 

It's getting to be more and more obvious that the two of them don't agree about how much Akira should be left to do this on his own, and in all honesty, Katsuya's too tired to hash that argument out again. Instead he says, "That doesn't mean we can't go up there and find out what's happening. Getting more information isn't the same as stepping in to do this for him. It just... lets us do that if we need to."

Maya doesn't look particularly convinced.

"He said himself that there's more he wants to talk about," Katsuya says. 

"Alright," Maya says. "Since I went up with him before, do you want to--"

"Yes," Katsuya says. "I think I can take a day off soon."

-//-

Akira takes his knife to school again the next day. Today is the day he's supposed to meet the Phantom Thieves in the castle, and that just isn't a place he wants to be without something to protect himself. Something other than a Persona, because he knows it's possible to fight with those, he'd seen Ryuji and Morgana doing it on the first day of school, but he doesn't know what that's going to be like. He doesn't want to just assume that he won't choke when it matters, and it feels better to have something he actually knows how to use that he can fall back on, if he needs it.

He feels a little better walking into class with the familiar weight resting on the small of his back, but on the other hand now he has Morgana keeping up a constant stream of commentary from inside his bag, so he has that to make him anxious instead. He's not sure what he's supposed to say to answer Morgana's enthusiastic replay of what had happened when Akira awoke his Persona last night, or even if he should say anything at all. There's other people around that would probably think it's weird for him to just start talking to his cat out of nowhere, and anyway Morgana seems perfectly happy to keep the conversation one sided. 

Akira's waiting to transfer trains at Shibuya when he notices Ann coming their way. She has her head buried in her phone and hasn't noticed either him or Morgana yet, and for a long minute Akira wrestles with whether he should say anything to her. They'd talked yesterday on the roof after school, and they're going to the Palace together later today. But are they at the casually talking to each other in the subway phase of getting to know each other? Or should he just keep his head down and wait until after school to--

"Oh!" Morgana says, and Akira suddenly feels two small paws pressing down on his shoulder as Morgana jumps up out of his bag to get a look past him. "Lady Ann, over here!"

So that decision's made for him. Ann looks up, eyes scanning the crowd, and finally landing on Morgana. She waves and heads over. 

"Guess what happened last night!" Morgana blurts out, as soon as she's close enough to hear him without him needing to shout. 

"What happened?" Ann asks. "Good morning, by the way."

"This guy has a Persona now," Morgana says, his paws practically dancing on Akira's shoulder now. He feels his face starting to heat up, and doesn't look at Ann. Whatever had happened last night, it feels really personal. Not like something he wants Morgana shouting out in the middle of the train station, even if Ann's the only one that can hear him. 

"You guys went back into the Palace?" Ann asks.

"No!" Morgana says. "That's what's so weird, he just did it in the real world!"

"What?"

"It's not that big of a deal," Akira mutters, forced into saying something by the look Ann's giving him. "I just did it at home instead of in the castle."

"It's a huge deal," Morgana tells him. "You can't use a Persona in the real world."

"I can," Akira says. "Because I did. Remember that look Sakura was giving me this morning? He definitely knows something happened. He probably saw the walls."

"The walls are fine," Morgana says. "You spent ages cleaning them off last night, they look fine."

"Mostly fine," Akira says. Morgana's not going to be the one that gets in trouble if Sakura starts asking questions. So far it looks like he's not going to, but he spends most of the day right there in the cafe, with plenty of time to just stare at the walls and maybe find the smudges Akira had left behind where he couldn't quite get things back to being perfect. And Akira's worried.

"How did you get your Persona to show up in the real world at all, though?" Ann asks.

"I don't know," Akira says. "I didn't know I wasn't supposed to."

"Where'd you get the mask?" Morgana asks.

Akira hesitates. The truth isn't something he wants to share with anyone he doesn't know. The Velvet Room has already been invaded, and he doesn't want to make things any worse. Something nervous and worried twists in his gut at the memory of what it's already been transformed into, and he doesn't want to do absolutely anything to make things worse. This is really important. The Velvet Room is his way home, and some of the few people he genuinely, really trusts are (supposed to be) there. 

He can't do anything to make the Velvet Room more dangerous for the people that might still be trapped there.

"Akira?" Ann says.

He shakes his head. "I don't know," he says. "I didn't even realize I was holding it until Morgana pointed it out."

"Hmm," Morgana says. "Well, maybe we'll figure it out when we see more of what your Persona can do." He sounds excited. "This is definitely a good sign, I can tell!"

"Um," Akira says, because how is he supposed to answer that?

"I bet you'll be able to do something really cool when you actually get your Persona out in a Palace," Morgana says. 

"I don't--"

"If your Persona is strong enough to just show up in the real world, it's probably going to be amazing against Shadows!"

"But I've never even..."

"This is going to be so great! I--"

This time, Morgana's the one that gets interrupted. Ann raises her eyebrows and gives Akira a kind of may I? expression as she gestures to Morgana. He nods back and she reaches past him to lift the cat out of his bag. "You're overwhelming him, Morgana," she says. "Give him a chance to get used to all this. We're throwing a lot at him all at once, and I don't think Akira's totally okay with it yet." She gives Akira what looks like it's supposed to be a reassuring smile.

Akira considers whether there's any chance of a quick exit from this conversation. But Ann's going to have to take the same train to the same school, where they're going to spend all day in the same classroom, in desks that are right next to each other. "Thanks," he says. "It's been kind of a weird couple of days."

"I wish I could say it's going to get less weird," Ann says. "But I think it's probably going to get worse."

Akira returns her apologetic smile with a nod. "I think you're probably right," he says.

(He thinks about the Velvet Room)

(About the story he'd heard from Katsuya and Maya about what had happened in Sumaru fifteen years ago)

(And about Kotone and Minato, dead because of something too similar to what they're about to get involved in)

The train comes then, saving Akira from any more conversation. He uses the crowds on the train to separate himself from Ann and Morgana, putting enough people between them to make it hard for either of the other two to follow. 

He doesn't see either of them again until right before class starts, when Ann slides into the desk in front of his, and slips Morgana inside. She gives Akira a slightly reproachful look, which he tries to pretend he hasn't seen. 

Akira's half expecting her to try and corner him at lunch, but she doesn't, so the next time he talks to anyone is after the end of the last class of the day. He doesn't know where the other three usually meet, but yesterday they'd lured him up to the roof, so he goes there now. He's the first one there, and for a few awkward minutes he wonders if maybe he should have tried looking for them somewhere else. Then the door opens, letting Ryuji and Ann (with Morgana riding along in her bag) up onto the roof too. 

Ryuji looks relieved on seeing him there. "Finally," he says. "We were looking for you all over."

"Sorry," Akira says. "I wasn't sure where you guys usually meet, but since we came up here to talk yesterday, it seemed like a safe bet."

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "Well, this is sort of our hideout." He sits in one of the desks, and continues, "So, I was thinking maybe we don't go into the Palace today after all."

"Oh," Akira says. "I mean, that's up to you I guess. This is sort of your thing." They're the ones that are in danger of being expelled if Kamoshida gets a chance to talk to the school board, so they're the ones that really have a motivation to keep going back to the castle. Akira's way more concerned about figuring out what had happened to the Velvet Room, which isn't something he wants to talk to them about anyway."

"No offense," Ryuji says. "But you still seem really freaked about everything, and I figure we can just take a break from the Palace and hang out or something."

"What," Akira says before he can stop himself. "Like--with me, too?" 

Immediately he knows this is a dumb thing to say, but he's genuinely not used to this. The only people he usually spends time with on This Side are Katsuya and Maya. He doesn't have friends of his own, and most of the time after school back in Sumaru he'd just do his homework and head back home. 

"Not if you don't want to," Ryuji says. "But come on, man, relax a little. You look like you're about to bolt."

Akira sighs, and does his best to not look like he's internally panicking. This is good, he tells himself. A long time ago, when he'd first found his way to This Side, and learned about school as a place where he was going to meet other kids and make friends, he would have fallen over himself in excitement to find himself in a situation like this. Back before he'd realized how easy it was to screw up and convince people he's some kind of truant, delinquent freak, he'd wanted friends more than anything else. 

There's something very deep inside him that still wants that. It's been beaten and bruised and stamped down over the years, by a decade of being that weird kid at school, and losing Kotone and Minato in the Velvet Room. Even meeting and making friends with Yu hadn't exactly led to a normal friendship, because in the years since whatever Yu was doing in the Velvet Room had finished, they've mostly just exchanged letters and phone calls. He doesn't usually--doesn't ever--just hang out with people. 

He's been waiting ten years to just have friends, and he can feel a weird, painful desperation for it to finally work out here. It's such a foreign hope that the feeling makes him feel almost a little sick, and he's suddenly faced with the idea that this could happen, but also that it could get very close to happening and then just... not. And it's one thing to not have the chance to make friends, but the idea of messing it up feels like the only thing that might be worse. 

"I think it's probably better to just go back to the castle," he says. "You guys have a deadline, right?"

"Well yeah," Ryuji says. "But it's not like tomorrow or anything."

Akira shrugs. "It's still what we're here to do," he says. "I wouldn't have been here at all if you hadn't needed another fighter to get through it, so let's just do that."

"He's not wrong about having a time limit," Ann says quietly. 

"And we're not going to get to see what his Persona can do if we don't go into the Palace!" Morgana adds. He looks at Akira, and adds, "It's called a Palace, by the way. Not a castle."

"Seems like pretty much the same thing to me," Akira says. "Palace, castle..."

"It's just a coincidence," Morgana says. "Any distortion like that is called a Palace, this one just happens to look like a castle. The next one might look like something else."

"Next one?" Akira repeats. "You mean there's more places like this?"

"Oh yeah," Morgana says. "There's Palaces all over Tokyo."

Akira stares at him. "That... seems like a huge problem," he says at last.

"Just goes to show how many shitty adults there are in this city," Ryuji says, standing up. "Anyway, I guess we might as well head in."

Akira thinks it probably just goes to show that whatever's going on here is way bigger than he'd assumed, but he doesn't say that out loud. Ryuji already has his phone out and the app pulled up, and before anyone has a chance to say anything at all, Akira feels something like a tug in his gut, and the world dissolves. In another second they're standing in front of the castle, three of them in costume and Morgana back to looking like the same monster cat he'd been when they first met. Akira takes a deep breath in and then back out again. A little surge of the same excitement that had rushed through him last night when he awoke Arsene trickles through him, an almost physical sensation, like something warm pooling inside him. 

Standing here, in this Palace, with his Persona pressed close up against him and a mask on his face, the anxiety of a few minutes ago feels weirdly isolated. He's nervous--he's afraid--that the first people in a long time that have been friendly toward him are going to realize he's not worth having around. The person he is at school, or at Leblanc, is too afraid of being hurt to take that risk.

The person he'd been last night, in the moment of awakening his Persona, the person he could have been without all these burdens he has to carry around, doesn't feel the same. Akira feels just an echo of that now as he enters the Palace, and he tries to grab onto it. Tries hard, because maybe he doesn't know what to do at school and whatever, but he thinks this is something he can handle, maybe.

"You really did awaken a Persona," Ann says, breaking Akira out of his thoughts. He jumps a little, realizing that he's been so caught up in his own thoughts that she's actually gotten right up next to him without him even realizing. She's studying the outfit that had first showed up last night with Arsene, and had rematerialized as soon as they all came back into the Palace. "So that's your... what do you call it, Mona?" She turns to look at Morgana. "The idea of rebellion?"

"Yep!" Morgana says. "It's, uh... well, it's different for everyone."

His tone is vaguely apologetic, which Akira can kind of understand. Compared to the costumes the other two are wearing, his looks... well, it's at least a little shabby. On the other hand, if it really is his idea of rebellion, it makes total sense that he would only want to wear something that could at least fit in at home. He'd never expect to see anything as flashy on the Other Side, and what he's wearing would look strange but not impossible there. 

(And anyway, it's something he can run and fight in, he's been doing both of those things for long enough that he doesn't think his subconscious wouldn't let him fight in anything as... noticeably tight as what Ann's wearing, for example)

It's utilitarian, he thinks. He'll willingly admit that the idea of running around in a long, black coat with a hood and gloves is more than slightly cool. But there's also room in this outfit to move, the boots are broken in and easy to run in, and he's been in too man fights to care about looking cool at the expense of his movement. It's just that both parts matter to him, and he's wearing exactly what he thinks he should be.

"We're going in," he says, to change the topic. "Right?"

"Oh yeah," Ryuji says. "Wait until you see how much farther we've gotten, it's starting to get really weird."

"Weird how?"

"Weird like you have to see it for yourself," Ann says. "Anyway, shouldn't we talk about codenames first?"

They'd said something about codenames yesterday, but Akira still isn't completely clear why they need them. "I think I'm okay," he says.

"No really," Morgana insists. "This is Kamoshida's subconscious. It's only here because this is his distorted view of the world--if we're running around here using our real names, he might be able to pick up on that, and it could carry over to how you views you all in the real world."

Akira hesitates, but he doesn't know enough about any of this to be sure this is wrong. And it feels like sort of a huge risk to take without being positive. "Okay," he says. "So what kind of codenames are you using?"

"I'm Skull," Ryuji says, pointing a thumb in toward himself. "And she's Panther, because of our masks." 

Ann nods at this. "And then Mona," she adds, gesturing to Morgana (who adds a little jump and a bow as a kind of flourish). 

"Because it sounds like his name anyway?" Akira asks. 

"It's a good codename," Morgana says, just a little defensively. "Anyway, we're not changing any of ours, we're just going to be figuring out yours."

"I don't really have a mask that looks like anything," Akira says. He can't see the mask on his own face, obviously, but it feels the same as the one he'd picked up in the Velvet Room last night.

(That one, incidentally, is tucked away under a loose floorboard at the back of his attic room--Akira had stowed it away early this morning, while Morgana was hiding from Sakura, and he'd had a chance to hide it safely away out of sight)

(He doesn't know if anyone else can use it, and he doesn't really want to find out)

"That's true," Ann says. "What about your Persona, then? What's that look like?"

Akira shrugs. "Like a guy, I guess? Only in chains and with wings."

"Hmm," Ann says. "That's... not very helpful."

"Let's just pick something temporary for now," Morgana says. "Maybe we'll come up with something when we see him actually using his Persona."

Akira shrugs. "Sure," he says. "What did you have in mind?"

Ryuji laughs. "Could do Joker," he says. "Since you're kind of serious."

"Um," Akira says, because he has no idea how to explain why this is a terrible idea. But it is, because that's what Jun had called himself almost twenty years ago when he'd been manipulated into doing some really, really horrible things. And Akira likes Jun, he's a nice guy that didn't deserve to have any of that happen to him. Maya, who had known him when they were kids and had been forced to fight him while he was calling himself Joker, would definitely agree that he didn't deserve to have any of that happen to him. She'd probably be really upset if she had to hear about Akira using that as a codename.

"It's catchy, anyway," Morgana says. "Let's go with that."

"I don't--"

"It took me a little while to get used to having a codename too," Ann says, smiling at him from behind her mask. "But you'll get used to it."

Akira shakes his head. "I really can't use that codename," he says.

"Why not?" Ryuji asks.

And Akira doesn't have a good answer to give him. He couldn't tell them about Jun if he wanted to, because spreading it around is only going to make it more likely that it'll get back to someone that will literally end the world if they remember what happened back then. He stutters for a second or two over a few different answers, then tries his best. "There was an urban legend in the city where I grew up," he says. "About a guy called Joker that could grant wishes. Only it would go wrong, and the people that summoned him would end up as just empty shells."

"That's a kickass urban legend," Ryuji says. "And it's like something that ties back to your hometown, right?"

"But--"

"I think you're outvoted," Ann says, and Akira's stomach drops. This is not a good idea.

(On the other hand, it's only temporary, right? They'd even said they'd come up with something else when they saw Arsene)

(He can handle it for a day or whatever, and then he'll have some other codename)

"Fine," he says.

"Perfect," Ryuji says. "Then let's go see how this goes when we're all fighting together."

Akira falls into step behind the rest of them, trying hard to squash down the feeling of having agreed to something he really shouldn't have. 

And then something else happens that drives his horrible codename completely out of his mind.

They're just starting to move into the Palace, when something catches his attention from the corner of his eye. A flash of blue, and when he turns and looks at it, there's the Velvet Room door. Off in the distance, as casually visible as it's ever been before, is the Velvet Room door. Akira recognizes it by its color, and literally nothing else, because there are bars on the door. There are bars, like it's a prison, and Akira can't help himself. He stops dead in his tracks and stares, his heart sinking.

"What's up?" Morgana asks, when he looks back and sees Akira frozen in place.

Akira hesitates. He's used to being the only one that can see the Velvet Room door, but everyone here's a Persona-user too. If there were ever going to be other people that could see it, they'd be these people here. "Do you see anything over there?" he asks, trying to keep his tone casual.

Morgana squints in the direction Akira's pointing, then shakes his head. "No," he says. "Why, did you see something?"

"No," Akira says. His voice sounds hollow in his own ears, and very far away. "I just... I guess it was my imagination."

He turns his back on the door, filing it away to tell Katsuya and Maya about later, fighting a sinking feeling in his gut. Knowing the Velvet Room is around has always made him feel better. Now, knowing what's happened inside, he feels worse. Hunted, almost. Like a fugitive on the run.

The feeling haunts him for the rest of the trip into the Palace.

When it's over, the rest of the group agrees that they can't really think of anything better than Joker as a codename, and he should probably just stick with it.

Akira is too busy being upset about the Velvet Room to protest.

Chapter Text

Tatsuya -

Sorry I haven't been able to write in the past couple weeks, it's been really busy. And I mean, I guess I know you're not reading these, so I don't really know why I'm apologizing. I just keep meaning to sit down and write to you, but it's been so busy in the Palace I haven't had time.

So the castle is called a Palace apparently. Ryuji and Morgana were trying to get all the way through it with a girl in my class called Ann, and they ended up convincing me to go with them. And so now I have a Persona, and a talking cat that won't stay with anyone else so he keeps coming home with me, and tomorrow we're going to steal this thing called a Treasure that's supposed to make Kamoshida have a change of heart.

Which is kind of weird but probably a good thing. He deserves it after what he's been doing to the volleyball team and some of the girls at school. But we also have to send a calling card to let him know we're doing it. Which I think is probably a  bad idea because now everyone's going to know, and that means Katsuya and Maya are going to know, and honestly I don't think that's going to go well for me. Especially because Katsuya's coming to Tokyo in a couple days anyway anyway? I think just to talk about like everything genuinely, but it's going to be so much more awkward right after we advertise to everyone in the city that we're going to steal a guy's heart.

It's kind of weird. I keep thinking I should just say no, this is a bad idea, there has to be some other way to get Kamoshida to stop being awful. But it just keeps feeling like the right thing to do. Kamoshida's Palace is his subconscious, right? And it's just... disgusting. Like, the way he thinks about other people. He's not going to stop, and anything else we try isn't going to stop him from thinking about people like that. Even if he's locked up for the rest of his life, he'll still be a gross, abusive creep. 

So we're going to change his heart, and I'm going to help, and I'm just going to have to figure out how to explain it to Katsuya after.

He's going to kill me.

- Akira

-//-

May 2016

-//-

Fighting through Kamoshida's Palace is exhilarating in a way that it really shouldn't be. But in the time it's taken them to struggle their way through the castle and get to the Treasure, Akira's realized a horrible thing about fighting Shadows.

It's really fun.

Fighting Shadows is different from fighting people, in a way he can't really put words to. While he's in a Palace, fighting with a Persona, or even physically attacking, doesn't feel like fighting in the real world. Morgana, when Akira asks, says it's probably because everything that happens here has to do with their will, and the way that they and the Shadows perceive things happening here. Akira doesn't completely understand that explanation, but the parts he can wrap his mind around seem like they make sense, so... sure?

And it's getting easier to figure out what to say around the Phantom Thieves. They're spending hours and hours together after school, counting on each other so they can all stay standing, and a lot of the time that means shouting out what they're doing and what they need. For the first few days, Akira had stayed more or less quiet outside those fights, but then it had turned into joining into conversations about supplies and equipment, and then just... talking. 

(...it's nice)

(Just having people to talk to about school or whatever)

He's had years of failing in the real world that make it harder to keep those conversations going outside of Palaces, but the others have been pretty okay with leaving him alone there. Akira's not sure he wants to be left alone, because he'd really like to be able to just have them as friends, but he does know he's not there yet. Someday, maybe, but not today. Not yet.

So he's a little sad, actually, that it's all about to end. All day in school before they're supposed to go in and steal Kamoshida's Treasure, Akira's distracted and out of it. He doesn't really snap out from his distraction until the bell rings to signal the end of the last class of the day, at which point it's almost like the world snaps back into color. He breathes in, one deep breath, and looks up at Ann who's already on her feet. She looks nervous.

"Are you ready?" she asks.

"We'll find out," Akira says. "Um... are you ready?"

She half smiles and half grimaces. "I guess we'll find out that too," she says. For once, she looks as nervous as Akira, and the way the conversation stalls after isn't as much his fault as it usually is. 

Morgana pops his head out of Ann's desk--he's staying with Akira overnight, but usually sneaks over to Ann's desk during the school day. Akira sometimes hears him whispering to her when their teachers ask her questions. "You guys are both way too freaked out about this," he says. "It's definitely going to work!"

"So you're not nervous at all?" Ann asks him, holding her bag open for Morgana to hop into. 

"Nah," Morgana says. "We got this!"

Akira's not so sure, and judging by the expression on her face, neither is Ann. They make eye contact, and Akira reads in her expression the same reluctance he feels to actually say that in front of Morgana. If he's not as nervous as they are, why ruin his confidence?

"Let's go meet up with Ryuji," Ann says. "He's probably up on the roof already."

Akira nods, because this is true, and the three of them head upstairs to the roof. Ryuji is actually waiting there, drumming his fingers on the desk in front of him. He brightens up immediately when he sees the three of them on their way over. "Hey!" he calls. "What took you guys so long?"

"How did you get up here so fast?" Ann shoots back.

"I'm just ready to go," Ryuji says. "Come on, we're taking Kamoshida's Treasure today! Did you hear what people were saying about the calling cards?"

"Yes," Akira says. He makes it a habit to listen to gossip because so much of it's about him--it's useful to know what people are saying at any given time, if he's just a delinquent who carries a knife around, or if he's also supposed to be a part of the yakuza or something. The students at Shujin are both creative, and easily bored.

"And it's great, right?" Ryuji says. "Everyone's talking about it, it's going to be awesome when we actually change his heart."

"And it will definitely work, right?" Ann asks, looking at Morgana.

"Well..." Morgana's ears twitch. "I mean, probably."

"Probably?" Akira echoes. "Only probably?"

"I've never actually tried it before," the cat admits. "But I'm sure it'll be fine!"

"But what if--"

He's cut off by someone (he doesn't see whether it's Ryujij or Ann) triggering the app. As soon as they're fully in the Palace and away from the real world, Akira shakes his head to clear it of the weird in-between feeling and says, "We're really going to do this while we're not sure it won't hurt anyone?"

"I'm sure!" Morgana says. "I just... haven't tried it."

"We can't turn back now, anyway," Ryuji says. "We sent the calling card, right? We have to try it now or we'll never be able to do it."

Akira wrestles with this for a few seconds. He's very aware that there's a huge amount of space for things to go wrong when they're not sure of what's going to happen. But what if they do nothing, and Kamoshida keeps up the kind of abuse he's been putting students through? "Okay," he says.

"Good," Ryuji says. "Because I'm doing it anyway, no matter who else comes with. And it'll be a lot easier with all four of us."

"I'm doing it no matter what too," Ann says quietly. "I have to, for Shiho."

And if Akira has any lingering doubts, the look on Ann's face is enough to get rid of them. She's not exaggerating when she says that she has to do this. Kamoshida has hurt her, and he's hurt her best friend, and she needs to do something about it because it's the only option she has to move forward.

There's a moment of silence, then Ryuji nods. "Okay," he says. "Let's, ah--let's get going."

And so they go to take Kamoshida's Treasure.

-//-

They have to fight Kamoshida's Shadow before they can get his Shadow, and that's a lot rougher than anything else they've had to fight before. But they get through it, they get the Treasure, and they get out of the Palace before it collapses. All four of them stumble together back out into the real world, panting hard and leaning on each other to keep from falling over, all talking at once because they'd come so, so close to dying, and hadn't.

There's an almost giddy feeling in the air between them, and Akira doesn't realize until his face starts to hurt that he's smiling. Partly because they're somehow all still alive, and partly because they've done something impossible together. When he finally forces the smile off his face, it's only because he's realized people on the main street are starting to stare at them, and not because the wave of excitement has passed.

"We should probably split up," he murmurs, turning his back on a guy across the street that seems particularly set on staring at them. Not that Akira can particularly blame him when the three of them are skulking in an alley acting like they've just finished something amazing. "People are starting to notice us."

"Oh yeah," Ryuji says, glancing back at the road too, and apparently noticing the attention they're drawing. "But hey, maybe we can get together and celebrate or something this weekend."

"I can't," Akira says, immediately.

"Come on," Ann says. Her voice is gentle. "If you're really not comfortable with it you don't have to, but after everything we've been through, do you really think it's going to be worse spending time together in the real world?"

Right in this second, riding the high of having taken Kamoshida's Treasure, Akira can honestly say that no, he doesn't. "It's not that," he says. "It's just that my dad's coming to visit tomorrow, and I don't know how long he's going to be here. It might be kind of a whole thing to explain if I'm doing something else while he's visiting." And Katsuya's going to see right through any lie Akira tries to come up with.

"Oh cool," Ryuji says. "You said you're from a couple hours away from here, right?"

Akira nods, mentally correcting this to a couple hours and another dimension, because doing it out loud would make him sound crazy, even to these three. 

"Then we'll just wait and have our celebration after," Ryuji says. 

"We should probably wait and make sure Kamoshida actually has a change of heart anyway," Ann says.

Ryuji winces. "Right," he says. "Good point." Then he brightens. "But I'm sure it'll be fine. Seemed like it went okay, anyway. Did you hear what his Shadow was saying at the end?"

The conversation turns back to what they'd just managed in Kamoshida's Palace, with Ryuji and Morgana doing most of the talking. Akira takes the opportunity to pull Ann aside. "I know this is a lot to ask," he says. "But my dad's really allergic to cats. I don't know if Morgana's going to trigger that or not, but I do know he's going to be offended if I mention it, so I was wondering if maybe you'd be able to take him for just a couple days? I know you said you can't take him permanently, but it's only a couple days, and I think he's going to say no if Ryuji offers."

"You're probably right," Ann says. "My parents are out of town this week anyway, so I could probably manage it."

"Thanks," Akira says. "And sorry for needing to ask."

She nods. "It's not your fault," she says. "Allergies are horrible, and Morgana is... really touchy about the whole cat thing."

Akira nods, because both of these things are true, and doesn't mention the other reason he wants Morgana out of Leblanc for however long Katsuya will be in Tokyo. They really need to talk about everything that's been going on, but Morgana--none of the Thieves--need to know that Akira's been sharing what's going on with other people. Ryuji's in particular has been really vocal about it being the four of them against all the shitty adults in the world, and as far as Akira can tell, almost everyone older than them falls into the 'shitty adults' category. Akira can imagine all too well what he, and then probably the other Thieves, would say about Katsuya and Maya.

(And probably Ulala and Kaoru by this point, because he sort of assumes they're all talking to each other)

(And he's sort of planning to talk to Yu about it too)

(So...)

"I'll talk to Morgana now," Ann says. "And if you want I can just take him now."

"Sure," Akira says. "I can bring his stuff to school tomorrow."

"His stuff?"

Akira nods. "The guy I'm staying with here found out about Morgana." Mostly because Morgana will not stop talking, and eventually Sakura had come up to investigate all the meowing. "He was a lot less upset about it than I thought he'd be, but he said I need to make sure I'm actually taking care of him and have like... stuff to take care of a cat. He's probably have a lot of questions if you didn't take any of it with you while you're cat sitting."

Morgana had been outraged when Akira took him to the pet shop to buy supplies, and had only eventually calmed down when Akira, in desperation, suggested he look at it like some kind of undercover mission. This had apparently been Phantom Thief-ish enough for Morgana's standards, and the outrage had turned into some extended pouting instead. And while the litter box has literally never been used (Morgana says where he does his business is his business, and Akira had agreed), the cat bed had been a good middle ground between sleeping on a discarded pillow and risking being accidentally stabbed by Akira on his bed.

"I can come back with you and pick it up now if you want," Ann says.

Akira hesitates. He hasn't had anyone else over to Leblanc since he moved in. Honestly, he's never had anyone over at all. But Ann asks the question like it's no big deal, and it would be convenient to just get Morgana moved before Katsuya shows up, so...

"Sure," he says. "Thanks."

Morgana, as expected, is thrilled with the idea of staying with Ann for a few days, so the three of them say goodbye to Ryuji and take the train back to Yongen-Jaya. They're all tired, so it's a mostly quiet trip. Ann scrolls languidly through her phone, Morgana settles himself in Akira's bag, and Akira half-listens to the announcements coming in over the train speakers. He's been in Tokyo long enough by now to have memorized the list of stations, but the repetition feels familiar and nice after the chaos of finishing Kamoshida's Palace earlier in the day.

Their conversation after getting off the train is mostly just Akira pointing Ann in the right direction. Akira's already half thinking about what he'll need to grab and pass on to Ann, and how long it might be until he can just collapse into bed, he's exhausted.

And then they get to Leblanc, and there's Katsuya.

-//-

Katsuya hadn't originally asked for today off, he'd only been planning to take a couple days to go up to Tokyo and talk to Akira face to face. But things had worked out to give him the extra day, and he'd decided to come out early. He'd made it to the cafe where Akira is staying about an hour before his school is supposed to get out. It's a good chance to get acquainted with the stranger that's been put in charge of Akira for the year, which Katsuya takes advantage of. They talk for a while, and Katsuya ends up with an impression of a man that doesn't particularly want to be involved, but isn't going to ignore his responsibility now that it's been more or less forced on him.

The conversation trails off after about an hour, and Katsuya is left alone to wait for Akira to get back in. It's late by the time he finally does, though. Later than Katsuya thinks he should have been back. And here he is now, looking tired, a little roughed up, and very surprised. As Akira hasn't been answering his phone this afternoon, Katsuya can't completely blame him for the look of surprise on his face when he comes in and sees him.

(He can slightly blame him, because honestly if he's going to keep being too stubborn to text, he needs to be better about picking up phone calls) 

(But he doesn't say anything, because after Akira's done being surprised, he looks so genuinely happy to see him that Katsuya can't be as exasperated as he probably should have been)

Neither of them says anything for a few seconds. Katsuya can feel his Persona reacting to Akira's, the familiar back and forth thrum of Hyperion resonating against the one Akira had awakened a few weeks ago. 

"You're here early," Akira says, when he's done being too surprised to say anything.

"I got an extra day off," Katsuya says. "So I thought I would come see how you're doing." 

"Oh," Akira says. "Ah--" There's a flash of guilt on his face that he fights hard to hide. If Katsuya hadn't known for as long as he has, he doesn't think he would have seen it. "I'm doing... okay."

The girl he'd walked in with is giving him a look that Akira finally notices. "Oh," he says. "Right. This is Ann Takamaki, she's in my class at school. And um, Ann, this is my dad."

"It's nice to meet you," Takamaki says, very politely. Her gaze goes from Katsuya back to Akira, and he wonders what she's thinking. Either she's noticing the obvious lack of resemblance between them, or else she's wondering what kind of home life Akira's coming from.

Katsuya nods at her, pretending he hasn't noticed the looks. "It's nice to meet you too," he says. 

"We're just going to grab some of Morgana's stuff so she can cat sit while you're here," Akira says, starting to edge past Katsuya toward the stairs. This puts his back to Katsuya for the first time, letting him see the cat that Katsuya had seen talking on video call a couple weeks ago. The cat looks back at him, then shifts and puts his two front paws up on Akira's shoulders in a gesture that is, to be honest, adorable.

"Hey," the cat hisses up at Akira. "That's really your dad?"

Even after seeing this over a video call, Katsuya's still surprised to actually see a cat right in front of him, talking. 

"Shh," Akira whispers, and goes running up to the second floor. 

Katsuya is left with Ann Takamaki, who's still looking at him like she's trying not to be obvious about how curious she is. "So you're a classmate of Akira's?" he asks, to fill the silence.

"Yeah," Ann says. "We've been hanging out after school, too. He's nice." 

"And you're... cat sitting?" 

He watches for her reaction, wondering if she can also hear the talking cat. Sakura hadn't reacted at all to Morgana's earlier comment, but Ann hadn't really been paying attention to the quick interaction, and Katsuya hadn't gotten a good read from her.

"Well he said you have really bad allergies," Ann says, a little apologetically. Katsuya nods, wincing slightly. The truth is that as much as he does like cats, his allergies mean it's probably a bad idea to risk it for the entire time he's going to be in the city.

(...even for a talking cat)

"And I don't mind taking Morgana for a few days," Ann adds. "I mean, that's what friends do, right?"

"I'm very happy to hear that," Katsuya says. "It's nice to be able to meet a friend of Akira's." The only other friend of Akira's he'd had a chance to meet had been Yu, and while Katsuya appreciates the way Yu had looked after Akira while they were both in the Velvet Room together, it had also made things awkward. 

Ann opens her mouth, then hesitates and closes it again. After an anxious second or two, she says, "He... doesn't seem like he's really used to having friends."

She says it like it's a question, and Katsuya hesitates over how to answer. He'd watched Akira struggle for friends when he was younger, and has suspected for a while that he's more or less given up, which is worse. Now he's been in Tokyo for barely a month, and already he's made an actual friend. 

(There's a thousand other things to be worried about, but at least this isn't one of them)

Even with everything else going on, Katsuya can't help feeling relived and proud, and happy for Akira. But Ann's still waiting for an answer to her comment, and Katsuya has to say something. "He's just struggling," he tells Takamaki quietly. "He's always had a hard time with making and keeping friends. So just the fact that you--"

He hears footsteps behind him, and turns around in time to see Akira coming back down, a shopping bag stuffed with cat supplies in his arms, a look of extreme teenage embarrassment on his face. "Okay," Akira says quickly. "I don't think we have to keep having this conversation, probably?"

"I'm just talking to your friend," Katsuya says. 

Akira gives him an agonized look that communicates very clearly how little he wants this conversation to continue.  

"It's okay, Akira," Ann assures him. "Is that Mona's stuff?"

Katsuya watches as the two of them exchange the bag and a few quick words, mostly about cat care (Akira mutters something to her about how she can just ask Morgana if she has any questions about anything), and then the cat himself is handed over. Ann waves a polite goodbye to both Katsuya and Sojiro on her way out the door, and then she's gone. Katsuya watches her leave, noticing a little limp when she walks, a fresh bruise on the back of her leg, the exhaustion she's trying not to show.

Then he looks at Akira. 

"Why don't we go upstairs so you can catch me up on how things have been going since you got here," he says. 

"Oh," Akira says. "Um..."

Sakura snorts from behind the counter. "Teenagers," he says to Katsuya. Then, looking at Akira, he adds, "Your dad came all the way out here to see you. Go spend some time with him."

Akira gives in under the combined insistence of the two of them, and leads Katsuya up the same set of stairs he'd gone up earlier. Katsuya follows, looking around as he reaches the top--the room is bigger and older than Akira's room back in Sumaru, but one thing they both have in common is how bare they are. Akira has put his school things down by a desk in the back corner, tucked almost out of sight, and there's a box of clothes on a low shelf, but other than that there's no sign of personalization here at all. Akira could easily walk out of Tokyo tomorrow, and this room would still look exactly the same.

He's still thinking about this when Akira makes a tired noise and more or less collapses onto the bed in the back of the room under the windows, both hands over his face. "I didn't think I'd be homesick for This Side's Sumaru," he says, voice slightly muffled. "But now that I'm in Tokyo I really miss it."

"We miss you there too," Katsuya says. He moves to the desk in the back of the room and pulls out the chair there so he can sit facing Akira. "The house feels too empty."

Akira pulls his hands off his face and sits up, propped against the wall with his legs crossed in front of him. "It's not like I was there that much," he says.

"Every day after school," Katsuya points out. 

"Yeah..." Akira looks away, then sucks in a deep breath and looks back at Katsuya. "But I guess that's not what you're here to talk about, right?" he asks.

"It's part of what I want to talk about," Katsuya says. "But you're right, we could have talked about whether you're settling in okay over the phone." He points downward, even though Ann Takamaki is long gone by now, and asks, "The friend you came in with, is she one of the Persona-users you've met here?"

Akira nods. "I'm not sure if she's a friend yet," he says. "But she's definitely a Persona-user."

"She said she was your friend."

"Because she probably didn't want to tell you no because she thinks you're my dad," Akira says. He looks almost comically hurt as he adds, "You didn't have to ask her that."

"If she's fighting demons with you," Katsuya says firmly. "Then she's a friend."

"Shadows," Akira says. 

This is not the point Katsuya had been trying to make, but it catches him off guard enough to distract him anyway. "What?" he asks.

"We're fighting Shadows," Akira says firmly. "Not demons."

Katsuya hesitates. He remembers that Yu had called them the same thing when they'd met five years ago, and wonders if he should have asked more questions back then. "What's the difference between a demon and a Shadow?" he asks now.

Akira hesitates. "I don't really know?" he admits. "But that's what we've been calling them, so..."

"Why don't you tell me more about what you've been doing?" Katsuya suggests. They haven't really had a chance to talk about what's been happening in detail, and that seems like a good first step. "You can tell me about the Shadows and about your friends."

Akira gives him another agonized look at this choice of words (which Katsuya will readily admit to himself had been intentional), but starts to explain everything he's been through since the middle of the night phone call a few weeks ago. 

Katsuya is braced for disaster, but all things considered, it doesn't sound as bad as it could have been. Akira and his classmates (and the cat) have found a way to fight demons in a way that doesn't seem to be having any effect whatsoever on the rest of the city. The Palace where they've been fighting doesn't seem to be connected to any part of reality apart from the subconscious of their gym teacher.

Things could really be worse. Katsuya tells himself this, and then Akira dives into what they'd just been doing today, and he has to immediately revise his opinion. While slowly making their way through the Palace and fighting Shadows doesn't seem as dangerous as most of the things Katsuya remembers doing fifteen years ago, leaving a calling card for anyone in the real world to see and then going to fight the most dangerous Shadow in the Palace does seem bad.

"I knew you wouldn't be happy," Akira says, when Katsuya pauses in explaining all of this, in detail. "But we had to do it."

"Why?" Katsuya asks, despairing slightly. "Akira, you have so many options. The world isn't ending. Nobody's dying. You can just... not do this. If you have to go around fighting demo--Shadows--then at least you can keep away from the most dangerous ones."

"No I can't," Akira says. "We had to take his Treasure to stop him from doing... everything bad that he's been doing. And it's not like we went out of our way to try and fight him, we could have just taken the Treasure and it would have been fine, he's the one that showed up and started a fight."

Katsuya tries to say something, but Akira rushes on.

"And you said the world's not ending or anything, but there is something going on. The Velvet Room's--"

"I know it's gone," Katsuya says. "But that doesn't mean you have to jump right into whatever's going on here."

Akira gives him a weird look for a second, and then his eyes go wide. "Oh no," he says. "I forgot I hadn't told you yet."

"Told me what?" Katsuya asks.

"It's just," Akira says, no answering the question. "Morgana's always around, and I don't know if you guys would be okay about everything you did coming out, and I really don't think Morgana would be okay with me just telling you or Maya or whatever, and then you said you were coming, so I thought I'd just wait and tell you in person, and--"

"Akira," Katsuya says, forcing himself to keep his voice calm. "Slow down, and tell me whatever it is you haven't told me."

"The Velvet Room's broken," Akira says. "Or--I don't know. Attacked? Invaded? I don't know what the right word is, but I had a dream about it right before I awoke my Persona. And no one was there that I recognized, there was just this... I don't know. Something else was there, and the whole place had been blown apart."

He explains his dream, in detail. Katsuya forces himself to stay quiet all the way to the end, not interrupting until Akira's finished not just the story of the Velvet Room, but also how he'd found a mask there, and still had it with him when he woke up, which had lead to him awakening his Persona in the cafe downstairs. And when he does finally finish, Katsuya unexpectedly finds himself with no questions to ask at all. This isn't at all what he'd expected to hear.

"So I guess that's probably why I can't go home now," Akira says, when Katsuya's been quiet for a little while. "I mean, if I was able to use the Velvet Room before because Igor was letting me, it makes sense that I can't use it to go home now that Igor's not there."

"It probably does," Katsuya says.

"And there was a Velvet Room door in the Palace before it collapsed," Akira continues. "I mean, I've seen one in Shibuya too, but the fact that it's showing up in at least one Palace means they're probably connected. I want to go home, and I can't do it until I know what's wrong with the Velvet Room. And right now, figuring out what's going on with the Palaces seems like the best way to do that."

"You're... probably right," Katsuya says. "But I have to ask. Have you thought about just staying here?" Akira opens his mouth and Katsuya puts a hand up. "Just think it through before you say no," he says. "I know the Other Side is your home, but you're putting yourself in so much danger trying to get back to it. You and your new friends."

Akira hesitates, and there's a complicated mix of expressions on his face. When he finally answers, his words are very slow, almost heavy. "I can't just do that," he says. "All I've ever wanted to do is help the place I was born in to be better, and I need to go back to be able to do that. Plus Tatsuya's there, and I just..." He shakes his head. "Plus what if someone else needs the Velvet Room someday? If stuff like this keeps happening, it's not like I can just walk away and no one else will be hurt. Maybe the next person that would have been able to use the Velvet Room will need it, and they won't be able to use it because I walked away. That's not right. So I'm not going to stop trying to figure out what's going on, and I'm really hoping that you can just... support me? Instead of saying it's a bad idea right away?"

Katsuya hesitates. He's not sure he likes this. No--he's sure he doesn't like this. The Velvet Room is supposed to be, and always has been, a place where all the other insanity that's going to inevitably come slamming into Akira at some point. A very large part of him wants to drag Akira away from all of this. Let someone else fix things. Keep him away from the danger facing him.

But the truth is that none of them knows what's going on. The Velvet Room is gone. Katsuya can't tell Akira to keep his distance and let the adults handle this, but the truth is that the adults don't have any more idea of what's going on than Akira does. If he tries to tell him to stay away, and then they can't do anything, not only is he going to destroy a lot of Akira's trust in him, they're not going to get any farther in fixing things.

"Okay," he says. "But you have to let me support you. And everyone else back home that knows what you're going through. You can't do this on your own."

"Deal," Akira says, immediately. 

Katsuya breathes out a long sigh. "Okay," he says. 

(So whatever's supposed to happen here is really going to happen)

(In the end, he hadn't been able to keep Akira away from anything)

(...now all he can do is try to make sure he stays safe)

"So can you tell me more about the mask you found?" Katsuya asks. He has a hundred questions about what Akira's been going through, but this seems like as good a place to start as anywhere else. From what Akira's told him, he's not the only one using a mask to summon his Persona. But he is the only one that can use a mask to summon a Persona in the real world, the sole person in the overlap between uses a mask and can have his Persona in the real world. And the mask he'd woken up with after his dream about the Velvet Room is probably the source of that.

"Sure." Akira hops off the bed, and crouches to look underneath it. Katsuya watches him pull up a loose floorboard, pull out something small and white, and replace the board. "I haven't showed anyone else where I put this," he says. "It seems safer hidden here than carrying it around all the time."

"So you don't use it in Palaces?" Katsuya asks. "Only in the real world?"

"No, I use it in Palaces too," Akira says. "But it's not like... this mask, I guess. It's sort of cognitive, I think? I always leave this one in the real world, but I still get the costume and everything."

"Interesting," Katsuya says. Akira hands the mask over for him to see, and Katsuya turns it over in his hands a few times. It looks completely unremarkable, a plain white mask just large enough to fit over a person's eyes and nose. There's no straps or anything to attach it, which makes it look maybe a little ornamental, but other than that, it's just an ordinary mask. He hands it back to Akira and asks, "So you just summon the Persona by wearing the mask?" he asks.

"Sort of," Akira says. "Do you want to see?"

They've been talking for a while, long enough that Sakura had called up from the cafe space downstairs that he was closing up and heading home for the night. The two of them are alone. "Are you sure you want to risk destroying anything else up here?" he asks. "I saw how much damage it did downstairs." It's hidden now, well enough that if Katsuya hadn't know what to look for he would have missed it, but he had known what to look for, and he'd seen traces.

"I think it'll be okay," Akira says. "It hasn't been that forceful in the Palace or anything, so I think it was just because it was the first time."

"Then you can show me if you want to," Katsuya says. "Although before you do--did Sakura ever end up noticing what happened?"

"Not really," Akira says. "He was giving it some funny looks a couple days ago, but he hasn't said anything so I think I'm okay." He grins. "Morgana's said a lot about it though," he says. "I told him I called you because you used to investigate arsons for the police, by the way," he says. "And that I was counting on you being too worried about me getting caught breaking my probation to say anything."

"So you're not planning to tell anyone about us?" Katsuya says.

"I... don't think it would go over very well that I've been talking to adults about all this," Akira says. "And it kind of sounds like it would be really bad if anyone found out about the Other Side."

"Not anyone," Katsuya says. "But if it ever makes its way back to the people that were involved and forgot what happened, that would be bad."

"Yeah," Akira says. "And I mean, the Other Side's home, but I wouldn't want This Side to end up like that. It... feels a lot more dangerous to let anyone else know." A little more quietly, he adds, "Especially if they're going to be upset about me telling you guys everything." He goes quiet for a second, gaze drifting downward to the mask in his hands. Then he heaves a sigh, and raises it up to eye level.

Despite what Akira had said, Katsuya's braced for a fiery summoning, like the one that had caused so much damage downstairs. But there's just a flash, more like a shimmer than anything else, and suddenly Akira's standing in front of him in a dark coat, face hidden by the combined effects of his mask and a hood. He looks, in Katsuya's opinion, like someone that's walked out of a dead world. 

Or maybe he's just biased, because he knows that's true.

Akira reaches up for the mask and pulls it away. There's something certain in the gesture, almost uncharacteristic coming from Akira, who usually doesn't show that much assertiveness in anything. Katsuya watches, silently observant, as Akira calls the name Arsene, and his Persona appears from nowhere to hover behind him like some kind of avenging angel. Akira looks up too, and it might be Katsuya's imagination, but he seems suddenly taller.

(It takes him a second to realize that it's not his imagination, it's just that Akira's standing up straight, his body language unafraid and confident)

(...he really needs this, and for the first time Katsuya realizes what he'd be taking away from Akira if he kept trying to stop him)

It feels like saying anything would anything would ruin the moment. So Katsuya doesn't, and instead just gathers up the energy inside him that calls to his Persona. It's been a long time since he's had to call Hyperion like this, but it's surprisingly natural now. Like it's been days, not years. 

Akira's eyes light up with interest and curiosity, face tilted up slightly to see their two Personas together, and Katsuya looks up too. He's used to the way his Persona reacts to others around him, especially the Personas of the people he sees the most often, but Akira's is one he hasn't seen before. He's a little surprised by what he's getting from this interaction now, because Hyperion seems mostly interested in studying Akira's Persona, making sure that he's alright.

(Maybe it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. Their Persona are a part of them, and if Katsuya is worried for Akira, it makes sense that Hyperion would be concerned for Arsene)

(Akira's only had his Persona a few weeks, after all, and from the sound of it hasn't had to fight anything particularly strong yet--Arsene, in a sense, is still a child in the same way Akira is)

"Is it supposed to feel like that?" Akira asks. "I mean--I sort of felt your Persona when I walked in, and then I definitely felt that, but I don't feel anything with anyone else."

"I'm not sure what the reason is," Katsuya says. "But I think it's relatively normal to get a sense for other powerful Persona-users around." He considers for a second, then admits, "I remember when Yu had something big happen a few years ago, we went down there."

"I remember," Akira says. "Right before New Years back when he was visiting the Velvet Room."

"I met some of his friends he was fighting with then," Katsuya says. "I know they had Persona, but his was the only one I knew about without being told. So maybe it has something to do with being in the Velvet Room."

"Okay," Akira says. "I'll pay attention to that from now on." He gives Katsuya a crooked smile. "Even though I'm not exactly getting to visit the Velvet Room myself right now."

Katsuya nods. He lets Hyperion fade away, and Akira mutters "oh yeah" and lowers his mask. His outfit and Arsene disappear in the same flash, and Akira kneels again to replace it under the loose floorboard. "Speaking of the Velvet Room," Katsuya says. "How are you managing to recruit new Persona without it?"

"I'm not," Akira says, voice muffled because he's halfway under the bed. "Sometimes Shadows want to talk to me, but everyone else thinks it's weird, and I don't really know what to say to the Shadows anyway. So I don't talk to them." He finishes hiding the mask away, and pushes himself back to his feet. "I'm not even that good at talking to other people, I don't think I'd be any good at talking to Shadows."

"Does that mean that none of you has more than one Persona?" Katsuya asks. "If you're not getting cards from demons and you can't go to the Velvet Room..."

"Shadows," Akira corrects. "And yeah, but I mean there's nothing I can do, right?"

This is probably true, but Katsuya still doesn't like it. "You should try talking to the demons anyway. Things might change someday, and it sounds like you might need the practice."

Akira makes a face. "They're Shadows," he says, exasperated. "And they don't like me anyway. I don't know what to say."

Katsuya smiles, something Maya had once told him coming unexpectedly to mind. "They don't all have to like you," he says. "But somewhere out there are Shadows that want to hear what you have to say."

Akira gives him a look that says he absolutely doesn't believe him.

"Apparently," Katsuya says. "Before the Other Side split from This Side, and Maya and Tatsuya were fighting demons with their friends, Tatsuya used to make motorcycle noises to get the demons excited enough to give him cards."

Akira, visibly startled, laughs. "Really?" he asks. 

"That's what Maya told me," Katsuya says. He hadn't been there at the time, and when he was eventually dragged into fighting demons, it had been after a lot of things had gone very badly wrong for Tatsuya. By the time he'd started fighting with his younger brother, Tatsuya had been surly and sad, closed off and putting a lot of effort into running away from anyone that might care enough to try and help him.

He had not been making motorcycle noises then.

"So my point is," Katsuya says. "You don't have to make every de--every Shadow like you. If there's a demon out there that wants to hear Tatsuya make motorcycle noises, there's a Shadow somewhere that wants to hear whatever you have to say to it."

Akira nods. "Okay," he says. "When we find another Palace to do, I'll try and find Shadows to talk to."

Something in Katsuya twists nervously at the mention of another Palace. Letting go of the idea that he can protect Akira from everything dangerous in the world (or any other world) is easier said than done. But he forces himself to stay as calm as he possibly can, and says, "I think that's a good idea."

"Yeah," Akira says. He sits back on the bed, curling up in a way that looks honestly comfortable for the first time. "Um... thanks for coming out here. It's actually really nice to be able to talk about all this."

"I'm glad," Katsuya says. "But you know, I can't get the time off to come up here all the time. If you don't feel comfortable talking on the phone because your cat is listening, you need to get more comfortable with texting."

Akira makes a face, but can't keep it up for long. "Fine," he says.

And that feels like a minor victory. 

Katsuya has a hotel reservation, because it would have been extremely weird for him to stay here with Akira, in someone else's shop, but he ends up staying at Leblanc until right before the last train of the night is due to leave Yongen-Jaya. They talk about Shadows and Palaces, but also about Akira's school, and what he's missed in Sumaru since leaving. 

When Katsuya finally leaves, it's because Akira has been fighting Shadows all afternoon, and is practically asleep sitting up in bed. So Katsuya says goodbye, makes plans to meet Akira again in the morning, and then leaves.

He turns around at the top of the stairs to see Akira face down on his pillow, completely wiped out by the day he's had.

This is his kid, no matter what anyone else has to say about it, including (maybe especially) Akira. His kid, fighting demons, fighting to make friends, fighting to get home. Fighting harder than he should ever have had to. 

"Goodnight Akira," he says. 

Akira mumbles something unintelligible into his pillow as an answer.

Katsuya smiles sadly, shakes his head, and turns the light off on the way out.

Chapter Text

May 2016

-//-

Ann finds a buffet at some fancy hotel that she's been wanting to try out, and decides that this is going to be where the Phantom Thieves have their celebration.

Akira is invited too.

They schedule it for the weekend after Katsuya's visit, which gives him time to figure out if he's going. On the one hand, they'd literally invited him. On the other hand, they barely know him--if anything, they know Joker, the person Akira feels like it's easier to be when they're fighting Shadows in the Palace. But just hanging out in the real world means he's going to have to figure out what to talk about and how to act without being just a complete weirdo.

In the end, the thing that forces the decision is that Morgana really wants to go, and he can't get there by himself. Akira suggests that Morgana can stay with Ann the night before, but Morgana pretends (Akira thinks he's pretending, anyway) to be confused about why Akira wouldn't want to celebrate with the rest of them after they've done all the hard work of getting through the Palace together.

Akira caves to Morgana's pressure, and on the day of the celebration he heads up to the nice hotel that Ann had forwarded them. He's meeting the others inside, which means it's just him and Morgana standing just outside the buffet area when Akira sees it for the first time.

"Wow," he says, when he gets off the elevator.

"Wow what?" Morgana asks. He pokes his head out of Akira's bag, then perks up in excitement. "Oh, wow!" he says. "This place looks really nice!"

They can't even see the food yet from where they are, but this place is fancy. "I can't believe I'm somewhere like this," he says. "If they could see this back home..."

"You guys don't have places like this in Sumaru?" Morgana asks.

Akira snorts, and then realizes that no, obviously, Morgana isn't talking about the Sumaru City that Akira had actually grown up in. He's talking about the one on This Side that isn't limping along after the apocalypse. "Uh," he says, trying to get his brain back in gear. "I mean, it's a lot smaller than Tokyo."

"That makes s--oh, Lady Ann!"

Akira turns around, relieved by the interruption, and sees Ann and Ryuji coming off the elevator together.

"Hi Morgana," Ann says. "Akira."

Ryuji's peeking around at the buffet area. "Whoa, Ann," he says. "You found a really cool place.

"Me and Shiho were talking about coming here before..." Ann hesitates. Her smile looks a little smaller. "We didn't get a chance, but since we just finished taking down Kamoshida after he hurt her, and I thought maybe that makes it a good fit for our celebration now."

"How's Shiho doing?" Akira asks. He's a little wary because maybe Shiho's not doing well, and this is just going to make her feel bad.

But Ann looks brighter when she says, "She's doing pretty good. Still a long way to go, but she's doing physical therapy, and her parents are moving so she can be in an area with better support."

"That's really good," Akira says.

"Yeah," Ann says. "So... should we go have our celebration?"

They get a table for an hour, and start the process of getting through as much food as they physically can. Akira listens to the conversation more than he contributes to it, at least until Ryuji asks, "So which Palace are we going to do next?"

"We're doing another one?" Ann asks.

"Of course," Akira says.

Both of them look at him. Morgana's probably staring too, but he's hiding in Akira's bag, not exactly in Akira's line of sight.

"See?" Ryuji says, after a second of surprise. "Even Akira gets it, and he didn't want to do Kamoshida's Palace at first."

"It's not that I didn't want to do it," Akira says, a little awkwardly. "It's just--complicated. But I think there's something going on, and we need to figure out what it is."

"What do you mean something's going on?" Morgana asks.

"I mean the Palaces," Akira says. "They wouldn't be here if nothing's going on, would they?"

"We don't know that," Ryuji says. "Maybe the Palaces have always been here and we just didn't know about it."

"Maybe," Akira says. "But I don't think so."

"Why not?" Morgana asks. "Do you know something?"

Akira hesitates. Of course he does. He knows that in 1999, rumors had started coming true out of the blue. He knows that in 2010, Shadows had killed his two first friends. And he knows that in 2011, a tiny town called Inaba had filled up with fog and Shadows.

This keeps happening, and it's never about things that have just always been there. It's always something new, some fresh attack from things that hate humanity. But that's just... a lot to have to explain. He's barely comfortable talking about school with the Phantom Thieves, and if he starts explaining what he knows, they're going to have questions about how he knows and why. He's going to have to explain where he's really from, and about the Other Side, and he just...

He just can't.

"I guess I have a feeling," he says. "And I mean, I could be wrong, you guys don't have to agree with me, but if you want to do another Palace, I want to be there. And maybe we'll figure something out."

Ryuji shrugs. "Cool with me," he says. "But you're okay with changing hearts too, right?"

Akira nods. "As long as it's someone that deserves it. Kamoshida was... it felt like the right thing to do."

"Well no problem there," Ryuji says. "There's plenty of shitty adults that deserve a change of heart."

Ann shifts uncomfortably. "I think..." She's not exactly looking at them. "I think you might be right," she says. "Did either of you happen to overhear what some of the people here are saying?"

"Oh," Ryuji says. "About how we're too low class to be here, and they're so much better than us?" He leans forward, scowling. "Yeah, I heard 'em. That's exactly the kind of person I'm talking about. I think the Phantom Thieves need to be something more permanent. Make this city better, make sure no one else has to go through the same kind of shit we did." He looks at Ann. "You and me got pushed around by Kamoshida, right?"

Ann nods.

"And Morgana doesn't even remember who he is," Ryuji says. "How much you want to bet that's because of what some other shitty person did?"

"It could be," Morgana says. "I mean, I don't remember it, but I don't believe that something like what happened to me could just be an accident."

"Exactly," Ryuji says. "Like, you don't remember who you are or where you came from or anything, who knows how that happened?" And then he turns on Akira. "And you've been through something," he says.

"Uh," Akira says.

"Look," Ryuji says. "You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to, but... come on, it's pretty obvious you've been through some shit. There has to be some adult that's messed things up for you."

Akira's mind flashes immediately to whoever it is in the Velvet Room. He's not sure if that counts as an adult, but he's definitely making things worse. "It's sort of hard to explain," he mutters.

"But there is someone," Ryuji says. "See? Adults suck. And this is our chance to fight back! It's perfect!"

Ann shushes him urgently and they all look around to make sure that no one's close enough to have overheard Ryuji almost shouting. And he does actually lower his voice.

"All I'm saying," he says. "Is that we should all agree to keep going with this. Like, let's not just let the Phantom Thieves die after what we did with Kamoshida. Let's keep it going and find another target."

"I'm in," Morgana says immediately. "I have some stuff I want to figure out too, and it'll be easier if you guys are all helping."

"What kind of stuff?" Ann asks.

Morgana grins, the expression carrying all the inherent smugness of a cat. "There's this place called Mementos," he says. "It's like the collective Palace of everyone that doesn't have a real one of their own--you can think of it as everyone's Palace."

"Sounds big," Akira says. Sounds like maybe the kind of thing he's looking for, honestly. Something big enough to encompass all of Tokyo might also be big explain what's wrong with the Velvet Room.

"Oh it's huge," Morgana says. "But you can't go too deep right now. There's these doors that are locked off, and I have a theory that they'll only open for people that are well known enough in the public consciousness. And that's why I need help. If the Phantom Thieves get big enough, I'm sure we can get down to the bottom." He nods to himself, decisively. "And I just have this feeling that my memories are there. So I need to get to the bottom and see what's there for myself."

...it's a little weird, Akira thinks, that Morgana's memories would be at the bottom of Mementos. And if Akira's hunch is right about it having some connection to the broken Velvet Room, that's something that he should maybe be worried about.

"Okay," Ryuji says. "Cool, so Mona's in. Ann?"

"I think so," Ann says. Her tone's a little more hesitant. "But we need ground rules, okay? If we're going to do this, we need an agreement that we're not going to do any targets we don't all agree on. We're changing peoples' hearts, that's... it's huge. If we all have to agree, it means no one can just pick a selfish target all on their own."

"Sure," Ryuji says. "Not like I want to target anyone but assholes anyway."

"Okay," Ann says. "But just because you think someone's an asshole, it doesn't mean we're all going to agree. That's why we need that policy about not going after anyone that we don't all think is a good target."

"Fine," Ryuji says.

"Then I'm in too," Ann says.

And then they all look at Akira.

"Are you going to keep fighting with us?" Ryuji asks. "Because I mean like--I don't want to be pushy or anything, but if you're in, you have to be definitely in. You can't back out again if we're counting on you."

"I didn't back out the first time," Akira says, a little defensively. "The Phantom Thieves weren't a thing yet."

"Same thing," Ryuji says. "I mean if you're not comfortable with us, that's fine. We'll keep doing the Phantom Thieves, you don't have to."

"Just like that," Akira says quietly.

"Sure," Ryuji says. "I mean, I trust you not to tell anyone about us, so it's not like it's a problem if you don't want to keep going."

Akira thinks of Katsuya's visit last week with a flash of sudden fear and mingled guilt. He'd told his guardian everything, and he assumes Katsuya would have passed that on to Maya, Kaoru, and Ulala when he got back home. He doesn't regret it either, because he trusts those people a lot more than he trusts these classmates he's known for a few weeks. But it's... going to make things complicated if they ever find out what he's been saying and to who.

So does he stay with them, and risk the fallout if they ever find out? Or does he try and figure all this out on his own? Can he figure this out on his own?

Probably not, if Morgana's right about needing to be well known to get lower down in Mementos, and if that really is where he's going to find answers about the Velvet Room. Both or neither of those things could be turned out to true, and Akira weighs his options carefully. He's never going to become infamous enough on his own to get to the bottom of Mementos, but there's a chance that the Phantom Thieves can.

"I'm in too," he says quietly.

"You're sure," Ryuji says.

"No," Akira admits. "But I'm not going to back out. There's some things I need to do, and find out."

The other three exchange a look, and then Morgana asks, "Does this have something to do with how your Persona awakened outside the metaverse?"

Not really, because Akira still doesn't think that's super weird. But since everyone else still thinks it's weird, it's a pretty good cover. "Yes," he says immediately.

"That makes sense," Ann says. "You're not going to find out how that happened on your own."

Akira nods, not quite looking at them. "So..." he says. "Anyway. I'll work with the Phantom Thieves."

"Then I guess that's all of us!" Ryuji says, raising his glass of soda. "Here's to the official start of the Phantom Thieves!"

Akira smiles with the rest of them, and spends the rest of their reserved hour trying not to feel like a fraud.

(Everyone else believes in this so much)

(He just wants to go home)

It's a relief when their time's up and they start heading out. They're standing by the bank of elevators, waiting for one heading down to open up, when a group of men in suits pushes into line ahead of them. Hard enough, actually, that one of them knocks Ryuji off balance.

The next several seconds seem to happen in slow motion.

Akira hadn't really been paying attention to the other people around them, not any more than his normal background 'does anyone here look dangerous' habit, anyway. They're mumbling something about politics and some kind of election one of them is involved in, too loud for Akira to avoid overhearing them. But he's not really listening, not really paying attention at all, until he sees Ryuji stumble. Then he sees his mouth open to complain, and then he sees the person behind him, and it's a face he's not going to forget.

He reaches out and grabs Ryuji by the arm as fast as he can, pulling him back from the confrontation that looks like it's about to start. Ryuji's head whips around to look at him and Akira shakes his head no. Don't do this. Not with this man.

The group passes into the elevator ahead of them, and the doors close. Akira lets go of Ryuji, who says, "What the fuck?" while Ann and Morgana just stare at him.

"That guy," Akira says. "The one all the rest of them were talking to."

"The bald guy?" Morgana asks.

"Yeah," Akira says. "I've run into him before, he's not a good person."

"Why not?" Ryuji asks. "What'd he do?"

"Accused me of assault and got me arrested when I was just trying to stop him from forcing a woman into his car while she was trying to get away."

"Holy shit," Ryuji says. "Wait, arrested? So does that mean he's the reason you're here? I mean, that's what your probation's for?"

Akira nods. He remembers the face of the person he'd almost stabbed, because it hadn't exactly been the first time he'd gotten into a fight, and the kind of shock that might have frozen him in other circumstances just hadn't kicked in that night. "You really don't want to get in his way," he says.

"Oh yeah?" Ryuji asks.

And then he goes uncharacteristically quiet, watching the elevator doors until finally they manage to catch an empty one going down.

-//-

May 2016

-//-

They meet Yusuke Kitagawa at Shibuya Station only a few days after the celebratory buffet. Akira's sort of accidentally fallen into going home part of the way with Ryuji and Ann, since all three of them have to transfer at Shibuya anyway, and that's where they are when Ann starts to get jumpy.

"Is this about that guy?" Akira asks, the third time she looks over her shoulder.

Ann nods. "Did you see him too?"

"What guy?" Ryuji says.

"He's been following us for like five minutes," Akira says. "Really skinny, dark hair--"

"Yeah," Ann says. "That's him." She looks over her shoulder again. "He keeps staring, it's creeping me out."

"We have to do something," Morgana says, practically leaping out of Akira's bag in his rush to defend Ann's honor. "Who knows what that guy's thinking about doing to her!"

"He's probably just a regular creep," Ann says, with a laugh that doesn't entirely hide how nervous she is. "It's fine, it happens sometimes, it just kind of weirds me out."

Akira hesitates, because he could definitely get in some kind of trouble for this, but in the end it's that laugh that makes up his mind for him. "Do you want me to see if I can scare him off?"

"No," Ann says immediately. "You don't have to fight him, or anything."

"I wasn't going to fight him," Akira says. "I just..." Wanted to help.

"Oh," Ann says, and then there's an awkward pause before she says, "If you wanted to get him to stop following before I have to get on my train, that would actually be really nice. I don't really want him to know where I live or anything."

"Sure," Akira says. He waits until they're around a corner, then says, "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up in a couple minutes."

"Nah," Ryuji says. "I'll stay."

"I'll make sure Lady Ann's okay," Morgana says, and jumps down from Akira's bag.

"I'm fine," Ann says, face slowly turning pink. But she does pick up Morgana and transfer him into her bag, and she does hurry away a little too quickly for Akira to believe that she actually is okay.

(He wonders how often she has to deal with creeps in the subway)

(It's bad enough she has to deal with Kamoshida, she should be able to walk around in public without people being weird about it)

The boy that's been following them--tall, too skinny, and very surprised to see Akria and Ryuji standing right there--comes around the corner less than fifteen seconds after Ann leaves with Morgana.

"Excuse me," he says, and tries to move past them.

Ryuji moves to stand in his way and the boy backs off a step, looking honestly confused.

(He looks... other things, too)

(Now that he's closer, Akira can see him better, and his first uncomfortable thought is that he would have fit in back home on the Other Side)

"What are you following our friend for?" Ryuji asks. Demands, really.

The boy actually looks past them again, probably for Ann, before slumping a little and giving up. It's been long enough now for Ann to be completely lost in the crowds ahead of them, Akira assumes. "I was following a muse," he says.

"What'd you call Ann?" Ryuji asks, voice rising a little.

"It's not a bad thing," the boy says quickly, clearly intimidated by Ryuji's anger. "I simply wanted to paint her."

"Oh," Akira says. "You're an artist." He knows artists, or at least one artist. And if they can all be judged against the Demon Painter, then artists are weird.

"Yes," the boy says. "And I wanted to speak with the girl you were with to see if she would be willing to model for me."

"Fuck no," Ryuji says.

The artist draws himself up. "I would really rather speak to--Ann, did you say?"

"You're not talking to her," Ryuji says. "Leave her alone, you're creeping her out."

The boy blinks, like the idea of a stranger following a girl around the subway has never actually struck him as being creepy. "What if I just give you my contact information?" he says. "And you can pass it on to her for me."

"Are you even listening?" Ryuji asks.

"You can give me your phone number," Akira says.

"We don't have to do anything this guy says," Ryuji objects, but Akira only shrugs and pulls out his own phone to add the contact information. It turns out the artist's name is Yusuke Kitagawa, which Akira also makes a note of. When he's done, he leaves with Ryuji.

As soon as they're well away from Yusuke, Ryuji says, "You're not going to give that to Ann, are you?"

"No," Akira says. "She was definitely freaked out about him." He looks down at the new contact in his phone. Yusuke joins Katsuya, Maya, Yu, Ryuji, and Ann as one of only six people he's added in the weeks since Katsuya made him buy the phone in the first place.

"So... what, was it just to get him to back off?"

Akira shakes his head no.

"Then what was the point?"

"I thought... maybe I could ask him to get dinner or something."

Ryuji gives him a weird look. "Didn't know you were into guys," he says. Then, quickly, he adds, "Not that it matters, just--why that guy?"

"What?" Akira looks at Ryuji blankly, then realizes they're thinking along completely different tracks. "Oh," he says. "No, it's not like that. He just needs to eat. He's starving."

"I mean he's skinny," Ryuji says.

"No," Akira says. "He's starving." And that makes a lot less sense here than it does at home. Akira had grown up surrounded by people scrambling for their claim on an always insufficient amount of food. He knows what it feels like to be really, truly hungry, and he knows what it looks like in other people. "I don't know why he's not getting food, but I'm not really okay with that."

Ryuji hesitates. It looks like it's taking him a second to turn around, mentally speaking, and stop being outraged on Ann's behalf so he can actually consider Yusuke. Akira waits patiently, and after about thirty seconds Ryuji says, "Okay but are you sure you're not just reading too much into it?"

Akira takes a deep breath. "Ryuji," he says. "I've been that hungry before. I'm not imagining it."

(It's something in the face, in the eyes)

And Ryuji believes him. "So money's tight maybe," he says. "Or maybe he has an eating disorder. I saw some guys go through that on the track team in middle school, it sucks."

Akira nods. "It could be lots of things," he says. He has no way of knowing if Yusuke isn't eating because he doesn't want to or because he can't.

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "You're probably right. Still, you going to be okay talking to him about it? It seemed like you were having a hard time just eating out with me and Ann the other day."

Akira shrugs. He's been trying not to think about it. "I guess I'll try," he says. "Maybe if it doesn't work, you guys might be able to help?"

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "I mean... okay, so he's kind of a creep, but we don't have to make Ann go or anything. And maybe there's something going on if he's legit starving."

"Thanks," Akira says.

Ryuji nods, and changes the subject, and Akira feels a little more secure with the idea that the Phantom Thieves have his back.

-//-

May 2016

-//-

Yusuke is simultaneously the easiest and hardest person to talk to that Akira has ever met.

He spends the next week and a half tentatively reaching out, asking questions and trying to figure out how to deal with Yusuke's answers. Yusuke doesn't really seem to mind if Akira fumbles what he's saying or isn't used to having long conversations, which is nice. It feels like Yusuke doesn't have much more of an idea how to interact with other people than Akira does, and that means there's more wiggle room for Akira to do things wrong and not be called out on it.

On the other hand, it's not long before Akira finds out why Yusuke is hungry, and it's hard to hear Yusuke casually explaining that his sensei--the artist he's lived with since he was a child, who Yusuke obviously admires more than anyone else--is telling him that real art doesn't worry about things like food. Or having a real place to sleep that's only private because the other students have moved out of the room where that Yusuke has (apparently) shared for as long as he can remember.

He talks about the times when his sensei will leave for conferences, forcing his students to fend for themselves.

And he accepts all this as the price of doing art.

And Akira is angry. 

He calls Yu one day after school, for only the second time he's actually done that since coming to Tokyo. The first time had been a few days after stumbling into Kamoshida's Palace, when he'd still been reeling and looking for answers. This time, he calls because he thinks Yu's going to have the advice he needs.

They don't talk about the Phantom Thieves much. Akira had told him what was going on at the beginning, but after a while he's started to feel more and more guilty about everything the Thieves don't know he's telling people. When Akira had finally admitted how much he's stressing about that, Yu had told him not to worry about keeping him updated.

He'd promised to be there for the other things, without worrying about needing to choose between him and the Thieves.

Akira calls him about Yusuke though, because Yusuke isn't a Phantom Thief problem, Yusuke is... a human problem.

"What do you do if someone's being abused?" Akira asks. "I mean--not like how you thought I was being abused."

He's sitting on his bed, curled up against the wall, keeping his voice low because Morgana's asleep in his catbed on the other side of the room.

...or not asleep, maybe. Akira sees his ears twitch, and one eye open.

"This is about the friend you told me about?" Yu asks. "The artist?"

"It's about Yusuke," Akira says. "He's telling me all these things about his guardian, and I don't think he can see how awful it is. His guardian--it's not even like he's denying him food, he's just convinced him that he shouldn't eat, or he shouldn't have a safe place to sleep, so it's like... I don't know, like his guardian's convinced him to abuse himself. What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know if I'm the right person to ask, Akira," Yu tells him.

"Yes you are," Akira says. "Because when you thought it was happening--" He looks at Morgana again, and lowers his voice. "To me, you confronted Dad about it."

"That was different," Yu says. "Your guardian wasn't hurting you. You just...  lived in a place where it's hard for any parent to take care of their kid."

"It should be easy for Yusuke's guardian to take care of him," Akira says. "It would be easier for him to take care of Yusuke than to do what he's doing to him."

"It probably would be," Yu says.

"I looked him up," Akira says. "Ichiryusai Madarame is a famous artist. His paintings sell for a ton of money, he absolutely has enough to take care of Yusuke."

"Some people just don't care," Yu says quietly. 

"I care," Akira says. "So what am I supposed to do?"

"What are you already doing?" Yu asks. "It's been a couple weeks, right?"

"Yeah," Akira says. "It's... I've been texting him a lot. I mean--a lot by my standards. A couple times a day. And he's coming to Leblanc tonight so we can at least feed him." That part had been his idea, but it had taken some encouragement from the Phantom Thieves before he actually suggested it to Yusuke. Even Ann's on board with helping him, now that she's heard how much harm Yusuke's guardian is doing.  

"That's a good start," Yu says. "And I know you're listening to him when he tells you about his problems. That's important."

"Yeah," Akira says. "But is that enough?"

"No," Yu says. "But it's a good start. I don't know what to tell you to do, Akira. I don't know Yusuke, or what he's going through. I don't even know what would help him. But having a friend is going to mean a lot to him when he eventually realizes that what's going on isn't right."

This isn't the advice Akira wants to hear. He wants a way to fix this, and it's disappointing to know Yu doesn't have one to suggest either.

"What does Katsuya have to say?" Yu asks.

"He said I should report Madarame to the police," Akira says. "But I mean, what are they going to do? Why would they believe someone like me instead of a famous artist?"

There's a pause, then Yu says, "I hate that I agree with you."

"Maya's doing some digging," Akira says. "I went up to the place where he lives to see if it really is as bad as he says--" Which it had been. "And I ran into a journalist that was poking around there. I gave her Maya's number and I guess they're scheming something."

"That's a good first step," Yu says. "I guess in the meantime, I'd say wait for them, and keep listening to Yusuke."

"Yeah," Akira says. "I... guess that's all I can do."

He hangs up, and looks down at his phone, frowning absently at it.

Then more sharply, because he realizes that the metanav has apparently been listening to that conversation. 

"Akira?"

"Huh?" He jerks his head up to look at Morgana, who has stood up from his cat bed and is giving him a concerned look.

"Why did your friend think your dad was abusing you?"

Akira doesn't say anything.

"Does it have something to do with what happened to your face?"

He sighs. "Yes," he says. "But also no? He saw my face, and some other stuff, and he thought my dad was abusing me. But it was all a big misunderstanding."

Not like Yusuke. Who has admitted Madarame is abusing him, even if he doesn't seem to realize it, because he's so lost in this idea of his teacher as this ideal artist...

"Can I ask you a question, Akira?"

He jolts out of his thoughts and realizes Morgana is standing in front of him, looking up.

"Sorry," Akira says. "I was... thinking. But sure, what's up?"

"If it was all a misunderstanding," Morgana says. "What did happen to your face?"

Akira opens his mouth, then closes it again. He touches the scar that still, after all this time, is an ugly slash cutting one side of his face in two. Then realizes he's doing it, and forces his hand down. 

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Morgana says. "But I promise I won't tell anyone."

Sure. Like Akira keeps saying that he won't talk to anyone about the Phantom Thieves. 

"It just seems like all of a sudden you're really enthusiastic about helping Yusuke," Morgana says. "And that's good, obviously, but you haven't been getting that excited about anything else, and you told Ryuji you've been starving before, so I guess... I just wanted to know more. If you'll tell me."

Akira bites his lower lip, fiddling with his phone so he'll have something to do. A pretty big part of him is screaming that he shouldn't say anything. He should keep it a secret, not just because it might lead back to the Other Side, but also because this is the scar that had led to years of bullying at school. Probably the only reason he's not still getting bullied for it is that the Shujin students know him as a dangerous delinquent, so they assume the scar is from him doing something horrible and violent.

...which it kind of is. He had stabbed one of the looters that had attacked them in the apartment on the Other Side. 

"What do you think I'm going to do if you tell me anything about yourself?" Morgana asks, as Akira stays silent.

"Leave," Akira says, before his brain can stop his mouth. He scrambles to do damage control. "I mean--it wouldn't be your fault, or anything. It would be because of me."

"I'm not going to leave," Morgana says. He puffs out his tiny chest with pride. "Remember when we went to the buffet and you promised you wouldn't back out of the Phantom Thieves?"

"Yeah," Akira says.

"That means we're not going to back out on you, either."

Akira looks at him, and for a long minute he doesn't know what to say. Because the thing is, his relationship with the Phantom Thieves is changing. It had started with that buffet, when he'd promised not to leave them, and they'd made it pretty clear that they want him on the team. And that feeling of change had only gotten stronger when he started trying to reach Yusuke, and learned he actually could count on them for help. He's not great with conversation, so having other people to ask for advice has helped a lot. Just having them around and agreeing that he's doing the right thing has helped a lot.

It's sort of getting to the point where the secrets he's keeping are starting to chafe, a little bit. And this, honestly, is probably something he can talk about without ruining everything. Even on This Side, there are still burglars and break ins, right?

He caves.

"Okay," Akira says quietly. He pulls off his glasses and rubs at his eyes, then lets his hand drift down to the scar. This time he keeps it there, fingers running idly along the raised, ropy scar tissue. "When I was eleven," he says. "Burglars broke in. It was the middle of the night. I was asleep, and then suddenly I was awake. One of them grabbed me and pulled me out of bed." 

He still remembers that single moment of terror, when he'd gone from being fast asleep in bed to wide awake and afraid. He thinks it's going to haunt him for the rest of his life, probably. "I honestly can't tell you most of what happened, it was just... dark, and chaotic, and I didn't really know what was going on outside of what was happening right next to me. But I got away from that guy, and I got to the kitchen. He was trying to get at me again, that's how this happened." He taps at his scar. "But I grabbed a knife, and I stabbed him in the leg. And then he ran off."

"That really happened?" Morgana asks. His eyes are wide. 

"Yeah," Akira says. "I went to the hospital, and they stitched up my face, but I guess there was only so much they could do. I'd met Yu--that's my friend--a couple months before all that happened. So he saw one day I was just this random kid that sucked at talking to people, and then suddenly I was a random kid that sucked at talking to people and also looked like someone had tried to kill me. So he was worried, and I was... freaked out, and dealing with kids at school teasing me for looking like a freak. So he saw all that and figured it was probably abuse." He shrugs. "It wasn't."

"Wow," Morgana says.

"Sorry," Akira says.

"What are you apologizing for?" Morgana asks. "That's awful, and it's not your fault." He droops a little. "No wonder you don't like having other people around when you sleep."

"I guess I'm just not really used to talking about it," Akira says.

"Well not if people at your school were making fun of you for it," Morgana says. "But you have us now, so it's fine!"

Akira offers a weak smile in return. This is awkward, and had been harder to explain than he'd expected. Then he looks down at his phone, and remembers that he'd seen something there after getting off the phone that had given him an idea. He turns the screen around so Morgana can see it, and immediately jumps at the chance to change the subject away from himself and back to Yusuke. "Hey," he says. "Do you think... I guess the metanav heard me telling Yu about Madarame. Do you think he might be a good next target?"

Morgana looks at the phone, then up at Akira. There's a wide smile on his face. "Famous artist abusing his students?" he asks. "I don't know why we didn't think to try him already."

Chapter Text

May 2016

-//-

Things are going fairly well when Katsuya gets an email from Kaoru informing him that someone's hacked into his computer and gone digging through almost everything there.

"They what?" Katsuya says. "Why would anyone do that?"

"I keep telling you to let me install better security," Kaoru says, ignoring the question completely. He'd come over to have this conversation in person, instead of over the phone or by email. Normally he's the last person to ever suggest a face to face conversation, but he does sort of seem to be enjoying this a little bit too much. "Maya let me improve her computer's security, " he continues. "And when the hacker tried to get into her system, it set off an alert and she was able to get it to me before they could find anything. But your computer's completely compromised."

Katsuya is not in the mood for an I told you so right now. The two of them have been arguing for literally years over whether or not Katsuya needs Kaoru to install extra protection on his computer, which Katsuya doesn't even use for work, strictly for personal business. They'd come to a compromise a couple years ago when Katsuya bought his current laptop, and Kaoru had installed some kind of malware monitoring program that would tell him if anyone ever tried to get into it.

Or, apparently, succeeded.

"Lucky for us," Kaoru continues. "I was able to get a little bit of information from Maya's computer. I'm assuming for right now that the same person accessed both of your systems, because otherwise it's too much of a coincidence. So by tracking the person that tried to access her system, we should also be able to figure out who got into yours."

"And how long will that take?" Katsuya asks. 

"I did it before coming over," Kaoru says. He reaches down to his laptop bag and pulls the computer out. It takes him maybe thirty seconds to get it booted up and ready, and as he's doing that, he starts to explain. "The problem is that whoever did this is good," he says. "At first I assumed one of you clicked on a bad link, and whatever this is got into your Wi-Fi network from there. But there's no reason a random phishing attack would need to be this sophisticated, so now I'm thinking it's someone intentionally targeting the two of you."

"Who?" Katsuya asks.

"Like I said," Kaoru says. "They're good, whoever they are. I wasn't able to trace them exactly, but I was able to narrow down their location to one neighborhood in Tokyo." He turns the computer, so Katsuya can see a map of the city with one area highlighted.

"Yongen-Jaya," Katsuya says. "That's where Akira is."

"I know," Kaoru says. "And obviously we know it's not him, that boy's probably the least technology savvy sixteen year old in the country."

"He's fine," Katsuya says reflexively. Akira can use a computer confidently, because he'd had to learn that through school. It's just that his own stubbornness had kept him from owning a cell phone until this year.

"Either way," Kaoru says. "He's not our hacker. But there's definitely something suspicious about the fact that whoever it is, they just happen to live within walking distance of where he's serving his probation. You have to admit that."

Katsuya nods in agreement. "I can ask if he's noticed anything," he says.

"Don't bother," Kaoru says. "I'm going up to see him myself. This whole thing has my interest now." He pulls his laptop back toward him and frowns at it. "This hacker's gone through a lot of effort to obfuscate their location. It actually took me most of last night to find the source."

 "That's impressive," Katsuya says.

"It's unusual. And it's been a while since I had a good challenge. But the interesting thing is that the more time I spent digging through this, the more it started to feel familiar."

"It's code," Katsuya says. "How can it feel familiar?"

"The same way you can tell if your favorite author has written a new book," Kaoru says. "Or see what a director is doing with a movie. Everyone has their own idiosyncrasies, and I've seen this person's before."

"Alright," Katsuya says. "This is your area, I'll take you at your word."

"You should have done that when I told you to secure your computer in the first place," Kaoru reminds him.

(Katsuya sighs)

"A few years ago," Kaoru says. "There was this group--well, it's a group now, I'm fairly sure it was just one person back then--that showed up called Medjed."

"I think I've heard of them," Katsuya says. "They claim they're doing good, right?"

"They're exposing things that should be part of the record, mostly," Kaoru says. "Or coverups. It's a little idealistic, but they're more trouble to people that deserve it than anyone else." He frowns. "Usually. I have no idea why they'd be targeting you or Maya."

Katsuya's heart sinks. "Unless it has something to do with Akira," he says. "If the Medjed knows something about the Phantom Thieves, or about Palaces, it's possible they've tracked Akira and are trying to find out more about him."

"Exactly," Kaoru says. "That's why I want to go up there and see if I can find any signs that he's had people trying to get into his phone or any other technology of his. And it's just Medjed. Not the Medjed."

"Sure," Katsuya says.

"And I am installing better protection on your computer before I go," Kaoru informs him. "This has happened once, it's not going to happen twice."

"You would never let me live it down," Katsuya says. He's probably not going to let go of it happening once, honestly. "So do you think you're going to be able to find whoever this was?"

"Finding people is literally my job," Kaoru reminds him.

"Right."

"Ulala's on a job this week," Kaoru says. "And I handle everything on the digital end, anyway. So I'll head up there while she's finishing her thing, and..." He shrugs. "Hopefully track down whoever's been getting into your system before they have time to do anything else."

-//-

May 2016

-//-

Madarame's Palace is more difficult than Kamoshida's had been. 

The Shadows are tougher, the security is more intense, and there is a door that will not open no matter what they do to it.

Morgana says it's possible that there's something in the real world that he sees as such an impenetrable barrier around whatever his Treasure is, that it's translated into the Palace. The problem is that they have absolutely no idea what that something might be.

The day they find the door--it's a Thursday, late in May--they end up leaving the Palace earlier than they normally do. All of them are a little down, because... well, what are they supposed to do now? They've put in so much effort already, and it feels grossly unfair to be stopped this close to the end. Morgana says it feels like the Treasure's getting closer, but they just...

They can't get past the door.

Akira's feeling more than a little down when he goes back to Leblanc, and his mood honestly isn't helped that much when he gets a text from Kaoru about half an hour after flopping despondently into bed. It's not like he has a problem with Kaoru, and he'd gotten a head's up from Katsuya that this was going to happen because apparently someone local had tried to get into his and Maya's computers. 

But he's tired and they're stuck in Madarame's Palace and today just sucks.

"Why are you making that noise?" Morgana asks as Akira groans.

"My dad's friend is coming to visit," Akira mumbles. 

"Why?"

Akira sighs and rolls over in bed. "It's a long story," he says. "I just don't want to deal with people right now."

"So tell him not to come," Morgana says.

"Really don't think that's going to work," Akira mutters. 

"You could try."

Akira doesn't try, though, and instead when Kaoru shows up about fifteen minutes later, he just goes downstairs and hands over his phone without comment.

Kaoru snorts a laugh and shakes his head as he takes the phone and starts scrolling through it. 

"What's funny?" Akira asks.

"Just your face," Kaoru says. "Bad day?"

"Kind of," Akira says. "What's wrong with my face?"

"Your expression just reminded me of how Tatsuya always used to look back then," Kaoru says, and Akira feels his eyes go wide. It's just like an unexpected breath of fresh air to remember that there are other people here that still remember the Tatsuya of the Other Side. This is the longest time he's ever been away from home, and it just feels like he's finally being seen as himself again. 

"Back then," he says. "You mean, uh--when you first met him?" He's very aware that Morgana and Sojiro are both in the room, so he's careful with what he says. 

"Right," Kaoru says. He pauses in whatever he's doing with Akira's phone, and adds, "Cheer up. It doesn't sound like things are as bad here as they were back then."

"I guess that's true," Akira admits. It does sort of put their problems with a door in perspective, when he remembers what had happened back in 1999. "Do... I really look like Tatsuya?"

"Your expression does," Kaoru says. It's the only time anyone has ever told him he resembles Tatsuya though, and he's surprised at how much he likes hearing it. Even if it is just because he's sad and stressed the way it sounds like Tatsuya had been twenty years ago. He holds up Akira's phone and says, "I need to get this hooked up to my computer so I can run a better scan."

"Sure," Akira says.

He backs up, giving  Kaoru some space to work, and almost immediately has Morgana hissing in his ear. 

"Hey!" Morgana whispers. "Is it really a good idea to give your phone to someone right now? What if he sees the metanav?"

"Maybe he'll figure out how it works," Akira murmurs. He keeps his voice low because there are four of them in the room, himself, Morgana, Kaoru, and Sojiro. And one of those people can't understand what Morgana's saying.

(He sees Kaoru looking over at them, eyebrows raised)

"That would be so, so bad!" Morgana says, and Akira sighs. He'd been half hoping this might be a good chance to float the idea of talking to adults about what's going on. But Morgana looks panicked by the thought, and Akira backs down. 

"He's just looking for anyone that might have hacked my phone the way my dad's computer got hacked," he says. "It'll be fine."

Morgana still doesn't say anything. He watches Kaoru without blinking the entire time he's on the computer though, like he's waiting for him to make a wrong move. Akira wishes he'd be a little bit less concerned about the people he trusts, but there's nothing he can say right now.

After maybe half an hour, Kaoru says, "Someone's definitely been in your phone, Akira."

Akira hadn't really been expecting that, honestly. He's gone so long without having a phone, that he's not really used to the idea of being vulnerable to something like this. And he's been calling Katsuya and Maya to talk about the Phantom Thieves. He's told Yu the basics too. He's been texting the Phantom Thieves, to them and also to people back home. If someone's seen that... it's really bad.

"It more than likely that someone got into your phone through the cellular network," Kaoru continues, as Akira gapes at him. "It's not easy to do, but it's possible someone scanned this area for cell phones, found the one they were looking for, and got into it that way. It's fairly sophisticated, and they'd need to have hacked the cell provider first, but if this is something to do with Medjed..."

"With what?" Akira asks.

Kaoru doesn't answer. He's looking at something on his computer screen, and he doesn't look happy. "Your phone might not be the biggest issue, actually," he says. 

"Why?" Akira says. "What else is wrong?"

"My computer's set up with a program that scans for bugs," Kaoru says. "The same way you can scan for Wi-Fi networks or bluetooth."

Akira shrugs in an okay, sure, I don't get it but you do way.

"And there's an entire network of bugs here," Kaoru says. "Sophisticated ones."

"Hang on a second," Sojiro says. "What exactly are you accusing me of?"

"Either bugging your cafe or allowing someone else to do it," Kaoru says, not even looking at him. His attention is on his computer now, fingers flying over the keyboard. 

"Absolutely not," Sojiro says.

(But there's... something)

(Kaoru's focused on his computer, but Akira sees the flicker of understanding, then denial, that flashes across Sojiro's face)

"There's pretty clear evidence," Kaoru says, still not looking at him. "This is actually really sophisticated. I was wrong, Akira, whoever got into your phone wouldn't have needed to do all that with the cellular networks. They already have infrastructure laid out here to listen in on what people are saying, and get into anything electronic that comes close enough. So they could have gotten into your phone just because you've brought your phone into the place where you're living. They probably got into Katsuya and Maya's phones the same way, since they've both been up here."

(And so has Ann, who is also a member of the Phantom Thieves)

(So has Yusuke, who has already had enough taken away from him by Madarame, and doesn't deserve to lose his privacy too)

"I should have checked their phones too before I came out," Kaoru says. "And I'll acknowledge it, that's my fault. But there's definitely something here." And then all of a sudden he looks up at Sojiro. "Who is it?" he asks.

"Who's what?" Sojiro says. His expression is set, angry. Defensive.

"There's no way any of this was set up without you knowing about it," Kaoru says. "It would either have taken a lot of time, or it would have taken days of doing a little work at a time. Either way, this is your place, you would have had to have noticed."

"Absolutely not," Sojiro says. "I have no idea what you're talking about, and if you're going to keep making accusations, I want you out of here."

"I don't think you have a lot of room to be making demands when you're illegally spying on anyone that comes into your business," Kaoru says.

"I didn't do any of that," Sojiro says. 

"Then you're fine with me taking this surveillance system down and reporting it to the police," Kaoru says. "After all, if you had nothing to do with it, and you don't know who did it, then clearly a crime's been committed on your premises."

Sojiro doesn't say anything.

"That's what I thought," Kaoru says. He looks down at his computer and shakes his head. "It doesn't matter."

"Why not?" Akira asks. His voice is a little quieter than he'd wanted it to be, but he doesn't really like the tension rising in the room.

"Because whoever set the bugs is obviously listening," Kaoru says, eyes going back to his computer. "And they know they've been caught, because everything's going offline now. Hopefully permanently, although I'm sure the things I've already found would be enough to file a police report on my own. If you're not interested in telling me who it was that set all this up in the first place."

"I can't tell you what I don't know," Sojiro says.

"Fine," Kaoru says. "Police it is, then."

They stare at each other for so long that Akira starts to feel uncomfortable. Neither of them look like they're going to give in, but Akira's definitely squirming.

His phone screen, sitting on the table next to Kaoru, lights up with an incoming message. Akira's in the next booth where he'd backed off to give Kaoru space while he was working, but that's close enough to see the name on the screen, and the text preview.

What he sees makes him reach over to grab the phone, so he can unlock it and see the full message. He hasn't been using his phone for very long, but he can at least see that no, this is not a normal text message. The sender is blocked, and the message is panicked.

- blocked -

Stop your friend from hassling Sakura

Just stop it, now!

Then, as he watches, a third message pops up.

- blocked -

These cameras record and I save EVERYTHING

A burst of adrenaline and fear rushes through him and Akira opens his mouth immediately. "Kaoru," he says. "Please don't... make a big deal out of this."

Kaoru looks back at him, and sighs, then jerks his head toward the door. "Let's go talk outside," he says.

Akira's more than happy to do that, because even if the bugs in the cafe are apparently going down, the message he'd just gotten make him wonder if it's possible for the person to be watching through his phone, too. Probably. It does have a camera, so it doesn't feel like a huge stretch to think that someone better with computers than he is could figure out a way of using it to watch what's going on.

He follows Kaoru until they're around a corner, just a couple of people loitering on Yongen-Jaya's streets. Then Akira starts explaining, as quietly as possible, what he'd seen. Kaoru listens to the whole thing, occasionally nodding, then says, "You shouldn't stay here."

"I think I kind of have to," Akira says. "I mean... the probation and everything."

"I know," Kaoru says. "But this is a dangerous place for you, specifically, to be right now. How much of what you and your friends have been doing have you talked about in that building?"

Akira takes a deep breath. "A lot," he says. "And not just that. When Katsuya and Maya told me about what happened in 1999, they did it on the phone while I was in my room there."

Kaoru swears.

"I awoke my Persona downstairs," Akira says.

"So we have to assume that whoever this person is," Kaoru says. "They not only have all the information we do about Persona and demons, but they also have the information they need to literally end reality."

Akira nods. Katsuya and Maya had explained to him what had happened in 1999. They'd explained to him why he absolutely can't tell any of the people that had been involved and don't remember. They'd told him who doesn't remember.

So they'd told all that to the hacker.

"Look," Kaoru says. "I'm going to figure out who this is."

"Can you?" Akira asks.

"Don't underestimate me, kid," Kaoru says. "That's the reason I came to Tokyo, and I'm still planning on doing that. In the meantime, you need to keep your nose down, and not say anything else that might give this person more information."

"I can do that," Akira says.

"And tell your friends what happened," Kaoru says. "As soon as you can, today if possible, but don't use your phone. Especially anyone that's been there and might have had their phone hacked too."

Akira forces a smile. "Good thing I'm not too good at making friends," he says. "That's not too many people."

Kaoru pats him on the shoulder. "There's nothing wrong with being a loner," he says. "It just means the people that do get close are worth keeping around."

"Sure," Akira says.

"Don't tell Maya I said that," Kaoru says. "She'll take it the wrong way and I'll never get any of them to leave me alone."

Akira gives him a slightly more real smile. "I'll see Ryuji and Ann at school tomorrow," he says. "And then I can see Yusuke after that."

"Leave your phone with me," Kaoru says. "I'll get rid of whatever spyware's on there, put up some better security, and bring it back to you in a couple days. But until I figure out who got in there in the first place, I don't want you talking about anything sensitive on it."

"Okay," Akira says. "Oh, um--do you think that when you have my phone, you can look at the metanav?"

"I've been wanting to see it ever since Maya told me about it," Kaoru says.

"And maybe you can mention that it's suspicious and you have no idea what it's doing there or what it's for when you give it back?" Akira says. "Because Morgana's already worried about you seeing it, so I think that would make him feel better."

"Sure," Kaoru says. "But you should be more worried about our hacker getting access to the metanav than you are about what your cat thinks about me seeing it."

"He's not a cat," Akira says reflexively.

"That I can't help you with," Kaoru says. "But I'll get your phone back to you as soon as I can."

-//-

Tatsuya -

Turns out this might be the only safe way I have of talking to anyone right now. Kaoru took my phone away because someone hacked it.

Although I guess they also have cameras, so they probably saw all these letters I've been writing too. 

I really hate this. Kaoru found bugs, cameras, all over this place. My phone got hacked, Katsuya and Maya's did, the hacker got into their computers I guess from info they got from there. They're probably have the Phantom Thieves' info too. It's just... a different way of not feeling safe, you know? And I can't fight back against this stuff I don't understand.

It's really frustrating. Sometimes I just remember that I'm in a whole other universe, and today is definitely one of those days.

- Akira

-//-

May 2016

-//-

Nobody takes the news that Leblanc is bugged very well at all. 

Akira explains what had happened to Ryuji and Ann before classes start the next day, and both of them are outraged. Not at him, he's relieved to see. But they're upset, and then they're worried, and then during lunch they sneak onto the lunch and have a tense discussion about what to do  next, in which absolutely nothing is resolved. Ann wants to see if Kaoru will look at their phones too. Ryuji's is probably safe, but she's been in Leblanc, and if the hacker is after Phantom Thieves, she'd be a target. Ryuji says that's way too dangerous because they'd be literally handing phones with the metanav on them to an adult. Morgana points out that he already has Akira's phone, at which point the conversation spirals unhelpfully into worrying about what's going to happen when he finds the metanav.

"I... actually asked him to look at it," Akira admits.

"Why?" Ryuji demands.

"Because--" He wavers. Everyone else is already upset. "He was going to see it anyway. I figured I could just say it was weird and he'd be less suspicious than if I tried to hide it."

"That's true," Ann muses. "And it's not like it's obvious what it is, anyway. The only thing you have saved in there is Madarame's Palace and Mementos, right?"

Akira nods.

"Well that's not too bad," Ann says. "You're friends with Yusuke, you can probably make something up about why his address is there. And Mementos doesn't really mean anything unless you already know about it."

"Unless we change Madarame's heart and he starts asking questions," Ryuji says.

"It's still a big stretch," Ann argues. "Anyway, maybe this is a good thing. We might end up finding out more about the metanav."

"Some random adult might end up finding out more about the metanav," Ryuji corrects.

"He's not just any random guy," Akira says. "He's known my dad and Maya for like twenty years. They've, um... sort of been through a lot."

"Sure," Ryuji says. "But just because you know him, it doesn't mean we all know him, right? I just feel like if we're going to tell people, we should all agree on it."

Morgana scoffs. "You talk about how cool it would be if girls knew you were one of the Phantom Thieves all the time," he says.

"That's different," Ryuji says. "I never actually told any of them. And I wouldn't unless we were way more famous." He pauses, then adds, "And if everyone agreed."

Akira exchanges a glance with Ann, who also looks unconvinced by this. 

"He might not even figure anything out anyway," Akira says. 

"Let's hope for that," Morgana says. "There's no point worrying about it right now anyway."

"And in the meantime," Ann says. "I need to figure out what to do about my phone."

The conversation rolls back around to this, which is a lot easier because nobody's saying that Leblanc being bugged is Akira's fault. They don't get anywhere productive by the end of lunch, and as far as Akira knows--Kaoru still has his phone--there's no more conversation in the group chat either.

Which means that things are still unsettled when he collects Morgana from Ann's desk, and heads to Madarame's house.

It's weird to just be able to go up to the front door, after so much time creeping around in the Palace. But today he's just... someone that knows Yusuke, showing up at his house unannounced to apologize for the fact that being at Leblanc might have gotten Yusuke's phone hacked. 

...it's pretty nerve-wracking now that he's actually about to do it.

He rings the bell, and after an anxious minute or so, Yusuke answers.

"Hi," Akira says. 

"Akira?"

"Okay," Akira says, all in a rush because he's actually sort of nervous by this point. "So I know this is weird, but this friend of my dad's showed up at Leblanc last night because my dad's computer got hacked into, and he tracked the hacker out to Yongen-Jaya so he figured it might have something to do with me, and it turns out there's this whole system of bugs and whatever that are letting someone get access to anyone's phone if they've been there. And obviously you have been, so I wanted to come over and let you know, and also apologize."

Yusuke blinks in response to this, which is fair. Akira doesn't think he's ever said so much to  Yusuke all at once. Then he shrugs. "Oh," he says. "Well... I don't think there's anything on my phone that's important."

"Okay," Akira says. "But... either way. I wanted you to know."

Yusuke nods seriously. "Do you want to come in?" he asks, waving in a vague gesture back into the house. 

Akira hesitates, then nods. He's a little caught off guard (but massively grateful) by Yusuke's calm reaction. And now that he's standing here on the doorstep, it just sort of feels rude to come here, blurt out everything he'd just said, and then leave right away. And... also he's sort of curious about what the house looks like inside, compared to what he's seen in the Palace.

The answer, it turns out, is that it's basically the exact opposite of Madarame's Palace. Where that's looming and opulent, stuffed with art and treasure, this is open and empty. The wooden floors creak as Akira follows Yusuke back through a hallway to a room at the back of the house. It looks like it might have been nice once, several years ago, but the passage of time has worn it down. Overall the building just feels... tired. Akira doesn't think he'd like to live there.

At some point he feels his bag get suddenly lighter, and when he turns around he sees that Morgana's jumped down and is creeping his quiet way across the wooden floor. He's not a cat, as he loves reminding them all, but he does move as quietly as one. Akira makes a face at him but Morgana seems to intentionally not look a him as he hurries away.

"Is something wrong?" Yusuke asks.

"Huh?" He turns around, and shakes his head. "Oh. No. I just zoned out for a second." Morgana knows what he's doing, and if he wants to wander off to go see something, then... hopefully he can take care of himself, because honestly Akira has no idea what he's planning.

Yusuke takes him to a room that's cluttered with art supplies and half finished paintings. In the back of the room is a folded up futon, so Akira assumes this is where Yusuke's sleeping, too. He gives the futon a disapproving look (because Yusuke deserves better), but then his attention is caught by Yusuke gesturing him enthusiastically over to see what he's been working on.

Akira hasn't had a chance to see any of Yusuke's art, so he's curious. 

"This looks... sad," he says. Then, "Sorry, I don't think... that wasn't a great thing to say."

"No," Yusuke says. "I think you're right. It's really not very happy at all."

"What's it supposed to be?" Akira asks. The painting is just abstract enough for it to be hard for him to tell for sure.

Yusuke doesn't answer right away. His head is tilted to one side, considering his own art like he's never seen it before. "It's not very good," he says. "That's what it is."

"Oh," Akira says. "I mean, I don't think that's true."

"I do," Yusuke says. His voice is flat, and unhappy. "I haven't been able to make anything good for a while. Everything just comes out... wrong."

"Have you tried taking a break?" Akira asks.

Yusuke gives him a scandalized look. "I would never," he says. Then his expression droops. "And Sensei wouldn't want that, anyway. He believes in me, and I can't let him down."

Akira hesitates. Then he asks, "You don't think he'd be disappointed to know you're having a hard time?" he asks.

Yusuke looks at him. The expression on his face is agony, and something twists in Akira's chest. He's only wanted to help Yusuke, ever since he first saw him in the subway, hungry and... sad. Now that he knows why Yusuke is sad, he only wants to help more. Because he doesn't think Yusuke can see it. He's blind when it comes to Madarame, he can't--or won't--help himself.

And there are so few chances Akira has to actually help other people himself. He can support the Phantom Thieves' plans, but he's just one person there, and he doesn't really know how much he's really contributing, compared to everyone else.

(Maybe, if he could figure out what to say to the Shadows when they try to talk to him)

(But he's still struggling, still hasn't found the Shadow that wants to hear what he has to say)

"I just have to keep trying," Yusuke says. "Sensei is counting on me."

"Yusuke..."

Akira isn't sure what he would have said if he'd been given a chance to finish, but he doesn't get the chance. He's barely managed to get Yusuke's name out before there's a shout, and then a yowl, and both of them turn toward the door.

"Sensei?" Yusuke asks, sounding puzzled.

"Mona," Akira says, not puzzled at all. He rushes toward the door and Yusuke follows, only a step behind. Akira doesn't know where he's going, but it's not hard to follow the sounds coming from the other side of the house. He comes to the end of a hallway, skidding to a stop in front of Madarame (recognizable as a less flamboyant version of the Shadow they've seen in his Palace) cornering Morgana against...

Against a door with the same distinctive design as the one they'd seen in the Palace.

Akira sucks in a breath. The door is open, there are scratches around the lock, and he knows Morgana well enough by now to put two and two together, and realize Morgana's been busy picking the lock. 

"Look!" Morgana shouts. "Look, Akira, I knew there had to be something connected to the door in here!"

"What's going on?" Yusuke asks, voice raised slightly over Morgana's yowling, and Madarame seems to realize suddenly that he and Akira are here. He turns, making an almost desperate gesture. 

"It's nothing, my boy," he says. "Nothing at all! Go back to your studio and wait there for me." His gaze flicks sideways to Akira, and adds, "We can discuss you bringing your friend in here later."

Morgana is still shouting too, adding to the chaos of the scene, and then he suddenly turns and darts through the open door into the room on the other side. Akira follows without thinking, and on the other side is a room full of lined up canvases.

Madarame shouts behind them, and Morgana laughs.

"You're enjoying this way too much," Akira mutters. He glances over his shoulder, at where he can hear Yusuke asking confused questions, and Madarame trying to get him to turn around and leave with increasing desperation. 

"Yeah well why aren't you?" Morgana asks. "Come on, there has to be something in this room he doesn't want anyone to see! Listen to how crazy it's making him that we got the door open!"

"That's exactly why I'm not excited," Akira says. "Maybe we should just go."

"Are you kidding?" Morgana says. He looks around, then spots the only canvas that's covered, standing alone on an easel. "Hey, what do you think he's working on?"

This reminds Akira of something Yusuke had mentioned to him a few days ago. "Nothing," he says. "Supposedly. He's supposed to have some kind of art block or something."

"Hmm," Morgana says, and rears up on his back legs to bat at the fabric covering the canvas with one paw.

It slides off, just as the conversation behind them escalates to a crescendo, and Yusuke pokes his head in the door, with Madarame just behind him.

And Yusuke, in a tone of voice Akira has never heard from him before, says, "The Sayuri."

"It's not what it looks like," Madarame says, but his voice screams that he's lying. "Yusuke!"

"This painting was stolen," Yusuke says, striding into the room. "Years ago. Sensei, you said..." He turns--

"No!" Madarame barks.

--and pulls out a canvas at random from the shelf next to him. An apparently perfect copy of the same painting Morgana has just unveiled stares back at all of them.

"I don't..." Yusuke looks around at all of them, and he sounds broken in a way that Akira relates to deep down in his bones. This is how he had felt when he saw the Velvet Room door had vanished from Sumaru. "I can't understand this."

"There's nothing going on here," Madarame says. "Nothing at all."

"No," Yusuke says. "This is the real Sayuri." He points to the canvas on the easel. "I know this painting, and that's not a copy. This is, though." He jabs a finger to the painting he's just pulled out. "How many others are?"

"None of them," Madarame says urgently.

"Wanna bet?" Morgana asks. "Akira, hey! Look at another one!"

Akira, feeling slightly numb, walks across the room and pulls another one out at random. Another identical copy of the same painting.

"Sensei," Yusuke says. "What... did you do?"

As if the question is a switch, Madarame suddenly drops his urgent act. There's a coldness on his face that Akira recognizes from his Shadow. "I'm sorry to have to do this, my boy," he says. "But you leave me no choice. If you refuse to listen, I have no choice but to call the police."

"Uh," Akira says. "Wait--"

"This is a clear example of trespassing," Madarame says. "I took you in, housed you, fed you, clothed you, and this is how you thank--"

"Fed him?" Akira demands. "You're starving him."

He doesn't know why his brain decides this is the right time to interject, except that it's a lie. He's not taking care of Yusuke. Tatsuya has done a better job of taking care of Akira back home, in the kinds of conditions that Madarame wouldn't have lasted a day in. 

"I don't approve of your new friends, Yusuke," Madarame says, ignoring Akira's outburst. "Or if the attitude you've been developing. Leave this room now, or I'll call my security company."

Akira looks at Yusuke, who looks back at him. They make eye contact, and Akira knows in that moment, that Yusuke is a friend. Because he can read Yusuke's heartbreak and horror on his face, and even if Akira doesn't exactly understand the nuance of why he feels like that, he does know that he's going to stick by Yusuke's friend.

It's strange, but good, to realize that this is a friend that isn't a part of the Phantom Thieves, and is just... someone he's decided all on his own to care about.

And suddenly Akira feels a surge of power, almost but not exactly the same as when he'd first awoken Arsene. Something rushing through him, strengthening him, and a tiny, whispering voice explaining that this is the power of the Emperor Arcana. 

...which makes absolutely no sense to Akira, except that a gut instinct that it's good.

The moment lasts too long. Madarame grows impatient, and makes his call.

Akira looks at Yusuke again, and the two of them bolt, with Morgana hot on their heels.

"He has a contract with a security firm," Yusuke says. "Because of the paintings he keeps in the house. Supposedly they have a response time of three minutes."

"That's too fast," Akira says. "Even if we get out of here, we can't get out of the neighborhood in three minutes."

"I know," Yusuke says. "But I don't understand... I don't know why he would do something like..." He trails off, and shakes his head. 

"Hey!" Morgana calls. "Akira, I think..." 

Akira slows, and looks back down at him.

"I think I have an idea," Morgana says. "Trust me."

And Akira does. He nods, and Morgana wastes no time. He leaps, straight up at Akira's chest, who catches him more on instinct than because of anything intentional, staggering back into Yusuke as he does so.

And the world melts.

Into the Palace.

-//-

May 2016

-//-

Exactly what happens in the Palace that day is something that Akira never tells anyone else about in any kind of detail. What Yusuke has to go through, right after the betrayal by Madarame in the real world, seems much too personal. He and Morgana race through the Palace with Yusuke in tow, out through the newly opened doors that had blocked them before, back toward the exit, and safety. The two of them watch are there when Yusuke sees something that distracts him, and veers away. They're with him as he stops, standing still as a statue, looking up at the cognitive painting of himself alongside all of Madarame's other pupils, but... it's only because they happen to be the ones to take him inside. Not, Akira feels deep down, because they have any inherent right to be there.

No one has a right to be there but Yusuke.

Him and his shattered view of the person he believes in most.

The depths of Yusuke's devastation are his own business. Akira never tells anyone how bad it had been for him to go through the Palace that day, and as far as he knows, neither does Morgana.

When they run into Madarame's Shadow, triggering Yusuke to awaken a Persona, that they tell the other Thieves, in the same conversation that Morgana explains how cool he'd been to figure out a safe way for them all to escape the house, even bringing Akira and Yusuke in with him. It's also the same conversation where Akira apologizes fervently for bringing Yusuke in without talking to anyone else first, until Ryuji and Ann assure him that they would have done the same thing for a friend in that situation.

("Anyway," Ryuji tells him. "Morgana's the one that went and did it, so if it doesn't work out, we can blame him")

("More like you'll be thanking me," Morgana sniffs)

But still. Even then, Akira never shares how shattered Yusuke had been in the moments before his awakening. Or how he'd broken down and cried when they went back to the real world, on the subway heading to Leblanc.

Akira is half expecting Kaoru to be there waiting for them when he brings Yusuke in, but it's just Sojiro, working on closing up the cafe. He calls for Akira to come back for a second when Akira tries to go up with Yusuke, so he does.

"I was going to ask if it was okay," he says. "I just wanted to get Yusuke upstairs first, his guardian blew up at him today, and he needs a safe place to--"

"I'm not worried about that," Sojiro says. He seems gruffer than usual, but he's also not looking at Akira. It makes him seem... weirdly, almost apologetic. "I just wanted to let you know that what happened yesterday, with the bugs and everything--you don't need to worry about it anymore."

Akira squints, doubtful but not willing to express this out loud.

"Your parents' friend was out here all afternoon," Sojiro says. "Driving me up the wall, but he says he found all the existing bugs. And there's not going to be any more."

"How do you know?" Akira asks.

"I'm going to be a lot more careful about keeping an eye on things from now on," Sojiro says. "And you'll be here at night, so there's no way anyone can break in and hide bugs in secret."

"Okay," Akira says. "But I mean... I don't really want to think about people breaking in here to try, you know?"

"I'm..." He sighs. "Look, it's not going to happen again. Just--I'm not saying I know who did it, but hypothetically, I might guess that the person just wanted to feel a little safer."

"Safer," Akira repeats. "By... planting bugs in a random cafe?"

"Well," Sojiro says. He still won't look at Akira. "You know. Sometimes a person just... wants to feel connected to parts of the world they can't get to themselves."

Akira stares at him. Today has been too long of a day. He doesn't have any brain left to figure this out.

"You're safe here," Sojiro says. "That's all I wanted to say." He glances up at the ceiling, toward the attic overhead, and adds, "And if your friend needs to stay a couple nights... well... what's the harm."

"Thank you," Akira says.

"Your phone's upstairs, by the way," Sojiro says. "He left it up there when he was done tinkering with it."

Akira nods, and goes upstairs. Yusuke is already passed out on the sofa, and Akira looks at him for a long minute. He'd wanted to talk to Yusuke before he fell asleep, to warn him that he's sharing a room with the worst roommate ever. Looks like he's missed that chance.

Morgana's curled up on his cat bed, watching Akira through one open eye.

Akira takes a deep breath. He goes to his school bag. Normally, he'd take the knife he'd carried into the Palace, and move it under his pillow to sleep with. Tonight, because Yusuke has had enough trauma for one day, and because Akira's not going to wake him up to warn him that being stabbed is a possibility, Akira does not do that. Instead he closes his bag, and turns it intentionally to face away from the bed. Not that the direction makes a difference, but it feels like a definite decision.

"Are you going to be okay?" Morgana whispers.

"I think I'll have to be tonight," Akira says. He keeps his own voice low too, and his eyes drift back over to Yusuke. He tries not to think about what Sojiro had just said about people breaking in to plant bugs. He'd also said that wouldn't happen, right? "You'll be here too."

"Of course," Morgana says. "If anyone comes in, I'll make them regret it before they ever get to you."

...he's curled up into a tiny ball of fluff about the size of a loaf of bread, on a cat bed about twice as big as he is.

It should not be as reassuring as it actually is to hear him say that he'll be there tonight as a protector.

"Thanks," Akira says, and means it.

He turns off the light in the attic, crosses the room back to the bed, and for the first time in five years, he goes to sleep without a weapon in easy reach. 

Chapter Text

The next time Akira goes into Madarame's Palace with the Phantom Thieves, the mood is significantly brighter than it had been in their last visit. For one thing, the door that had been blocking their way forward is open now. They're no longer closed off from the Treasure, they can actually reach their goal. And for another thing, there's five of them fighting together now. Akira feels like there's a little bit less pressure on him when he's one person out of five in the group, instead of one out of four. It's easier to slip into the background, especially with Yusuke starting to open up more.

(Which is... it's own unexpectedly weird thing)

(It's just that when they'd first met, Akira had pretty much been the only one reaching out to Yusuke, and now that they're all getting to know each other as a group, he sort of feels jealous? He thinks? It's something new that he hasn't felt before)

And then, just as they're starting to talk about heading out for the day and coming back tomorrow to finish, or whether they should push through the short distance Morgana says is left before they get to the Treasure, Yusuke looks over at Akira.

"What do the Shadows keep trying to say to you when we fight?" he asks.

"We don't know," Ryuji says, before Akira has a chance to say anything. "They've been doing it since Akira joined though, it's super weird. They weren't doing it when it was just me and Mona and Panther."

"That is strange," Yusuke agrees. "You really don't know what they're saying, Joker?"

As always, Akira cringes a little at the codename. Maybe that's why he's thrown off enough that he answers a little more honestly than he'd intended. "They want to come with us."

"That's fucked up," Ryuji says. "Why would we want Shadows to come with us?"

Akira hesitates, because Ryuji's answer had been so dismissive, but reminds himself that he's the only one that knows it's even possible to talk to Shadows, never mind get new Persona from them. "Maybe," he says cautiously. "Something good could happen if we could... I don't know. Figure out a deal with them or something."

"The Shadows are pretty powerful," Morgana says. "If we could work with some of them, it might give us a big leg up."

"It's still weird," Ryuji says. "I mean, Shadows are the enemy, right? otherwise we wouldn't be fighting them all the time."

Akira makes a mental note to never tell him that people used to call them demons.

"Maybe if we tried talking," he says. "We wouldn't have to be fighting them all the time?" It comes out as a question, even though that isn't really how he'd meant it.

"You should try it," Morgana says. "Then we'll know for sure, one way or the other."

Ryuji shrugs and then nods. "Worth a shot," he says. "Think you can give it a shot, Joker?"

(It's getting more reflexive, at least, to hide the way it makes his face twist up when he hears that)

"I've tried before," he says. "But if there's a Shadow that seems like..." He thinks of Katsuya's visit out here, and what they'd talked about. "If they seem like they want to hear something that I have to say, I can try it again. I want to see what happens too."

So that's something he keeps an eye--and an ear--out for going forward. He's not expecting to find a Shadow he thinks he can handle right away, not after all this time and all these failures, but there is something different in knowing that he'll have people backing him up this time, instead of looking at him like he's messed up and weird. 

Or else maybe it's just a coincidence that this is when he hears a Shadow whispering something that he feels like he understands. Because that's what happens, in what turns out to be the last fight of the day, after they've pressed ahead and found the Treasure, and are turning back toward the exit. It's just a Shadow that sounds lonely, and scared, and maybe it doesn't say anything too good about him, but those are things he's felt before, and understands now. 

"Hey," he says to the Shadow.

It's hurt already, it hadn't been willing to talk until the hurt took out all the fight that was left in it. 

"Do you need somewhere safe to stay?" Akira asks. "Because if you do, you can stay with me."

Something passes between them. A moment of understanding, and of recognition. Then the Shadow's eyes widen, and it says, "Oh, that's right!"

"Um," Akira says. "What is?"

"I remember now," the Shadow says, and then it's--not there, anymore. Not exactly. But Akira's mask feels heavy across his eyes, and he can feel the difference of suddenly, unexpectedly, carrying two Persona inside him. He jerks back, as if that's going to help him get away from what's going on in his own head, but it's not exactly a bad feeling. Just a surprise, because this isn't what he'd expected at all. What he'd heard from Katsuya and Maya is that talking to Shadows (or demons, or whatever) make them willing to bargain, and trade cards, that can then be used to summon Persona from the Velvet Room.

This is that Shadow in his head as a Persona already. Just like that. Akira tilts his head back and curls a hand around his mask, pulling it away from his face and summoning this new Persona. Just as easily as he's gotten used to summoning Arsene. 

"How did you do that?" Ann asks.

The new Persona vanishes. Akira blinks, and looks back at the group, who are all looking at him with various expressions of shock on their faces.

He shrugs.

"Geeze," Ryuji says, shaking his head. "That's crazy."

"At least it seems like a good thing after all," Morgana says. He's the fastest one to get over his surprise, and now just seems excited. "This is so cool! I wonder how many other Persona you can get like this?"

"I don't know," Akira says. 

"This is going to make it so much easier to fight," Morgana says. "That Persona doesn't have the same attacks as Arsene, right?"

Akira shrugs and shakes his head.

"That's so cool!"

"I..."

"Okay," Ryuji says, jumping in with a very much needed rescue from a conversation Akira doesn't know how to continue. "How about we get out of here for today and figure this out later?"

"Yes please," Akira says immediately.

"Cool," Ryuji says. "So I guess we'll meet up and talk about this tomorrow?" 

"We need to figure out the calling card too," Ann says. "Maybe Fox can help make it look a little nicer."

"I would be happy to," Yusuke says.

"What's wrong with how the first one looked?" Ryuji asks.

None of the other three that had been there for Kamoshida's Palace answers him, or makes eye contact with any of the others.

-//-

-//-

[secure conversation log]

[Baofu has entered the chat]

[Baofu has added Alibaba to the chat]

Baofu: I know your first instinct is going to be to leave and burn this account, but I think you should really consider hearing me out

Baofu: You're Medjed, right?

Baofu: And you live with Sojiro Sakura in Yongen-Jaya, in Tokyo. Your actual IP address is tied to the house

[Alibaba has left the chat]

-//-

Tatsuya -

I did it! I guess Katsuya was right, it just took finding the right Shadow to talk to. It feels really good to have it figured out, I guess? Or just... to know that I can do that. Like, there's nothing wrong with me that's stopping me from being able to connect with the Shadows. And it was kind of starting to feel like there was.

And I didn't even have to go to the Velvet Room to summon the new Persona, which is great because... I mean, obviously I don't want to go there right now, so this just worked out. Like, it worked out perfectly, and things never work out perfectly, so it's just nice that it did for once.

I really want to talk to someone about this, but it's weird with the Phantom Thieves because then what if they have questions about why the Shadows will only talk to me (still have no clue about that by the way, unless it's because the Velvet Room's gone now or something?). And I can't call home, or call Yu or anything, because I don't think I completely trust that whoever hacked everything before to not be able to get back into my phone.

So I'm telling you. I did it!!

- Akira

-//-

June 2016

-//-

He should have known better than to think that things are actually going okay for him for once, to be honest. He really should have known better, because when do they ever? And after today's major victory comes another setback that's just as big. Because he goes to bed, falls asleep with the sound of Yusuke and Morgana talking from across the room, and wakes up in the Velvet Room.

All the confidence in him drains in an instant. He opens his eyes, realizes immediately where he is, and feels something like despair roar into him, a wave of fear and frustration that feels like it's aimed right at the place in his heart where he's starting to find hope again. 

It's crazy, but he's sort of managed to forget how horrible it is here. Like a part of his brain is just in denial that this place he's always counted on has been taken over, hijacked and blown to pieces. Now that he's back here, the chaos is impossible to ignore, and he remembers with painful clarity exactly what's at stake.

"You have been growing stronger," says the voice Akira had never wanted to hear again. "How far will you force yourself to go, I wonder?"

Akira forces himself to stand, to turn, and to face the raging chaos.

"How high will you climb?" the voice asks. "Even knowing that the height will gain you nothing but increased pain when you inevitably fall?"

Akira wraps a hand around the bar of his cell, and tries to pretend it's not because he needs the help to keep himself standing. He doesn't say anything--it's too too easy, when he's afraid, to go silent. And that's what happens now.

"Stupid child," the voice says, and the words hit too close to home. He doesn't know that he feels exactly stupid, but he does feel... slow, a lot of the time. Two or three steps behind everyone else. And he doesn't think that any of the people in his life would ever actually say that to his face, but what if they're thinking it? Why wouldn't they be thinking it? Why wouldn't they want someone that fits in better, that knows This Side better, that trusts people?

"You realize that you're a drain on everyone around you," the voice says. "Unable to do anything for yourself. Attached to your mother like a parasite until you'd taken every ounce of life force from her."

Akira flinches and turns his head, as if he'd been hit. He can still remember the day she died. Or maybe he can just remember the nightmares of it that he still hasn't managed to leave behind completely, even after fourteen years. Being tiny and helpless and hungry, completely dependent on the one person that had clung to him until she couldn't, until he'd been left lying alone in the empty cold of a dead woman's arms.

"Still reliant on anyone that pitied you enough to offer you shelter."

Tatsuya, who had gone hungry too many times to make sure Akira has food. And Katsuya, Maya, stuck dealing with his school and his baggage and the growing distance between him and what every other kid his age can handle. Even Sojiro, who definitely would have been happier to not have Akira with him for an entire year.

Akira hunches his shoulder and bows his head, tightening his grip on the bar of his cell until the knuckles turn white. 

"You can still surrender now," the voice says. "Save yourself the pain of falling farther."

Akira shakes his head, not looking up. "No," he says. 

"Do you so badly want to be hurt?" 

"No." This time his voice is quieter. "But that's my whole life. If this is just one more thing that's going to hurt me, I can take that."

There's a tiny, barely perceptible change in the atmosphere around him. Akira has the sense that whoever this power is, he doesn't like that answer. Doesn't like that Akira isn't reacting to the threat he's chosen to use.

"Is that so," he says.

If only he knew that his threats are digging down deep into the worst of Akira's doubts about himself, unearthing all the things Akira tries not to think about.

(Stupid child)

(Cold, dead arms around him)

Digging into them so well that Akira is crumbling, remembering everything he's been through so far that hurts as much as it sounds like this invader is promising him he's going to hurt. Akira doesn't raise his voice, doesn't speak above a whisper, doesn't think he could have if he'd wanted to. "If you want to hurt me then you can," he says. "I know you can. I'm easy to break. But if it needs to happen, at least it's only happening to me. It doesn't really matter if it comes from you or from something else in my life."

(Parasite)

The atmosphere shifts again, and there's definite anger in the air now. Which is terrifying, because if everything that's happened so far is without any real anger, Akira doesn't want to know what's going to come next.

"If that is your choice," the voice says. "Then so be it. We shall move forward."

"F--" He swallows hard, because there's something in his throat making it hard to say anything. "Forward where?"

"That would be your decision," the voice says. "As a guest of this room, you are entitled to a process called fusions."

Akira doesn't recognize what this means. It's not something that had been happening in 1999. He hesitates, not sure how to even react to this.

"You have begun the process of recruiting Shadows into Persona," the voice says, and it sounds sickeningly smooth. It sets Akira's teeth on edge, and he braces for whatever's going to happen next. "You have two now."

This is not a question. Akira doesn't answer it.

"If you give those Persona up to me," the voice says. "I can put them through an execution process to make them into something new."

The word execution tears a reaction from Akira. A loud sound without words, a noise of actual horror. He can't imagine giving up Arsene, giving up any Persona, to whoever this is, and to kill them? It's unimaginable. Akira snatches his hand back from the bars and almost falls over himself in his rush to back away. "No," he says. "That's--it's never going to happen."

"We will see," the voice says.

"No!"

He's horrified, and scared, and he just wants to wake up--

And then suddenly he does. His eyes fly open, and he's never been as happy to see the attic room over Leblanc as he is right now. For a second the relief is so strong that he doesn't even register that there's someone standing in the dark in front of his bed. Doesn't notice, in fact, until the someone asks, "Are you alright?"

Akira's heartrate jumps. Then settles. "Yusuke?" he asks. It takes him two tries to force his shaking arms to push himself up, and in the end he only manages to sit, curled up against the wall with his knees pulled up to his chest. His eyes are adjusting to the darkness, and he makes out Yusuke's slight incline of his head. 

"You were making noises in your sleep," Yusuke says. "Morgana keeps warning me that you shouldn't be woken up, so I've just been waiting."

"You've just... been standing there watching me have nightmares?" Akira asks. 

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

(Stupid child)

(Parasite)

(Cold, dead arms around him)

"Do you want to sleep alone?" Yusuke asks. "When I was younger and had nightmares, the other students would sleep nearby."

"I'm not a child," Akira says.

"But you're having nightmares."

Akira wishes they were just nightmares.

"I've been sleeping badly too," Yusuke says. "I don't want to go back to living with Sensei, but I miss home. I keep dreaming of being back there, when I was younger. And I'm happy." He shrugs. "Except that it's Sensei's Shadow that's there. And he says things."

Akira doesn't ask what things. If Yusuke wants to tell him, he will. If he doesn't, that's his business. Instead he says, "Do you want to just... sit here?"

It takes a little while for the two of them to find a way to sit comfortably together on the narrow bed. They end up side by side, shoulders just barely touching. Yusuke is significantly taller than Akira, and that's sort of nice, honestly. To sit there in the dark with someone else, someone he's fought with side by side, to feel a little bit safer, and know it's because of the person next to him.

"What are your nightmares about?" Yusuke asks him, and Akira sucks in a breath.

"I don't think I can tell you," he says.

Yusuke says nothing for a while. Then, just when Akira thinks he's given up, he asks, "What color is it?"

"What?"

"If you don't want to tell me you don't have to," Yusuke says. "But sometimes it helps me to understand things if I think about them as art."

Akira smiles, knowing Yusuke won't see it in the dark. "But you're an artist," he points out. "I'm not."

"That doesn't mean that what you see isn't worth sharing."

Akira doesn't really understand that. But at least it's not the same as explaining the Velvet Room. It's a way of talking about it without talking about it, and who knows. Maybe that will help.

"...it should have been blue," he says, slowly. 

"But it wasn't?"

"No. Or... yes?" Because the Velvet Room he'd dreamed of had still been the same blue he'd gotten so used to over the past ten years. "It was blue," he says. "But it was... dark, and broken."

"As if something about it had stained the color itself," Yusuke muses.

It's not the way Akira would have phrased it, but maybe it's a little bit right. The Velvet Room's cool, calm blue has always been comforting. And it's still there, but all the comfort has been stripped away. Like the good in it has all been drained. "Maybe that's it," he says.

"Well don't worry," Yusuke says. "Your colors will come back. Nightmares don't last forever."

"I hope you're right," Akira says.

But quietly, he doubts it. The Velvet Room isn't going to just magically fix itself because he wants it to. It's not going to get better unless he can figure out what's going on, all on his own, and then find a way to fix it. Hopefully he's right about being able to find answers in Mementos, because at least then he'll have the help of the Phantom Thieves to get down there, so at least there are people around to help him get to whatever answers there might be there to find.

After that, though? He's the only one that can get into the Velvet Room, and there's no reason to think anyone would believe him that it exists, much less want to help him find a way to make it right again.

He lets out a shuddering breath, and tastes something like salt. That's how he realizes he's close to crying. 

(Stupid child)

"I'm sorry I woke you up," he says. 

"You didn't do it on purpose," Yusuke says. He sounds honestly confused why Akira's apologizing. "Your dreams are the wrong color, right? That's not your fault."

He says this like it's the most natural thing in the world, and Akira wonders if this is how Madarame's other students used to talk to Yusuke about his nightmares, or if it's just his own way of looking at things. 

As if he'd read his mind, Yusuke says, "My dreams used to all be grey. When I was younger, I used to dream about my mother. I don't remember her, but I think..." His words are slow. "I was a child and I wanted a mother. But because I don't know her face, everything in my dreams was always grey." 

"You don't remember your mother at all?" Akira asks.

"I was very young when she died," Yusuke says.

"So was I," Akira says. 

(Cold, dead arms around him)

"My mother, I mean," Akira says. "Not yours."

"I didn't know your mother had died," Yusuke says. "Sojiro said she came out here with you when you came to Tokyo."

"That's Maya," Akira says. "My dad's partner. I don't remember anything about my mom except the day she died."

Yusuke nods. Like he understands. Which of course she does because his mom's gone too, had died when he was too young to really remember her. 

He doesn't say anything else, and neither does Akira. But at some point, Akira, without really wanting to, because he doesn't want to risk another dream about the Velvet Room, sort of falls asleep. He's not okay. He feels shattered from that dream, and the things that voice had said to him.

(Parasite)

(Stupid child)

(...but the person sitting next to him is warm, and alive)

The next morning Akira wakes up with his head on Yusuke's shoulder while Yusuke sleeps with his head back against the wall, slightly snoring. Morgana's standing on his cat bed on the other side of the room, giving the two of them a funny look.

Akira tries hard to pretend that everything's fine as he ducks away and starts getting ready for school. It's not until he's weighing whether to take his knife to school when he knows they're just going to be discussing the calling card after school, that he realizes he hadn't thought about pulling it out once last night.

-//-

[secure conversation log]

[Baofu has entered the chat]

[Baofu has added Alibaba to the chat]

Baofu: Alright, let's try this again

Baofu: I find missing people for a living

Baofu: I don't think that I'm necessarily the best at the job, but I've been doing it for a while now, and I know what I'm doing

Baofu: I've been looking into Sakura. I didn't think he was the one that left those bugs in his cafe, he didn't seem like he knew enough about what was going onto have been the one 

Alibaba: Go away

Baofu: But he has a daughter, doesn't he?

Alibaba: Go away!

Baofu: I can't do that, and I think you know why I can't do that

Baofu: You know things that you shouldn't

Alibaba: I'm not going to tell anyone

Alibaba: Just go away! You already took Leblanc away from me, isn't that enough?

[Alibaba has left the chat]

-//-

June 2016

-//-

Katsuya is at work when he gets a call from Kaoru.

"I know who Medjed is," Kaoru says, as soon as Katsuya picks up the phone. "Although she's apparently going by Alibaba online now."

Katsuya doesn't really care what the hacker is calling themselves (herself?) online. "What's her real name?" he asks.

"I'm not going to tell you," Kaoru says.

Katsuya is at his desk. He's holding his phone in his right hand. He buries his face in the palm of his other hand. "Why aren't you going to tell me?" he asks.

"Because you're a police detective," Kaoru says. "And I don't want you to find her."

Katsuya sighs. "You know what she knows," he says.

"Yeah," Kaoru says. "Yeah, I do. That's why I don't want her to feel threatened. By being reported to the police, for example."

"Then what was the point of--"

"I'm going to handle this," Kaoru says.

"But--"

"You trust me, right?"

Katsuya rolls his eyes under his hand. "You know I do," he says. "After everything."

"Then trust me with this," he says. "I'll handle it. I just wanted to let you know that I'm making progress."

He hangs up then, probably because he knows perfectly well that Katsuya has a hundred more questions for him, and he doesn't want to give Katsuya a chance to start the interrogation.

But damn it, he really wants to interrogate Kaoru right now.

He calls his friend three times before giving up because it's going straight to voicemail. He texts Akira to reassure himself that things are still going okay in Tokyo.

There's a long pause before Akira texts fine back at him, which could either mean anything between yes, things are actually fine but still struggling with texting, to he is literally on fire but doesn't want to talk about it. He's just starting to wonder if maybe it was a mistake to insist Akira learn to text, because at least if they were on the phone he could have tried to get a read from Akira's tone. He's just thinking about calling when Tatsuya comes over.

"Hey," he says. "Are we still doing lunch?"

Katsuya looks down at his phone, at that one word response from Akira, and the ignored calls to Kaoru, and realizes there's nothing he can do. He's not in Tokyo, and he's just going to have to trust the people that are. Kaoru knows how to find people through their computers. Akira...

Well, they'd talked about this. Katsuya's just going to have to hope that if Akira does need help, he's going to remember his promise to let them support him.

"Sure," he says, but can't fake any enthusiasm. 

Tatsuya looks down at the phone too, and apparently reads the name there. "Akira doing okay?" he asks.

Katsuya quickly reaches over to the phone and shuts the screen off. He and Akira haven't been talking about anything sensitive lately, and if there had been anything suspicious there he never would have kept his phone screen on. But it's still better safe than sorry. "I'm not really sure," he says. "I think he's having a hard time. But you know how he is. If he doesn't want to talk, it's like pulling teeth."

They start heading down for lunch. "He feels things really deeply," Tatsuya says.

"I know," Katsuya says.

"I've been worried about him," Tatsuya admits. "I didn't want to say anything to you because I know it must be harder on you, but he wasn't exactly... I mean, even before he was arrested, he was having a hard time."

"I know," Katsuya says again. "But I thought... I think we all thought he was doing well enough."

"I think he was," Tatsuya says. "I don't really know if he ever told you we've been spending time together, but I started teaching him to ride my motorcycle last year."

"Really, Tatsuya?"

(For a second, the conversation is easy--just the familiar old exasperation of having a little brother that never listens)

"Well, it helped me in high school to have that," Tatsuya says. "I knew his classmates were hassling him, and it was all I could think of to help. I showed up after he got out of school at the beginning of the year and surprised him, and we just kept meeting when it turned out he liked it."

Katsuya studies his brother for a few seconds, wondering why Akira would have kept going back. He can't imagine what it would have been like for him to be spending all that time with This Side's Tatsuya before going home to Tatsuya on the Other Side. Maybe it's a sign of Akira getting more comfortable with the knowledge that the two of them are--or have become, after all these years in different worlds--different people. The same history, the same foundation, but different.

It's something Katsuya still struggles with, if he's being honest. There's been a gulf between them that Katsuya doesn't know how to cross, ever since the day the Other Side's Tatsuya had gone home, and This Side's Tatsuya had woken up with two months he doesn't, and can't ever, remember.

Katsuya had lied to his brother's face that day. And he's kept lying ever since.

And maybe that's why the gulf is there. Even when they're working together. Even walking next to each other now, going to spend their lunch break together, there's just this distance that will probably be there as long as they're both alive.

"I've been thinking about going up there and seeing him," Tatsuya says. "I just don't know if it would help him."

Katsuya doesn't know either. But what he does know is that Akira's been separated from his home on the Other Side, and the Tatsuya of the Other Side, and there's a possibility that seeing the one here will only make things harder for him. "Maybe call first," he says. "Or text."

"Does he have a phone now?" Tatsuya asks.

"Finally," Katsuya says, cracking a smile. "It took literally moving to Tokyo on his own to convince him to get a cell phone, but we got there in the end."

"Weird kid," Tatsuya says, shaking his head. But there's fondness in his tone, an uncle caring about his nephew. 

It occurs to Katsuya that Tatsuya--and Jun, to be fair--are probably the only ones that really think this is a normal family. Struggling a little right now, because Akira had been falsely arrested for assault, but still a normal family unit, with Katsuya and Maya raising the boy they'd adopted as a son. Everyone else knows that Akira sees his true home as the Other Side's Sumaru City, and that the person that comes closest to family in his mind is the Other Side's Tatsuya. Everything else, really, is just... convenience. Getting Akira somewhere safe to stay, creating a legal identity for him in a world that cares about those things. Katsuya will never pretend that he doesn't care about Akira, but things just aren't that simple. 

"You're really worried, aren't you?" Tatsuya says, and Katsuya realizes he's been quiet for too long.

"Of course I am," he says. "That's my kid."

(Even if Akira's not his kid)

(Not really)

"Things will work out," Tatsuya tells him. "He's a weird kid, but I think he's stronger than he realizes."

"I think you're right," Katsuya says. "I hope so."

-//-

[secure chat log]

[Baofu has entered the chat]

[Baofu has added Alibaba to the chat]

[Baofu has added Alibaba to the chat]

[Baofu has added Akira_Suou to the chat]

Baofu: Akira, this is Alibaba. I won't tell you their real name because that's their choice, but they're the one that's been doing all the hacking

Baofu: Alibaba, this is Akira. I know you know about him already.

Alibaba: will you just stop doing this??

Alibaba: please

Baofu: I just think the two of you should talk

Baofu: Might do you both some good

[Baofu has left the chat]

Akira_Suou: Wait.

[Alibaba has left the chat]

Akira_Suou: What?

[Alibaba has entered the chat]

Alibaba: um

Alibaba: ...

Alibaba: what's it like 

Akira_Suou: I'm sorry but I'm really confused what's going on right now.

Alibaba: what's it like in your other reality?

Chapter Text

June 2016

-//-

Akira's breath catches as Alibaba's message flashes up on his screen, and the first thing he does is turn the phone off and throw his phone onto the other side of the bed. 

No one else is in the room. It's late, and Yusuke is downstairs in the closed cafe with Morgana, working out the last details of the calling card they're going to deliver to Madarame tomorrow. Up here, it's just Akira and his phone with some unknown person asking him about the Other Side.

He makes a noise, somewhere in the back of his throat.

His phone starts vibrating on his bed, and Akira reluctantly reaches over to look at who's calling, wary the same way as he would have been if it was a live snake. When he sees Kaoru's name on the caller ID, he relaxes very, very slightly. Enough to pick up, anyway.

"So..." he says. 

"I realized after I left the chat that you might be freaking out," Kaoru says. 

"So that was you, right?" Akira asks. "I mean... you weren't using your real name, so..."

"Right," Kaoru says. "Baofu's the name I've always used online."

"Okay," Akira says. "Okay, so that's... half of my questions answered."

"Right," Kaoru says. "The other person in that chat is the kid that bugged the place where you're staying."

"A kid?" Akira echoes.

"About your age," Kaoru says. "And honestly probably more afraid of you than you are of her."

"I seriously doubt that."

"You leave the house regularly," Kaoru says. 

"Oh," Akira says. "So that's..." He frowns. It's kind of hard to imagine what it would be like to not even be able to leave the house.

"Just try and have a conversation," Kaoru says. "I have a feeling that you're going to do a lot better in this case than I am."

"But what do I tell her?"

"Whatever you want," Kaoru says. "She knows everything anyway, there's not much point trying to keep secrets. Just... try to convince her not to tell anyone else, probably."

And then he just hangs up. And Akira has to figure out what to do with the fact that he's been left alone in the chat with Leblanc's hacker. 

[secure chat log]

Akira_Suou: Sorry. I'm not sure what to say.

Alibaba: ...

Alibaba: You could start with answering my question about your other reality

Akira_Suou: Oh right. That's a thing you asked about.

Akira_Suou: Maybe you could ask about something else?

Alibaba: ...

Akira_Suou: I mean, I know you know about it, but it's hard to talk about anyway. It's always been a secret, and I've only had to explain it once. And I actually got in a lot of trouble last time too.

Alibaba: Oh 

Alibaba: Okay

Alibaba doesn't say anything else for so long that Akira starts to wonder if the conversation is over. He hopes so. 

Except... Kaoru had said to try and convince... her? (he'd said try to convince her, so  maybe Alibaba is a she) not to tell anyone else. And Akira really hasn't done any of that, he's just tried to get out of talking at all. He probably needs to try. It's probably really important, because if he doesn't say anything, Alibaba could turn around and tell literally anyone in the world what she already knows.

[secure chat log]

Akira_Suou: Why do you want to know, anyway?

Alibaba: Well wouldn't you be curious? 

Akira_Suou: I don't know. I can't imagine not knowing about the Other Side, so it's hard to figure out how I would feel if I didn't know.

Alibaba: I don't know about it

Alibaba: And I'm really, really curious

Akira_Suou: Are you going to start telling people about it if I don't answer your questions?

Alibaba: ...no?

Alibaba: I just can't leave my room

Alibaba: So it's sort of nice to hear about things going on outside

Akira_Suou: Why can't you leave your room?

Alibaba: none of your business

Akira_Suou: Oh.

Alibaba: ...

Alibaba: agoraphobia

Like a shut in, then. It's hard to imagine being trapped in a tiny space like a bedroom all the time, and Akira feels a stab of pity go through him that he hadn't been expecting. Even with everything else that's gone wrong in his life, he's never lost the ability to get up and leave wherever he happens to be. He's even going to places this year that he never would have expected he'd be able to go to.  

He can't go home, but he can go to school, and Palaces, and...

Well, if he had anywhere else he wanted to go, he could have gone to those places. He'd gone to a hotel buffet with the Phantom Thieves. And Yusuke's house. He could probably go other places. If he wanted.

He can't go home. He's lost his whole world. So has Alibaba. She just happens to still live in the world that she's lost.

[secure chat log]

Akira_Suou: Most of the world on the Other Side is gone. It was destroyed before I was born, so I've only ever known the one city that survived. Sumaru City. It... I swear this is real, even though I know it sounds crazy, but it survived because it was was lifted off the surface before it was destroyed. It's a really dangerous place to live, but it's not as bad as it could be. The gangs pretty much never stop fighting long enough for things to be actually peaceful, and even when they do, there's still looters. Or people that are hungry enough to try anything. There's never enough food, and there's no electricity.

Alibaba: That sounds like the worst place I've ever heard of

Akira_Suou: No!

Alibaba: sorry

Akira_Suou: No, um.

Akira_Suou: I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that like I did, it's just that everyone always thinks the Other Side is horrible, but just because the world's ended doesn't mean there's nothing there worth saving. There are a lot of desperate people, but there's good people too. 

Alibaba: Um

Alibaba: Okay

Alibaba: But it sounds like you've always had a way to get here, right? Even if you want to help, why wouldn't you just stay here until you figure out how to do it?

Akira shakes his head and curls up into himself a little. He wonders if Alibaba is just curious, or is this an accusation? He's having a hard time reading her through the words on his phone screen. He'd probably have had a hard time reading her if they were talking face to face too, but this isn't how he usually communicates with people.

Pretend it's a letter. 

He's spent years journaling, writing down his feelings because there's no one in the world that's safe enough to trust with those things. He's been writing to Tatsuya ever since he was forced out of Sumaru City. 

So just... pretend this is a letter too. 

(Just... tell someone else how he's feeling)

(Someone he doesn't even know)

He has to convince her not to tell anyone. She's never going to do that if she doesn't trust him. And if she's a shut in, she probably isn't any better at trusting people than he is. So if he wants this to go okay, he's probably going to have to open up to her first.

[secure chat log]

Akira_Suou: I've lived in the same apartment since I was about two and a half. 

He stops there, the message just barely started. Why is that the first thing he's thought of to tell her? 

Maybe, if he keeps typing, he'll find out.

[secure chat log]

Akira_Suou: I've lived in the same apartment since I was about two and a half. Before that, I was on the streets with my mother. I don't remember that part of my life very well, but... it happened. And then my mom died, and I ended up finding a home, and someone that took care of me. I lived there my whole life, until I got stuck here. I grew up in that little apartment. It was somewhere safe in a world that was dangerous. My favorite person in the world was there. From the window over my bed, I could see the edge of the city. The place where Sumaru ended, where you could look down and see what's left of Earth. It's a good place. I was happy there. Really happy. And I can't believe that I was the only one there that had places like that. Or people to care about. So I need to do my best for them.

He hits send.

Waits.

For a long time.

[secure chat log]

Alibaba: Wow

Alibaba: You really like long blocks of text

Akira_Suou: How else am I supposed to explain something complicated?

Alibaba: Most people don't do it in a whole big chunk

Alibaba: They'd split it up like this

Alibaba: See, like this

Akira_Suou: Um... okay? I think.

Alibaba: And you don't have to put a period at the end of everything either, it's weird

Akira_Suou: That's how you end sentences.

Alibaba: Not online

Alibaba: It sounds aggressive

Alibaba: Were you being serious when you said the city in that other world was flying...?

Akira_Suou: Sorry, but just to be clear, are we having a conversation about my grammar, or about the Other Side?

Alibaba: Both

Akira_Suou: Well I'm not trying to be aggressive, I just don't think there's anything wrong with punctuation. 

Akira_Suou: And yes, the city was flying, which is why it survived when everything on the planet was destroyed.

Alibaba: Oh

Akira_Suou: And it would be really good if, um... if you could maybe not tell anyone about all the things you overheard.

There's another long pause. Morgana shouts up at him from the cafe to ask if he's coming any time soon, and Akira guesses that he and Yusuke must be done with the calling card. He looks down at his phone, silently urging Alibaba to hurry up and answer so he can see what they want him for without drawing suspicion for taking too long.

[secure chat log]

Alibaba: I don't really understand everything I heard

Alibaba: But I won't tell anyone anyway, on two conditions

Akira_Suou: What conditions, exactly?

Alibaba: First, you explain the parts I don't understand

Not great, but she knows so much already. And she definitely knows enough to get him in a lot of trouble. Akira figures that her knowing everything won't be worse than her knowing part.

[secure chat log]

Akira_Suou: Okay, I think that's fair. What's the second condition?

Alibaba: No more periods at the end of your messages

Akira... really doesn't understand why this is so important to her, but in the grand scheme of things, it's probably one of the least horrible things she could have asked for?

[secure chat log]

Akira_Suou: Deal.

Akira_Suou: Sorry, I mean deal

(Something whispers to him about the Hermit Arcana)

[secure chat log]

Alibaba: ...

Alibaba: We'll work on it

Akira_Suou: I'll talk to you later, if that's okay? We're, um... I mean, I guess you already know about the Phantom Thieves and everything. We're sending out our next calling card soon, and I need to go see if they need help

Alibaba: Oh okay

Alibaba: I'll look forward to seeing what you can all do

-//-

June 2016

-//-

Akira's twitchy and nervous the next day at school, something that has more to do with his conversation with Alibaba than their upcoming fight against Madarame's Shadow. Fighting is just fighting, and even if using a Persona makes it different, he's still had years to get over the anxiety around that. Alibaba is... layers of decisions he has to make.

She knows who he is. He has no idea who she is. She knows everything about him, or at least all his secrets, and probably a lot of personal things about what kind of person he is. She knows about the Phantom Thieves, and the Phantom Thieves don't know he's been talking to her. She can still ruin them if he's not good enough at talking to her, which he probably won't be. And they deserve to at least have a head's up with what's going on there, because it's not just his business, right? They've spent enough time talking about Phantom Thief business in Leblanc for them to all be in danger over this too.

Ann obviously notices there's something off with him. He keeps catching her give him looks over her shoulder during class. But since he mostly spends class staring vaguely out through the window and fumbling his answers whenever he's called on, maybe it really is just that obvious that he's distracted. Morgana's keeping an eye on him from inside her desk, too. But Morgana lives with him, so Akira figures that's not too weird either.

But then Ryuji notices during lunch, and Akira figures that oh okay, maybe he's way more obviously freaking out than he'd thought.

"Hey," Ryuji says. "Akira. You know that guy they brought in to talk to everyone Kamoshida admitted to abusing?"

Akira sort of squints at him. "No?" he says. "I haven't heard anything about that."

"Oh," Ann says. "You mean Dr. Maruki?"

"Who?"

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "That guy. The teachers made me and Ann go see him a while ago, because Kamoshida was planning to get us expelled and I guess they thought we might have some stuff we wanted to talk about or whatever. And he's not actually that bad."

"Okay," Akira says. "And...?"

"And he's here until like November or something I think," Ryuji says. "Even though not too many people have been going to see him. I know you and Kamoshida never really ran into each other outside his Palace, but... I dunno, I guess it sort of feels like you might want to talk to him too? Especially since he hasn't been too busy, I'm pretty sure you could go see him if you wanted."

"I don't want," Akira says. "What would I talk to him about?"

The other three look at each other.

"He serious?" Ryuji mutters, so quietly that Akira's pretty sure he's not supposed to have heard it. The fact that Ann kicks his ankle almost as soon as he says it pretty much confirms that.

"You said it yourself," Akira says. "I never ran into Kamoshida. Even when we were in his Palace, he didn't really target me."

"No," Ann says. Slowly. Like she's choosing her words very carefully. "But you don't have to talk to him about Kamoshida, right?"

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "That's what I mean, you can talk about like... any other stuff you want."

"Look," Akira says. "I know I'm probably messed up, but I can't do therapy."

"I didn't say that you're messed up," Ryuji says quickly. "You just look, uh--"

Akira waits for him to find the word he's looking for. He's not sure he's going to like what that word is, but this whole conversation has him feeling cornered. He's not going to talk to Dr. Maruki, because all his problems are tied to secrets he won't ever tell to anyone.

(...other than the hacker that had overheard them all anyway)

(But he can't do anything about Alibaba, and he can do everything possible to keep away from talking to Dr. Maruki)

"What's it going to hurt to see  him once?" Morgana asks.

"Nothing," Akira says. "It's just a waste of time."

"That's what I thought too," Ryuji says. "But it wasn't really that bad when I actually went and talked to him. He just kind of hangs out and talks about whatever. It's not that bad having someone to listen. It's not like... I dunno, it's just not as useless as you probably think."

Akira hesitates. He could probably just pretend that he thinks therapy is a dump waste of time, and protect the fact that all of the things that are stressing him out are enormously secret. But that feels needlessly petty, somehow, and it's not like they don't know he has some secrets. "It's not that I think it's useless," Akira says carefully. "It's just that I can't talk about most of my problems."

"Why not?" Ann asks.

He shrugs. "Do you want me to tell him about the Phantom Thieves?" he asks.

"Of course not," Ann says, and she sounds hurt. Akira hadn't expected that at all. "Is that honestly what you're so stressed out about?"

"It's one of the things I'm stressed about," Akira says, after a pause. "Why is that a surprise?"

"Why would it not be?" Ann asks.

"Doesn't it stress you out?" Akira asks. "We're fighting Shadows in the subconscious of really terrible people. It could kill literally any of us. Things could get way, way worse. It's absolutely stressful."

"I think it's pretty good, actually," Ryuji says. "I mean dangerous, sure, but fighting with a Persona is pretty, I mean..." He looks like he's struggling with his words. Akira recognizes the expression, because he's usually the one making it. "It's good?" Ryuji tries eventually. 

"It's good," Akira says. "But Shadows and Palaces showing up aren't the way the world is supposed to be. I don't want things to go more wrong than they are already, and I have a bad feeling they will."

(He likes the world he'd been born in, he hadn't been lying when he told Alibaba that there are good memories there, and people that deserve a chance to be happy)

(But he doesn't want another Other Side, he doesn't want things to go that wrong again)

"Didn't know you felt like that about it," Ryuji mutters, looking down at his feet. "I kind of figured we were all on the same page about what we're doing."

"It's important," Akira says. "I think we're doing the right thing by trying to stop Madarame, and Shujin is definitely better off without Kamoshida. I'm just waiting for things to go wrong."

"Wow," Ryuji says. "Okay. I mean, I think we're handling things pretty well, actually."

"It's not that," Akira says. "It's not anything we're doing or not doing or whatever, it's just that Shadows showing up is inherently bad."

"Yeah?" Ryuji says. "Who says it has to be?"

"Because--" It always has been before. The Other Side exists because demons had come to Sumaru, Kotone and Minato are dead, Yu had gotten mixed up in something involving murders, and now this?

"Because what?" Morgana asks. "If there's something about all this that's bothering you, just tell us."

Akira opens his mouth, then hesitates because there's nothing he can say that won't bring them dangerously close to his growing pile of secrets. If he'd been coming into this without any previous knowledge, maybe he wouldn't be so sure that things are going to go wrong.

"I just think we don't know anything about what started this," Akira says, because it's the best thing he can say. "Or how bad it can get. We could get hurt, or things could start to get worse in the real world, we just don't know."

"We don't have any reason to think the Palaces are going to change," Morgana says. His voice sounds like he's trying very hard to inject some calm back into the conversation. "Things will be fine, we have this under control."

"For now," Akira says, and he's thinking about demons and death and the Other Side, and how probably Tatsuya had Maya and their friends hadn't thought something like that was possible when they started chasing Joker rumors. "But what happens when things get worse?"

"What makes you so sure things are going to get worse?" Ryuji asks. "Come on, we have things handled, it's all fine!"

Akira stands up. "I'll go see Dr. Maruki after school tomorrow," he says, walking toward the door.

"Akira," Ann says, exasperated. "Don't go, I'm sure Ryuji's just worried."

Ryuji's not the one doing anything wrong. Akira's the liar. He has a good reason to keep lying, because he's already screwed up by letting Alibaba learn that the Other Side exists. And the more people that know about the Other Side, the more danger there is that it gets back to the people that will literally end the world if they find out about it.

...but there's also the bad reason to keep lying, which is that he doesn't like the way this conversation is pushing and pushing and pushing, and he just wants to get away.

He doesn't answer Ann, and ducks through the door back into the building instead.

Where he immediately comes face to face with a stern looking third year girl. 

"Um," Akira says, his pulse skyrocketing immediately. How much had she heard? How stupid has he just been, shouting about the Phantom Thieves? Has he just outed all of them?

"The roof's off limits to students," the girl says.

"I--" His mouth works for a second without any sound coming out, before he finally manages it. "...I know."

"Then what were you doing there?" she asks.

"Nothing?"

"You're that transfer student, aren't you?" the girl asks. "Suou?"

He sighs. 

(You're that transfer student that assaulted a guy and got sent up here)

(That's what she means)

"I'm going back to class," he says. "If that's okay."

"Let me walk you down," she says.

Akira shrugs. Apparently he's not trustworthy enough to make his way back to class on his own now. But at least it seems like she thinks he's the only one that had been up there on the roof. It gives Ann and Ryuji a chance to get downstairs and back to class without being caught, so that's something.

The three of them don't talk much for the rest of the day. Akira spends the afternoon working very, very hard at not making eye contact with either Ann or Morgana, and he keeps quiet when the three of them and Ryuji have to go together to meet Yusuke and go steal Madarame's Treasure. Because of course they're doing that today. Yusuke had brought the calling card to some exhibit Madarame's doing, and they can't let that go any longer. Apparently that just means that they'd lose their chance completely, according to what Morgana's told them. So they still have to take the Treasure, argument or no argument. 

...and it's awful. They're not exactly the most coordinated team even at the best of times, but today they're an absolute disaster. Akira's not talking to any of the others, Ryuji's visibly irritated, Ann's worried, and Morgana's exasperated with all the rest of them. Even Yusuke, who hadn't been there at lunch, is anxious. Of course, they're fighting the Shadow of the person that had raised him, so he has more than enough reason to be worried. 

The net result of all this is that the five of them fight badly. They're disorganized chaos,  barely communicating, and because Madarame's Shadow can split itself up into clones, into paintings with different weaknesses, this is bad. They scrape through the fight, but just barely, and there's none of the celebration that had been there after they took Kamoshida's Treasure. The victory hasn't brought them closer together, it's emphasized the way they're already pushing each other apart.

Silence surrounds them until Akira says, "Madarame said someone else has been in the metaverse."

"Someone he called the Black Mask," Yusuke says. "Yes."

"So this is worse than we thought it was," Akira says. Some unknown person abusing Palaces is still better than he's been expecting, he's still waiting for another shoe to drop, but this feels inevitable to him in a way.

"Yeah," Ryuji mutters. "Fine, okay, so you were right. But it's just some other guy. There's five of us, we can handle one other person."

"I'm just saying--"

"No one likes to hear I told you so," Ryuji says. "Okay? And it's still just one guy. We can handle this." He puts his hands in his pockets and turns away. "We can talk tomorrow or whatever."

He's taken maybe three steps when he turns back around and looks at Akira. "We're trying to help you, you know. When we found Kamoshida's Palace for the first time, I thought you were pretty cool. You seemed like you knew what you were doing, and I thought you know what, if this is actually happening, at least I'm stuck here with someone that seems like a good partner. Like--most of the school sees me as a delinquent ever since the track team broke up last year, but for some stupid reason I thought it seemed like we were going to be friends. But ever since then you've done nothing but avoid us and be a dick."

"Ryuji," Ann says. "Can we just... can we have this conversation some other time? When we're all a little less worked up. maybe?"

"No," Ryuji says. "We've all been thinking it, right?"

No one else says anything, but Akira looks around at their faces, and has a hard time reading any of them. He can only assume that they're agreeing with Ryuji, because why wouldn't they be?

"We've been reaching out to you since Kamoshida," Ryuji says. "And you just keep pushing us away. I don't know what your problem is, Akira, but I feel like I haven't even seen the real you since the day we met. I don't know why you didn't have your guard up back then, but I really wanted to be friends with the guy from that day. He seemed cool. And if you ever decide you want to stop treating us like some kind of threat, I'd still want to be friends. But right now it's pretty obvious you don't trust us and you don't like us."

Something claws at Akira's chest. "I... Ryuji--"

"I'll text you when we figure out the next Palace," Ryuji says. "But it's probably better if we don't talk at school for a while after this. Everyone on this team deserves to be treated better than the way you've been treating us, because we are not your fucking enemy."

And then he leaves.

"...did I miss something?" Yusuke asks, into the vacuum of sudden silence that Ryuji's departure has left behind.

-//-

June 2016

-//-

Akira ends up going back to Leblanc alone that night. Yusuke is officially moving into his school dorms, and Morgana had gone with... probably Ann? Akira is ashamed to realize that he hadn't even been thinking about that when he left the group for the night. But Morgana can take care of himself, at least. Probably better than Akira can, if he's being honest.

So here he is. Alone in his borrowed bedroom, the same way he had been in his first days here, feeling anxious and unhappy and alone in a way that almost physically hurts. And it's stupid, probably, but the biggest difference between now and back then is that he's so much more aware now of what he's missing.

This is his fault, completely. He should have been better at making friends. It's not this hard for anyone else, and he should be able to do better than he has been.

So... what does he do now? If the Phantom Thieves are done with him, or at least done trying to be friends, it feels like the next step probably has to be on him. He just... has no idea how.

Or if he even should. 

Maybe it would be dishonest to keep trying for the Phantom Thieves to be something more than just a group of people he happens to fight with. He's never going to be any good at this, and he's never going to be able to stop keeping the secrets that are driving them away. He can't do better, so maybe he should just accept that and aim lower, to something he can actually handle.

His phone goes off, alerting him to a message, and Akira debates with himself whether he wants to even look at it. He doesn't want to have to deal with figuring out how to answer one of the Phantom Thieves.

It's not any of the Phantom Thieves.

(He is not disappointed, he informs himself sternly)

It's not even his text messaging app, it's the secure chat that Kaoru had dragged him into with Alibaba.

[secure chat log]

Alibaba: Hey, so I keep seeing articles about Ichiryusai Madarame getting a calling card from the Phantom Thieves

Alibaba: You guys did your thing, I guess? How'd it go?

Akira_Suou: We got his Treasure and changed his heart.

Akira_Suou: Sorry, no period. Changed his heart

Alibaba: Cool!

Akira_Suou: Then argued with the rest of the group about being a terrible teammate and not sharing things with them

Alibaba: Oh

Alibaba: You didn't tell them about me, right?

Alibaba: ...did you?

Akira_Suou: No, I didn't tell them anything

Alibaba: Please don't! 

Alibaba: I know I messed up with spying on Leblanc and getting caught, but I really can't handle more people finding out

Akira shrugs at his phone even though he knows Alibaba can't see it. Not now that her bugs are all offline, anyway. He would have expected her reaction to convince him he's doing the right thing by keeping all his secrets from the Phantom Thieves, but the truth is that it barely changes anything. He feels terrible about lying. He feels like he has to lie. Alibaba begging him to keep his secrets just makes both sides of that equation feel a little bit heavier.

[secure chat log]

Akira_Suou: I'm not going to tell anyone

Alibaba: Thank you

Akira_Suou: Yeah, sure

Akira_Suou: Hey, do you know anything about how to make friends without being an idiot and screwing it up?

Alibaba: lol

Akira_Suou: What?

Alibaba: laughing out loud

Akira_Suou: I wasn't really trying to be funny...

Alibaba: ...

Alibaba: I guess I wasn't really laughing, either

Alibaba: You're just really coming to the wrong person with that question

Alibaba: Shut in, remember?

Akira_Suou: Oh yeah. Sorry, I guess you're kind of in the same position as me

Alibaba: Pretty much

Alibaba: But if you figure it out, let me know? 

Chapter Text

Tatsuya -

So I think I'm about to be kicked out of the Phantom Thieves. I don't know. But I had a fight with Ryuji yesterday and it sucked and I think I really, really messed it up. Like, I need to do something fast to fix it or else I don't think I'm ever going to get a chance. 

And it's worth trying to fix it, right?

Trying to have friends is worth it?

This hurts so much.

- Akira

-//-

June 2016

Akira keeps his promise to go see Dr. Maruki after school, the day after his fight with the Phantom Thieves.

He goes back and forth about whether it's a good idea all day, but in the end he decides that all he has to do is go. Nobody's forcing him to say anything he's not supposed to, and as far as he knows, therapists aren't supposed to tell anyone what they hear in therapy. So if he's not exactly planning on spilling his secrets or talking about the things he can't, no one else is ever going to know.

...and it's so hard to sit in class all day before Ann and Morgana, and know that all three of them are probably thinking about what had happened yesterday.

He doesn't see Ryuji at all.

Not until the end of the day, when he makes his way over to the practice building to look for the nurse's office and Dr. Maruki. That's when he almost literally runs into Ryuji, apparently heading for the same place.

Akira pulls up short in front of the nurse's office, half stumbling over his own feet, and Ryuji fumbles to keep hold of his phone as he looks up at it and sees Akira there. "Hey," he says. "Didn't think I'd see you here."

A little uncomfortable, Akira shrugs. "I said I'd come see Maruki today," he reminds Ryuji.

"Sure," Ryuji mutters. "But I figured you'd blow it off after yesterday."

"No."

"Okay." Ryuji kind of nods vaguely and doesn't look at him. "Yeah. Sure."

"What were you doing here?" Akira asks. 

"Oh," Ryuji says. "I just thought that after everything, it might not suck to have someone else to talk to. So..." He looks past Akira at the nurse's office. "Dunno. I guess after I was talking it up to you yesterday, I got thinking about it and figured it might actually be good to talk to him."

"Well if you wanted to go in," Akira says. "I don't mind not--"

"Nah," Ryuji says. "It's fine, you were here first." 

"We kind of got here at the same time," Akira says. "So--"

"Nah," Ryuji says. "Seriously, go ahead."

Akira remembers what Ryuji had said yesterday. About him needing therapy. That's probably what he's thinking about now. Akira feels his face flush red, and gives a jerky kind of nod. He really doesn't want to go see Maruki, but he has exactly zero ideas of what to say to Ryuji right now. He turns around and--

There's a sign on the office door, a printed notice that Dr. Maruki has an appointment after school today, and will not be available to meet with students again until tomorrow."Oh," Akira says. "I guess neither of us is going to see him today."

"His timing kind of sucks," Ryuji says, when he's logged around Akira at the sign. Then Akira sees him shoot a sideways glance in his direction before he asks, "Do you think you'd be cool with coming back tomorrow and trying again?"

"Sure," Akira says. He leaves it at that, and starts to head past Ryuji to head home. 

Ryuji reaches out a hand to stop him, then seems to hesitate and doesn't actually touch Akira. "Are you doing something right now?" he asks.

"Just going home," Akira says. "Since..." He jerks his head back toward the notice on the door. "I don't really have anything else to do anyway."

"You up for a Mementos trip?" Ryuji asks. "I mean, if you're not doing anything else, and I'm not doing anything else. And it sounds like Mishima cornered Ann before school about Phansite requests, so we have a bunch of those to get through now."

"Why was Mishima talking to Ann about Phantom Thief requests?" Akira asks. He knows Mishima had gotten really enthusiastic about running a website devoted to the Phantom Thieves, but it seems bad that he's zeroed in on one of the actual Phantom Thieves to talk to about it.

"Oh yeah," Ryuji says. "I guess you wouldn't really be talking to him."

Akira doesn't talk to most people.

"But he's pretty much figured out that me and Ann are part of the Thieves," Ryuji says, shrugging. "We keep telling him we're not, he keeps bringing us new requests, and we keep pretending we're not working on them."

"So you're just... okay with someone else knowing?" Akira asks.

"We didn't really have a choice," Ryuji says with a shrug. "He figured it out, it's not like we told him."

"Right," Akira mutters. He hates the way Ryuji says it's not like we told him. Like it would be crazy and wrong to start telling people about the Phantom Thieves.

(...they're never going to forgive him if they find out he's been talking to Katsuya and Maya)

(And Kaoru)

(And Yu)

(And Alibaba)

"Anyway," Ryuji says. "Could be worse, he's on our side. And uh... we have some requests to work on now, like I said. If you want to come help out with that."

Akira does, because he's really invested in finding out what's going on with Mementos. And because there's a part of him jumping at the chance to go back to the way things were before the fight. But he also doesn't, because every part of his brain is screaming with how awkward it's going to be to spend time with the Phantom Thieves after yesterday. 

He doesn't say anything for a long moment, brain pinballing back and forth between those two extremes, and eventually Ryuji sighs. "Yeah," he says. "Figured you wouldn't."

Akira closes his eyes. This feels... worse, somehow, than when they'd been arguing yesterday. If he lets Ryuji walk away without saying anything now, then it's going to break something in a way that he doesn't think can be fixed. "Wait," he blurts, opening his eyes again. "I do want to go."

Ryuji stops and turns around. He's gotten far enough away for the space between them to be awkward, but neither of them makes any move to get closer. "You sure?" Ryuji asks.

"I'm really bad at this," Akira says. "Talking to people, and working with a team. Stuff like that." He doesn't even dare say having friends, because he's afraid Ryuji will laugh at him for believing that he's somehow earned friendship with the rest of them. Or if he had earned it, that he hadn't lost it after yesterday. "I kind of didn't think it was ever going to happen, and now I don't know what to do."

"It's not that hard to just talk to people," Ryuji says. "I mean, stuff like this is hard, but most of the time you just do it."

"Maybe if you've always been able to " Akira answers. For a long second he's quiet, not sure if he should say anything else. But... he's told so many people about the Phantom Thieves. He can talk to one of them about some of his secrets, can't he? Not everything, because it's genuinely dangerous to have more people knowing about some of it. But some of those secrets are just his. "Do you think we could... talk about some stuff while we're in Mementos?" he asks. "We could do the requests and then..." He trails off, shrugs, and doesn't look at Ryuji while he waits for an answer.

"Sure," Ryuji says. "I'll just let everyone else know."

-//-

June 2016

The Mementos visit is awkward, but not as bad as Madarame's Palace had been yesterday. They're communicating a little bit more smoothly now, even if there's still something stilted and awkward to their conversations. Akira doesn't want to keep arguing with everyone else, he really doesn't, and he maybe throws himself into the fights with the Shadows they run into than he would have normally to make up for it. They've given him another chance, and he wants to take it.

(He's so scared of doing the wrong thing, and making it worse)

(...he's scared that what he's about to tell them is going to make it worse)

They finish the requests from Mishima and the phan site. By this point they're pretty deep into Mementos, past any floor they've been to before, butting up against yet another door that doesn't want to open for them and let them go any further down. It's a small floor, and safe as far as any of them can tell, so they've huddled up together on the train platform to heal and talk about their plans.

Akira's on the edge of the group (he's never completely confident that these safe areas are going to stay safe, so he has one eye on the Thieves and one on the escalator leading back up to the previous level) when he hears Ryuji say, "Oh hey Joker, did you want to tell us that thing now?"

Not really.

...but kind of?

In the moment, back at school, it had seemed like a good idea. He'd come so close to ruining everything, and opening up enough to trust them is the opposite of what he'd done to mess up before. It makes sense that it could help fix things. But now that he's here, with all four of them suddenly looking at him with almost too much curiosity, he's wondering if maybe this is a mistake.

"What thing?" Ann asks.

"Joker told me there's something he wanted to say," Ryuji says.

It probably would have been a good idea to figure out exactly what he wanted to say before now. But to be fair, he's been a little distracted with the Shadows they've been fighting, and in a couple new Persona he's managed to recruit on the way down.

It's just that now he doesn't know what to say. Or how much to say, anyway. He'd come so close to losing his place on this team, and that had felt terrible. Worse than most injuries he's picked up from fighting over the years. 

So what does he say? How much can he tell them without giving away secrets that aren't his?

He wants to tell them something. He wants to be able to open up, and never, ever feel the way he'd felt after yesterday's fight. He wants to stop feeling like he's betraying them by telling other people their secrets, and not offering them anything of his own.

"I was born somewhere really different from here," Akira says, after a long time. "It's not exactly a stable place. I grew up learning how to fight because it was dangerous not to. And I grew up without ever really seeing people my age because there were some things that happened around the time I was born that made it really hard to have kids."

He takes a deep breath and pauses, waiting to see if someone's going to interrupt. He kind of wishes someone would, because it would almost be easier to argue than to keep explaining. He's pretty sure he's never said this much to the Phantom Thieves all at one time before, and this feels like really diving into the deep end. No one says anything though, so Akira doesn't have any choice other than to keep going. 

"When I was six I started going to Sumaru for school," he says. "Katsuya knows where I came from, and that's why he adopted me. So there'd be paperwork and things, and I could go to school. But I never really lived there, I just showed up for school and went back home again. And it wasn't a place... it wasn't like this. And I didn't completely realize how different things were between there and here until I got put on probation and sent out here. And now it's like--hitting me in the face every day that I never learned to get along with people, or use a cellphone, or take a train somewhere. I mean, before I got arrested I'd never spent more than two nights sleeping in a room with electricity." Another deep breath. "It's a lot. And I know I'm a mess, I'm not getting things right, and--I wanted to let you know why. And apologize too."

He doesn't do anything to interrupt the long silence that follows his words this time. He's done, he's explained as much as he thinks he can get away with, and at this point he can only hope he's explained himself without blurting out the secrets that will ruin everything around him.

"I'm confused," Ann says at last. "Where exactly was this place you grew up in?"

"I can't tell you," Akira says. "I seriously can't, because if the whole story gets back to the wrong people, things would get really bad."

"How bad?" Ryuji asks.

"The world might end," Akira says. 

There's another weighty pause.

"Um..?" Ann says.

"So it's not like I think you guys would tell anyone," Akira says. "But it's just such a huge risk to take for anyone. I didn't even know the whole story for a long time. I just knew home was different."

"Is that where you got stabbed?" Morgana asks, jabbing a paw up toward Akira's face, and the scar under his mask. "You said it was burglars."

"Yeah," Akira says. "I'm pretty sure they were just looters that thought there was no one living there."

"And things like that happened a lot?" Ann asks tentatively.

"Only once to us," Akira says. "But you could hear fighting and shouting outside most nights, so I know it happened more than that."

"Holy shit," Ryuji says.

"Sorry," Akira says. "Um... do you guys want to start heading back out to the real world, or...?"

"We're not going to talk about this first?" Ryuji asks.

"I don't know if we have to talk about it," Akira says. "I just wanted to explain why I keep messing up. Or I mean... I don't know if I can just blame my screwups just on how I grew up, but it's there, and it makes a difference, and I'm kind of dealing with a lot. It's not like I'm just picking fights on purpose, I just--there's a lot going on, I'm not used to any of this, and there's things I literally can't talk about. So it's just... it's..."

He trails off. This feels a lot worse than he'd expected it to, honestly.  It's out there now, he can't take it back, they just--know this big, important thing about him, and he's just going to have to trust the Phantom Thieves. With his secrets, and with... with him, really. They've seen more of him here today than he's ever really shown anyone outside his family. 

Akira lets out a shaky breath.

"We're obviously going to have to talk about this more," Morgana says. "But maybe we should do that tomorrow?"

Everyone's looking at him, and trying to look like they're not looking, and Akira can only imagine how panicked he probably seems right now. "That would be great," he says weakly.

"O...kay," Ryuji says. "So I guess if we're not talking about--that whole thing, and we've finished all the requests from the phan site, we should probably just head back to the real world?"

"Thank you," Akira says, and he's the first one up the escalator after Ryuji as they start to head back to the surface. 

They don't actually get there.

(There's something wrong, something in the air that Akira hasn't felt here before)

(But it's quiet, and subtle, and something that Akira doesn't really consciously notice until it's all over, and too late to do anything about it)

They're maybe halfway back when they climb up yet another floor, and find something that doesn't look much like Mementos waiting for them. Akira, who is still the one behind Ryuji, almost walks into his back because of how suddenly Ryuji comes to a complete halt. He recovers just in time, reaching for his knife and skirting around him to see for himself what's gone wrong.

"Oh," he says, when he sees it. 

"This hasn't happened before," Ryuji says. "Hey, you guys--"

He turns to Ann, Morgana, and Yusuke where they're following him and Akira up the escalator, which leaves Akira to keep his eyes on the unfamiliar scene in front of them that Mementos has unexpectedly morphed into. There's a city here, not a real one but something that looks weirdly two dimensional and fake. And there are people too, cognitions he's pretty sure, wandering around without paying any attention to the huddle of teenagers grouped up around an escalator.

...or not grouped up around an escalator, because when Akira looks over his shoulder to see how everyone else is reacting to this, he sees the same thing behind him as he'd just seen ahead. There's no obvious route back down, and Akira isn't sure how bad that is, exactly. but it unsettles him anyway. They're trying to get up, not down, but the fact that they can't retreat if they have to is really concerning. Mementos has never done this before, never just changed its shape so suddenly and completely.

"Mona?" Yusuke says. "Did you... know Mementos could do this?"

"No," Morgana says. He bounds forward, eyes narrowed behind his mask, and surveys the streets in front of them. "This is new. I haven't seen it before."

"I'd say we should just use a Goho-M," Ann says. "But if we'd had one of those, we would have already."

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "I guess we should look around and see if we can find another way up."

It's pretty obviously the only plan right now, so that's what they do. They creep their way through the streets of the unreal city, until eventually they stumble onto something that looks like a giant, rectangular portal floating a foot or two off the ground. 

"Do we go through?" Ann asks.

"Gotta be better than staying here," Ryuji says. Without waiting for anyone to argue, he moves forward through it. "Come on--"

His voice cuts off abruptly as he disappears through it.

"Maybe this will take us back to the real world?" Akira asks uncertainly.

"Or maybe we'll go somewhere else we've never seen before," Ann says.

"That is a distinct possibility," Yusuke agrees. "But wherever it leads, we should at least stay together, yes?"

"You have a point," Ann mutters, and after only a little more hesitation she steps through the portal after Ryuji. Yusuke follows her, leaving Akira alone in the maze of a city with Morgana. He eyes it for a second, unsure if this is a good idea but not seeing any other options, and is just about to step through when Morgana stops him.

"Hey Joker?"

Akira pauses, makes a face at the name, and looks back at him. "Yeah?"

Morgana doesn't answer right away. He comes closer and puts a paw on Akira's side, as high up as he can reach without jumping. "I'm sorry that we haven't been the best friends to you," he says. "Not that it's an excuse, but we didn't know what you've been through, and we've just been pushing you."

"Oh," Akira says. "No, it's okay. I didn't want anyone to know."

"It's not, though," Morgana says. "We didn't know how you grew up, but we knew you were going through something. And maybe we shouldn't have assumed you were going to open up as fast as other people."

"I should have been better too," Akira says. "It turns out it's harder to start, um... making friends than I thought."

"But it's worth it, right?" Morgana asks.

"Yeah," Akira says. Without quite meaning it, his voice drops to a volume so low that he can barely hear it himself "I really want to be friends with you guys."

"You are our friend," Morgana says. "Friends fight sometimes, remember. It doesn't mean we don't want you around."

Akira closes his eyes, and says, "Don't... don't laugh at me," he says. "But I'm new to this and I'm not great at understanding people. Are we--do you guys really think I'm a friend?"

"Yep," Morgana says. He doesn't even hesitate. "Of course you are."

"Okay," Akira says. He opens his eyes again, reveling in the feeling of something warm spreading through him at Morgana's reassurance. He has friends. Not even just a friend, but friends. And he'd almost screwed it up but he hadn't, and in the face of that he doesn't even really care that much about how weird everything else suddenly is.

"Come on," Morgana says, giving him a little push toward the portal. "Let's go catch up with everyone else and see what's going on here."

"Right," Akira says.

And he steps forward into a perfectly ordinary movie theater.

It's so unexpected that Akira just stops in place for a second, confused and scrambling for an explanation. This feels like the real world--he and the Thieves that had come through ahead of him are all back in their school uniforms, and when Morgana follows him in, he's a cat again. Akira looks at him, and then ahead to where the other three are standing in a huddle with two strangers, a girl about their age and a woman that looks maybe thirty. Akira doesn't recognize either of them.

Morgana darts ahead of him to see what's going on, and Akira follows more slowly, glancing back over his shoulder as he does so. The portal they've all just come through looks like a theater screen from this side, bizarrely enough.

...and the name of the movie it's showing is Kamoshidaman.

"Guys?" Akira says.

"What's up?" Ryuji asks. 

Akira points. Everyone's looking by now.

"Oh," Ann says.

-//-

July 2016

The next several hours are strange. And busy. They meet the two... residents (maybe that's the right word?) of this theater, who have both been trapped here for a while. Nagi is the older one, pleasant and helpful, if understandably worried about their situation. She's a reassuring presence in a theater that's otherwise filled with confused teenagers. Hikari, the girl closer to their age, is quiet and listlessly sad in a way that Akira deeply relates to. 

(There's also an indescribably weird something called Doe that apparently lives in the theater)

(Akira... doesn't really know what to make of him, and he doesn't seem to know anything about how they'd all gotten stuck here or how they're getting out)

They poke around the theater. There's a front door with comically large locks on it, and that doesn't open no matter what they try. And there's a bunch of locked rooms and other theaters in the lobby, but the only one that actually opens for them is the one screening the Kamoshidaman movie. So, probably, that's where they should be looking for answers. 

Nagi and Hikari know nothing about Persona. Neither of them has one, and they seem really confused when Ryuji and Morgana launch right into their explanation. Akira knows because he's watching their faces, wondering if this is a good idea, if they should be telling people they've only just met. But this is a pretty weird circumstance, and they are all trapped here together, so...

Anyway, Akira hadn't been the one to make the decision, so at least he doesn't have to stress about whether or not its the right move. Instead he just stays on the edge of the group, listening to the back and forth between the Phantom Thieves and the two theater residents. He even contributes a couple times himself, and is surprised when he feels a little more confident doing that than he would have yesterday. 

Maybe the talk he'd had with the Thieves before Mementos got weird had mattered more than he'd expected it would. He'd wanted to talk to them because it had seemed like he was going to lose them if he didn't. He'd wanted to get back to the status quo, the way things had been before.

This feels better than the way things had been before.

Eventually they decide that there's nothing new in the theater for them to find, and that if they're all going to get out of here, that's what they need to focus on. So, back into the movie they go. Actually into the movie, stepping right through the screen and back into the city they'd found before.

"I was thinking," Morgana says, as the five of them stand in front of the screen and look out across the street in front of them. "This place is kind of a maze."

"A true labyrinth," Yusuke agrees solemnly. "It's very different from the previous Palace, or Mementos."

"Kamoshida's Palace wasn't really like this either," Ann agrees. "The two Palaces are more focused, I think? Everything leads you up toward the Treasure."

"And in Mementos," Yusuke says. "Everything loops back in on itself. You might get temporarily lost, but  you will eventually find your way back to where you came from. This place is full of traps and turns that go nowhere." He turns to Ryuji. "If we are planning to fully explore it, we need a way of keeping track of where we've been and where we're going."

"Think there's a map?" Ryuji says. "We always find those in Palaces eventually."

"If there's not," Akira says. "We could probably just make one. This place seems a lot more like a grid than the Palaces do. We'd just need paper and a pencil, probably."

"Cool," Ryuji says. "Do you want to do that, then?"

"Sure? I just need--"

Yusuke holds a sketchbook and pencil up immediately.

"Yeah," Akira says. "That. Thanks, Fox."

They start exploring. None of them has any idea what they're looking for, so they pretty much just end up making turns at random, exploring as far as they can and then backtracking if they get to something they can't get past. It's not just the dead ends and traps Yusuke had mentioned earlier, but also some incredibly strong Shadows that turn out to be so tough that they don't have any choice but to turn around and go back.

Akira marks them on the map, and keeps a careful watch of how they move and where, so that he can make a note to keep far, far away from that.

He's putting at least as much attention into the map as he is into keeping up with the Thieves and joining in on their fights, which is why he's the last to realize it when they stumble onto someone else. He's puzzling over whether a turn to the left is going to loop around and take them back the way they'd come from, or if it's going to branch out in a new direction, when he realizes that everyone else is stopped ahead of him, peering around a corner at something he can't see.

Akira lowers the map he's looking at and hurries to catch up. "What's going on?" he asks.

"Shh," Morgana says. waving an arm in Akira's direction. "There's someone here."

"A person?" Akira asks. He keeps his voice low as he tries to get a look at whatever's waiting up ahead. "Or another Shadow?"

"It looks like a person," Ann says. "Look, do you see her?"

Akira's shorter than most of the others, and standing behind all of them. He has to take a step back and around the tight huddle to get a good look, and when he sees what they're all watching.

The first thing he thinks, strangely enough, is that he's seen that uniform before. He sees that before he really takes in the person wearing it, or makes the connection of where exactly he's seen either the person or the uniform before.

But then she turns, and Akira takes in her profile, and the immediacy of how familiar she is sends ice through his gut. He sees her uniform, then a glimpse of her face, and then at last the trio of Shadows she's just in the middle of squaring up to fight. It's Kotone, he knows it is, and something deep in the core of him is terrified. He doesn't understand what's happening, but she's gone. She'd died six years ago, and here she is, right in front of him, and Akira is suddenly afraid that if he stands back and does nothing, the same thing will happen all over again.

"We have to help her," he says, and he's moving before anyone has a chance to say anything.

"Wait," Ryuji says, as Akira's already half a step past him. He grabs at Akira's arm, stopping him, and Akira forces himself to stay still and not force himself past. "Joker, what--"

"I know her," Akira says.

"From where?" Morgana demands.

"From--" This does not feel like the time to dive into explaining the Velvet Room. "From a long time ago," he says instead. He turns back around to face them all, aware that he probably looks as desperate as he feels, not even bothering to hide it. "But I knew her six years ago, when I was in elementary school and she was in high school, and she died in 2010."

"She..." Ann trails off, her expression confused, and she's not the only one that looks completely lost. 

"I don't know," Akira says. "How, or why, or anything, but that's definitely her."

"Unless it's a cognition or something," Ryuji says.

"Yeah," Akira says. "Unless that. But I have to know."

And there are Shadows coming, and Akira knows now that Kotone had awakened and fought with a Persona in the months before she'd died, but--

But he feels like he's going to crawl out of his skin if he just stands here and watches without trying to help.

"We can figure this out later," Morgana says. "Let's go take care of those Shadows first, and then we can talk to her."

"Right," Ryuji says, still seeming a little unsure. Which is fine. So is Akira. So is everyone else, it looks like. "Sure, let's--go see what's up before those Shadows get to her."

Akira breathes out a sigh as the whole group starts moving together, more relieved than he should be, to not be running forward alone.

(Today has been monumental)

(Today, he's had to open himself up to keep working with the Thieves. He's somehow gotten stuck in a movie inside a movie theater. He's seeing Kotone again, half a lifetime after she'd died)

(And now he's running forward, not sure which part of all that has shaken the ground underneath him the most, but knowing at least that it's nice to feel like he's finally not moving alone)

Chapter Text

Between the six of them, Phantom Thieves and Kotone together, they manage to beat back the Shadows that had been descending on her. They feel tougher than they should be, tougher than they are in Tokyo, or maybe that's just because of how Akira's heart is pounding like it's trying to throw itself out of his chest, terror coursing through her with every hit Kotone takes. 

In the aftermath, when the Shadows are gone and it's just them again, Kotone takes a step back, her weapon still in hand, and surveys the rest of them. She doesn't exactly look angry, or suspicious, just... wary. Trying to read them, Akira thinks, and figure out what's going on here.

"I don't want to seem like I don't appreciate the help," she says. "Because I really do. But who are you?" A smile dances around her face, the same smile that had fascinated  and attracted Akira when he was nine, pulling him closer and closer to the older girl in the Velvet Room while everyone else was pushing him away. "And... where did you all get those costumes?"

She doesn't recognize him, Akira realizes with a jolt, as her gaze passes across him without pausing. She looks at him the same way she's looking at everyone else here--like he's a stranger. And between the mask, the costume, and the seven years that have passed since Akira last saw her and she last saw him, he can't even blame her.

(His racing adrenaline and surging hormones don't seem to care if he blames her or not)

(Her lack of recognition stings)

"We're the Phantom Thieves," Ryuji says, stepping forward. Then he pauses, glancing back at Akira, giving him a chance to speak up if he wants to. Akira, who feels like he's suddenly forgotten how to form words, says nothing. So Ryuji continues without him. "We fight Shadows too, and we actually found a pretty okay safe spot back that way, if you want to talk there?" He jerks his head toward the way they'd come from, and adds, "It's kind of weird, but it's not as weird as it is here."

Kotone considers him for another second or two, then relaxes her grip on her weapon. "Alright," she agrees. "Sorry, I'm just a little..." she tilts her head to one side, half curious and half apologetic. "I don't really know what's going on here."

"Join the club," Morgana says, and Kotone does a double take as she apparently notices him (and notices how he looks) for the first time. "But we're working on figuring it out!"

"Oh yeah," Ryuji says, apparently noticing Kotone's reaction. "This is Mona, he's a cat."

He offers no more explanation, but of the remaining Thieves, three people--Morgana, Akira, and Ann--immediately chorus the reaction that Morgana's not a cat. Yusuke seems distracted and doesn't say anything, and Ryuji just shrugs. 

"Okay," he says. "So he just looks like a cat, but you know what I mean."

"It's nice to meet you, Mona," Kotone says politely, and does a pretty good job of not looking confused. 

The walk back to the theater is shorter than the walk out had been. They're not trying to get to anywhere they haven't been before this time, and retracing their steps is easier than exploring. Akira sticks to the back of the group, watching behind them for Shadows trying to sneak up on them, and tells himself that it has nothing to do with avoiding Kotone's attention. Avoiding the moment when he's going to have to confront the fact that she doesn't know who he is.

(What if she thinks he's just a dumb kid?) 

(He hadn't realized when he was nine how small and clueless he must have seemed to her and Minato, but what if she just thinks it's annoying that he's here?)

He's keeping his eyes open, watching their surroundings, so he notices when Yusuke drops back a little to walk next to him. He might not have otherwise--Yusuke can be loud and easy to set off on tangents sometimes, but at others he can be surprisingly quiet. "You don't look happy to see your friend," he says when he's next to Akira now. "Is everything alright?"

Akira appreciates both the fact that Yusuke is keeping his voice down, and also that Kotone seems distracted by talking to Ryuji and Ann up at the front. Morgana's hopping around somewhere in the middle, clearly doing his best to look capable and not catlike, which is also probably doing at least a little bit to help keep Akira and Yusuke's conversation private.

"I'm not unhappy," Akira says, making sure to keep his own voice quiet. "It's great to see her again."

"I didn't ask if you were unhappy," Yusuke says. "There is a difference between being unhappy, and not being happy, and whether or not you are unhappy, I can tell that you aren't happy, either."

Akira takes a second to unpack this.

"So is everything alright?" Yusuke asks again.

There's no good answer to this. Eventually, Akira manages to say, "She's alive."

Yusuke nods. "You mentioned something about that earlier," he says. "That she died."

"She did," Akira says. "I knew her when I was in grade school, and then one day an adult came to where I was living and explained that she'd died."

"How did it happen?" Yusuke asks. 

"I..." Akira shakes his head. "I still don't know all the details. I know she was fighting Shadows and something went wrong. I--"

"You knew she was fighting Shadows?"

The interruption is sudden and sharp, not what Akira had expected from Yusuke. He pulls back a little, fumbling to think of an answer, as Yusuke stares at him through eyes that are wide with surprise. "I didn't know until the beginning of the year," he says. "I just knew that she'd died, but not how." He still doesn't know all of the how. When Katsuya and Maya had explained things to him, they hadn't gone into a lot of detail about how Kotone and Minato had died. Which kind of makes sense, because they'd only heard about it from Tatsuya, who had heard about it from the Demon Painter, and Akira gets the impression that he hadn't actually been there either.

And Akira hadn't asked too many questions about this part of it either, honestly. 

He doesn't... want to know exactly how his friends had died.

"How did you learn that she fought Shadows then?" Yusuke asks. "If she was..." He hesitates. "If she was gone, who told you?"

"It's a long story," Akira says, deflecting desperately. He absolutely does not have it in him right now to explain--to even think about whether it would be a good idea to explain--the many, many ways his life has been shaped by the people that fight Shadows. He doesn't know if that's okay. He doesn't know what any of them would say if they found out he's just spilling their secrets. And he doesn't know what any of the Phantom Thieves would say if they found out he's been hiding even more secrets. "But the point is she was fighting Shadows and she died, and I don't know why she's here and alive and okay."

"Hmm," Yusuke says, and then to Akira's relief he says nothing else at all until they're back at the movie screen portal.

The theater is as jarring to return to as it had been to find in the first place. Akira passes through at the back of the group, breathing in the slightly stale smell of popcorn, hearing the vague sounds of the music being piped in from the lobby. Somehow, the mundanity of it all makes his stomach sink--this is reality, or as close to reality as they can get right now. Away from the danger of Shadows, anyway, and that means it's time to have a real conversation with Kotone.

Ryuji, apparently, has already started.

"So this is everyone," he's saying to Kotone, as Akira and Yusuke come through the screen at the end of the group. "I'm Ryuji Sakamoto, this is Ann Takamaki, Morgana, and Yuske Kitagawa. And you know Akira, I guess?"

Her eyes land on him as Ryuji gestures, and Akira realizes that they have exactly the same ability to make his stomach flip that they had when he was nine. "Have we met?" she asks him.

Akira's first instinct is to lie, but that's not an option because he'd already blurted out to everyone else that he knows her. His second instinct is to shut down, but that's not an option either, because there's nowhere here to hide.

"Yeah," he says, and it has to be his imagination, but it feels like everything else in the theater has gone dead silent. "It's been a few--no, I guess it hasn't been a few years for you, but it has been for me." When she looks politely confused, he says, "It's still 2009 where you come from, right?"

It really says something about his life that he can just accept that time travel is a part of it now, and not even feel all that surprised.

"Yes?" she says. "Why--what other year could it be?"

This is the first time he's ever seen her look afraid. Of course she's always been the older one, of course she wouldn't have wanted him to see. But they're the same age now, and strangers as far as she knows, and a little beat of fear filters onto her expression now.

"We're all from 2016," Ryuji says, before Akira has to. 

"2016," Kotone repeats, and looks at Akira again, head tilted slightly to one side, expression thoughtful, her eyes stuck on his scar. 

He holds a hand up over it, and hates it when that's what makes her eyes go suddenly wide. "Akira," she says. 

"Yeah," he says, lowering his hand again, staring down at his feet, wishing himself out of the conversation. "I--"

Because he's looking down, he misses it when she moves. But all of a sudden she's on top of him, giving him a hug that's so forceful it forces him back a step. He flinches and tenses and then to his own surprise, hugs her back.

"Look at you," Kotone says. "You look great."

He laughs without humor. "No I don't," he says. He's still scrawny sixteen year old, almost the shortest in his class, weighing just barely enough to not be considered unhealthy. He has scars that he hadn't the last time they saw each other, a knife at his back, and a whole collection of hurts and traumas that don't show as clearly. "You actually do, though."

"Well thanks," Kotone says, and lets go of him to get a better look. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize you, but you're so much older than you were this morning."

"Yeah," Akira says. "Well, it wasn't this morning for me."

"No," she agrees, laughing. "It's still good to see you, though. I've been really worried."

"What," Akira says, genuinely surprised. "About me?" The year that he'd known Kotone had been before things really started to go downhill for him. He'd been pretty happy that year, from what he remembers. It was the year after that, when he was ten years old and struggling to understand why his friends had died, that he'd started to close himself off, skip school, to pull away from everyone--

He'd probably been about that old the last time someone hugged him the way Kotone had a minute ago. Somewhere along the way, touch has gone from something that used to comfort him, something he'd looked for, to something he experiences almost exclusively through violence. 

"Of course about you," Kotone says. "I've been trying everything I can think of to find where you live."

Akira flushes, he can feel his face heating up, and hopes she can't see it. "There's no way you could have," he says, mouth running more or less on autopilot (his brain certainly has nothing to do with it). "We're not from the same Side."

"The same what?"

He really wishes his brain had gotten involved. "Oh," he says. "Um. It doesn't matter."

Her gaze on him is sharp, but Akira shuts his mouth tight and doesn't say another word. Whatever secrets this labyrinth might be hiding, it doesn't seem to have much respect for his secrets, and the Other Side is one that he knows he absolutely can't give away. 

"So where'd you two meet, anyway?" Ryuji asks, which is both a useful distraction (because Akira doesn't want to say anything about the Other Side) and also not (because he doesn't want to say anything about the Velvet Room). 

"That's a long story," Kotone says with a little laugh. "And you'd probably have a hard time believing it anyway."

"Really?" Ann says from behind Ryuji. She looks like she's trying hard not to look interested, but she's failing pretty spectacularly. "Because we've seen a lot of weird things in the past few months."

Kotone considers, then gives a little nod and grins. "It was in an elevator," she says.

"What's so strange about--"

"Can I ask a question now?" Kotone asks. "What's this Phantom Thief thing you guys mentioned before?"

Morgana jumps in to answer this, enthusiastically launching into an explanation. Luckily this takes the attention away from Akira and Kotone, away from his slip up about the Other Side, and away from Kotone's non-explanation of the Velvet Room where they'd met.

The six of them gather together on the couches in the theater lobby, talking instead about Phantom Thieves and Shadows and labyrinths. And, most importantly, what they're going to do now.

And there's really only one answer.

There's no way out through the theater, so they'll have to keep searching the labyrinth.

-//-

It's hard to judge time in the theater, but it's definitely taking a while to get through the labyrinth, which is multiple floors long and full of dead ends and wrong turns. It plays out like a movie, almost, although not a very good one. Not one he'd want to watch, at least.

In the movie, a so-called hero called Kamoshidaman--who looks, big surprise, like the Kamoshida the Phantom Thieves had taken out in their first Palace together--holds power over the city of the labyrinth. He's loved by the people there, the cognitions and Shadows, but it seems like a lot of that love is born out of fear.

(Akira knows the flavor of this fear)

(Not all of the gangs that rule the Sumaru City of the other side are cruel, some of them are only mean)

(But some of them are. And so Akira knows this fear)

He doesn't let anyone disagree with him. The people that do are... punished. Hurt. And Akira knows they're only Shadows, but that doesn't make it right. 

They're going through the labyrinth anyway, looking for their way home. 

It's really not going to be out of their way at all to do the same thing to this Kamoshidaman cognition that they'd done to Kamoshida's Shadow in his Palace.

But not tonight. Because when they finish two whole floors and make it down to a third one that still doesn't seem like the end, Kotone declares that they need to stop and take a break.

Somehow, over the course of the day, she's managed to step up into a position of leadership. She has a team of other Persona-users that she's used to taking into fights against Shadows, she says, and--

And to be honest, she's better at it than any of the rest of them. She says it's fall in her time, that she'd started leading her team in the spring, and so she has almost half a year of experience.

(Akira hears this and thinks about how she'll be dead in another six months, and wonders how he can possibly tell her)

(He has to, right? This isn't like not telling the Phantom Thieves about his past or the Velvet Room, this is her life)

Anyway. It turns out that there's a big difference between fighting Shadows for two months, like they have been, and for most of a school year, the way Kotone has. Even Ryuji, who seems a little bit disgruntled the first time she jumps in with a suggestion that goes against the direction he'd pointed them in, admits that after a while.

So Kotone ends up leading them. And when she decides that they've done enough fighting, and that they're all desperate for some food and some sleep, she's right. Akira's ready to drop, the rest of the Thieves are in pretty much the same shape, and so no one protests as they go back to the theater lobby to try and find a way to make themselves comfortable overnight. Ann and Morgana spearhead this part of it as soon as they get back to the theater--Ann because she says she'd seen some things in storage when they were looking around earlier, and Morgana because he wants to stay with Ann--which leaves the rest of them just kind of milling around. 

Kotone comes up behind Akira in the lobby and touches him on the elbow, as if to draw his attention to her. Which it probably would have if he wasn't already keeping track of where she is all the time, half afraid she's going to disappear if he looks away.

"Can we talk?" she asks. "Just the two of us. I think it might be easier to catch up if there's no one around and listening in."

"Sure," Akira says. "There's probably, um... there has to be a room around here somewhere we can use."

"Over there," Kotone says, gesturing to a half open door on the other side of the lobby. 

"Was that unlocked before?" Akira asks. "I'm pretty sure it was closed when we were looking around before."

"It's open now," Kotone says, and since this is obviously true, Akira follows half a step behind her as she leads the way across the lobby, opens the door, props it open with a shoe to let him in ahead of her--

And then both of them stop in the doorway as they see what's on the other side.

"It's the Velvet Room," Kotone says.

"But the Velvet Room is broken," Akira whispers.

(The Velvet Room in front of him is not broken)

(He can feel it singing to him even from the other side of the door, and something that's been coiled tightly inside him since the day the Velvet Room door vanished from Samuru starts to melt)

(The Velvet Room had always been a safe room before this year, somewhere it's easier to be open and himself, and harder to be afraid)

She looks at him, apparently more surprised by what he'd said than what they're both seeing. "It's what?"

"It's gone," Akira says, and steps past her into the room he'd passed through every day on the way to school for ten years. "This is... the Velvet Room must be coming from your time, because in mine there's something horrible living in it."

"What kind of something horrible?" Kotone asks. She follows him in, and lets the door click shut behind them.

"I don't know what it's called," Akira says. "Just--a big, awful something. I have dreams about it sometimes where he makes threats and tells me to give up, but I haven't been in while I'm awake since that happened." It's bad enough in his dreams, where he doesn't have a choice about waking up there or not. If he went in while he was awake, it wouldn't be anyone's fault but his own.

"That," says a voice behind them. "Is concerning."

Kotone jumps and Akira whirls around, hand halfway to his knife. Luckily, he sees who it is that's appeared between them and the door before he actually draws his weapon, because he doesn't think Elizabeth would be too excited about being stabbed. 

"Who are you?" Kotone asks.

"This is Elizabeth," Akira says. "She works in the Velvet Room, I've seen her before."

"Cor-rect," Elizabeth says, clapping her hands together on the second syllable. "And I believe my troublesome little brother is around here somewhere."

"Theodore?" Akira guesses, because there's only one person from the Velvet Room he can really imagine as being anyone's little brother. 

"I... don't know if I would really describe Theo as a troublemaker," Kotone says. Which is a fair objection, actually, and Akira nods along with it.

"Perhaps you would understand if you had a younger brother yourself," Elizabeth suggests. "He is certainly trouble."

"That's grossly unfair," Theo (Akira, expecting him, recognizes his voice at once) says from behind them.

Kotone spins back around, beaming, and Elizabeth sniffs. "You see?" she says to Akira, as Kotone excitedly reunites with the other Velvet Room resident. "He even steals my entrance." 

Akira offers her a nervous smile, glancing over his shoulder for a second at Theodore. Then he does a double take, longer this time, before turning back to Elizabeth. "Why... is he dressed like a box of popcorn?" he asks.

"Excellent question," Theodore says.

(Kotone, meanwhile, is making strangled, half-muffled noises like she's fighting hard not to laugh)

"It was there," Elizabeth says airily. "And so was he, and I was certainly not going to dress in such an undignified way. Is that really the question you want to be asking?"

(Kotone loses her fight and dissolves into a fit of giggling)

"No," Akira says. "Actually I have other questions." A lot of them. "How is the Velvet Room here? What happened to the thing that's been in there for the past few months? Why is it in this theater, and what's going on with the theater at all? Why are we all here in the first place?"

"Oh," Elizabeth says. "Well, I don't know the answers to any of those questions."

Akira hesitates, his mouth already half open to ask another question. He hasn't spent a lot of time with Elizabeth in the past, and most of his run-ins with her had been back when Minato was in the Velvet Room, years ago. Other than that she...

Actually, he hasn't seen her at all in years, has he? The others, even Theodore, show up once in a while (or used to, before the door disappeared from Sumaru). But Elizabeth's been gone for ages, so it's even weirder for her to be here now.

"I can make some guesses," Elizabeth says. "It sounds like the Velvet Room in the time you have come from is in a difficult situation. But the Velvet Room exists outside of time itself in many ways, and none of the rest of us are from that time."

"Oh," Akira says. 

"Perhaps you could give us a more coherent description of what's been happening," Theodore suggests.

So Akira tells them. Everyone involved in this conversation already knows about the Velvet Room, obviously, so he doesn't hold anything back in his description of the swirling, awful thing that has taken over the Velvet Room and made it into a jail. He tells them about Palaces and Mementos too, which he didn't exactly plan, but Elizabeth turns out to be good at getting things out of him. Elizabeth and Theodore listen to the whole story and at the end, Elizabeth says, "Yaldabaoth."

"What?" Akira asks.

"That is most likely who you have been describing," Theodore says. 

"Okay," Akira says. "Who is he, though? Why is he doing that?"

"It is difficult for those of us from the Velvet Room to understand why someone like that has the motivations he does," Elizabeth muses. "But he is an enemy, and a dangerous one. You should be very careful when you get home, moving forward."

"I've been trying," Akira says. "I mean, avoiding the Velvet Room as much as I can."

"Oh no," Elizabeth says. "Don't do that. Be careful, yes, but not to the extent that you sacrifice your ability to fight him when you have to."

"When I have to do what?" Akira asks, alarmed. "I'm not fighting him, he will literally murder me."

"Nevertheless," Elizabeth says calmly. "If this is what fate has chosen for you to face, then this is what you must face."

"Fighting Shadows is dangerous enough without needing to fight something horrible that invade the Velvet Room on my own," he says. "There's no one else around that can even see the door, it's just me and--" His throat feels like it seizes around the word. "And Yaldabaoth. And this kind of stuff is dangerous, this stuff gets people killed!"

"Who do you know that's died doing something like this?" Kotone asks. Like she's just curious, like it doesn't effect her at all.

The situation is insane. The question is insane, and Akira is almost laughing with that insanity when he answers. "You," he says, and she stiffens. "You're dead. You and Minato." And now Elizabeth goes still. "This stuff is dangerous and I don't have any idea what I'm doing or why I should do it or how or what's even going on."

He stands there, feeling like he's just sloughed off something horrible, feeling like he's found nothing but dirt underneath it because--this isn't something you're supposed to say to people you care about. He's panting like he's been running, and the weight of what he's just said is starting to slowly settle in.

"I'm dead?" Kotone asks.

"I'm sorry," Akira says, the words an almost inaudible mumble. "I shouldn't have said that."

"I'm dead."

She says it again, not a question this time, and Akira feels just as awful as he had the first time. He's sitting here, worrying about whether anything terrible's going to happen to him, when something terrible is already established fact for his friend. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I don't know exactly how, but I heard from someone else in the Velvet Room when it happened."

"Who was that?" Theodore asks. Almost demands it, really.

"The Demon Painter," Akira says, and Theodore and Elizabeth look at each other.

"He probably wouldn't lie," Theodore says.

"No," Elizabeth says. "Not about this at least." She crosses her arms and studies Akira, her expression absolutely serious for the first time in Akira's memory. "What about you?" she asks. "Would you lie about this?"

"No," Akira says. "I mean--" He fumbles. "I don't think I was planning to say anything, and I guess that's sort of a lie, but I wouldn't make this up. It's awful."

He remembers, with vivid clarity, how it had felt to learn that his friends were dead. In a way--a probably unhealthy, not-dealing-with-things way--he's never really stopped feeling it. The pain and hurt and loss had just taken root inside him, echoing forward from that day when he'd first heard the news to now.

Kotone, unexpectedly, reaches out and holds his hand. Hers is cold when she squeezes. "It's worse to lie about things like this, I think," she says.

"It's not fair that you have to know it," he says. 

"No," she says.

And then she's crying. Ugly sobs, colored with fear, and Akira can't blame her at all. He'd cried too, when he found out, and he's still alive.

(For now)

(But with the looming threat of Yaldabaoth waiting for him, he wonders how long that's going to last)

He hugs Kotone. The movement feels awkward and kind of rusty, a million miles away from the enthusiastic hug she'd given him when she finally recognized him earlier. He's close to her height now, doesn't really have to look up at her the way he had when they first met, and all this feels like a moment frozen in time. 

"Please cry," he tells her, when her tears start to take on a hitched, slightly stilted quality that sounds like she's trying to stop herself. "I wanted to cry for a lot longer than that when I found out, and it... wasn't even me. So don't feel like you have to stop."

But she does anyway, pressing her hands against her face until it seems like the pressure and sheer force of will together are enough to stop her tears on their own. "I do have to, though," she says. "Because we're still here, and we're all still trapped, and we have to keep fighting."

"Yeah," Akira says quietly. "But not... not until tomorrow."

"No," Kotone says. She takes a deep breath and steps back. "I can handle this."

Akira gives her a weak smile. "You're stronger than me, then," he says. "I know it's, um...you'll probably think it's stupid, because I was only nine and we barely saw each other, but you were the first friend I had. Or, I mean--" He's bright red. "I don't want to assume we were friends, but--"

She actually smiles a little bit as she shakes her head, cutting off the stream of anxiety pouring from him. "It's okay, Akira," she says. "We're friends. And since we're getting a chance to meet like this, hopefully we'll get to know each other better, too."

Akira watches her without saying anything as she takes several steps back, noticing the way her knees shake a little, and the nervous way she runs a hand through her hair. But she doesn't say anything, and if this is how she wants to handle the world shattering news he's just dropped on her like an idiot, he's not going to try and stop her.

"I guess we should be focusing on the labyrinth for now," Kotone says, voice a little too loud and bright in a way that makes it seem like she's trying very hard to not think about dying. "Theo, do you know why the Velvet Room is here now?"

"It wasn't before," Akira volunteers, eager to help her change the subject if that's what she wants. "We looked around when we first got here, and this door wouldn't even open."

"Hmm," Theodore says. "I suppose it might have something to do with the Velvet Room being accessible in the time we all come from."

And not in Akira's. 

"So it's here because I'm here," Kotone says. "Okay. As long as it's not going to suddenly disappear or be, um, invaded, I think that's fine."

"It should be fine," Theodore agrees, and she flashes him a grateful smile. "It will stay for as long as we are still here."

"What about Igor?" Akira asks. He raises his hand slightly as he asks the question, then feels dumb and lowers it again. "Shouldn't he have come with the Velvet Room? Like you and Elizabeth did?

"He doesn't always come along for every little thing that happens," Elizabeth says dismissively. Like Kotone, her voice seems like it's hiding something. It's too loud. "Sometimes it's left to us to see you safely out the other side."

Akira nods, disappointed--he thinks it really would have helped to see Igor again. He always seems to know the right thing to say.

"You will see him soon, I'm sure," Theodore tells him. 

(Sure, all he has to do is fight Yaldabaoth first)

"And the two of us together are more than enough to assist while we're all here," Elizabeth says. "And speaking of that--shall we discuss fusions?"

Akira flinches before he can stop himself.

All three of the others notice. He can see them noticing. 

"What's wrong?" Kotone asks.

"I... do we have to fuse anything?" he asks. "I mean, if it's going to kill the Persona that are used for it, then I don't..." He trails off, squirming uncomfortably under the continued staring. 

"Is that what you were told a fusion is?" Theodore asks.

"Isn't it?" Akira asks weakly.

"No," Kotone says firmly. Akira looks at her, a little surprised that she's the one that has said something first. But she looks very, very certain. "I'm not saying that it doesn't feel a little strange," she allows. "But I've fused plenty of Persona into new ones this year, and it's not a bad thing. It feels a little like... letting them move onto something new. Something that will let them be more."

"More what?" Akira asks.

"More of what they're supposed to be," Kotone says.

"Very well put," Theodore says, although Akira doesn't feel like it had helped him understand what's going on at all. He looks at Elizabeth, hoping she'll help, but she just nods and generally doesn't seem to even notice his confusion.

"It's honestly not a bad thing," Kotone says, and Akira experiences a brief but fierce internal war between believing her assurance, and believing the clear threat that Yaldabaoth had delivered to him the last time he was in the Velvet Room. Kotone wins, but only just barely--he doesn't have any particular reason to believe Yaldabaoth, but he is so, so afraid that he's telling the truth.

"If you say so," he says, still reluctant. 

"We can do it together tomorrow," she says. "If that helps."

It probably will, so he nods. 

"Great," Kotone says. "And in the meantime, we should probably go see how your friends are doing. It's been a while."

They head back out to the lobby together. For a second, before he opens the door, Akira lets himself feel a brief, aching glimmer of hope that he's going to see his home on the other side.

But it's not, of course. 

It's just the same theater they'd left behind.

He stamps down on his hope, tries to pretend it doesn't hurt, and follows Kotone out, to face the problem in front of them. Movie labyrinth first. Then getting back to Tokyo, then fighting a thing that could kill him without a second thought, and then, then, if he's lucky, maybe finding a way home.

Chapter Text

They finish exploring Kamo City the next day, around early evening. Which is kind of a surprise, because Akira had been expecting to find a way home, and instead they just find a fight with Kamoshidaman, and then an end to the city and nowhere else to go. The fight itself is good; Akira doesn't like this superhero-cognition any more than he'd liked the real Kamoshida. He's just as arrogant, just as attached to the idea of being in charge here, the way he had been in Shujin. Kamoshidaman deserves to be deposed, Akira's pretty sure. 

But then after that, the having nowhere else to go is bad. The labyrinth just bottoms out into the big empty space where the fight had taken place, and then there's nowhere else to go. No way back to Tokyo for Akira and the Phantom Thieves, and no way back to Iwatodai for Kotone.

They go back to the movie theater instead, because what other choice do they have at this point? They need to figure out what to do, what their next steps are supposed to be, but they're not going to be able to do that right now, when all of them are tired, and a few of them are hurt. There has to be something they've missed, in the labyrinth or in the theater, and Akira spends most of the walk back to the theater screen portal trying to figure out what that might be.

He's only distracted and pulled out of his thoughts when they come back through the portal though, because Hikari is staring up at the movie screen with her eyes wide and staring, and a small smile on her face. The first smile, actually, that Akira has seen from her in the time that they've been here. She's... a lot like him, Akira's pretty sure. The kind of person that can be alone in a crowded room.

So that's what makes him wander over to her. The unexpected smile on the face of someone that hasn't been happy at all yet.

"Are you okay?" he asks. Which is probably a stupid question to ask someone that's smiling, but on the other hand he thinks it's the kind of question someone might ask him if he suddenly started smiling.

"Oh," Hikari says. The smile falters under his attention. "Yes, I'm sorry. I was just thinking about the way you all made the movie change."

"How we made...?" Akira glances over his shoulder at the screen, then back at Hikari. "What exactly do you see on the screen when we're in there, actually?" he asks. They've been taking turns staying back at the theater, because six people cramming into a fight together is just too chaotic, and it makes sense to have one person wait behind and rest up. He just hadn't had a chance to see for himself before they got to Kamoshidaman.

"We can see you all like you're a part of the story," Hikari explains. "And the movie started to change after you were all fighting your way through it."

"That's a little, uh..." Akira trails off, wincing. It's weird thinking that the people here in the theater can watch whatever they're doing, but it's not like it's anyone's fault. And of course they're going to watch, if they can. What else is there to do here?

"This movie's been playing for a very long time," Hikari says thoughtfully. "I didn't think it could change, until all of you got here."

"How long is very long?" Akira asks.

Hikari looks uncertain. "I'm not sure," she says. "Just... a long time." 

"Oh," Akira says. He feels like he's just stepped in something, and isn't entirely sure what to say to get himself back out of it. "I'm sorry."

The conversation is interrupted by Yusuke joining them. He makes a small, apologetic gesture before saying, "I'm sorry to interrupt," he says. "But I heard you talking about the movie, Hikari. Do you like the way it ends now?"

She flushes a little. "Oh," she says. "That's right, I forgot we talked about that. But... yes, I do think this ending is better."

Yusuke catches Akira's confused expression before he can hide it, and explains, "While you and Kotone were catching up last night, the rest of us ended up talking to Hikari. She told us how she liked the movie the way it was."

"I just--" Hikari looks slightly pink as she tries to explain. "Everyone in the city seemed like they were... okay. You just have to keep your head down and listen to the person in charge, and they could be happy. But they also seemed happy when Kamoshidaman was gone, and no one had to listen to him. They seemed more happy, honestly."

"Yes," Yusuke agrees. "I think most people are happier when they are able to choose their own way forward."

"I liked it, anyway," Hikari agrees. "I was... surprised. But I did like it."

The conversation peters out a little after that. They're probably the three most socially awkward people here, and it shows in the sudden silence after Hikari's reassurance. It feels like there's something important there, in her slowly building confidence that there's a better way to go through life than to just... do whatever the person with the loudest voice tells them to. He feels like he should say something, but he's not really sure what, so he stays quiet. It seems like Hikari's doing pretty okay at building herself up on her own--her lingering uncertainty says she's going slow, and taking her time, but maybe that's okay. Akira understands what it's like to have to move slowly when he's trying to change. He's not exactly going to fault Hikari for going through the same thing.

The awkward moment ends when Kotone comes over to announce that they've dug up a deck of cards from somewhere, and to ask if the three of them want to play something with the rest of them.

"I think we need to do something that's not fighting Shadows for a while," she says. "Are you guys up for that?"

"Alright," Yusuke says.

"And Akira's playing," Kotone says. "Hikari, do you want to join us?"

"Sure," Hikari says, after the briefest of pauses.

"Wait," Akira says. "Why don't I get a choice?"

"Because we're old friends," Kotone says, and the words old friends make Akira feel suddenly warmer in a way he doesn't think she notices. "And I think you need to have some fun, so I'm exercising my old friends privilege and deciding for you that you're going to play with us."

He could still have argued. But he just... doesn't really want to. The last couple days have been hard, and the only good parts have been the people around him. The Phantom Thieves that had heard a fraction of his history, and decided that yes, actually, they are going to be his friends. And Kotone, who shouldn't even be here at all, and is. He doesn't really want to be alone right now, when he could be with them instead.

"Okay," he says. 

Kotone grabs his hand like she thinks he's going to change his mind, and drags him away from the theater screen, toward the lobby where Ryuji and Ann are trying to drag a table from over by the snack bar over to somewhere that has enough space for them all to sit around and play. Morgana is supervising (from on top of the table, which doesn't look particularly helpful), and Nagi is watching from a seat on the other side of the lobby with a small smile on her face.

"Do you want to join, Nagi?" Kotone asks, pausing in front of the theater curator. 

"Oh no," Nagi says. "That's alright."

"If you're sure," Kotone says.

"Completely," Nagi says, and her smile seems to grow a little bit as her eyes land on Hikari. "It's nice to see you all helping Hikari out so much. I'm more than happy to stay out of your way."

Hikari flushes a litle at the comment, and Kotone shuffles all of them away from Nagi before Hikari can get any more embarrassed. The three of them join Ryuji and Ann in trying to get the table set up, and spend the next several minutes trying to just get the table in place.

"What are we playing?" Yusuke asks, when everyone's finally settled around the table, and Ann is shuffling the deck of cards they've apparently dug up from somewhere.

"Something easy, probably," Ann says. "It's been a long day and I think we should probably stick to games everyone knows, right?"

"I don't know any games," Morgana volunteers.

"You're also not playing," Ryuji says.

"What! I am too playing."

"How are you going to hold the cards?"

Morgana looks absolutely outraged, but apparently can't think of a way to argue against his lack of thumbs. "Fine," he says. "I'll just help Akira then."

"Why me?" Akira asks. 

"In case you need backup," Morgana says. "How good are you at card games?"

"Not bad," Akira says.

"Really?" Morgana asks.

"Yes, really." He's faced with several people giving him he kind of caefully blank looks that say they don't really believe him, so he elaborates. "I've played plenty." It doesn't take much to play a card game. Another person or two, a deck of cards, and at least one person that knows what they're doing. That's it. A good deck of cards will last a long time, they're easy to salvage, and easy to carry. Card games get played a lot on the Other Side, and Akira had spent plenty of evenings during his childhood playing with Tatsuya, or sometimes even with some of the other people in their building.

"Okay then," Morgana says, after a beat in which Akira isn't sure whether he's going to believe him. "Then I guess we're going to be a pretty good team!"

And they are, it turns out. Akira knows the rules of the games (Morgana definitively does not, and keeps suggesting strategies that are, to be generous, creative). Morgana turns out to be an enthusiastic risk taker, and spends most of the game batting at the cards in Akira's hand with his paws, and whispering suggestions up at him. It's not exactly the best way to play, and Akira's methodical, cautious playstyle doesn't mix well with Morgana's just go for it and see what happens strategy, but it's fun. Akira spends most of the night desperately scrambling to recover from increasingly wild plays, and smiling more than he has in a long time.

It's crazy. 

He shouldn't be happy here. They're trapped in a movie theater with no obvious way out. It's so, so crazy to sit in the theater lobby and think that just because he's trapped here with these people, specifically, that maybe things are going to be okay. But the thing is, that's exactly what's happening. They're all so tired, so spent, but they're all together, and no one else is giving up. 

They play way later than they should, until they get to the point where all of them are maybe getting a little loopy from lack of sleep, and the card playing starts to be not as important as the weird, circular conversations they start to get into. It's impossible to guess what time it is, but it feels late when Akira finally realizes they've been talking without playing cards for a while, that Hikari's left to go find Nagi, that Morgana is curled up fast asleep on his lap, and that he's leaning on Yusuke, who happens to be sitting next to him. He starts to sit up, but then stops when Morgana grumbles a complaint over the movement. So... he's kind of trapped for now.

...and it's crazy, probably, to feel safe here. While he's trapped between Yusuke, Morgana, and a table full of cards. But the thing is that he does. The same way he feels crazy to be happy right now. This is... 

This is what he'd always thought it was supposed to be like to have friends.

"It really worries me when you say things like that," Kotone says, and Akira realizes he's said it out loud. He hadn't meant to, honestly. Obviously. It's a stupid thing to say out loud. But he's said it now, and there's not a lot of room to back down.

"It's okay," Akira says.

"It's not," Ryuji says, leaning over from where he'd been yawning on a chair. "We didn't really get to talk about how you grew up in some kind of gang thing?" he says it like a question, but Akira doesn't answer it. There's some things he can talk about and some things he can't, and the Other Side is a can't. "I mean, obviously we've been busy, but that was a pretty big not okay thing."

"Gang thing?" Kotone asks.

"That's not what it was," Akira says. "Not all it was, anyway." He tries shifting again, but it's not like Morgana's gone away, he's still weighing down his lap and keeping him in place. 

"Then what was it?" Yusuke asks.

A floating city in the sky over a dead world. The last place left where humans can still live. 

"Akira?" Kotone asks.

He leans forward, and starts to gather the cards off the table. He does it carefully, ready this time for the way he has to balance to keep from knocking Morgana off his lap. Yusuke shifts a little too, making room for him, which helps. 

"If you don't want to talk about it you don't have to," Kotone says. "But--"

"This is a game we used to play on the Other--" Akira hesitates, swallowing back the words that had just tried to slip out. "Back home."

"Okay," Ryuji says. "But this sort of isn't what we need to talk about."

"This is... how I can talk about it," Akira says. He's a couple cards short of a full deck, and he's grateful for it because it gives him something to look at other than their faces. Kotone leans down and picks something up off the floor. Hands him the last cards. Akira mumbles a thank you, then starts to shuffle. "You know the game BS?"

"Sure," Ann says. "You deal out all the cards and then the first person puts down however many twos they have in their hand. The next person plays their threes, and then their fours, and they keep going. If it's your turn to play a number and you don't have any of that number, you can lie. Or if you want to get rid of more cards, you can lie. But if someone calls BS on you, then you have to pick up all the cards that have been played. The first person to run out of cards wins."

Akira nods. "This is sort of like BS," he says. "But the point of the game isn't to run out of cards." He finishes shuffling, and starts to deal them around the table. "Everyone takes a suit when the game starts. You always play with four people, one suit for everyone. Spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds." He names each suit in turn as he starts dealing the cards out to Kotone, Ryuji, Ann, and himself. Yusuke is sitting too close to him to really play, and Morgana's still asleep, so he just skips over the two of them. 

"What's this game called?" Yusuke asks. 

"Top of the Heap, usually," Akira says. "Because the fours suits are supposed to represent gangs fighting over the city." He doesn't know where the game had come from, exactly, just that it had always been around when he was growing up, and that everyone knows what it means. He puts down a pair of cards and says, "Two twos."

"One three," Kotone says, playing a card of her own. "So what's the point of assigning suits?"

"Because you don't win the game by running out of cards," Akira says. "You win when all the remaining cards from your suit are in your hand."

"So you just wanna dump all your other cards, right?" Ryuji asks. "Three fours."

"Sort of," Akira says. "And that's BS." He reaches around Yusuke and Morgana to flip over Ryuji's cards--no fours. Ryuji's suit is clubs, but this is two hearts and a diamond. Two of Ann's cards, and one of his. "I'm the one that called BS, so I take my card."

"What about mine?" Ann asks. 

For a second, Akira just looks at the two hearts. Then he flicks a finger and the cards go flying off the table. "Gone," he says. "You didn't move fast enough, so they go... off the edge of the world."

"Discarded, basically?" Kotone asks. 

"Basically," Akira says. "They're out of the game. So that's two less cards Ann has to get, one more card in my hand--" he holds up the diamond Ryuji had put down. "So that's one less card for me. The cards that were already played stay on the table until the end of the round, then get dealt out again."

"Sounds cutthroat," Kotone says. "And hard to win."

"It takes a while to play all the way through," Akira says. "Yeah." A lot like how it takes a long time for any one gang to get a lot of power at home. There's always someone trying to pull them back down. "Most games, no one wins until someone's down to one or two cards and most of the decks on the floor."

"Off the edge of the world," Yusuke murmurs, looking down at the cards on the floor.

"Yeah," Akira says. "Well, there's nothing deader than going off the edge of the world, is there?" The Other Side's Sumaru doesn't have a whole bunch of graveyards. So bodies go... over the edge of the world. "When the gangs fight, bodies pile up. It's not the best game, but it's a game that feels a lot like what life looks like, so I guess..." He shrugs. "It's not always bad to sit around and complain about the way life looks. Maybe it's easier to handle when it's just a deck of cards."

"Guess that makes sense," Ryuji says. "There's a game called War, isn't there?"

"Even tarot started out as just a card game," Kotone says. "Back in the middle ages, it was just a game about what life looked like to them." She shrugs. "And then people started using it for fortune telling, and... other things. But I guess it just shows that people play games that look like what they know."

"I guess so," Akira says. "And this is... there's a lot of things I really, really can't talk about. It's not that I don't want to, because I don't know if--I haven't figured out if I want to?" It's been a secret for a long time, and that's a hard habit to break. But he's learning to talk to the people around him, to his friends, and here he is. Feeling safe and even happy in a situation that's dangerous and unstable. Maybe he would have wanted to talk to them about the Other Side, if he could have. He clears his throat and says, "But I can talk about card games, and maybe that's... maybe it's enough."

(It doesn't feel like it's enough, but--)

(But it's going to have to be, because he's never going to be able to talk about what it's really like on the Other Side)

They play a round of Go Fish after that, because Top of the Hill is kind of a lot, and it's been a long day. Akira only makes it about halfway through before he accidentally falls asleep.

His friends let him rest.

And Akira feels peace.

-//-

The peace lasts until the next morning, when Elizabeth swans over to the snack bar where the rest of them are trying to figure out whether popcorn works as breakfast, and announces that there's a new movie playing. 

"A new movie?" Hikari asks. Tentatively, because she is very quiet and Elizabeth is very loud, but Akira's still weirdly glad to hear her speak up at all. He's not sure she would have, a few days ago. "There's only ever been one."

"And now there is a second one," Elizabeth says. "It's exciting, isn't it?"

"What's the new movie about?" Kotone asks.

"Do you want to see for yourselves?" Elizabeth asks. "There's a trailer playing on repeat in the theater."

The group exchanges a look. Ryuji says, "At least we already have popcorn."

Somebody laughs--Akira isn't sure who, and the mood of the whole group picks up a little. He can feel it in the air, a kind of hopeful charge. They've run out of places to look, and now there's suddenly somewhere else for them to try. Ryuji grabs the popcorn and they head back toward the theaters, to the one Elizabeth points out as being newly opened. They're not quite there when Hikari says, "Doe?"

It's not a loud question, and if Akira hadn't been walking near her at the back of the group, he doesn't think he would have heard her. But he does, so he turns, and sees Hikari looking around at Doe. Akira's honestly sort of forgotten the weird shadow monster thing is hanging around, but he's standing right there now, and he looks like he's in pain.

It takes a second or two for everyone to notice and stop, bunching up around Doe. Even Elizabeth looks surprised, which is rare--she usually looks like she'd rather pretend she knows exactly what's going on, even when she doesn't.

"Are you okay, Doe?" Kotone asks, taking a careful step forward. The rest of them are still several feet away, keeping their distance from Doe as he starts to squirm and writhe, nubby shadow arms reaching up to clutch at his head. He doesn't react to Kotone's question in any way whatsoever. At least, Akira's pretty sure that the moaning noises Doe starts to make are just because he's in pain, and not an answer. 

Akira flexes his fingers a little, not sure what to do. Doe doesn't look like he's trying to lash out at any of them, but this is a weird new thing for him to be doing. This might be when he starts being violent. And Akira's only had friends for like a week, he doesn't want to take chances, and lose them.

Yusuke is the one next to him, again, like he had been last night. And he's the one that sees Akira's twitchy fingers going for his knife, and puts an arm over his elbow. 

"Sorry," Akira says, and forces himself to relax. He doesn't look away from Doe, though, just in case, not until Doe makes a final, agonized sound and does something that looks like his face is falling off. Only it's not his face, it turns out. It's a key. And he hands it off to Hikari with a kind of sad, bubbly noise before melting away into the background. He looks sad, and hurt, and looking at him, Akira's glad he hadn't gone straight to stabbing.

(Glad that Yusuke had stopped him)

"What's the key for?" Ryuji asks, and Akira tears his gaze away from Doe's retreating back to look at Ryuji and Kotone.

"I don't know," Kotone says. "She grins. "But I think I can make a pretty good guess."

They're still in the lobby, they haven't made it to the actual theater yet, so she doesn't have to go far to make it to the front doors. The key fits in the first of the four locks she tries, and Akira lets out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. There are a total of four locks on the door--three now, after Kotone had used her key--so it's not like getting rid of one lock is going to let them out.

But it tells them how they're going to get out.

"So we need to find more movies," Morgana says. "And beat them, and hope Doe comes up with more keys! That's how we get back home."

"Maybe," Kotone says, but her eyes are bright, like she's trying to stamp down on her own excitement. "It could still be something else, or..." She shrugs. But she looks optimistic.

"And hey," Ryuji says. "There's a new movie open now, right?"

"There is," Elizabeth agrees. "There's a trailer playing now, if you want to watch that first."

No one argues--they might not know for sure that this is going to get them the next key they need to get out, but it feels like a pretty safe bet. The whole group moves toward the theater together, and Akira only remembers at the last second to look up at the space over the door where the name of the movie is supposed to be.

"Junassic Park," he reads out loud.

Ann, who's a little in front of him, pauses and looks back. "Jurassic Park, you mean?"

"No," Akira says. "Look, it's an n."

"I wonder if that's a typo," Ann says. Then she frowns, and adds, "Actually, I wonder if they're just going to start playing an actual movie now, when the last movie was just something stupid about Kamoshida." She crosses her arms and scowls at the Junassic Park sign, although Akira's pretty sure this isn't the movie she's mad at. "Do you think this is going to be another made up movie?"

"Probably," Akira says. "If we're going to be able to go into it the same way we did with the Kamoshidaman movie, it makes sense that this would be something we can change the same way."

"Or maybe they couldn't get the rights to Jurassic Park," Ann says. She sighs, and her posture loosens a little. "Well, hopefully we're not about to have to fight dinosaurs."

"Dinosaur Shadows," Akira says, and can't even pretend to be enthusiastic about the idea. It sounds awful, honestly.

Ryuji calls for the two of them to come join everyone else in the theater, and they go to find out for themselves.

(...there are dinosaurs. Of course there are dinosaurs)

(It's a weird looking movie about a group of dinosaurs following rumors to an ideal land they can live happily)

(It's... weird)

"No reason to wait around, right?" Ryuji says, when the weird trailer for the weird movie is over. "We can all head in and see what's up."

"For sure," Kotone agrees. "Or--I think it's Akira's turn to stay behind and sit out, but the rest of us can go in."

"Wait," Akira says. "I'm okay, I can go in. We just had a rest."

"I know," Kotone says. "But you're the only one that hasn't had a chance to sit out, so it's your turn."

Akira opens his mouth to protest.

"It's okay," Kotone says, before he can get a word out. "It's not anything against you, I'm sure you're up for it, but it's just more fair if everyone takes turns."

She hasn't taken a turn, but Akira also doesn't think she's going to. She's managed to step up into a leadership role in a way that not even Ryuji really seems to mind, and Akira thinks he would have if anyone did. The Phantom Thieves have never really chosen a leader the way Kotone and her friends sound like they have. Unless maybe they'd done that during the time when Akira was avoiding them all, that's possible. But he's pretty sure Ryuji's the leader they don't technically have, and he'd sort of expected Ryuji to be at least a little jealous about Kotone stepping in. The fact that he hasn't been at all, as far as Akira can tell, says a lot about how naturally Kotone takes to being a leader. She can't really step back and take a break, not when everyone else is following her lead.

Including Akira. He's following her too, so even though he wants to be able to help. He'd rather be fighting than sitting around with nothing to do. But he looks down at the floor and nods. 

It's so anticlimactic to watch all of them going in without him, and then after that, there's nothing to do but find a theater seat and watch what happens. He picks one on the end, near the aisle, to give Hikari and Nagi some space. They're both sitting closer to the middle, at least at first. After a couple minutes Hikari gets up and actually comes over to join him. "You were wondering what the movie looked like from out here, weren't you?" she asks. 

"I was," Akira says. "Although honestly I'd rather be fighting with the rest of them." He looks up at the screen, where he can, actually see his friends fighting Shadows. Some of them are dinosaur shaped. It looks awful.

"I'm not surprised," Hikari says. She chooses a seat two over from his, and sits down too. "You always seem like you're fighting so hard."

"Everyone fights hard," Akira says.

"Yes," Hikari says. "But you fight like you're afraid of losing everything."

Akira looks at her sideways, not fully turning his face away from the screen, just trying his best to read her. She doesn't seem like she's trying to insult him, she's just stating a fact. "Yeah," he agrees. "I haven't had friends very long, and I haven't really... believed they're my friends for more than a couple of days. I can't lose them now. I can't."

"I'm sure you won't," Hikari says. 

Akira shrugs, because he knows how easy it is to lose people. One of the people here is in fact someone he's already lost, and he's not going to lose her again. When they get out he's going to have to say goodbye, and she's going to have to go back to a future that Akira knows holds her death. But for now...

He changes the subject. "This is technically the first movie I've ever seen in a theater," he says.

"No!" Hikari says, with more excitement than Akira's seen from her so far. "You've never seen a movie before?"

"I've... seen movies," he says. "Sometimes they show them at school. But I've never seen been to a theater. Do you like movies?"

"I--" Hikari hesitates. Then she admits, "I don't really remember much about where I came from before I was here. Or if I liked movies, or anything really." She puts her hand over her heart, and looks down as she says. "But I think, the way I feel... I think maybe I did. Or do."

"Just not this one, maybe," Akira says. "It's a little too real."

"I don't know," Hikari says. "I think... after seeing the last one, it might be interesting to see what happens here."

The conversation lapses after that, and Akira focuses his attention on just watching the screen so he can keep an eye on his friends. He'd known it would be hard, to watch and not be able to do anything, but it turns out to be much more stressful than he'd expected. Way worse than actually being in the fights himself would have been. And he's just thinking that at least this is the most stressful thing he's going to have to go through in these mazes, and that joining back in is going to be a relief, when something even worse happens.

The scene they're watching changes. They've been watching yet another fight against some dinosaur Shadows, but suddenly they're looking at something else. A long, panning shot of a dinosaur-filled jungle, on fire. Akira sees this and sets up bolt upright in his seat, worry turning into tension. "This doesn't look good," he says. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Hikari says. She seems worried when he looks over at her, but she's looking at him like he's the reason for that worry. Akira tries for a couple seconds to relax, but can't manage it. He doesn't understand why they can't see the Thieves and Kotone anymore. 

"This didn't happen in the first movie?" he asks.

Hikari doesn't answer. She's still looking at him in a way that says that his sudden anxiety has her on edge. 

Nagi appears behind the two of them suddenly, moving so quietly that if Akira hadn't been on high alert, he thinks he would have missed her. And she does answer the question, her voice calm (too calm in Akira's opinion, considering). "Nothing like this happened in the previous movie," she says. "There were certainly unexpected changes in scene when you all arrived, but those weren't this destructive."

"So something's wrong," Akira says. "And they probably don't even know it, we don't known where that fire is, they could be walking right into it--"

"I'm going to have to ask you to calm down a little," Nagi says, still in that extremely calm voice. "You're worrying Hikari."

But his friends are in danger. Akira takes a deep breath and fights a losing battle to stay calm. He's still fighting it, actually, when he sees something else on the screen. A someone else, technically, that it takes him a heartbeat too long to recognize. When he does, the realization hits him like a blow to the gut, so strong that it knocks that deep breath out of him. 

No.

(He wants to see him again so badly, just... not like this)

-//-

Tatsuya's first thought on waking up is that it's not supposed to hurt this much to wake up. 

His second thought is that he shouldn't be waking up at all. Things are desperate, Sumaru is breaking all over again, and he can't waste time sleeping. He can't take breaks, because everything that's going wrong here is because of him, it's his fault that This Side is breaking just like the Other Side had. There's an empty, hollow cavern inside him where the absence of his friends claws at him, constantly, reminding him that his mistake has hurt them in a way that he can't take back. All he can do is keep fighting, so there's no time to rest.

His third thought, after he's made his way through the usual cycle of guilt and self-hatred, and opened his eyes, is that he shouldn't be in the middle of a jungle.

And then he stops counting thoughts, because that jungle is on fire, and figuring out what's going on isn't as important s getting away from the on fire jungle. He heaves himself up, adrenaline helping him ignore his tired limbs, and starts running. 

...the last thing he remembers is blowing up the Nichirinmaru. Trying to blow it up? He's never exactly had to blow up a cruise ship to stop a demon cult before. It's definitely looking possible that he's messed it up, and somehow blown this jungle up and knocked himself instead. He has no idea how, but it's not the weirdest thing that he's ever seen, so...

The air in the jungle is thick and humid, and Tatsuya's pretty sure that's the only reason he's able to outrun the fire. If he'd woken up in a forest full of dry timber, the fire would have spread in a heartbeat, and he might not have even had a chance to wake up and try to get away. As it is, the jungle is damp and the air is heavy, and the trees don't seem like they're catching fire easily. 

He outruns the fire, but keeps going. Just in case. And he might have kept going for longer than he does, except that after a few minutes he goes around a corner and comes face to face with a group of strangers. Tatsuya stops because the only other option is to run into the girl at the front, but keeps himself tense and ready to either keep running or fight, if he has to. 

(His Persona screams at him that he's not the only Persona-user here, the world flickering in and out of focus from the strength of the feeling)

(He takes the warning, and stays alert)

"What the fuck?" says one of the others. Tatsuya flicks his gaze over to him, taking in died-blonde hair and a skull mask that looks like it's made of metal. It's not exactly the most reassuring thing he's ever seen, especially considering that everyone else in this group apart from the leader is dressed in clothes that are just as weird or even weirder. All of them have weapons, an observation that has him tightening his grip on his own sword.

"Where did you come from?" someone asks. Tatsuya opens his mouth to answer, then realizes the question had come from a walking cat that he hadn't even noticed before, and suddenly doesn't know how to answer. He shakes his head, and pushes past that for now.

"Back there," Tatsuya says. "Where the fire is."

"What fire?"

He doesn't know these people, or if they're dangerous, but he does know that he's not willing to just leave them to burn. "The one that's moving this way," he says. "The jungle's not dry enough for it to spread quickly, but it's coming."

"Shit," skull mask curses.

Tatsuya starts to move around and past them. He's warned them, and it's up to them to get themselves moving.

Which they do, a half dozen kids--

(Kids)

(They're the same age as him, aren't they? The unmasked girl is in a high school uniform, and the rest don't look any older--they could have been classmates)

(He just... feels too old)

--all of them running to keep up with them. It's annoying, because Tatsuya's spent most of his time lately pushing his brother and Maya and the rest of their group away. He keeps hoping that if he just figures out the right thing to say, or do, they'll finally get how dangerous this is. Maybe then they'll leave it alone, and let him fix what he broke by himself, without putting them in danger. It's not working, and the very last thing he wants is to drag anyone else into what's happening.

"There's somewhere safe we can go back to," the girl says. "Up ahead, we can get out of here, somewhere the fire won't reach."

Tatsuya hesitates. There's enough space between them and the fire that he could probably just keep going, and get away from it. He doesn't have to go with them. He doesn't even know if he can trust them.

And then, while he's still trying to figure that out, he does the exact same thing all over again that he'd just done--goes too fast around a corner, and runs smack into a group going the other way. Only this time it's not a group of strangers.

"Tatsuya," his brother says, with all the same old disappointment that's been building up in him since all this started. Or for longer than that, really. For months, ever since he found himself suddenly the only one that knew about the Other Side. 

(...for longer than that, maybe)

(Tatsuya's never been a very good brother, in ways he hadn't understood until recently)

"You just can't stay away," Tatsuya says. His eyes flick from one face to the next, checking that everyone's still okay, for now. Katsuya's disappointed, but okay. Maya's fine. Her roommate, Ulala, looks... a little pissed off, maybe, but okay. The hacker they'd picked up, Baofu, he looks annoyed, but also okay. Everyone looks okay.

"Will you just stop running?" Katsuya says. "Tatsuya, if you would just hold still for five seconds and explain--"

"I can't explain," Tatsuya snaps. He can't tell them about the Other Side, his mistakes and his sins. "You should have just left when you could have."

Someone interrupts. It's not Katsuya, or Maya, or any of the people that had come with them.

It's one of the teenagers Tatsuya had run into first, a girl in a red suit that's so tight Tatsuya doesn't know how she had possibly managed to keep up with them as they were running. She says it so quietly that it's clearly only intended for her friends to hear her. 

"Isn't that his dad?" she whispers.

Tatsuya hears the question, but he doesn't think anyone else has, apart from maybe Ulala. While everyone else is listening to him and Katsuya argue, her attention has apparently wandered. Tatsuya sees her eyes light up with interest. 

"Look," the girl with no mask says, stepping up with only the tiniest hint of hesitation and putting herself in the middle of everything. "I don't know what's going on, but if the jungle is actually on fire back there, maybe you can argue when we get somewhere safe."

(The cat whispers something back, and this time it's too quiet for Tatsuya to hear the words)

(When he half looks over his shoulder though, he sees the cat pointing to where Baofu's slouching against a fence on one side of the jungle path, arms crossed, scowl firmly in place)

"Wait," Maya says. "What's on fire?"

"It's not too bad," Tatsuya says quickly, because if anyone would hate to be in a burning jungle, it would be her, and he doesn't want her to have to be. "Everything's so wet here that it's not spreading fast."

"Going somewhere safe to talk sounds like a good idea," Katsuya says.

"No it doesn't," Tatsuya says. When his brother doesn't look like he's going to back down, he shakes his head and takes a step back. "Never mind. Go where you want, I'll--"

"There's nowhere else to go," the girl says firmly. "We're all trapped here, we all want to get out, and honestly we can use all the help we can get. You don't have to help, but it'd be nice, and maybe we'd all get out of here and back to our own times faster."

Tatsuya's ready to say no. His mouth's open. Then what she'd said catches up to him. "Wait," he says. "Times?"

"2009," she says, raising a hand. "They're all 2016."

"What," Ulala says.

Tatsuya can wrap his mind around the Other Side. He's had to. But 2009 and 2016 are the future, and that's... new.

"1999," Maya says, after everyone's had a chance to process this. "It sounds like maybe we should talk."

"Fine," Tatsuya says. "Maybe we do."

Chapter Text

Tatsuya isn't... exactly enthusiastic about the idea of being trapped indefinitely in this movie theater. Or in the movies attached to it. There are things that he still needs to do, and honestly one of those things (not the most important thing, even if it sometimes feels like it) is avoiding Maya and his brother. He'd tried to keep them away from everything that's happening, he'd tried. But they'd kept pushing forward, kept pushing and pushing and pushing, and no part of Tatsuya still believes that he can keep them out of this.

But that doesn't mean he's ready to talk. He can't explain this. 

And now he can't avoid it. Can't avoid them, because the theater is small, and there's no way he's going to be able to hide for long. 

Which doesn't mean he isn't going to try. As soon as the whole group gets back to the impossible theater, Tatsuya ducks away. Hiding isn't a great solution to this problem, but it's not nothing, and maybe it'll buy him thirty minutes.

(He's so tired)

There are a few rooms off the theater lobby, and Tatsuya picks a door at random to open. It turns out to be what Tatsuya thinks is probably a projection room, and there's a... something? A big, dark something like a shadow that looms over Tatsuya from the other side of the door, wobbling slightly, eyes wide open. Tatsuya freezes in place, brain short circuiting for long, cold seconds. He's just starting to pull himself together when the thing starts to move, wobbling past Tatsuya into the lobby where everyone else is. 

There's something about the way it moves that makes it almost impossible to believe that it's dangerous. Maybe that's the reason why Tatsuya doesn't follow, doesn't talk, just kind of edges to one side, into the room, and watches until the thing is out of sight. It feels weird. Like simultaneously the weirdest thing he's seen, and something he should have expected to see. His life has gotten so weird that apparently he can't even figure out how to react to new weird things. 

The door closes behind the weird thing, and Tatsuya just... stands perfectly still for a second. Then he leans back against the wall, puts his hands over his face, and breathes deeply, in and then out. This is not okay. This is not okay, and he can feel his hands shaking a little against his face. He's been keeping things together over the past few weeks because he's had something to do. This Side has a chance to end up better than the Other Side had, as long as he doesn't let things happen the same way. 

Not that he's been doing a great job of it, but at least it's something to do, a way to keep moving and not... thinking. Too much. And now that they're here, trapped, and Tatsuya doesn't have a way to keep moving forward, everything is just hitting him, kind of all at once. And he doesn't think he has it in him to explain what's going on. He just can't.

A small sound makes him look up, and he realizes--about a minute too late--that he's not the only one in here. He'd been distracted when he first came in, by the dark thing that had been standing in the doorway. After it was gone, he hadn't thought to look around and see if anyone else is here, but he sees now that there is. Another high schooler, short and wiry in a way that makes him look almost unhealthy, with a wide scar across half his face. He's on the far side of the room, leaning against a wall like he's trying to just disappear through it.

"Sorry," the boy says, as Tatsuya just kind of stares at him. "I didn't mean to... um." His posture changes slightly, so that he's standing instead of leaning, and there's obvious tension in every inch of him. "I didn't mean to startle you," the boy says, more quietly. "I guess you didn't notice me when you came in, and I didn't want to, um. Interrupt."

Tatsuya shakes his head. He doesn't want to talk about how this total stranger had just watched him falling apart. "What was that thing?" he asks instead.

"Oh," the boy says. "That's Doe. We don't know what he is. He's not dangerous, though, and it seems like he's trying to help, so..." He shrugs. "We really don't know what's going on here."

"Sure," Tatsuya says. Then, almost grudgingly, he asks, "None of you really know anything about this place?"

"A little," the boy says. "It looks like we're supposed to fight our way through the movies here, and when we finish them, we get a key. There's four theaters and four locks on the front door, so I guess that makes sense."

"What are you fighting?" Tatsuya asks.

There's a pause that a part of him recognizes as being just a little too long. Then the boy says, "Demons."

"Oh," Tatsuya says, and relaxes a little. He knows how to do that, at least. "Why weren't you with everyone else fighting, then?"

"We're taking turns sitting out so we're not stepping on each other," he answers. "It was just my turn. I, um... I saw you show up, though."

"Saw how?"

"On the screen," he says. "When you go in through there, you're in the movie, and we can watch the movie from out here."

Tatsuya frowns. He kind of hates that. 

"Yeah," the boy mutters. "It's... really weird." He takes a deep breath. He looks like he's warring with himself over something, and then after several long, painful seconds, he says, "Can--I need to tell you something."

"Why me?" Tatsuya asks.

(Why now?)

(He already feels like he's standing on the edge of a cliff, and his brain is just in survival mode)

"Because it's important," the boy says. "I think. I mean, it's--I think you should know."

"Okay," Tatsuya says. He says it warily, bracing himself for what feels like it's going to be another... something that he has to find the space to deal with. "What's wrong?" He shakes his head. "No, actually--who are you?"

"Oh," he says. "Um. My name's Akira."

"Akira what?" 

Another long pause, and Tatsuya finds himself squinting at Akira in wary consideration. It probably shouldn't take this long for most people to give their full name. 

"Just Akira's okay," he says at last. 

He won't meet Tatsuya's gaze as he says it, which is weird. It sets off all kinds of alarm bells for Tatsuya, anyway, who asks, "Why should I listen to you when you won't even tell me your name?"

"I only have an adopted family name," Akira says. "And I don't think--"

"What's your name."

He flinches, and looks hurt, and the answer seems to slip out of him before he can stop it. "Suou."

Tatsuya stops. Just stops--breathing, for a second. He's exhausted, he's spent weeks focused on trying to stop This Side from turning out like the Other Side had, he's pushing himself as hard as he can, the only sleep he's gotten in days had been between being knocked out by his own bomb and waking up in a jungle on fire, but--

But he's not an idiot. Akira has his name, is from some future time, either 2009 or 2016. Probably 2016, since his uniform looks the same as the others' from that time. In the movie, one of the others from the future had whispered isn't that his dad. Tatsuya is standing here, falling apart, looking at either his son or his nephew. By adoption, apparently, but that doesn't stop the sudden rushing in his ears, and the way his legs feel like they're about to just give up holding him.

"Oh," he says. 

Akira doesn't say anything at first. He turns his head away and stares at the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Tatsuya watches one hand squeeze his arm, so hard that the knuckles turn white. "I was born on the Other Side," Akira says at last. "I just wanted you to know, because I don't think you want anyone to find out about that. And I'm not going to tell anyone--um. Anyone else, anyway. But I was thought you might figure it out anyway." 

Tatsuya tries to say something, and eventually manages a half-strangled noise that's... close to a word. Probably. He just stands there, speechless, for a long time. Akira's gaze slowly drops, until he's staring at the floor like he's begging it to swallow him up. "I'm sorry," he says at last. His gaze darts up at Tatsuya, then immediately back to the ground.

Tatsuya reaches behind him, and finds for his relief that there's a lock on the door. Whatever this conversation is going to be, he doesn't want any more surprises joining in. He locks the door without taking his eyes off Akira, the click echoing in the small space. He does not want to have this conversation. "How are you from the Other Side?" he asks. The words come out slowly, and he feels like he's fighting to get them out. 

"I was born there."

Not really the most helpful answer, although it is one that sends an unexpected stab through Tatsuya. He's been running away from the Other Side ever since he woke up back home, ever since he started to piece together what was going on. That he and his friends (another painful stab) had been given the opportunity to save the world by forgetting each other.

And that they'd all said yes while he said no. This Side is falling apart now, just like the Other Side had, and the only reason for that is because of his choice. He's been trying and trying to fix things because he doesn't want to have to see that all over again, and he hasn't really been thinking much about the Other Side that he'd left behind. 

(Not any more than as something to escape, anyway)

(Something to run from as hard and as fast as he can)

"So people are still living there," he says. "Still..." He waves a hand vaguely.

"Yeah," Akira says. "It's not the safest place to live, there's not always enough of--uh, anything--but there's still some of us."

Tatsuya looks him over again. The scar that speaks of violence, the thin frame that says he'd grown up in a place without enough to eat. "That's my fault," he says quietly.

"I... don't think it was?" Akira says. "I've only heard stories about how the Other Side came to exist, but it sounds like everything would have happened whether or not you, um. Did the thing you did."

"You know what I did?"

Akira nods. "You wouldn't forget your friends," he says. "But the Other Side was already there when that happened, right?"

"I mean..."

"So it's not like--you've never made my life worse."

There's something about the vehemence he says this with that doesn't sit quite right with Tatsuya. He looks at Akira again, opens his mouth, and then closes it. Then he decides that he really needs to know. "So," he says. "I know you said you were from the Other Side, but you also said your name is--" He makes a face, before he can stop himself. "Is that a coincidence?"

Akira also makes a face. "Is it okay if I just tell you everything?" he asks. "I can't usually do that, because obviously talking about the Other Side is dangerous."

Tatsuya nods. He can absolutely understand that, and he's been trying hard to avoid talking about it too.

"But you know about everything anyway," Akira says. "So I can tell you."

For the first time in the whole conversation, they make real eye contact. Akira's expression is suddenly set, decided, and maybe just a little relieved. Tatsuya can't read his mind and doesn't know him at all, but it's hard not to see a reflection of his own realization that this is someone he doesn't have to lie to. Whatever Akira's story might turn out to be, he knows about the Other Side. He's proved that just by talking about it.

"I was born on the Other Side," Akira says. "I don't know exactly when, because my mom wasn't..." He hesitates. "I never really knew her, I was maybe two when she died. But from what I've heard, she wasn't, um--she wasn't doing so well. So I don't know when I was born or who my father was or anything like that. And my mom died, like I said, when I was about two, so after that, um..." He falters, and his voice is quieter as he says, "You found me?" in a voice that's almost a question.

Tatsuya doesn't know how to answer that question. He doesn't even know how or why he would have gone back to the Other Side in the first place. That is very much not the plan. "Is that," he says, a little uncertain. "Why you said your adopted name is--"

"Oh," Akira says. "No, that's... I'm getting there. A few years later, I found the door to the Velvet Room. I guess it had been gone for a while, and by the time I started visiting, no one else could?" This time, the question mark at the end of the sentence sounds a little bit more like an apology. "But I went in, and when I came out I was on This Side." The briefest of smiles plays across his face, and he says, "Maybe not This Side, because I don't really know where this theater is, but I guess you probably know what I mean."

"Sure," Tatsuya says.

"And that's just how the Velvet Room always worked for me," Akira says. "For ten years. I'd go in one Side, and out the other. And when I was on the Other Side I met Katsuya, and he eventually found out about the whole thing and decided that I needed to go to school, so... that happened."

"Of course that was what he thought was the most important thing," Tatsuya mutters.

"But that's why I had to be legally adopted," Akira says. 

"Wait," Tatsuya says. "Does that mean... he would have had to have known about the Other Side, if he was okay with any of this."

"Yeah," Akira says. 

Tatsuya shakes his head and half laughs. "And I've been trying so hard to make sure no one finds out," he says. "I guess--I mean, even before this, I guess maybe it looks like it's inevitable. They're not backing off."

"He knew about it when I met him," Akira says. "No one told me where the Other Side came from until this year, but Katsuya and Maya knew before I fake moved in with them."

"Wait," Tatsuya says. He feels like his brain has just screeched to a halt. "With them."

"Yeah."

"With the two of them," Tatsuya repeats. "Together."

"Yes?" Akira's looking at him like his confusion doesn't make any sense. Tatsuya looks back at him like his answers don't make sense, because of course they don't. 

"Why are they living together?"

"Because that's what adults do when they've been dating for a while?"

Another ten or fifteen seconds of silence.

"Wait," Tatsuya says. "They're dating?"

"Yeah."

"My brother," Tatsuya says. "Who has never had a girlfriend in his entire life. And Maya?"

Something looks like it clicks for Akira. "Wait," he says. "So they're not together yet?"

"No."

"That's so weird," Akira says.

"It's weird that they're ever going to be together," Tatsuya says. She doesn't remember that they'd been friends as kids, but he does. And it's so intensely weird to him that the girl they'd all looked up to so much is apparently going to date Katsuya, of all people.

"I don't... think I'm ready to think about that," he says. He's quiet for a second or two (because it turns out that just saying he's not ready to think about it doesn't mean he's just going to be able to stop thinking about it). Then he asks. "So that's... your whole story?"

"Almost," Akira says. "Because at the end of last school year, the Velvet Room got invaded. I had to move to Tokyo for, um... for reasons. Right before that, the Velvet Room stopped showing up in Sumaru, so I got stuck on This Side."

This does not seem like a bad thing to Tatsuya. Akira sounds surprisingly bitter about it.

"When I got to Tokyo," Akira continues. "The Velvet Room was there. Igor was gone, everyone that was supposed to be there was gone, and there was this... something else there instead. So that's--sort of what's been going on for me. Trying to get the Velvet Room back, in my time." He sort of jerks his head in the direction of the rest of the theater behind Tatsuya. "There's a Velvet Room here, but I think that's because this whole place isn't really in any one time or just one Side." 

"Oh," Tatsuya says. 

"I mean," Akira says. "I think we're kind of lucky, because we're not really dealing with the end of the world like you guys did. Like you are. But... that's what's happening, anyway."

"So you and your friends are trying to save the Velvet Room?" Tatsuya asks.

"Not really," Akira says. "I mean. I am. But they don't even know the Velvet Room exists, and I can't tell them about the Other Side. So all that is kind of just my problem."

Tatsuya nods. He does, actually, understand what it's like to have something that no one else can help him carry. "Then what's everyone else here for?" he asks.

"The Phantom Thieves," Akira says. "That's... I mean, it's something that I think is just actually good, instead of a problem that needs to be solved before the world ends. Which is pretty nice, honestly." He shrugs. "I don't know, I wasn't really around when they started, and I still kind of think it's their thing, you know? I'm happy to be able to work on it with them, but..." He trails off. His expression is worried.

Tatsuya is more than happy to let the silence stand. He's worried too, honestly, and nothing Akira's said has made him any less worried. All it's done is give him a glimpse into a future that doesn't seem any better than the present he's living in now.

It feels heavy. He's going to fail, it sounds like. Fail to keep anyone else out of all this, fail to stay on This Side, fail at who knows what else. 

Fail to keep his secrets to himself, where at least they can't do any harm.

"I don't think either of us is going to be able to keep any of our secrets after this," Tatsuya says quietly. "Not with everyone here. People are going to put things together."

Akira doesn't say anything.

"We should probably go out there," Tatsuya says.

"And tell everyone all of that?" Akira asks.

Tatsuya looks at him, and in the complicated expression on Akira's face, he sees two truths. The first is that Akira's afraid of what's going to happen when he has to explain all this to everyone else. The second is that if he asks him to, Akira will do it anyway. 

And he'd heard Akira explain that he'd been the one to find him when he was two and newly orphaned. It's something else to really see that, though.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're going to have to tell everyone all of that." He genuinely doesn't see a way around it--there's nowhere to run to, here. And too many people that sound like they know too many fragments of too many secrets.

Akira takes a deep breath, and then a step forward, following Tatsuya's lead. "Okay," he says. "Let's do it."

-//-

Katsuya has no idea what's going on here.

Even after about half an hour of everyone trying to explain, he's confused. He's been standing back, listening to half a dozen teenagers tell several different stories at once. To their credit they do seem to be genuinely doing their best to explain, it's just that there are too many people all doing their best at once.

So far, Katsuya has learned that most of the teens are from Tokyo, in 2016. That they're part of a group that does something they're not explaining well that involves taking down corrupt authority figures. There are a few others, too. A girl from 2009--whose story is a much more easily understood fight against the end of the world--along with two... strange people that are apparently from the Velvet Room, and a woman and teenager that don't seem to have Persona of their own, or any memories from before the theater.

The explanation is getting louder but no more clear by the time Baofu shakes his head and moves past Katsuya. "I can't take any more of this," he grumbles. "I don't do kids."

"Where are you going?" Katsuya asks, but Baofu doesn't answer. He just keeps moving past, and when Katsuya turns his head and watches him, he's already disappearing down the long hallway leading to the theaters.

"Katsuya?"

He turns back and realizes that Maya's also pulled herself away from the rest of the group, which is sort of a surprise. Out of all of them, she's managing to communicate the most clearly with the group of Tokyo teenagers. "Sorry," he says. "It looks like Baofu's leaving us again."
Maya sighs. "I wish he'd stop doing that," she says. "But I guess this time he's leaving a situation that he's not really helping with much."

"Mmm," Katsuya agrees. 

"I wonder if he'll run into your brother back there," Maya says.

Katsuya would have been lying if he'd tried to pretend a part of him hasn't been thinking about Tatsuya this whole time. He'd thought that maybe whatever's going on here would be the thing that finally forces his little brother to hold still and explain, but it doesn't look like that's really going to happen. As soon as they'd gotten back to the theater lobby, he'd disappeared into a back room somewhere, and Katsuya hasn't seen him since. "I'm sure they'll both avoid each other if they can."

"Maybe," Maya says. "But it sounds like these kids are missing someone from their group too. They're going to run out of room to stay out of each other's way if they're not careful." 

"There's someone else missing?" Katsuya asks.

"It sounds like they have a problem with someone keeping secrets too," Maya says. 

Katsuya looks over at her, and there's no sign of her usual smile on her face. She looks as tired as he feels, and Katsuya wonders if there's something about this place that's making it harder to ignore the exhaustion that's been pulling at them all for a long time now. The chaos that's been pushing them forward since they all first met is suddenly gone, and even if this place is confusing, it's not as obviously dangerous. A big part of the adrenaline that's kept them going all this time is gone, and the bone deep tiredness it's been hiding is making itself known.

"Katsuya?"

It's Maya again. He's zoning out, and had missed whatever she's been saying. "Sorry. What was that?"

"I was asking what you thought about the Phantom Thief idea," Maya says.

Katsuya looks at her blankly, and the smile comes back. 

"You haven't been following this at all," she says. "Have you?"

"It's been a long..." The word 'day' dies unspoken. "Week? I don't even know how long it's been."

"That's true," Maya says. "But it's okay, I can catch you up. To start--"

"So who's dad is here?"

This time, the conversation is interrupted by Ulala this time, who's raised her voice over the general noise, enough to make everyone else stop talking.

One of the boys, the one that's been the most reluctant to join forces, gives her a look. 

(His name is Ryuji Sakamoto)

(Katsuya has at least been able to learn their names, even if the details of what they've been through are still a little muddy)

"What?" Ulala says. Her smile, unlike Maya's, makes Katsuya worry a little bit. There's something slightly Cheshire about it. "I heard what you all were whispering about in that movie maze." She points at the only girl in the Tokyo group, Ann Takamaki. "You said isn't that his dad, right?"

"I--well, yeah, but I guess I was wrong! Ha. Ha ha..."

Katsuya is a police detective.

He doesn't need to be a police detective to hear the blatant lie in that answer.

Her eyes dart sideways at him, too.

"I really don't think this is the right time to talk about this," he says, aiming for a bored tone that he doesn't think he really manages. 

"Right," Takamaki says. "We don't... have to talk about this."

There's a long stretch of silence, the longest since they've been here. 

Ulala breaks it. "Okay," she says. "But isn't anyone else curious?"

"It doesn't sound like any of our business," Maya says.

"Come on, Ma-ya," Ulala says. "It has to be either Katsuya or Baofu, right?" She makes her face, then adds, "Actually never mind, we've all met Baofu. It has to be Katsuya."

"Ulala--" Katsuya starts.

"Or your brother, maybe?" Ulala says. "I know he's in high school, but he's not actually too young to--"

"Ulala," Maya says.

One of the boys, Kitagawa, leans over and whispers to Takamaki. And normally Katsuya would have thought it was rude to listen in, but this is different. It's personal in a way he doesn't understand, but wants to. If any of this is true at all, then Ulala's probably right about who they'd been talking about.

"I think we should probably explain," Kitagawa says quietly. 

Sakamoto leans forward to put his head in with the other two. "Kind of not our business," he mutters, doing a much worse job of keeping his voice down.

"No," Kitagawa says. "But we know Akira saw them show up, because he was with Nagi and Hikari, and he's been hiding since then."

"Probably means he doesn't want to talk about it," Sakamoto says. 

"Yes," Kitagawa says. "So it's our job as his friends to explain so he doesn't have to."

"I guess it's not like we really know anything anyway," Takamaki says. "I mean, he's told us a little bit, but anything we said would still be mostly guessing. That's fine, right?"

The three of them look at each other. The cat, too, who has climbed up onto Takamaki's lap. Then all of them look back at Katsuya, Ulala, and Maya.

"So there's another guy in our group," Sakamoto says. "He wasn't in the movie so you guys haven't seen him. His name's Akira Suou, and we've been taking turns sitting out, and he was out here with Hikari an Nagi earlier. He's kind of, uh..." He looks to his friends for help.

"He's kind of a mystery," one of the other girls says. She's the only one not from the same time as the rest of them, so it's a little bit of a surprise to see her piping up. "I met him when he was younger, before there was any time travel involved. But I don't know where he's actually from."

"Where did the two of you meet?" Katsuya asks.

"Oh." The girl, Kotone Shiomi, shrugs. "In the Velvet Room."

"That's a strange place to meet," Katsuya says.

"You said it was an elevator earlier," Takamaki says.

"It looked like an elevator then," Shiomi says. "I don't know if that's normal or not."

"I don't know if you can ever really call the Velvet Room normal," Maya muses.

"Not really sure what that velvet room thing is," Sakamoto says. "But I guess add it to the list of Akira mysteries."

"He told us a little bit about his childhood right before we came here," Kitagawa says. "But it didn't exactly clear anything up."

"Cleared up that he's adopted," Sakamoto says.

"Alright," Kitagawa says. "Yes, we do know that now."

"Can we clear up who this Akira guy was adopted by?" Ulala asks. "I'm very curious."

"It seems like you guys have already pretty much figured it out," Ann says, and Katsuya feels the uncomfortable, prickling pressure of everyone looking at him all at once.

"Alright," he says. "So..." He clears his throat, and wishes he wasn't standing in a group of mostly strangers, that he wasn't too tired to think straight, and that things weren't falling apart quite so enthusiastically. All he'd wanted out of this was five minutes to corner his brother and try to find out what's going on with him.

"Anyway," Sakamoto says. "He told us he was adopted out of some situation that sounds like he was living in a war zone or something."

"It kind of sounds like he's still living in a war zone," the cat says. Morgana. It's probably not fair to keep thinking about him as just a cat when he's sitting there and a part of the conversation just like anyone else. "The way he talks about it, and the way he acts..."

"How does he act?" Maya asks.

"He brings a knife to school," Takamaki says. 

"Knows how to use it too," Sakamoto says. 

"I usually stay with him," Morgana says. "But he was really against that because he was worried about hurting me."

Kitagawa makes a little noise of agreement. "I've had to stay there too," he says. "He seems like he has something close to PTSD. He doesn't... he hasn't actually stabbed anyone, as far as I know. But that is his first reaction, when he's woken up, or anything like that happens."

"And you don't know where that reaction came from?" Katsuya asks.

The four from Tokyo look at each other again. No one seems particularly excited about explaining, but Kitagawa finally does. "He said... he made it sound like he was living almost a double life. He talked about going to school, and then leaving to go back to this place where he had to stab people, I think?" 

"Where was that, exactly?" Katsuya asks.

"No idea," Takamaki says. "He just said that he couldn't explain because the world might just end."

 "And you believed him?" Ulala asks. She doesn't exactly sound like she's accusing them, or anything, she sounds actually curious. Which just goes to show, Katsuya thinks, how weird things have been lately. All of this sounds weird, but none of it sounds impossible.

"Yes," Kitagawa says.

"You guys don't know anything about any of this stuff, do you?" Sakamoto asks. "Because he said you did, but I guess you're from the wrong time, so maybe not yet."

"No," Katsuya says. "That doesn't really sound familiar at all."

"Damn," Sakamoto mutters. "I'd really like to know what's going on with him.

"I wouldn't mind knowing why he thinks sharing his past is going to lead to the world ending," Katsuya says.

"Screw that," Sakamoto says. "I just want to know what the fuck we have to do to make him believe we're on his side. He's a good guy but he he keeps running every time it starts to feel like he's fitting in with the group."

"Anyway," Morgana says. "He told us that you're sort of his legal guardian because you knew about it and were okay with it or something. But I guess not yet."

"He's sixteen, right?" Shiomi says. "He wasn't even born yet in 1999."

"Guess we're not finding out anything else about him while we're here then," Sakamoto says, and there's some real disappointment in his voice. "But yeah. At least you kind of have an idea why he's probably going to be sort of weird and jumpy around you."

"I guess so," Katsuya says. "I--"

And that's when he hears the footsteps behind him, and turns around to see two people heading into the lobby. One is Tatsuya, and Katsuya checks him over again to make sure he's okay. He's not, of course, he hasn't been okay for a long time now, but Katsuya checks on him anyway because that's what he's always does. And while he's looking, Tatsuya looks back at him, makes eye contact, for the first time in a long time. 

He looks so tired.

And behind him is a younger boy, tense in a way that makes him look like he's about to bolt, with a rough scar on one side of his face, and a knife hidden under his clothes, strapped to the small of his back. Katsuya doesn't think he would have noticed if he hadn't been with the police. But it's there, and this is a kid that's walking around, hurt and wary and armed, and Katsuya knows before anyone explicitly says it that this is Akira.

"So there's something we need to talk about," Tatsuya says.

Chapter Text

Not everyone's here, at least.

That's going to make it a little bit easier to explain everything, probably? It's a smaller crowd of people than it could have been, that's good. But then maybe that just means he's going to have to explain all over again when everyone else is here, and that would be a lot worse. 

But Baofu's missing. And Elizabeth and Theo are somewhere else--probably back in the Velvet Room--and Hikari looks like she'd fallen asleep at some point earlier, while the Phantom Thieves and everyone else was still going around in circles. She's curled up in a tiny ball on an end of a couch, and with her asleep, Nagi had disappeared somewhere too. She only ever really seems interested in what's going on around Hikari, to the point that Akira sometimes wonders if they're related somehow. Doe's hovering around the back of the group, apparently all but forgotten by most people.

"Well?" Katsuya says, interrupting Akira's thought process, and he's looking at Tatsuya as he says it. His tone sounds short, but Akira knows him well enough that he's not actually angry. He's worried about his brother, and annoyed, and behind it all he's exhausted. The only time Akira can think of  when he'd sounded anywhere close to that had been when he'd been skipping class in grade school. When Katsuya had gotten annoyed and snapped at him, and accidentally called him Tatsuya. He'd sounded angry but had really been worried back then, and Akira's pretty sure it's the same thing now.

"We're going to explain," Tatsuya says. He sounds irritated too. A little... petulant, maybe is the right word? A teenager crossing his arms and scowling at his older brother. Akira watches, a part of him grateful to be just a spectator to the two of them, and part of him just curious. After years of carrying letters back and forth between the two of them, it feels almost surreal to see them just... talking, like normal people.

He's never picked up on anything other than them being two brothers worrying about each other. And that's still there too, it's so, so obvious under Katsuya's fake anger, and Tatsuya's surly irritation. Katsuya doesn't get angry with people he cares about unless he's worried. And Tatsuya...

Tatsuya has the same tired look in his eyes that he has on the nights when he stays up past when he thinks Akira's asleep, rereading old letters from his brother. 

"What's keeping you?" Ulala asks. She sounds more curious than anything else, and Akira wants to tell her to stop poking at Tatsuya, this is hard and he's doing his best. He just doesn't know how he'd have explained that reaction, and he doesn't really want everyone's eyes on him instead. 

"I don't know where to start," Tatsuya mutters.

"Start with how you met Ma-ya," Ulala says. "The whole Deja Vu Boy thing."

"Excuse me?" Tatsuya says.

"That's just--" Maya looks very slightly red as she joins the conversation. "When we ran into each other a few weeks before this all started, I thought you looked familiar. I mentioned the whole thing to Ulala later and we started calling you Deja Vu Boy. Which... isn't a great nickname, but we didn't know your name."

Tatsuya's absolutely quiet for a few seconds, then takes a deep breath and says, "Yes you did. I probably seemed familiar because we used to know each other really well. And then we had to forget." Another, deeper silence, before he says, "We were supposed to forget. I didn't."

"Forget what?" Katsuya asks, at the exact same moment that Ulala says, "Why didn't you?"

Maya is frowning over the answer, and Akira keeps his eyes on her as Tatsuya tries, twice, to get a decent answer out to one of those questions. He's pretty sure that she's going to remember the Other Side at some point during this conversation. Why wouldn't she, if Tatsuya's really going to stand here and tell everyone about what had happened on the Other Side? 

"Something happened," Tatsuya says. "Demons started to show up in Sumaru. Rumors started coming true."

"Demons?" Ryuji demands, the first Phantom Thief to interrupt the conversation.

"Shadows," Akira says, and feels everyone look at him. He ducks his head so he won't have to look back. "They're the same thing, it's just a different name."

"You've seen Demons before?" Yusuke asks.

Akira shakes his head no, but doesn't elaborate. He's going to have to explain his part later, but he'd been kind of hoping Tatsuya could at least do most of the early part of the explanation.

"Tatsuya," Katsuya says. "Are you talking about what's been happening over the past couple of weeks?"

"Sort of," Tatsuya says. "It's pretty similar, but it wasn't happening in Sumaru. I mean--it was. But not the Sumaru of This Side. That was on the Other Side."

"What does that mean?" Katsuya asks, and to Akira it's a little like hearing him ask what a car is for. This is such a basic concept of their lives that it's weird to hear him ask that question like Tatsuya's said something ridiculous.

"It's another timeline," Tatsuya says. "But everything went wrong there." He's leaned over slightly, hunched in a way that screams how hurt he is. "It's... hard to explain how things got that bad, but eventually Sumaru was lifted off the Earth's surface and then everything else died."

The Phantom Thieves and the group from Sumaru have more or less arranged themselves so that one group is clustered around one side of the group of couches, while the Phantom Thieves (and Kotone) have claimed the opposite end. So Akira knows immediately that this has gone down badly with both groups, just from the way the burst of protests comes from both sides at once. 

"Philemon gave us a chance to fix things," Tatsuya says, raising his voice over the continuing uproar. He's tense like he's braced, like he can't let himself stop now that he's started. Katsuya, clearly realizing Tatsuya's not going to either answer questions or pause his explanation, makes an urgent gesture at everyone else to quiet down, even as he leans forward to keep listening.

"He said that if we'd all agree to forget we'd ever met each other," Tatsuya says. "And we--and everyone else agreed, so the world pretty much went back to the way it was before anything happened. There are little things that are different, but it's all just things like where a shop is or who works there. And I know that because I didn't forget, I couldn't--" He sucks in a deep breath through his nose. "I didn't forget the way I was supposed to," he says, his voice quieter. "So This Side wasn't safe the way it was supposed to be. That's why things have been happening all over again, rumors and Demons and everything. It's my fault."

"Can we go back to the world ending for a second?" Ryuji asks, while Katsuya looks like he's trying to figure out which of several questions he wants to ask first, and Maya buries her head in her hands. "Everything on Earth died? How are we not talking about that?"

"It wasn't the Earth on This Side," Akira says, because this feels like probably the part of the conversation where he has to start helping. "And it happened in 1999 before any of us was even born, so it's not like it would have effected anything you would have known about."

"Okay," Ryuji says. "Yeah, but that's--I mean, seriously? The whole world died except one city?" His expression is one of just--absolute horror.

Akira shrugs helplessly. 

"That's where you're from," Yusuke says. He doesn't ask it as a question, just states it as a fact. "The way you described how you grew up made it sound like a war zone, but it wasn't. It was that place, after most of the world died."

Akira gives a jerky nod, not looking at him. He feels like he has to give them more than that, though, so after a while he says. "Tatsuya said that everything died on the planet," he says. "Except for Sumaru that wasn't on the planet anymore. And that's right, and then it just... kept existing? It's not really safe, and there's never enough of anything. There's gangs that are technically in charge, but only because they have more people and more weapons than anyone else, so they're the only ones that ever mess with each other."

"No wonder you stab people," Ryuji says.

Akira flushes. 

"But how can you just live on a city that's not even on Earth?" Ulala asks. "You need things like... I don't know, food and water." She considers, then adds, "And probably alcohol. You'd probably need a lot of alcohol to live somewhere like that."

"The atmosphere is weird around the city," Akira says. "There's no seasons, and not a lot of weather, but it's always kind of damp somewhere, so there's water. And people were able to start converting open space to farmland early, so that's been around for a long time. I guess it took a few years for people to figure it out, but by the time I was old enough to know what was going on, they pretty much had it figured out. The gangs mostly control all the farmland, but they don't take all the food, because if everyone else died, they wouldn't have anywhere to recruit from when their people get killed. So there's not a lot of food, but there's some of it."

"So you just live on rice?" Morgana asks. 

"Mostly. There's also like... chickens that people were raising in backyards or whatever, I guess that was really big in the '90s for some reason."

"It's been a really weird fad the last couple years," Ulala says. "I think it was on some local TV program and it kind of blew up. My last roommate before Maya had one and they suck."

"They're one of the most valuable thing you can have where I'm from," Akira tells her. "Six people got killed in a street fight over a rooster last winter."

Several people look horrified.

Then Ulala asks, "...alcohol?"

"I'm pretty sure every civilization there's ever been has had some kind of alcohol?" Akira says. "I think I learned that in history class once. But yeah, there's like... people that try and brew out of their basement or whatever. It... sometimes works out?"

Ulala cracks a wide grin. She's absolutely the only one smiling right now. "My neighbors used to do that, too," she says. "And I spent some Sundays that I do not remember at all testing some of their--"

Katsuya clears his throat loudly, and she stops. Akira appreciates that she's joking about this, though. Everyone else looks so serious that he can feel it on his shoulders, weighing him down. 

"It still sounds crazy," Ryuji says. "I mean, not crazy like I don't believe you, Akira, just crazy like... I don't know, like woah, that's crazy. I'm just trying to imagine all those people crammed on some kind of flying city and just--" He mimes his brain exploding.

"It's not like there's a full city of people," Akira says. "When Tatsuya was talking about resetting the timeline when him and everyone forgot, most people went to This Side. If they had a self on This Side, then they moved from the Other Side to This Side. Only the people that didn't have a them on This Side stayed, and that's not as many people as you're probably thinking."

Katsuya clears his throat again, and this time it sounds like he's getting ready to say something. "You sound like you know all about--the things Tatsuya just told us about. Does that mean it's common knowledge there?"

"No," Akira says. "Most people don't know why we're up there or how the world ended. I mean, things were getting weird even before that so probably a lot of people guessed they were related. But that would just be like... weird thing makes other weird thing happen."

"So then how do you know?" Katsuya asks. 

"Him and Tatsuya already talked," Ulala says. "They were wherever for a long time before they came out here."

"No," Tatsuya says. "We talked, but I didn't have to explain any of this." He gives Katsuya a nod that looks very slightly sarcastic. "Apparently you told him."

Katsuya starts with "I've never--" And then stops short, because he's a smart person and Akira's pretty sure he can figure out that just like the other Phantom Thieves, Akira's too young to have been alive in 1999. So any way he could have met Akira would still be in his future.

"I was born on the Other Side," Akira says quietly. "But then when I was six, I found the Velvet Room, and--I still don't know why I got to see it. No one else could, even people that used to be able to. Igor thought it was important for some reason, but..." But it's not like he's really done anything here that anyone else couldn't have done, so he still doesn't think it was worth all the years of back and forth that had probably been really inconvenient for the people in the Velvet Room. "Anyway. I'd go into the Velvet Room on the Other Side, and come out on This Side, and that's how I got to go to school and things."

"I still don't get this Velvet Room thing," Ryuji says. 

"How are you fighting Demons--" Ulala starts.

"Shadows," Akira interprets, automatically.

"And you don't know about the Velvet Room?"

"It's not something everyone can use anymore," Akira says. "I know a few other people that have been in there during the past few years, and it seems like it's always just one person."

"Okay but what is it?" Ryuji asks.

Kotone says, "Why don't we just go there now?"

"It's here?" Ann asks.

"Yep," Kotone says. "And it's not really like the normal one. Igor's not there, and it sort of just looks like a regular theater."

"It looks really blue," Akira says.

"Right," Kotone agrees. "A really blue theater."

"And it's definitely not like the normal one," Akira says. "At least not from 2016, because if it had been, it would have been under attack like the Velvet Room in my time is."

"It's under attack," Katsuya says with a sigh.

"Yeah." Akira looks away. "But it's fine here, and maybe Kotone's right that we can actually all go in there. We can at least try."

So they do. He and Kotone show the rest of them where the door to the Velvet Room is, where it turns out Baofu's been waiting. He looks extremely unhappy, but also more or less resigned, and Akira guesses that the time away from so many teenagers has probably helped him some. But then they're just--all in the Velvet Room, listening to Elizabeth not-explain things in a way that makes them way more confusing. And Akira gets the intensely surreal experience of being in a Velvet Room so crowded with people that he can't even overhear the smaller side-conversations that keep happening.

(Which he does try to listen in on, especially when Katsuya and Tatsuya have a long conversation, the second half of which involves a lot of looking back at him)

He's not a part of any of those side conversations himself, surprisingly enough. He'd sort of expected that he'd have a million questions to answer, but no one seems to know where to start. People keep looking at him, then pretending they hadn't been when he sees, and it sort of feels like being back in the real world, at school in Sumaru where everyone knew he was different, and that it meant they should avoid him.

There's no way he's going to be the first one to say something to any of them, so he waits for the rare moment when they're not looking at him, and slips back out of the Velvet Room. It's a relief to find the lobby mostly empty, and Akira doesn't have a hard time keeping his distance from the still asleep Hikari, or from Nagi. Doe is somewhere out of sight, probably back in the projection room where it seems like he spends most of his time. So there's plenty of space in the theater hallway for Akira to sit on the floor with his back to the wall, hugging his knees and feeling weirdly deflated by the sudden lack of tension. Whatever's going to happen next, at least he doesn't have to lie anymore. Everyone knows his secrets. And maybe they'll get used to it enough to talk to him again soon, maybe--

The sound of the theater door opening interrupts his thoughts, and he whips his head up to see who's coming out. It's Yusuke, and he looks around, first at the lobby and then down the hall, where he spots Akira and comes straight over to him.

Without a word, he sits next to Akira on the floor, so close that their shoulders are almost touching. And it's a lot like it had been on the night Yusuke stayed at Leblanc, and Akira had woken up from nightmares of Yaldabaoth promising him that he would never be worth anything. 

"Are you okay?" Akira asks, because he doesn't know what else to say.

"I wanted to make sure you were," Yusuke says. "We all know you disappear when you're struggling. And you disappeared."

"I didn't know if anyone would still want to talk to me," Akira says. 

"Of course we do," Yusuke says, and it's so--so definite, so matter of fact. It's everything Akira wants to hear, and a tiny sound that's embarrassingly close to a sob leaks out of him. He closes his eyes and tightens his grip on his knees, making himself smaller. But he leans sideways too, into Yusuke.

"Sorry," he says, even as he makes absolutely no movement to back off. 

"What for?" Yusuke asks.

"I am... one hundred percent in your personal space," Akira says. And this close to crying into it, which is worse.

"I don't mind," Yusuke says. "I thought you would know I didn't mind because I wouldn't have sat down so close to you otherwise."

"I'm... not really good at reading social cues," Akira says quietly. He opens his eyes, and does his best to be less of a human disaster. 

"Me neither," Yusuke says. "But this is okay with me."

"You're sure?" Akira asks. He knows why he's okay with this, because Yusuke is... he's really good at just knowing the right thing to do when Akira's freaking out. He'd been there during that nightmare, so casually available for Akira to lean on him that it hadn't even triggered Akira's usual instincts to defend himself. And he's here now, saying the exact right things and still there.

Yusuke makes a little humming noise of confirmation. Then out loud, haltingly, he says. "I--like you, Akira."

"Thanks," Akira says. "I like you too. All of you guys."

"No," Yusuke says. "I mean--I don't know how to say it." He's quiet for a weirdly long time before continuing. "I went down to Mementos a few weeks ago. I wanted to paint the way it felt down there. That swirling collective of humanity's subconscious."

"Okay?" Akira says.

"But the painting wasn't working out," Yusuke says. He sounds almost nervous. "And I realized I don't want to draw something that's all of humanity. I've been getting to know you, and how hard you're fighting, and the way you look in the moments when you really believe that you're not alone, that's..." He looks at Akira, and won't stop. "I thought that was what I wanted to draw. I thought I'd found the thing I was looking for. And then after that time you woke up with nightmares, I figured out it wasn't about art." His own tone is surprised. "I just... wanted you to never have to look the way you did that night again. And that's when I knew I liked you."

Akira doesn't really understand the way Yusuke sees art in the world; he's heard him talking about it before, and he'd even heard about the trip to Mementos Yusuke had just mentioned. He knows that the way Yusuke sees the world is just different from how other people see the world. Which he doesn't really understand, which he doesn't think anyone understands, except Yusuke himself. So he doesn't fully get what Yusuke's trying to tell him, but he thinks that behind the statement that Akira reminds him of his art (probably the biggest compliment Yusuke can give someone), is the assurance that what's happened today isn't going to scare his friend away.

"Thank you," Akira says, and tries to make his voice show how much he means it. He doesn't want to lose a single one of his friends, the people that had stuck around--had kept sticking around--until Akira finally figured out that they were doing it on purpose, because they want to be his friends. But sitting next to Yusuke, so close that they're touching, so close that he's leaning against his friend, it hits him that losing Yusuke would have been hard in a way that would have been hard in different ways than losing anyone else. 

There's almost no one that he actually trusts enough to lean on like this. And he doesn't really know how Yusuke had ended up on that short list, but here they are. It had just happened that night when he woke up shaking from his Velvet Room nightmare. And since it's already happened once, it feels so much easier to do it a second time, today. A part of him feels warm with that realization. It's unexpected, but not bad. To know that there's someone that can get past his defenses so easily.

Yusuke looks like he kind of wants to say something else. But then he doesn't, and the two of them just sit in silence for a long time. 

-//-

Tatsuya has a long talk with his brother, in the crowded Velvet Room where all of them--most of them--end up congregating together. It feels a little like unraveling, to be able to talk about everything that's happened after all this time. Except that it's not even just that he's talking about the Other Side, it's also that he hasn't talked to Katsuya in... a long time. Not really talked. 

They're brothers, but Katsuya is a lot older than he is. Ever since he can remember, Katsuya's been like... like a wall, in front of him. While their parents were absent, or not absent but also not there, Katsuya had been the one that prodded him to go to school, or do his homework, or eat his dinner. Even as early as his first day of school, starting first grade, Katsuya had been the one that walked him to class and made sure he got there okay. He'd been late for the first day of his own last year of middle school, Tatsuya had found out later.

It's impossible to feel like they're brothers, when their relationship has always been like that. Katsuya takes care of him, and in a complicated way, Tatsuya hates that. It shouldn't. He should be grateful that he has an older brother who was willing to do the things their parents never seemed interested in. 

But Katsuya's not his parent, he's his brother, and Tatsuya can't remember the last time they've been able to talk together like this, like brothers, like equals. And it's almost exactly what he wants, except that he knows deep down that this isn't his brother, not the Katsuya of the Other Side, because that Katsuya doesn't exist anymore. Everyone that could be brought over had been. The 'them' of the Other Side, merged with the 'them' of This Side. And the only reason it hadn't worked for Tatsuya is that he'd refused to forget when he should have. 

There's a Tatsuya of This Side, and Tatsuya had stolen his place here. Someday, if what Akira says is true, Tatsuya's going back to the Other Side. He knows when that happens that he's going to leave the Tatsuya of This Side behind. And maybe some of this will stick. Maybe that Tatsuya will get the chance to really have a brother.

But him? He's not the person that's supposed to be here. And he's done things that are wrong. If he hadn't refused to forget his friends, then none of this would be happening. So that's complicated. 

All of that makes it so much harder to accept that he's getting this relationship with his brother. Because it's not really happening, or it's not really deserved, and just...

Eventually, that creeping guilt and doubt gets to be too much. Tatsuya has to step away, and he does. Most people are still hanging around in little clusters, so Tatsuya goes out to the hall. Where he finds the other two people that had apparently felt like they needed to get away too. One of them is... someone whose name Tatsuya hasn't learned yet. One of the people from 2016. The other one's Akira, and as soon as Tatsuya sees them he immediately regrets coming out. They're very obviously having a moment, and Tatsuya doesn't want to interrupt that.

(He'd had moments too)

(Literal moments sometimes, just seconds between fights, when he'd known Jun was there)

He turns around and comes face to face with Maya, who's just come out. For a second neither of them says anything, too busy being surprised at almost running into each other. Tatsuya's eyes meet Maya's and there's so much more... recognition than there had been an hour or two ago.

Maya hugs him, and it's such a fierce gesture that Tatsuya returns it before he even has a chance to think. "I'm sorry you have to go through it all again," he says. "I tried to keep you out of it."

"I know," she says. "But that means you would have been doing it all on your own."

That would have been okay. He would have deserved it, because the only reason anything's happening here is because he couldn't just say yes I'll forget my friends so that the world won't end. But he'd been selfish. He hadn't even thought about it, because there hadn't been time to think about it.

"I guess I'm not fighting by myself anymore," he says.

"Absolutely not," Maya says. 

...he's so glad she remembers. It's probably another selfish choice, but he's missed the way it was the first time. Fighting with friends is so different from fighting alone. 

"We'll start by fighting together to get out of here," Maya says, and she steps back from the almost too-long hug. "We still have this whole theater to get out of."

"Yeah," Tatsuya says. "But... it's not like it is at home."

"No," Maya says. "It's not--desperate in the same way Sumaru is right now."

"Exactly," Tatsuya says. 

"So maybe we can take a breath," Maya says. "And figure out how to all fight together again."

"If you're sure--"

"I'm not letting you go fighting on your own," Maya says. "And I know Katsuya's not going to either." She sort of smiles. "Ulala and Baofu will get used to having you around."

"What about... there's someone else that's been with you guys lately, right?" A friend of someone else that they'd fought with on the Other Side.

"Right," Maya says. "I know... when we all got blown out by the bomb--"

"Sorry," Tatsuya says. "I don't know as much about explosions as I thought I did."

"The four of us were closer to it," Maya says. "So I guess that's why we got blasted here."

So hopefully there's not a fifth person either blown up or stuck in a movie somewhere. 

"I guess that'll be a fun conversation to have when we get back and have to explain this," Tatsuya says.

"This isn't the weirdest thing any of us have ever been through," Maya says. "And I think you know that. It's not even the weirdest thing we've heard this week."

Tatsuya's not totally sure that's right, but it's a nice sentiment anyway. A small sound behind him reminds him that they're not completely alone out here, even if it doesn't seem like Akira or his friend are paying any attention. "We should go back in the theater and have the rest of this conversation," he says. "Or out in the lobby."

"Why--oh." She'd looked around when he'd said that, and has obviously seen the other two. "Yeah, sure."

So they go out to the lobby. And they talk. For a long time. They hadn't been able to do this even on the Other Side, when they'd been too busy running around with no idea what new disaster was going to happen in the next minute or hour or day.

After a while, other people wander over to join the conversation. Ulala pops in for a while, and Katsuya eventually finds them, sits down, and doesn't leave. A couple of the Phantom Thieves show up too, which gives Tatsuya a chance to finally learn their names. Ryuji Sakamoto is their leader, apparently, and he's the kind of speak first, think about it later, person that reminds Tatsuya of Eikichi. 

Akira doesn't show up to talk, and neither does the friend he'd been sitting with. The rest of their 2016 friends--the Phantom Thieves--don't seem worried about this. 

"He needs space sometimes," Morgana explains. 

"He does this a lot," Ryuji adds. "And sometimes I think it's just cuz he needs space, like Mona said, but sometimes he gets too in his head and then you have to drag him back out. But I think Yusuke's with him hanging around somewhere? So they're probably okay for now."

'Probably okay for now' feels like maybe the most that any of them can realistically hope for, Tatsuya thinks. .

And for once, he thinks he's feeling 'probably okay for now' himself. 

Chapter Text

The movies get easier with more people to fight with. Even though the second movie turns out to be longer than the first one had been, they absolutely race through it. And it helps that the group from 1999 are used to being motivated by more than the Phantom Thieves or Kotone are. Sure, they all fight Shadows too, and there's danger there, but it's a different kind of danger. 

They get to stop. They get to go to school. They get to go home, and not worry about what the world might look like when they wake up. 

The 1999 group doesn't have that. And Akira's known that intellectually. Knowing that is why he'd felt so weird about the way everyone else was talking about the Phantom Thieves when the group first started. But now he can see the actual differences in how the two groups fight, and it's... kind of a lot.

Tatsuya had taught him to fight. Akira has seen him use his sword. But the thing is, he'd seen him fight a long time before he'd ever heard the word Persona. As a kid, he'd drawn the conclusion that Tatsuya had learned to fight because he lived in a dangerous place full of gangs and looters. Now he sees for himself that Tatsuya had learned to fight--or at least got started fighting--to keep up with his Persona.

They fight together, too. This team has figured out how to combine what their Persona are doing together--they call them fusion spells--into really powerful attacks. They just see Shadows, and they react, and then Shadows are gone. Just as soon as it's physically possible for those Shadows to be gone, they are. 

It's crazy, but also kind of cool? These are the adults that had raised him. Katsuya's legally his adoptive father, Maya's Katsuya's partner, Tatsuya had saved him by taking him in after his mother died. Even Kaoru (who is still going by Baofu now, and gets disgruntled and grumpy when Akira keeps forgetting that) had been the person Akira used to hide with when he ditched school as a kit. And Ulala had been literally the first person to ever say the word Persona to him.

Fighting with them is really, really cool, and it's also pretty cool to not be the only one around that can talk to Shadows. Even Kotone, who recruits Persona herself, does it another way. But here's a whole group of people that do the same thing as Akira does. 

When Akira was first struggling with what to say to Shadows back in Tokyo, he'd talked to Katsuya and Maya about it. He'd gotten some pretty good advice that's helped him start to slowly build up a collection of Shadows he is able to talk to and that are okay with joining him as his Persona. But it's just so much easier with other people around doing the same thing. He's able to watch how other people do it. He's able to jump in with the others, sometimes.

(And he's able to hear Tatsuya making construction noises, like Maya told him he used to)

(Maya had said this was something he'd stopped doing by this point, but he does it in the movies--just once--and it makes Akira's actual day to hear Tatsuya sounding almost happy)

So anyway, the upshot of all this is that they rocket through the second movie. Mostly the reason for that is because there's a bunch of people here now, and about half of them are used to smashing through Demons to try and stop the world from ending, like, tomorrow. But also part of it comes from finding out the reason that this movie is called Junassic Park. A lot like how a cognition of Kamoshida had influenced the first movie after the Phantom Thieves showed up, this one turns out to be a cognition of Jun. A dinosaur with his face shows up halfway through the movie, being bullied and scapegoated by all the other movie dinosaurs.

Maya's not okay with that, when she sees Jun's face. Tatsuya is really not okay with it. Akira sees his entire face crumple when he recognizes Jun, and luckily they've been fighting for long enough that no one thinks it's weird when Akira suggests they call it a day. He follows Tatsuya when they get back to the theater, even when Tatsuya spins around and says, "Can you just leave me alone?"

Akira shakes a little, because Tatsuya has never yelled at him like this. Once or twice when he was a kid, when he was doing something stupid that could have gotten him hurt, and Tatsuya needed his attention right away. But not out of anger. It's--this is different, though. This is a Tatsuya that's maybe a year older than he is, and overwhelmed, and has just seen the boy he's in love with as an abused dinosaur.

Akira doesn't ever want want to see anyone he cares about turned into an abused dinosaur. 

So he doesn't back down. "That's not Jun," he says.

"I know," Tatsuya says. "Jun's not a dinosaur."

And then it seems like he hears the ridiculous words that have just come out of his own mouth, and a lot of the anger leaks out of him. He almost visibly deflates. 

"Look," Akira says, and it's only the two of them in the hallway, but he steps closer anyway, and lowers his voice. "I know that Jun's... a really special friend to you." 

Tatsuya winces and looks away. "So... you know I'm gay," he says, in a voice that's not any louder than Akira's.

Akira gives a small nod.

"Did I tell you that?" Tatsuya asks.

"I..." he hesitates. But he honestly thinks Tatsuya would rather have the truth than a lie just to be kind. "There's a Tatsuya on This Side in 2016," he says. "And he's living with Jun."

Tatsuya nods in a vague kind of way. The way most people probably would probably react if they found out that the person they're in love with is living with an alternate version of them. "How does that work without the world ending?" he asks.

"Neither of them knows anything," Akira says. "This whole time that you're on This Side is just going to be a big blank to that Tatsuya. He told me about it once. He, um... he just thinks I'm actually Katsuya's son, like it's just a normal adoption and not an elaborate ruse to hide the fact that I never spent much time on This Side. So I guess he's sort of like a kind of distant uncle. And he's told me that he can't remember these few months at all, it like... it haunts him. And as far as I can tell, Jun just doesn't know anything happened at all. And the world doesn't end."

"That's good," Tatsuya says. His voice sounds completely flat, though. "So This Side's Tatsuya is the one that told you?"

"No," Akira says. "This Side's Tatsuya lived with Jun for years, and eventually I figured out that there was a big difference between being roommates and, uh--that. I don't think anyone wanted to tell me when I was a kid, because it's not really the kind of thing you would tell a kid that might just... blab about it."

"Even in 2016?" Tatsuya asks. "It's still not the kind of thing you tell people?"

"I think more people think about it now just because of the Internet," Akira says. Then he remembers oh yeah, 1999, the Internet back then had probably been really different, so he rephrases a little. "I mean--just because information's a lot easier to get now."

"Sure," Tatsuya says. "I get it, I guess." Then, in a complete non sequitur that catches Akira off guard, he asks, "What do you and Yusuke tell people?"

Akira looks at him blankly.

"I mean, do you tell people you're together?" Tatsuya asks. "Or do you just say you're friends?"

"We're just friends," Akira says.

"Oh," Tatsuya says. "So I guess things haven't changed that much."

"What? No, I mean--we really are just friends."'

Tatsuya squints at him uncertainly. "Are you sure?" he asks. "Because I saw you two last night and it really looked like..."

He trails off, and looks like he's starting to regret asking the question. Akira feels like his face is actually on fire. "I think I'd know if we were... um." He looks at Tatsuya. "You know when you have a boyfriend, right?"

Tatsuya opens his mouth, then hesitates, considering. "I'm not sure," he admits. "I think I had a... something with Jun on the Other Side, but I don't know for sure what it was. We never had time to talk about it." His gaze suddenly sharpens and he looks at Akira. "If you're not sure," he says. "You should ask Yusuke. Just in case you don't get the chance later."

The world's not ending in 2016, though. And so a very large part of Akira wants to never, ever have to ask Yusuke that question out loud. An only slightly smaller part wants to just put this on his to do list of something to do at a nebulous but far away future date. They have time. He can ask about this later. He doesn't even know how to think about this, and he definitely doesn't know how to talk about it.

He likes Yusuke. He's not sure if he likes him in the same way that Tatsuya likes Jun, or Katsuya and Maya like (or will like) each other. But if that's supposed to feel like--like Yusuke is the easiest person in the world to sit next to, the only one that he can wake up with and not accidentally try and stab, then maybe he does like him.

He remembers how it had felt when Yusuke went from being someone that Akira would visit alone, hanging out in Madarame's studio to try and convince Yusuke to get enough food, to being someone that hung out with all of the Phantom Thieves. There had been those incomprehensible flares of jealousy when that change first started, which maybe aren't so incomprehensible if...

"I never thought anything like that was an option for me," Akira says. "I never even had friends until I met the Phantom Thieves. I didn't believe they were my friends for months after that. And this would be... more than friends."

Tatsuya half smiles. "I absolutely understand," he admits.

Akira leaves him alone then, because he needs to think about Yusuke, and Tatsuya probably needs to get ready to face dinosaur Jun. 

He doesn't ask Yusuke anything that night. He could have. For the second night in a row he spends the evening leaning against Yusuke, until they fall asleep together. But he doesn't. He chickens out, and doesn't ask.

And then the next day, they're so busy with dinosaurs that he doesn't have the chance. 

He can ask later. There's no rush. Yusuke will still be there in Tokyo when they're less... trapped in a bunch of movie mazes that none of them can leave.

Later. He'll ask later.

-//-

Tatsuya hates the dinosaur with Jun's face. 

He also can't stand the thought of anything happening to the dinosaur with Jun's face.

He has a lot of very strong, confusing feelings about Jun. Feelings that would have been just as strong but a whole lot clearer if they hadn't been asked to forget. If he wasn't going to end up on the Other Side where he's never going to see Jun again. Because he's not going to just stop caring. He's not going to stop worrying about the fact that Jun had still been raised by something horrible pretending to be his father, something that had brainwashed and manipulated Jun into being the Joker and doing things to people that--no one should ever have happen to them.

Tatsuya doesn't really believe that things like that can leave a person. Somewhere in Jun is the knowledge of what he's lived through and what he's done, and Tatsuya wants to be there for him.

(Or maybe he desperately wants Jun to be there for him)

Most of that movie after meeting dinosaur-Jun is kind of a blur for him, which he's not upset about. He doesn't think he wants to really know that much about what dinosaur-Jun is going through. It's hard enough worrying about actual-Jun. 

But then it's over, they're done, and Doe spits out a key to the door in a process that still somehow manages to look horrifying. And a third movie unlocks for them, a sci-fi movie called A.I.G.I.S. that absolutely no one has the energy to deal with right after finishing the last one.

It's nice to not have to go in anyway. To be able to say that they're tired, that the last movie had been a lot, and that they're going to face whatever's next tomorrow instead. Still, Tatsuya's not completely surprised when he finds Katsuya in the new theater, watching the trailer with his arms crossed and a deep frown on his face. 

"Making plans for tomorrow?" Tatsuya calls.

Katsuya looks around at him, then sighs. "I'm trying to," he says. "But I'm having a hard time concentrating."

Normally, Tatsuya wouldn't have started this conversation in the first place. Normally he would have walked away. Today he doesn't, and instead actually goes over to sit next to his brother. "You might want to wait until we actually go in and we see what it's like."

"Probably," Katsuya says. But he doesn't make any move to stand up.

Tatsuya considers him for a second. Then pokes him in the shoulder, hard enough for Katsuya to pull his gaze away from the movie and actually roll his eyes. "You're starting that up again?" he asks.

They'd learned together, when Tatsuya was in third or fourth grade, and Katsuya was in high school, that this kind of poking irritates him more than pretty much anything else Tatsuya was capable of doing as a nine year old.

"Are you hiding in here?" Tatsuya asks.

"No," Katsuya says. "Just trying to plan for tomorrow." And then, like it's a completely unrelated thought that's just occurred to him, he asks, "Have you talked to Akira?"

Tatsuya nods. "A few times now, why?"

Katsuya keeps his gaze firmly on the movie screen. "I keep trying to wrap my mind around him. He's a Suou."

"I know," Tatsuya says. "I found him and you adopted him." 

(He's a little proud of how he manages to say that like it's completely matter of fact, instead of completely crazy)

"I've talked to some of the other Phantom Thieves," Katsuya says. "You know how they all have those nicknames they call each other?"

"Sure," Tatsuya says. He's heard--they've all heard them calling each other by what they insist are code names. Except Akira, actually, who has been loudly (uncharacteristically loudly) insisting that they use his actual name. 

"I convinced Sakamoto to tell me what it is," Katsuya says. "I thought it was suspicious that these names are so important to them, and he refuses to use his."

"Okay," Tatsuya says. "And...?"

"It's Joker," Katsuya says.

Tatsuya's stomach drops as a sheer reaction to the name. That was what Jun was forced to be on the Other Side. That's the name of the curse on This Side that's been hurting so many people. "Why?" he asks.

"I don't know," Katsuya says. "I just heard about this earlier today, and I've been sitting in here trying to figure out if I should say something. Because he seems like he knows what's going on in 1999, and he should have chosen any other name."

"So let's go ask him what's going on," Tatsuya says.

"Hmm," Katsuya says. "I haven't talked to him yet."

"No," Tatsuya says. "But we can go talk to him about it now."

"That's not what I mean," Katsuya says. "I haven't talked to him at all."

Tatsuya doesn't say anything to this, mostly because it seems like Katsuya's dangerously close to confiding something in him, and that's... new enough that he just doesn't know how to react.

"I don't know if this is the right place to figure out how to handle any of that," Katsuya says. "It might be better to focus on staying alive while we're here."

"It's not like things here are as bad as they are at home," Katsuya says skeptically. "If you've had time to chase me around Sumaru and try to parent me--"

"I'm not trying to parent you," Katsuya says.

Tatsuya forces himself not to roll his eyes, because when has that ever helped, and instead asks, "How do you not have time to have a conversation with Akira? I think he understands that things are going to be weird."

"This weird, though?" Katsuya asks.

"Yeah," Tatsuya says. "He literally grew up with this weird, so why don't we just go ask him why he had to pick--that codename?" And then he just starts walking, heading right back out of the theater and wondering if Katsuya's going to follow him. He's sort of used to it--it's the way things have always been. No matter what Tatsuya has ever done, Katsuya's always been right behind him to make sure he's okay. 

After a second, sure enough, he hears footsteps behind him.

It's usually hard to find Akira, even in the cramped theater, but Tatsuya has figured out by now that a good place to start is wherever everyone else isn't. He tries a couple of different empty theaters, before finding Akira with Doe in the projection room. He's organizing supplies for their next trip into the movie, counting healing items under his breath, but he hears the door opening and he turns immediately. He sees who it is and relaxes. 

"Hi," he says.

"Hey," Tatsuya says. He hesitates, remembering that Katsuya had admitted he and Akira haven't had a conversation yet. It feels like he should be introducing them or something, just because... that's what you do when two people you know are talking for the first time. But this isn't a normal conversation. Akira knows Katsuya, and Katsuya at least knows who Akira is. So instead Tatsuya moves the conversation on by saying, "So we heard your Phantom Thief codename is Joker."

Akira's eyes go wide, but only for a second. Then he launches immediately into apologies and explanations, his eyes dropping so he's staring at the ground instead of at them. "I didn't ask for that name," he says. "I didn't even want it, I argued about it until it got really obvious that arguing was only making it worse. But that's not me, I'm not the kind of person that would think something like that is funny." He leans against the wall and crosses his arms, and Tatsuya honestly can't tell if he's doing it just because the wall happens to be there, or if he's subconsciously trying to get farther away from him and Katsuya. "I couldn't explain why it was such a bad idea."

He's not looking at either of them now. Instead he's looking down at his shoes, almost braced for their reactions.

Katsuya says, "Are we that upset about it in your time?" he asks.

"Uh," Akira says. "That's a good question. But I haven't actually told... I mean, it's bad enough when I hear other people call me that, and I've only known what happened in 1999 for a few months."

Katsuya's frowning at him in a way that Tatsuya is very familiar with. He's had enough lectures from his brother over the years to be able to recognize immediately what it looks like when there's a lecture incoming. The one that kind of looks like he's figuring out the right words to start with, and he's about to launch into explaining why he's disappointed. 

And Akira obviously recognizes the look too, because he immediately does what Tatsuya had been about to do, and tries to head it off before Katsuya can get started.

"I know I should have tried harder to not get stuck with such a loaded codename," he says quickly. "But I was a lot newer to the group then, and I wasn't really sure if I could keep pushing without accidentally pushing them away too, and they didn't think it was a big deal so it probably seemed weird to them that I was arguing at all. I mean--I can probably say something now, because everyone knows what happened, so they have more of that context, but at the time it was different. I'm sorry."

"I don't think it's something you have to apologize for," Katsuya says, and it looks like Akira's attempt at avoiding Katsuya's lecture has worked. He honestly looks like he might have been surprised out of lecturing. "Obviously we're dealing with a lot with the Joker curse now, but that doesn't mean the word is off limits for the rest of time. And your friends didn't know."

Akira hesitates. "You're... not mad?" he says. And then he looks at Tatsuya, too. "I'd honestly understand if you were," he says, and Tatsuya can't tell which of them he's more worried about.

But he can only speak for himself, and he does. "The last person to use the name Joker was my--" He pauses, for a beat, not sure what word fits, but knowing Akira knows what they were to each other. 

(Katsuya doesn't, and Tatsuya isn't completely sure if he's ready for him to know that)

(Maybe he will in the future, maybe This Side's Tatsuya is going to come out to him. But right now he 's just not ready, so he just... picks his words carefully)

"Jun was my friend," Tatsuya says. "And then he wasn't, for a long time, until he came back and he was again. And I know that what he went through when he was Joker was--awful. But I think I'd rather..." Does his opinion even count here? It should be Jun, but Jun's not here. "I think I'd rather have the next person to use his name be someone like you than anyone involved with the Joker curse."

Katsuya clears his throat. "I'm mostly concerned that your friends insisted you use the name after you kept telling them no," he says. "I understand that you couldn't tell them why you didn't want to use the name Joker when they gave you the codename, but friends shouldn't insist on something that makes you uncomfortable."

"Yeah," Akira says. "But maybe it'll change now that I can tell them."

"I'm going to talk to them," Katsuya says, and Akira's expression goes immediately to panic.

"What? No!"

"I just want to give them a second opinion that this isn't okay."

"These are my friends," Akira insists. "It's not okay if I get my dad to come yell at them, even if you're not technically my dad, and--uh--definitely not yet."

"Katsuya says you haven't even talked yet," Tatsuya says casually. His brother shoots him a pointed look, which Tatsuya just as pointedly ignores. 

"Oh yeah," Akira says. "I guess--sorry this is our first conversation, maybe?"

"No," Katsuya says. "That's my fault. I should have come to find you earlier, when I heard what our... relationship is going to be. Is?"

"Oh," Akira says. "I mean, that's always been really complicated anyway. So I wasn't worried about that."

"Complicated how?" Katsuya asks. "Not that we have to talk about this now. If you don't want to."

"I just mean that you're always around and looking out for me," Akira says. His face looks slightly red as he says this, and Tatsuya wonders how awkward this has to be to say out loud, when Katsuya from 1999 doesn't even know him. Tatsuya doesn't think he would have been able to do it. He continues, though. "Even if I don't realize you're doing it," he says. "Or sometimes I don't want you to." He clears his throat and looks about as awkward as it's possible for a person to look. "So it's fine even if we're not talking," he says. "I'm going to... I'm going out to see if anyone else needs help with anything."

And then he flees the room, and the awkward conversation.

After a second, Tatsuya says, "See?"

Katsuya has been watching the door Akira has just run out through, but his attention snaps away at Tatsuya's one word question. "See what?" he asks.

"I told you you're trying to parent me," Tatsuya says. "Because you're literally Akira's dad, and you do the same thing for me."

(No, he discovers in this moment, he really couldn't have said what Akira just said. He can barely get through basically saying yeah, me too)

-//-

It's their third night in the theater, and that means it's Akira's third night sleeping next to Yusuke. It's starting to feel automatic, and comfortable, which would have been nice if he didn't have his conversation with Tatsuya rattling around in the back of his mind. He wants to keep ignoring it, he does not want to talk about it, but the thought's there now, and it's ruining something that had been nice, before.

So on day three, when Akira's pretty sure everyone else is asleep, when he's half hoping Yusuke will be asleep, he whispers, "Are we dating?"

It turns out Yusuke is not asleep. In the darkness, he moves a little. "I'm not sure," he says. "Your answer was very unclear and I didn't know how to keep asking."

"I didn't know that's what you were asking," Akira says.

Yusuke moves again. It's a bigger movement this time, turning in the dark to face Akira. Akira looks back at him, grateful that the darkness makes it impossible to actually make out any details of Yusuke's face. "I said I like you," he says, and he sounds a little bit hurt.

"That... could mean a lot of things," Akira says. It's a weak argument, in the face of that sliver of hurt in Yusuke's voice. "I'm still getting used to the idea that people might like having me around as a friend. It literally never occurred to me that someone might... like like me until Tatsuya, um. Assumed we were together."

"And you said no."

"I... yeah, I said no, but--I don't think we are, but that doesn't mean we can't be?"

"Do you want..?"

His eyes are adjusting to the dark. It's getting easier to make out the shape of Yusuke's face through the blackness, and Akira has to fight to keep from dropping his gaze. "I don't know what he wants," he admits. "The last time I thought about any of this stuff, I was nine and had a crush on Kotone. And that's... just little kid stuff, that's different. And liking... if I like you, it doesn't mean I'm necessarily ready to like you, right? Does that make sense?" It doesn't. He knows it, even as it's coming out of his own mouth. "Never mind," he says. "I just... I don't know. I haven't figured out what it means to like someone. Like that."

There's a long pause. "...do you think you could think about it now?" Yusuke asks eventually. 

Thinking about it feels like the least he can do, even if it's difficult. So Akira tries to figure out... anything. It's hard, when he's never even imagined that he might be someone that another person could like. He's just him. A few months ago, he hadn't even been worth friends. And now there's someone else that can look at him and think... not just yeah, okay, I can have one more friend, but...

For most people, when you like someone, if you tell them you like like them, you're telling them you want them to be your one person. That out of everyone they know, all their friends, everyone, you're the one that they want standing right next to them. And a huge, screaming part of Akira doesn't believe he's worth that.

But there's other parts of him too, underneath it. The part of him that finally accepts that he has friends that want him around, that he might actually really be a part of the Phantom Thieves, and not just tagging along because he knows how to fight. The part of him that had accepted Arsene, and is strong enough to fight in Palaces.

And that voice is saying, quietly, that it's worth going deeper than the knee jerk reaction that he's unworthy.

He thinks he likes Yusuke. He's pretty sure. He thinks that what he sees as Yusuke being safe, wanting to be around him, is what other people would recognize as liking someone. And maybe if he hadn't grown up in a way that made safety so important and so rare, he would have recognized that earlier.

But then, underneath all of it...

Having a someone (his mind can't even manage the word boyfriend, it pulls back and cowers, shying away) is different than having friends. And there's a scratchy uncertainty, a kind of discord in his mind, between the attraction to Yusuke and the fear of letting anyone in that much. Into his space, his life, his mind. Having someone means there's an assumption that he's going to be able to share without holding things back, or touch without flinching, or do other things he doesn't even know to be wary of.

"I don't know if I'm ready for this," Akira says. "I think I want to be. Maybe? But there's parts of... like liking someone that I don't think I like."

"We don't have to do this the way anyone else would," Yusuke says. "I don't think anyone's opinion but ours really matters."

"I know," Akira says. "I mean, I think I know. But I also... I don't think I'm ready?" His breath catches, and shudders. "Can we talk about this again when we're back in the real world?" he asks. "And there's less stuff going on, and we have a little more time to just... focus on this?"

It's obviously not the answer Yusuke wants. Akira's eyes have almost fully adjusted now, so the hurt is right there, clearly visible, as complicated as the feelings that had driven Akira to hurt him in the first place. But he's not going to... he can't say anything else right now. 

"Alright," Yusuke says at last. "We can talk again when we're home."

And then they're quiet. Akira looks away, not at Yusuke, his mind racing. He doesn't know if he's messed something up. He doesn't know if he wants to have messed it up, because at least if he had, he wouldn't have to make the hard choices that are waiting for him now back in Tokyo.

(But some part of him, he's surprised to realize, doesn't mind the hard choice)

(A cold, buried part of him that's only seeing the light for the first time this year, coming alive with the Phantom Thieves and his friends, is a little bit excited to make hard choices for Yusuke)

In the darkness, their fingers touch. Yusuke's are cold, and Akira wonders if it's just the slightly drafty theater, or if it has something to do with Goemon and his ice. And if that's true, what about the rest of them? Is Ann a little too warm, does Ryuji spark?

(And is he maybe a little bit cursed?)

One of them squeezes the other, fingers knotting together. Akira's not sure which of them starts it, but it doesn't matter--neither lets go. And soon enough, Akira can feel the warmth from his hand spreading into Yusuke's, and he...

He doesn't think about ice, or about curses, any more that night.

-//-

They find another group of Persona-users in the next theater, which Akira isn't even surprised by, at this point. New people had shown up in the first two, so why not here, too? The only real surprise is that he doesn't know any of the people that practically ambush them when they're halfway through A.I.G.I.S. 

Or... well, actually, the real surprise is that Kotone knows them, and they don't know her.

This is her team, only her team doesn't know her. When she'd seen them and greeted them enthusiastically, they'd responded with... nothing. Confusion and wariness, and complete incomprehension about who she's supposed to be, like they've never even met her before.

It's weird, and the obvious assumption is that they're not from the same Side that she is. Except Akira can't do the mental gymnastics to figure out how that world work--he knows Kotone is from a third Side (not This Side or the Other Side), because Igor had told him so on literally the first day he'd met Kotone in the Velvet Room.

She obviously thinks so too, because after a while of incredibly awkwardly fighting through the new movie with a group of people that clearly think Kotone is crazy or worse, she drops back to walk with Akira. "When we first ran into each other back in the Kamoshidaman movie," she says, in a voice that's a very good approximation of calm. "You said I was from another Side. And that's why I was never able to find you when I looked."

"Yeah," Akira says.

"How did you know that?" Kotone asks. "Because that would almost make sense as an explanation for how my fri--how no one here knows me. But if that was just a guess, because you were using the Velvet Room to move back and forth, I don't want to assume that's what's really going on here."

"It wasn't just a guess," Akira assures her. "Igor told me."

"Oh!" Kotone says. "Well, that's alright then. Igor wouldn't be mistaken about something like that."

"I don't think so either," Akira says, and then because she seems to be a little bit brighter at this other explanation for why her friends don't know they're her friends, he keeps talking. "I already know about This Side and the Other Side, I just didn't know how any of it worked. I didn't really question that there could be more than just two."

Tatsuya, who has been hovering near Kotone since her friends... or not her friends? Since S.E.E.S. showed up, drifts a little closer. Akira thinks he probably relates to what it's like to suddenly be surrounded by friends that don't know him better than any of the rest of them, so that's probably why he looks so concerned. He doesn't say anything though, except, "I don't know if it's that easy to just make more Sides. Philemon had to get involved when it happened to us, and it doesn't sound like he's even around anymore."

"I've never seen him," Akira volunteers. 

"Who?" Kotone asks.

"He's like--Igor's boss, I think?" Akira says. "Katsuya and Maya mentioned him while they were explaining things to me at the start of the year."

"Oh," Kotone says. "I haven't seen anyone like that either." She frowns for another second, then says, "I do still believe Igor when he says I'm from another Side, though. I don't know why he'd lie, and it's hard to believe he might just be wrong." 

"It was hard to believe someone else could take over the Velvet Room too," Akira says. "And then it happened."

"That's... true," Kotone says. "We could talk to Theo and Elizabeth when we get back to the theater. They're from the Velvet Room, so they might know more about it than we do."

"That's true," Tatsuya acknowledges.

"Oh!" Kotone says, suddenly grabbing Akira's arm so tightly he winces. 

"Ow," he complains, making a pointed, intentional effort not to give in to the sudden surge of adrenaline at what some part of him wants to react to as if it was an attack.

"Sorry," Kotone says, and lets go of his arm. "But do you remember that boy you used to tell me about?"

"What boy?" Tatsuya asks, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"There was another boy in the Velvet Room," Kotone says. "Akira used to tell me about him when we first met in the Velvet Room--"

"Oh," Akira says. "Minato?"

Several members of S.E.E.S. hear the name and turn to look at the three of them, but no one says anything. Yet. Akira has the definite impression that they're still listening.

"Right," Kotone says. "We're never in the Velvet Room at the same time, even though you said you started meeting both of us around the same time."

"Yeah," Akira says. 

"So that feels like something that could be different in different realities or whatever," Kotone says. "He's there, I'm at home, that's why we never met. And this can be the S.E.E.S. he knows."

"That--would make sense," Akira says. "Yeah. I know Minato's from This Side, because--" Because Katsuya and Maya had taken him to see Minato's grave. "I've seen... him," he says, a little stilted. If Kotone's right about these being Minato's friends, he's not going to do the same stupid thing all over again, and blurt out anything about the gave. But he does make eye contact with Kotone, and say, "I think that makes sense, because I know there was... at least one thing that happened to both of you at the same time."

"What would you have heard abo--oh." Kotone's enthusiasm dims as she understands what he means. "Really?"

He nods. 

"Hmm."

"Hey," someone says, and the three of them look up at one of the members of S.E.E.S., who has apparently decided to be the first one to break the silence.

"Junpei," Kotone says, so quietly that Akira isn't sure whether she's telling him and Tatsuya her friend's name, or just reacting to him being there. EIther way, Junpei doesn't seem to hear.

"Were you guys talking about Minato?" he asks.

"Yeah," Tatsuya says, as Akira goes instinctually quiet, and Kotone seems lost for words in the suddenly awkward situation. "Why, do you know him?"

Junpei nods. "That's our leader," he says. "But him and one of our other members were missing when we got here."

"Aegis," Kotone says, pronouncing it slightly differently than the name of the movie.

"Yeah," Junpei says. His eyes flick to her for a second, but he's probably still remembering how excited she'd been to see all of them, when she'd just been a stranger, from their perspective. "Do you know anything about what happened to him?"

Only that it's looking more likely that Kotone had been right about different Sides being a good explanation for why her friends hadn't known her. And that he has another friend somewhere nearby that he'd lost six years ago.

"It's a long story," Tatsuya says, after a glance at Akira, in which he can probably pick up on the fact that Akira's not going to say anything right now. And he's sort of the one that knows the most about Minato, and could explain meeting him in the Velvet Room. "Maybe this isn't the safest place to try and explain."

"Oh," Junpei says. Obviously disappointed. "I was kind of hoping you might know something."

"Just that it's probably better to find him as soon as we can," Tatsuya says.

"No kidding," Junpei mutters. "This place is crazy."

It is, Akira knows. He's not wrong.

But he's going to see Minato again too, along with Kotone, and that knowledge feels warm inside him.

Chapter Text

They find Minato the next morning, with a girl named Aigis, who is a robot.

Akira's not even sure what to think about that. He keeps thinking he shouldn't be able to be surprised anymore, but no matter how many weird things happen in his life, it feels like there's always something that slips in and takes him by surprise.

This time it's a robot.

At least Aigis seems nice? 

Akira sticks to the edges of the group as everything just kind of explodes for about an hour after the reunion. S.E.E.S. had already been wary of Kotone, and the way she obviously knows them when they don't know her. Running into Minato has them scrambling to catch him up, and Kotone hurrying to try and explain what they've figured out about her being from another Side, and then everyone all at once trying to explain what that even means.

It turns out that everyone has picked up a slightly different understanding, and so the explanation is pretty much just a big mess. And then halfway through explaining the whole thing, Minato's friend Mitsuru (and Kotone's friend, sort of, except not on This Side), realizes that she knows someone that the group from 1999 also knows, and at that point things just kind of start going down several side tangents that Akira isn't completely following.

It's too early in the day to turn around and head back to the theater to explain what's going on in safety. They're all too motivated to get to the end of this new movie and (hopefully) get another key from Doe to just give up after making barely any progress. But that means all the explaining and shouting over each other is attracting a lot of extra Shadows, and since Akira's sort of trying to keep out of the way of all the conversations (he's done enough explaining over the past few days already), he keeps getting sucked into the fighting instead. It's just a lot easier to focus on fighting Shadows than to try and force himself to make his own voice heard over all the noise. Fighting is something he already knows how to do, so it's just... a lot easier to keep his attention there.

(Besides, he's already using way too much of his brain on things that don't have anything to do with either fighting or explaining)

(...he doesn't exactly want to have a part of his brain constantly thinking about where Yusuke is, compared to where he is)

(But also he doesn't not want that, exactly?)

Because he's so focused on spells and swords, he doesn't realize how long they've been fighting until Minato asks, "Aren't you getting tired?"

And oh hey, Minato's standing right there behind him. Looking genuinely worried in a way that almost (but doesn't quite) banish the memory of being taken to see his grave six years ago. And because of that not quite, Akira catches himself turning, looking just for a second for Katsuya or Maya. Then he realizes what he's doing, and remembers that hasn't happened for them yet. They don't know anything about Minato except what they've heard here.

"Akira?" Minato asks, as his attention strays. Then, less certainly, "It... is Akira, right?"

Akira nods, and Minato's expression broadcasts relief.

"I thought so," he says. "But it's a little hard to follow everyone explaining all at the same time, and it's... I mean, time travel. I wasn't expecting that."

"It's really weird," Akira says. "But, uh... yeah. It's me." And then he shrugs, feeling supremely awkward.

Minato considers him for a long beat, and then he says, "I saw you after school today."

"Really?" Akira says. "I guess--sorry, it's just weird. I haven't seen you in a long time." But of course Minato's coming from 2009, from the year when Minato had regularly showed up in the Velvet Room while Akira was on his way to and from school.

"Yeah," Minato says. "You said you'd just gotten a zero on a history report."

"Oh," Akira says, and he can feel his face heating up. Because the thing is, he remembers that test, and what Minato's very politely not saying in front of literally every friend Akira has, is that he'd been devastated by that failed test. Not just because it had been a failure--in a time before Akira had started skipping school, and almost failed out of the fifth grade. 

But that zero hadn't just been a zero, at the time. Up until the fifth grade, his teachers had always given out assignments as worksheets, or at least asked them to write their assignments out by hand. That essay had been the first time Akira had been asked to turn in a piece of homework typed out on a computer, the first time that being able to type and use a word processor had been a skill they were being graded on. And Akira hadn't had those skills. At all. It was fourth grade, he'd been nine, and the essay they were expected to write was supposed to be maybe half a page long. No one in his class was turning in a masterpiece. 

But most of those classmates had grown up around computers, playing games and watching their parents use them. At that point, Akira's interest in computers had been so low that that he probably couldn't have even explained how to turn it on. His whole experience with computers was being vaguely aware that Maya had one in the house that she sometimes used for work in the evenings after he went home. Not something for him, basically. And he hadn't thought it would matter if he just ignored that part of the assignment and turned in something he wrote by hand.

His teacher had disagreed with him about the typing part of the assignment being important, and given him a zero. 

Akira had smashed face first into the difference between This Side and That One, and when he'd seen Minato in the Velvet Room he'd been crying like he'd literally broken himself in the collision. He'd felt like the dumbest kid in school, for not being able to understand something everyone else could manage. And then he'd continued to feel like dumbest kid in school for several months after that, until Katsuya got a call from his teacher, and had sat him down in front of the computer and patiently taught him to turn it on and type his essays.

(He does know how to use a computer fairly well now, even if he's never going to be Kaoru-hunting-down-hackers levels of good. He can do his homework, anyway)

(He hadn't learned his lesson, though, if the phone he'd refused to get until Katsuya forced it on him when he went to Tokyo is anything to go by)

"I guess it's kind of too late to ask this," Minato says. "But are you okay?"

"Uh," Akira says. "I mean, I'm not failing history, but I don't know about okay."

He gestures to everything around them, and Minato snorts a little laugh. "Yeah," he says. "Okay, that makes sense." He's looking around now too, quiet, hunched in a slightly awkward way like he's hoping for some kind of subject change to swoop in and save him, and then Akira sees his eyes fix on Kotone. "So that's her, right?" he asks. "The girl you used to talk about?"

"Yeah," Akira says. He'd talked about Minato and Kotone to each other a lot back then. In his mind, he'd seen both of them in the Velvet Room, and Igor knew about both of them, so why wouldn't they have met each other? Even Igor's explanation that Kotone was from a completely different Side hadn't really meant anything at the time. The three of them were all in the Velvet Room, right in the middle of every Side Akira knew about.

Of course he'd been wrong, but he hadn't realized that until he'd spent a pretty long time being confused about how they could possibly not have met.

It sort of looks like the two of them are going to meet now, though. Kotone looks over and catches them staring, and then almost immediately makes a beeline toward them. "Do you mind if I walk with the two of you for a while?" she asks. "It's getting kind of... awkward over there." She gives Minato a smile that seems genuine, even with traces of that anxiety creeping into the edges. "I've been wanting to talk to you, anyway."

"To me?" Minato asks.

The answer's pretty obvious, because out of the two of them, Kotone's already had plenty of chances to talk to Akira. So of course she nods, before explaining, "It sounds like we have some things in common."

"Really?" Minato asks, and Akira can't exactly blame him for sounding skeptical. Looking at the two of them, it's hard to really see any similarities. 

Except that they'd both come to the Velvet Room at the same time, made the same friends, and then died at the same time a year later. But Akira's fully planning to keep quiet about that--he locks his lips together, and lets the two of them take over the conversation.

"You're the leader of S.E.E.S. on your side, right?" Kotone asks. "Well so am I." Almost a little shy sounding, she continues. "It almost seems like we're walking down the same path. And sometimes that path is a little..."

She trails off. Akira's not exactly sure what the end of that sentence was supposed to be.. Lonely, maybe. Hard.

But there's a flicker on Minato's face that says maybe he does understand. Something half passes between them, a kind of understanding, and Akira thinks that maybe this is one conversation he's better off sitting out. He backs away from the conversation, leaving the two of them alone. He's technically been trying to introduce them since he was in the fourth grade, and this feels sort of like... closure. In a weird way.

They're not coming back. When they find a way out of these theaters and back home, Akira knows he's never going to see either of them again.

But...

They'd been gone already. It had taken Akira a long time to figure out how to move past that and keep living, but he'd done it eventually. Getting to see them here at all is a gift. Getting to see them together feels like finishing old business.

About half an hour later, while Akira is--for once--sitting out of a fight, he watches Kotone and Minato facing down Shadows together, with their same Persona. Two sides of the same coin, he thinks. From two different Sides.

It's nice to see them again.

Nice to see them together.

-//-

Katsuya hasn't been able to stop thinking about Akira since they got to the theaters. 

He thinks it's because there's so much of Tatsuya in him. Not in the way they look, Akira is smaller and sharper, chiseled down by sixteen years of living in a harder world than the one Katsuya's used to. He has darker hair, springing into messy, stubborn curls that Katsuya knows doesn't run in his family. 

(And of course there's the scar across almost half his face, the kind that looks really intimidating until you get closer, and realize how old it is, how faded, and that he must have been hurt when he was very young)

(Tatsuya had never been scarred like that as a child)

But there's more to a person than blood, and that's where Katsuya can see the similarities. In the way Akira fights, in his expressions and little gestures, all of which could have been copied from (had probably been learned from) Tatsuya. 

The difference is that Katsuya is not a parent to his brother, no matter what Tatsuya says to needle him. He's always tried to help him with the things their parents aren't there for, but that's just a side effect of being eight years older. Anyone would have done the same thing. Akira, on the other hand, is a stranger from seventeen years in the future. He hasn't even been born yet. It's easier to justify that relationship in his own mind.

Which means that Katsuya hasn't been able to stop thinking about him. It's strange to feel so immediately responsible for someone that he's known for maybe three days. But it's just hard to not believe that Akira sees him as... at least some kind of family, and so now he has a responsibility to him. Of course he has a responsibility.

For some reason, the thing he can't stop thinking about is the conversation he'd had earlier with Tatsuya and Akira about Joker. He's accidentally stepped into a part of his own life fifteen years earlier than he should have, and he can't really think of too many ways to help the way he wants to.

But he does have one idea, so that's the one he acts on.

He waits until they have a quiet moment. Which takes a while, because there are... there are a lot of teenagers here now. Baofu has completely disappeared, Katsuya has no idea where he's hiding, but his disappearance feels like a pretty good indication that they've hit a critical mass of teenagers here. Katsuya can't say he's all that comfortable with being around that many sixteen year olds himself (he hadn't really been any good at relating to teenagers even when he was actually in high school), so he makes himself scarce until he gets a chance to corner the person he wants to talk to.

He's not expecting this to be an easy conversation. But even if Ryuji Sakamoto has made it pretty clear that he's only marginally more okay with having a group of adults here than Baofu is with having a battalion of teenagers, this talk still has to happen. So he waits for Ryuji to be on his own before he more or less corners him in the lobby, at the end of another day fighting through the movies.

(They've made progress today--they've finished the sci-fi robot movie, gotten another key, and opened the second to last lock on the doors that will eventually let them out of the theater)

(But they're still not done, which Katsuya is pretty sure is the reason why most of the people here have drifted off into whatever corners they usually sleep in earlier than they usually do)

Ryuji turns around and starts as he realizes Katsuya's standing behind him. "Shit," he says. "I didn't see you there at all."

"I wasn't trying to surprise you," Katsuya says. "But I did want to talk. Do you have a minute?"

"Uh," Ryuji says. "Not... really?"

But it's a half-hearted attempt to avoid the conversation, because both of them know there's literally nothing for Ryuji to be rushing off to do. And in fact Ryuji doesn't even try to get away, just makes a face and hunches his shoulders before leaning against the wall behind him and crossing his arms. It's not a great start to what Katsuya already knows is going to be an awkward conversation, but he steams ahead anyway. It's not like he's never had to interrogate teenagers before.

(Not that this is an interrogation, he reminds himself)

(There's just something he needs to bring up before they finish the last movie)

"It'll just take a minute," he says. "But there's something I wanted to bring up about Akira."

"Oh," Ryuji says, and relaxes a little. Probably assuming that he's not in any kind of trouble, considering that Katsuya had started the conversation by bringing up Akira. "Sure. Makes sense, I guess. What about him?"

"How did he end up with his codename?" Katsuya asks.

"Huh?"

"Joker," Katsuya says. "Why that name?" Out of all the ones he could have ended up with. "Who picked it for him?"

"What's wrong with it?" Ryuji asks, a defensive tone creeping back into his voice. "It's just a codename."

"It's a codename with a lot of baggage," Katsuya says. "Akira knows the history of that name, so I'm sure he wouldn't have picked it for himself. When I talked to him earlier, he didn't even seem to like it." If anything, he'd seemed more upset during that conversation than either he or Tatsuya had been. Katsuya doesn't know how he feels about it, exactly, beyond the fact that it shouldn't be a responsibility that a teenager almost twenty years later should have to carry around. If that's his codename, then that's what it is, and that's the end of the story. He shouldn't have to feel bad about what his friends are calling him.

(Well, the whole codename thing in general feels a little... silly, but since it seems like an affectation all the Thieves together have agreed on, Katsuya doesn't think he has the room to comment on it)

"I mean," Ryuji says. "I guess he didn't pick it himself, but trying to get Akira to participate in stuff sometimes is like..." He trails off, a complicated expression on his face that makes it look like he's thinking hard. "I don't know. We're just lucky if he shows up a lot of the time."

"I'm not sure that's really relevant," Katsuya says.

"It definitely is," Ryuji says. "I mean, he gets spooked, and it's really hard to guess what's going to scare him off sometimes." He gestures around at the theater. "I mean, look at this. This shit's weird, you'd think it'd scare anyone away, but he's doing fine. Probably better than I've seen him anywhere else, anyway. But like we went to get food the first time we finished a Palace, to celebrate or whatever, and he completely freaked out."

"I'm really not following how that's supposed to be justification for forcing a Joker on him as a codename," Katsuya says.

"I don't see why it's such a big deal," Ryuji mutters. "I mean, it's not a great codename, fine, but neither is Mona, and he doesn't complain."

Katsuya doesn't answer right away. Ryuji's answers so far have been almost uniformly defensive and argumentative, but Katsuya doesn't... really think it's because he feels like he's that much in the right. More like a kneejerk reaction against being cornered and questioned about it. So Katsuya takes a deep breath, and makes a conscious effort to not be a police officer, right in this moment. 

This is about family. It's about that, and only that.

Katsuya tries to explain, instead. "There's a lot of baggage that comes with that name," he says carefully. "What we're going through right now involves a Joker curse, where people that are... affected lose control of themselves." An oversimplification, but they don't need to go into all the details right now. "You can ask Ulala," Katsuya continues. "It happened to her, we had to fight her."

Ryuji's expression flickers a little at this. Out of all of them (Tatsuya excepted, who is still literally a teenager), Ulala's probably the one that had most readily fit in with the two younger groups. Maya gets along with them pretty well too, but Ulala is still a little bit reluctant most of the time to admit that she's an adult and act like it. Katsuya has come to trust her because how could he not, after everything they've all been through, but it's almost impossible to believe that they ever would have met in other circumstances. She doesn't have a hard time relating to the teenagers at all.

"And before that," Katsuya says, pushing on into slightly less familiar territory. "Tatsuya's told me about how his friend on the Other Side was essentially tricked and forced into presenting himself as a Joker, so he could essentially drain peoples' willpower and more or less kill them. He... struggled with that, once he was forced to snap out of it and back to himself. And of course there were all the people he hurt. It's a name with a loaded history, Akira knows it, and he had a reason for not wanting to be forced to use the same name."

Ryuji looks away. His expression is hard to read, and Katsuya doesn't try. He gives Ryuji the space to react first. When he finally does, he says, "Wish he'd just told us all that at the beginning. I mean, I guess I get why he didn't, but I thought it was just Akira being Akira." He shoots a look at Katsuya, bristling like he expects an argument. "I get you're supposed to kind of be his dad or whatever, but you don't even know him yet. And he's doing way better since we've been here, he's finally started to actually talk to us. But before that, he kept acting like he thought we didn't want him around. And we never had a reason to not want him around, except that he keeps acting like he thinks we don't want him around, and that feels pretty shitty. So sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between him just being weird about having friends, and him actually having a problem with something."

"I'm not saying you did something wrong," Katsuya says, because he hadn't been there, and doesn't know how exactly things had gone down. He doesn't really think that any of the Phantom Thieves are genuinely bad people, based on what he's seen of them so far. It seems completely reasonable that if Akira had been more upfront about why he didn't want to be called Joker, he wouldn't have been. It also seems completely reasonable that he would have felt like he couldn't be more upfront than he was.

"What are you saying, then?" Ryuji asks.

"Just what I have a feeling Akira isn't going to say," Katsuya tells him. "Because I think someone should. That's all."

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "I guess... I should probably talk to him."

That's all Katsuya had wanted to get out of this conversation, so he nods, and says, "Good."

"We're not trying to be dicks about any of this," Ryuji says. "We just didn't know what was up with him for a super long time. Now we do, so..." He goes quiet for a surprisingly long time, before saying quietly, in a voice that makes it sound more like he's talking to himself than to Katsuya, "It's just that we're a team, you know? We're supposed to be a team. And it starts to feel kind of shit that we keep telling him we want him around and he keeps acting like we're lying to him."

"It seems like you're doing the best you can with what you have," Katsuya says, because he's not sure what else he can say. As much as he feels responsible for exactly one of the Phantom Thieves right now, as opposed to all of them as a group, he can see Ryuji's frustration at not being able to help. 

"Yeah?" Ryuji mutters.

"Well," Katsuya says. "Apart from the fact that you're running a ring of... heart stealing interdimensional thieves, which is probably something you should at least think about reconsidering."

Ryuji gives him the specific kind of skeptical look that all teenagers seem to be capable of. Then he says, "You're a cop, right?"

"I work for the police."

"Then of course you'd say that," Ryuji says, and Katsuya can practically see him immediately discarding the suggestion. He straightens, a new light in his eyes that makes Katsuya just a little bit nervous. "Anyway," he announces. "I'm gonna go talk to Akira. Feels like we probably have a lot to figure out."

Slightly confused, Katsuya watches him charge off. He wonders if maybe he should point out that he'd already seen Akira going to find a place to sleep, so Ryuji's planned conversation with him is probably going to have to wait for tomorrow. But Ryuji's already halfway across the lobby, and he'll probably figure it out himself soon enough.

Anyway. That conversation could have ended a lot worse than it actually did. Hopefully he's done at least a little bit of good here, and considering the fact that he hasn't even met Akira yet, it's about the only way he can think of to try and help right now. Later, when Akira will apparently come back into his life in a more... temporally normal way, he'll have more chances to live up to the unexpected sense of responsibility that's come with him. But--

His thoughts screech to a halt, as a thought occurs to him that he should probably have had several days ago. Someone should have had it, at least, but he doesn't think that anybody has.

There are people here from three distinct time periods. Several of them already do, or will at some point, know each other. Akira apparently knows almost everyone, but he's still as surprised as everyone else. Someone should have at least mentioned this to him, especially considering that he's apparently been told about everything else that's happened.

He thinks about Tatsuya, and Maya, and their friends.

None of them are going to remember this, are they?

-//-

Akira hasn't spent many mornings in the Sumaru of This Side, which is why he isn't ready for it when Katsuya decides he's waking up early. And apparently no one's told Katsuya that waking him up unexpectedly is a bad idea, which is how Katsuya ends up with a deepish purple bruise spreading across his shin. 

It might have been a lot worse, except that Yusuke wakes up around the same time that Akira's brain is still reacting in an awful mix of panic and self preservation. He manages to grab Akira's wrist before he has a chance to keep attacking, holding him still until his brain catches up with his instincts. 

(Akira doesn't know what to do with the fact that Yusuke can apparently just do that)

(He feels like he's been thinking about Yuske almost every second since the awkward conversation when Tatsuya had just assumed they were together, and he still hasn't figured out what to do with any of it)

"I'm really sorry," Akira says, as Katsuya experimentally puts weight on his newly bruised leg, and tries not to wince.

"He does that to everyone," Yusuke says, which is less reassuring than Yusuke probably thinks it is.

"That's why we're way over here," Akira mutters, gesturing to the out of the way corner that he and Yusuke have pretty much just claimed by this point. "Um. Sorry. Again. Are we going into the movie early today?"

It's an obvious attempt to change the subject, but luckily Katsuya lets it happen. "I haven't heard any plans about going into the new movie yet," he says. "But I wanted to get an early start because there's something I wanted to bring up to everyone before then."

And then he refuses to say anything else until the rest of the group is awake and gathered together. Most of them already are--Akira and Yusuke are pretty far from the main group, so Katsuya had come to them last. Or almost last, because Kaoru is hiding somewhere. And there are still a few people that had already been woken up and then apparently gone right back to sleep, but they manage to get the last few people awake at last, and everyone clusters together to hear what's going on now.

"None of us is going to remember any of this when it's over," Katsuya says without preamble. "If we did, then at least the Phantom Thieves would have come into this already knowing."

Akira makes a face, and as half a dozen conversations spring up around him, speculating on what that means, he says, "I don't... think that definitely has to be true?"

Kaoru curses under his breath, then shakes his head. "No," he says. "It makes sense. If you're telling the truth about your own history, he would have told you."

"I don't know, though," Akira says. "I was using the Velvet Room for ten years before anyone actually told me about Persona."

"This is a little bit different though," Minato says, gesturing to the adults. "Because they would literally know all of this had happened to them. And was going to happen to you."

Akira remains skeptical, but doesn't say anything. Luckily, Elizabeth (of all people) chooses this moment to interrupt. She's been standing behind most of the group, in the doorway to the Velvet Room, and until she speaks up, Akira had assumed she was just curious about all the commotion. She's apparently been paying attention now, though, because she says, "I can solve this question for all of you now."

"Really?" Katsuya asks. 

"Oh of course," Elizabeth says. "I should have thought it was obvious that most of you won't be able to remember any of this when it's all over."

"Because we would have heard about it from at least someone in the future," Katsuya says, nodding along. "Exactly, yes."

"Not because of that," Elizabeth says, as if the idea is ridiculous. "Because this is exactly the kind of situation where most of you will not be able to keep your memories after all this is over. It simply isn't how these places work."

"How are we supposed to know that?" Ulala asks, after several seconds of everyone staring in silence.

"I assumed it was obvious," Elizabeth says. Her expression is genuinely surprised, and she looks around at the rest of them. "Is this truly news to all of you?"

A few people nod.

Elizabeth's gaze fixes on Minato, who says, "I didn't know, you don't have to look at me like that."

She smiles brightly at him. "Perhaps I simply like looking at you," she says.

Minato sighs deeply as one of his friends--Junpei, Akira's pretty sure--shoots Minato an approving thumbs up from across the lobby.

"I don't see how it makes a difference if none of us are going to remember," another of Minato's friends says. Mitsuru Kirijo, Akira remembers. "We still need to escape before anything else."

"I didn't say none of you could remember," Elizabeth says. "I said most of you."

Several people, the ones that have been paying attention, look at Tatsuya. He flushes, and says, "Just because I didn't forget last time--"

"No, no," Elizabeth interrupts. "That was something different. You had the choice to forget and you didn't. This is just a place between worlds, and nothing that happens here is real enough to stick." She slaps the palm of one hand against the other, as if in demonstration. "Except for those of us that are used to these kinds of in between places."

"Oh," Kotone says. "So you and Theo will still know what happened?"

"Perhaps," Theo says.

"Yes," Elizabeth says.

There's a very brief pause, and then Theo admits, "Alright. I suppose it's very likely that we'll remember."

"Almost certain," Elizabeth says. "I suppose something could still go wrong, but we'll remember." 

"Good for you," Ryuji says.

"Don't shoot the messenger," Elizabeth says cheerfully. "Theo doesn't deserve that."

"Me?" he sputters.

"Anyway," Elizabeth continues. "Akira will probably remember too, of course."

"Huh?" Akira says.

"Of course," Elizabeth says, as if this should have been obvious. "You've been using the Velvet Room for most of your life to go from one Side to another. You don't think that would have had an effect on you? Your subconscious is too used to this."

"But this isn't the same as the Velvet Room," Akira says. "That's just--I mean, that's not that weird. This is weird."

"No," Ulala says, piping up after a second or two of silence. "The Velvet Room is weird too. You should think it's weird."

It's not, though. It's the way he'd gotten to school--the way he'd gotten home--for ten years. He knows that yeah it's something unusual, he knows he'd been lucky to be able to do that for so long, but he just can't make himself think of it as something actually weird.

"Okay," Ryuji says. "No, this is good. So Akira's weird and he'll remember the weird stuff, and he can tell all the rest of us when we get home."

"I'm not--" Akira says, and then stops, because there hadn't been anything in Ryuji's tone that made Akira's weird sound like a bad thing. He meets Ryuji's gaze across the room, and Ryuji kind of half shrugs and then nods at him, and Akira's not super sure what that's supposed to mean, but he feels included. It feels like Ryuji had meant Akira's weird the same way he might have said that Ann's the best at setting things on fire with her Persona, or Morgana's good at getting into tight places. Like it's just another strength for their team to lean on.

The rest of the group keeps talking for a while after that about whether they're going to remember and if it matters, and a few other things that Akira eventually stops listening to. The problem with having so many people here is that they kind of have to go around and around in circles for a while, and Akira takes advantage to circle around the group and find Ryuji on the other side of the group. He's not sure exactly what he wants to say, but luckily Ryuji makes it easy by starting the conversation.

"So your dad told me more about the whole Joker thing," he says. "Last night. And I wanted to talk to you about it then, but you were sleeping, and then this morning we had this whole meeting first, but uh..." He does look at Akira, now. "It was stupid of us to keep saying you had to use that name when you didn't want it."

"I should have said more about why I didn't want it," Akira says. 

"Nah," Ryuji says. "I just... wanted you to feel like part of the group, and I guess I felt like you were just trying to not be. But it was shitty to force it on you. If you want to use a different name that's totally cool."

"Well," Akira says. "Maybe when we get back. It doesn't really matter while we're here." Both of the other groups just use their names while they're fighting Shadows, so it's not weird for them to be calling him Akira instead of Joker. When they're back in Tokyo, though, it's going to be a different thing.

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "Sure. I mean, you'll probably have to remind us all why that matters, if the whole forgetting everything theory is right, but..." He hesitates, then says, "If you want it, stick up for yourself, okay? We're your friends, and even if you have to explain everything again, now you know we'll listen."

That's a weird thought, actually. Everyone's going to forget all these things that he's been told not to share with anyone. He... doesn't actually have to tell them all over again.

Except that he does, because they're his friends, and he trusts that they're not going to let this get back to any of Tatsuya and Maya's friends that could actually make the world end if they knew about the Other Side. He trusts them, and he wants them to know. Over the past few days he's been opening up, talking to people, getting to really know his friends as his friends instead of people that might just leave.

He nods at Ryuji. "Okay," he says. "When I get back, I'll tell you guys everything."

It feels like a big moment. A good one, even. And it might have stayed good, except that Nagi hurries up just then. The theater curator hasn't been too involved in any of the things that have been happening in the theater lately, staying on the edge of the crowds, mostly with Hikari. 

Actually, it's a little unusual to see her hurrying over without Hikari now. The two of them, as the only ones that don't have Persona, are usually together.

As if she'd read his mind, Nagi looks at him and asks, "Have either of you seen Hikari? I haven't seen her at all this morning."

"Nope," Ryuji says at once. "Haven't seen her. She can't have gone very far though, right? There's nowhere to go in here."

"There's the new movie," Nagi says, anxiety obvious in her voice. "The last theater opened after you all finished the previous movie, and no one's looked at it yet."

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "But she wouldn't have just gone into a movie, right? She can't fight."

"I don't think she would," Nagi says. "But the thing is, Doe's missing too. I'm worried that he might have taken her."

"Doe?" Akira asks doubtfully. Doe's sort of... big and weird and nonhuman, but he hasn't attacked any of them or anything. And he's been spitting up the keys every time they finish a movie, which is really helpful.

"What other explanation could there be?" Nagi asks.

"Something bad could have happened to both of them," Akira says.

"Guess we'll find out," Ryuji says, and raises his voice to get the attention of the rest of the crowd. It takes a few minutes to get through the explanation, but less time than Akira had half expected it would. In no time at all, they're heading to the final theater to rescue Hikari.

Chapter Text

The next movie is horrible.

The first three had been hard because of Shadows, but all of them are used to that by now. No matter where or what year they'd come from, they've all been fighting Shadows (or Demons) already. It's not hard to just keep doing that.

And anyway, it's not the Shadows that make the fourth movie so hard. It's Hikari.

They find her and Doe almost right away when they get into the new movie, a technicolor musical full of smiling flowers that don't match anyone's mood, and that's the good news. The bad news is that unlike the first three movies, that were based around... movies, real world movies with Shadow versions of random people they know inserted into them, this movie is just Hikari.

Between the horrible singing flowers are her memories.

Akira has known, in a kind of background way, that Hikari is here without her memories. Unlike the rest of them, she doesn't know where she'd come from, or if she might have been doing anything that could have gotten her sucked into the theater. She doesn't have a Persona, she can't fight with them, so that's not it, but there might have been something else. 

All they uncover in the movie is trauma. Memories of Hikari being teased at school, and being put down by her relatives, being slowly crushed in a way that is both familiar and deeply uncomfortable. He definitely knows what it's like to be the kid at school everyone else looks down on and whispers about, and why sometimes it's so tempting to just look down and stay out of the way and let everyone else's voices decide the way the world is supposed to be.

It could be worse, though. She has her dad, and he's there at the end of every memory to reassure her. And then she has her dad at the end of the movie, too, because it turns out that's been Doe all along. Or at least he's been Hikari's cognition of her dad, swallowed up in shadows because the world has done such a good job of teaching her that no one could love her, that she she believes it.

They have to fight Doe, at the end of the movie, before they figure that out. Like Hikari's memories have upset her so much that she literally can't conceive of him being anything other than awful to her.

And it's selfish, but for that whole fight, Akira can't help but think about how this could have been him. Literally can't conceive of anyone being anything other than awful to him is such a familiar way of thinking that seeing it from the outside like this, overwhelming and awful and literal, feels as heavy as a blow to the head, or as sharp as a bite. In Tokyo, it's so easy to just keep building up walls and desperately trying to keep everyone else away. 

It's not easy here. Those walls have been crumbling for days, brick after brick tumbling down with every conversation that's a little bit easier than the one before, with every fight he really believes he can count on the others to have his back, and with every morning he wakes up with Yusuke and doesn't come close to stabbing him. And because they're coming down a little bit, he can look at Hikari and recognize--

that could have been me.

And he can also know that it isn't. He can look at Hikari's fear and think no, it's not okay to just give up and give in under the weight of everyone else pushing down on you, no it's not true that she's impossible to care for. He can see with shining, crystal clarity that it's not true for her, and it's not true for him. In that last fight against Doe, he's fighting for her to be able to see that too.

(It could have been him)

And then the fight's over, the last movie is over, and Hikari is reunited with her real father, or the cognition-of-her-father-that-had-been-Doe, or whatever. He doesn't stick around long after that, which... is honestly probably a good thing, considering that it would be kind of creepy to have a cognition following along with them, but he does leave them the last key they need to unlock the front doors to the theater, and escape.

They're all tired and worn out after that fight with Doe, but there's no discussion whatsoever about waiting to leave the theater. Everyone wants to go home, and now that they're this close to the end, it's like the theater has just suddenly constricted, shrinking to the point that it seems like none of them can stand the idea of being there a minute longer than they have to.

Or at least, they almost can't stand it. Once everyone's actually bunched up in the lobby, there's an unexpected pause for goodbyes. They've only been here a few days but it feels like longer, and maybe it has been--they've been saying it's been days since they got here, that they're going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning, but really that's all just guessing. They're not in the real world, there's no sunlight or anything else that would tell them how long they've been here, so maybe it really has been a lot longer than they think.

Either way, it's been long enough to feel like they have to say something, even if most of them aren't going to remember any of this in another few minutes.

Akira feels the weight of being the only one that will remember (the only one other than Elizabeth and Theodor, anyway, who feel like they don't... count, in a weird way?) as he hovers anxiously around the edge of the crowd. Looking at everyone now, he can't stop the creeping worry about what he's going to have to say when he gets back to Tokyo, and how he's possibly going to be able to convince anyone.

"Akira?"

He turns to see Minato standing behind him, looking a little bit awkward himself. Weirdly, this has the side effect of making Akira feel sort of less anxious, because at least he's not the only one. "Hey," he says. 

"Can we talk for a second?" Minato asks, jerking his head back, a few steps away from everyone else, where they can sort of have a little bit of privacy. Akira follows him back, and has his mouth half open to ask what's wrong, when Minato says, "I've been talking to Kotone, and thinking," and he looks so serious that Akira knows immediately what the problem is.

"Oh," he says.

"She's going to die," Minato says. "And we've talked enough to make it obvious that we're... doing the same things. So..."

He trails off, but his eyes are asking for confirmation. Akira nods, and then feels like he owes Minato more than that. "I've seen your grave," he says. "I..." And then he can't think of anything else to say, except I'm sorry, and that sort of feels like the worst possible thing to say.

"I just wanted to know," Minato says. "For... five minutes, or however long it's going to be before the doors open. And then I can forget about it and go back to living for however much time I have left." And he kind of looks at Akira, uncertain, like he's weighing up whether or not he should ask. Akira presses his mouth tightly closed though, and doesn't say anything. He knows exactly when Minato had died, the date had been right there on the tombstone, but he's not going to say unless Minato asks. And it doesn't look like he's going to.

Sure enough, after a pause that stretches out just long enough to start feeling painful, Minato breaks eye contact and moves on. "Take care of yourself," he says quietly.

"I will," Akira says, and wishes he could say something more, or better, but he's already learned with Kotone that there's nothing you can say to someone after you've just told them they're going to die.

And speaking of Kotone, she suddenly comes flying out of nowhere, hurrying up in his peripheral vision even as Minato walks away, moving so quickly that Akira braces on instinct before he can stop himself. He does manage to keep himself from reacting, though, especially when Kotone slows down before she gets to him, and hugs him. It's quick, but there's a second or two where Akira has time to hug her back, and that feels at least like closure. Kind of.

"I'm sorry," he tells her, and it feels okay this time, because he hadn't done anything to Minato but he had told Kotone she's going to die. And that's not fair. 

"It's okay," Kotone says.

"It's not."

"It's not," Kotone says with a sigh. "But there's nothing we can do about it, and I don't want to be upset with you. So it has to be okay."

Akira's... honestly not exactly sure how to take that. There's a big, complicated yawning pit of emotions between the two of them, and it's not going to be worked out in the next five minutes before they get out of here. Kotone's going to go back to 2009, where she's going to die, and Akira's going to go back to 2016, where she's already been dead for years. Maybe this is just as good as things are going to get, and the fact that she's willing to try and not be upset with him feels pretty good.

Kotone smiles, a little sadly, then pats him on the shoulder. "Live a good life, Akira," she says. "I'm going to, for as long as I can."

"I..." He trails off, and this time it's because he physically can't force any more words out. He feels like he might cry if he tries.

And then Kotone leans in close and whispers, "Make sure you ask him out," which shocks the tears out of him completely. 

"Kotone," he whispers, because he is not physically capable of making his voice any louder right at this moment. "No...."

"Everyone's thinking it," Kotone says. 

"How do you know what everyone's thinking about me and...?" His face is so warm he can feel it burning, and he thinks he might actually explode if he says me and Yusuke out loud, so he doesn't. 

"Because it's the most interesting non-Shadow thing to talk about," she says. And then maybe takes pity on him, because she softens a little and says, "Alright, so not everyone's talking about it. But you should ask him. I know he's going to forget and you're not, so you're going to have to be brave."

There's something very strange about hearing this coming from Kotone, of all people. He remembers the awkward, embarrassing crush he'd had on her when he was nine, and in some weird way, that's still there. She's still the same person he'd looked up to back then, it's just that... he's not the same person anymore. He'd grown up and he'd lost people The things that make it so hard to get Yusuke out of his mind aren't things that Kotone has, and maybe that's just another complicated feeling that goes in the pile of okay, probably.

This time, he hugs her. And he's just thinking how much it sucks that he's going to have to say goodbye to her, to everyone, when Hikari (who had been given the fourth key to open the last lock on the doors), says, "Oh!" loudly enough to get everyone's attention.

The doors are open, but it's not the real world out there. It's... something like a street, except the ground is made of film reel, and every building they can see through the open door is another theater. And Akira knows, or guesses, or something, on an instinctive level, that every one of these theaters has someone like Hikari inside it, because what else could be there?

(He'd been thinking earlier that it so easily could have been him here, instead of Hikari, and he'd been right)

(It could have been him, so easily, but it could have been a thousand other people too)

-//-

Tatsuya doesn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved when it turns out that they're apparently not done with this theater yet. On the one hand he has things he needs to do back home, important things, things that will hopefully save the world. But on the other hand this place has been...

For a few days, he's been able to breathe.

So he's probably the least upset when it turns out there's a whole other layer to this, an apparently endless layer of theaters that they have the chance to do something about, if they want.

He is upset when it turns out that Nagi--quiet, smiling Nagi, who's always been so concerned for Hikari in particular, and all the rest of them to some extent--is the one behind all of this. She's been trapping people in these theaters, where they can watch endless movies teaching them to keep their head down, to go with the crowd, to abandon themselves because she thinks it'll be less painful for them.

That's not her choice to make for anyone else.

Nagi, or Enlil, apparently, gives them the option to leave right then. And Tatsuya has a reason to want to stay, a selfish reason maybe, because he knows what's waiting for him when he goes back. A desperate race to save the world, ending in the rest of his life spent stuck on the Other Side. So... he knows why he's okay with staying to help. And it makes sense that the Phantom Thieves do too--it sounds like this is exactly the kind of thing they do all the time. They almost have to say yes. And S.E.E.S., from what he's seen, is a team that doesn't back down from things that might happen to be... fairly deadly.

But everyone else goes along with it too, and that's a little more of a surprise. It's not the kind of thing that they're fighting for in 1999, but maybe he's not the only one grasping at a chance to breathe.

By this point, they've been fighting Demons for long enough to know how to work together. So they steamroll through this new challenge anyway, right up until they get to a fight with Enlil that almost wipes them out. Probably would have, except that (first of all) Hikari shows up to argue with her about why the things she's doing are wrong, and (second of all) Enlil is strong but not really destroy the universe strong. So not the worst thing Tatsuya's seen, and he keeps on his feet through sheer stubbornness, and between the two of them they manage to push the fight back into a place where it's possible to win.

(He has to pick his brother off the floor)

(It's not actually the first time he's seen Katsuya knocked out by a Demon, but it doesn't get any better)

In the end, he's not exactly sure if they win, or if Enlil just gives up. Maybe Hikari actually manages to get through to her. But either way... that's how things end. With Enlil no longer fighting back, and the rest of them slowly picking each other back up again. There's more to it, it's a little bit more complicated, because someone figures out a way to get the movies they've been fighting through piped into the theaters that all the other people are trapped in. Tatsuya's not exactly sure if it's going to do any good, but he does believe that seeing anything other than the propaganda Enlil's been shoving at them has to be an improvement.

And all of them have been fighting so hard, not just against Demons but also against the insanity of the movies they'd been trapped in. It had been impossible to not at least try to make things better as they passed through, and maybe that will make a difference to some of the people here.

Not that it has much time to make a difference to anyone. With Enlil surrendering, the theaters are starting to disappear. Tatsuya doesn't know exactly what's going to happen if they're still here by the time it's gone, but he isn't willing to stick around and find out. They'd gotten a little extra time here, but it couldn't have lasted forever, and...

And now it's over. They're back in the original theater, and it's a good thing they'd gotten their goodbyes out of the way earlier, because there's no time for that now. The doors into the movies that they'd first come out of have changed--instead of leading out of the lobby and into the individual movies, they just lead into what looks from this side is a white void.

Home. Those doors are going to take them all home.

There are so many people here that keeping track of them all would have been basically impossible. And Tatsuya misses most of them anyway because Katsuya corners him and takes almost all of the time they have left in the theater lecturing him about how he'd better come and find them as soon as they're all back in Sumaru City.

"It's not like I'm going to remember you telling me any of this," Tatsuya says. He says it a little bitterly, because he really doesn't understand why Katsuya thinks this conversation has to happen right now.

"Try," Katsuya says. "Stop pretending you can do everything on your own."

"I'm doing fine," Tatsuya says, but it's more out of habit than anything. And maybe a little bit of exasperation that he's being lectured. He thinks that maybe he would, actually, like to not be on his own again.

Katsuya sighs, but to Tatsuya's relief he doesn't argue. He just gives him a kind of awkward half pat on the shoulder, and then turns to go through the door that leads back home. Which is about when Tatsuya looks around, and realizes that because of the lecture Katsuya had stopped to give him, there's almost no one left in the theater. Almost everyone's gone back through already, and when Tatsuya turns, the only person he sees is Akira.

"Hey," he says, and Akira--who had been facing his own door with a posture of extreme reluctance--turns back around to face him.

"Yeah?" he says.

Tatsuya hesitates, but there's no one else here to overhear the question he feels like he maybe needs to ask. And anyway there's not much time to think, because this place isn't going to last much longer now that all the will Enlil had been putting into it is gone. "Living on the Other Side," he says. "Honestly. Is it awful?"

Akira looks like he'd like some extra time to think about the answer, the same way Tatsuya would really have liked more time to decide if he wanted to ask the question. But after half a beat he says, "Sometimes. It's just that it's not always awful, and--yeah, it's dangerous, but people are figuring it out. There's more kids now than there were ten years ago, because people are living and not just... trying to survive. It's not all gangs and looters, even though there's a lot of those too. It's... home. To a lot of people. So it really isn't all bad."

It's not completely reassuring, but it's something. Tatsuya nods, and turns back to the door. He's about to move when Akira suddenly blurts out, "Wait," and he has to turn around again.

"What's it like being the only one to remember?" Akira asks, and Tatsuya winces before he can stop himself. Akira sees the expression and nods, like he hadn't really expected anything else.

"It won't be as bad for you," Tatsuya says quickly. "I couldn't tell anyone but you can. You'll be the only one that remembers, but not the only one that knows."

"Yeah," Akira says. "Yeah, you're right. But, um..." He gives an uncertain kind of shrug, and says, "You don't have to be the only one that knows either. Because you're going to be able to explain it to Katsuya and Maya and everyone, and even after you go back to the Other Side..." The uncertainty fades a little--he looks certain for the first time. "I've been carrying letters back and forth between you guys since I was six. So I don't think you actually have to worry about being alone."

There's a beat, maybe two, of just complete silence between them. Then Tatsuya lets out a long sigh, and nods at Akira. He isn't exactly sure that he believes that, but... he really wants to. Being trapped alone on the Other Side, on its floating city at the end of the world, sounds like a nightmare. But maybe it won't be, or at least not as much of a nightmare as he's afraid of. "Thanks," he says.

"Stay safe," Akira says quietly.

"You too," Tatsuya says, and they go their separate ways.

(...for a while)

(Because even though Tatsuya doesn't remember, in another three years he's going to find a toddler alone on the streets with his mother's body)

(And he doesn't remember, he hasn't grown up in and out of the Velvet Room, but he has been to both Sides. He is living a Side that, technically, he does not belong in)

(Something very deep and buried in Tatsuya's subconscious recognizes him, and takes him home)

-//-

Akira waits half a second, just long enough to see Tatsuya leave the theater, before leaving himself. His heart is pounding with nerves, and he knows himself well enough to know why. Everything that's happened while they've been here has just been undone for everyone else. He's going to have to explain it all to them, and he knows it's going to sound crazy, and that he's going to sound crazy, and then after he's explained the theater, he's going to have to explain the Other Side all over again too.

There's no way he's keeping it a secret anymore. Not after he's seen how much better it is to have friends that know where he's coming from, and understand him. It's the difference between night and day, like coming up for air after a long time underwater, like opening his eyes for the first time. And maybe it's selfish, or maybe it's finally realizing that he trusts them enough to know that they'll keep his secrets and the world won't end, but Akira doesn't think he can go back to the way things used to be. Not after getting a chance to see what he could have.

So he takes a deep breath, and as the theater finally fades around him, steps forward through the door.

It's the strangest step he's ever taken. He can feel the theater dissolving into unreality even as he lifts his foot, so that his step isn't is sure or strong as he'd meant for it to be. And then in the time it takes him to step forward, to put his foot back down again, everything changes.

(Everything)

Something snatches at him, something cold and cruel, reaching out through the empty space between worlds, grabbing him and pulling in a way that's more mental than physical. He's yanked away from where he's supposed to be with a quick, vicious suddenness, and his foot lands, at the end of that one step, in his cell in the broken Velvet Room.

The quiet of the fading theater erupts at once into the howling maelstrom of Yaldabaoth's domain, and Akira--already off balance from that one last step, and startled by the unexpected change--stumbles forward. He half falls, as off balance as if the ground had been bucking and churning underneath him, and grabs at the bars of the door in front of him for balance as the world shakes. This isn't where he's supposed to be and he knows it, and he looks out through the bars at the reason that he's not where he's supposed to be.

"You thought you could run, perhaps," Yaldabaoth says, and Akira's whole body spasms in an involuntary shiver of mingled fear and revulsion at the sound of his voice. A minute ago, he'd been panicking about how he's supposed to be able to tell everyone his secrets all over again, and now he's suddenly wishing (desperately) that he was standing in front of the Phantom Thieves, telling them impossible things. Having them not believe him would be better than this. Seeing them laugh in his face would be better than this, anything would be better than this.

He tries to speak, but it comes out strangled and wrong. Yaldabaoth doesn't seem to be waiting for an answer, anyway.

"Or maybe," he continues. "You simply fell sidewise through a hole between worlds, and found yourself in a place beyond this time. Either way, you have made a grievous error."

Akira opens his mouth, but has absolutely no idea what to say. A large part of him just wants to scream, because the theaters had been weird but overall more good than bad, and then this is awful. He hadn't been expecting this, hadn't been ready for it, and the contrast between the place he'd just been and the places he's at now cuts into him like a broken knife.

(He's never even been in this broken Velvet Room while he's awake)

(Somehow, it's even worse than the nightmares he's had already, where at least he'd been partially protected by the vague feeling that it's all a nightmare)

"It hardly matters what you've done," Yaldabaoth says. "Whether you were seeking to escape my influence, or merely slipped away unintentionally, the end result is the same. I grow tired of tolerating your existence, and before me lies the perfect opportunity for consequences."

Akira finally manages to say something. "What does that mean?" he asks, too quietly. "What does consequences mean?"

"It means that you have not yet grasped the fact that you are not wanted in events as they unfold here," Yaldabaoth says, and his voice is suddenly a loud boom, rising in volume until Akira is fighting to keep himself from putting his hands over his ears just to block it out. "Your efforts to have an effect on this world that isn't even yours are pathetic. Or have you so quickly forgotten what the entirety of your life has proved so well?"

He doesn't say what this is  supposed to be, but he doesn't need to. Akira's mind flashes immediately back to his last visit here, and the things Yaldabaoth had said then. The solid, relentless reminders that he is useless, a pathetic, parasitic nobody leaning on anyone that makes the mistake of thinking he's worth keeping around. 

(These are thoughts that are more familiar, easier to believe, than any tentatively built up confidence from the theater could be after only a few days)

(He can feel himself crumbling, and he hates it, because he's sure that's what Yaldabaoth is aiming for)

"You could have surrendered when I gave you the option," Yaldabaoth says, his voice dropping back down to a normal volume. "You could have surrendered when you were given the option, and instead you have elected to follow these Phantom Thieves into a losing battle. And as such, you will face consequences."

He still hasn't explained what he's talking about, and every second he drags it out, Akira can feel his fear and anxiety growing. Which is the point, probably, but it doesn't stop him from being afraid of whatever Yaldabaoth is planning. There's... absolutely nothing he can do here. There's nothing he can do but stand here in his cell with every carefully built fragment of his self confidence crumbling to pieces. "What are you..." He swallows, and tries to force his suddenly quiet voice to get a little bit louder. "What are you going to do?"

"I am going to take," Yaldabaoth says. 

And then he pauses, a horrible, stretched out pause in which everything Akira cares about flashes across his mind as something that Yaldabaoth might be about to try and take. But none of them are as awful as what Yaldabaoth finally says.

"I am going to take the Phantom Thieves."

For the first time, Akira has no trouble making a sound. He shouts no before he's even had time to think about how afraid he is, and is rewarded with a booming cackle of laughter. 

"If that is all the so-called rebellion you have to offer," he says. "Then truly, you should have given up before making it this far. You can do nothing to stop this. The consequences have already been decided. The judgment has been made."

"But that's not--" These are his friends, and he's taken so long to truly believe it that he can barely dare to say the word out loud. Yaldabaoth can't just take them. He can't. "They're not--these are supposed to be consequences for me, so why would you hurt them?"

"Because this is hurting you," Yaldabaoth says, and Akira shudders at the truth. "You have fled with them into another place, and been foolish enough to return. Memories of these places are an easy thing to lose, and none of them will remember a thing that happened there when they are back in your world. Do you know how easy it is to push that farther? To seize this opportunity and take more of their memories?"

Akira shakes his head, not so much an answer to the question as a wordless, desperate protest.

Yaldabaoth takes it as an answer anyway. "It's the easiest thing you can imagine," he says. "And I suppose it's all thanks to whatever it is that lured you all away from your reality. Normally it would take so much more effort to reach those with a Persona to protect them. If this opening of scattered memories hadn't been created, I might have had to wait months to create an opportunity to reach them."

So because they've all been to the theaters, because they'd lost their memories of being there, Yaldabaoth can reach into the hole where those lost memories should be, and yank more of them away. That's what he's saying. 

"This is hurting you," Yaldabaoth says, voice softer now. Almost a whisper. "Because they will be able to return to the lives they lived before you arrived to ruin them. Without their memories of their time in the Phantom Thieves. Without their memories of each other. Of you."

Akira flinches, his thoughts too scattered to even try and stop the little jerk of movement.

"But you?" Yaldabaoth says. "You will live with knowing that they're nearby and unreachable. I believe you've seen what that means."

"I..."

And then he understands, with a cold, certain dread, exactly what this means. He closes his eyes, and sees Tatsuya's face in his memory. Remembers his expression when he'd said I couldn't tell anyone, but you can. What Yaldabaoth is doing is making sure that no, actually, Akira can't tell any of his friends what they've been through. 

"So these are the consequences of your actions," Yaldabaoth says. "Of your refusal to give in. And if you're considering simply telling them what they've lost, I recommend that you reconsider."

"Why?" Akira asks. His voice comes out as a whisper, and it's suddenly very hard to look at anything other than his own feet. "What will happen?"

"Who can say?" Yaldabaoth says. There's something smug in his voice now. The certainty that he's already won. "Perhaps you can imagine the sort of unpleasant things that might be left behind in the place of those memories. Just waiting for a careless word to trigger them." The smile in his voice grows. Akira barely notices--he's frantically thinking of all the kinds of pain and misery that could have been left hiding in his friends' minds. 

Yaldabaoth is almost laughing as he continues. "Say what you will to them," he says. "But it feels only fair to warn you against reminding them of what you've already been through together. Or of their own role within the Phantom Thieves."

This is...

Well, it's not fair, Akira knows that.

His brain feels like it's moving in fits and starts, so it takes him an agonizing several seconds to realize what's happening here. It's Yaldabaoth jumping on an opportunity to hurt him, and doing it through his friends, which right at this moment feels like maybe the worst thing he could have done. But it's also--

It's what had happened in Sumaru, all over again. And it has to be intentional, that apparently Yaldabaoth knows about that, knows Akira will have grown up seeing that, and has gone out of his way to deliberately, painfully, recreate it. 

"I see you understand," Yaldabaoth says.

"Don't do this," Akira whispers. "Please."

But Yaldabaoth only laughs at his stupid, helpless plea. The laugh echoes in Akira's ears as he's thrown unceremoniously back out of the Velvet Room, out and away from the horrible thing in the middle. There's a second of blackness, and then Akira's blinking his eyes open in the middle of Shibuya Station. 

Not in Mementos, which is where they'd all been before being shunted into the theater, but... pretty close. Which means that everyone else should be around here too, right?

(They have to be)

(Please let them be here, please let everything that had happened in the Velvet Room be a lie--)

He starts running without thinking, weaving through the crowded station, taking the stairs down two at a time. he's searching every face he passes, heart pounding, feeling like he's going to throw up. 

(They have to be here)

(Yaldabaoth can't have really taken them)

He doesn't know where he's going, just that the fear won't let him stop. He's not being subtle at all, not making any effort to avoid the weird looks he keeps catching on people as he pushes his way past them. It doesn't feel like that matters. Everything was supposed to be okay when they left the theater, everything was supposed to be good--

He ducks around a group of middle school students, bunched together and laughing, swings around a middle aged office worker with his face in his phone, and pulls up short in the second before he would have run full speed into someone going the other way.

And that someone is Yusuke.

Akira's breath catches, his voice abandons him, and all he can do is stare. He sees, almost in slow motion, as Yusuke looks over at him, too. Sees the startled expression because of the way Akira had been running right at him. Then sees his eyes flick to the scar on his face, sees him half-hide the little wince that people always make when they notice it for the first time. Sees his eyes slide away, a little embarrassed at having noticed.

"Sorry," Yusuke half-mumbles, stepping around him. It's the sort of apology that anyone would give a stranger they'd almost run into in the subway. A polite nothing.

Akira watches Yusuke leave. Watches him walk away without glancing back, watches without blinking until the crowd swallows him up completely, and he's gone.

So Yaldabaoth hadn't lied after all. 

He really has taken the thing that hurts the most to lose.

Chapter Text

June 2016

-//-

Akira doesn't leave Shibuya for a long time. He doesn't know exactly why, because it's not like being here is better than being anywhere else, it's just that... nowhere else seems like somewhere he wants to be right now. Nothing in the world feels like it's worth the effort of getting up and going anywhere.

After a while, maybe an hour (although his sense of time had been pretty thoroughly screwed up by the labyrinth even before the sudden loss of all the people he cares about) a lady that has been selling smoothies at a kiosk near the bench where he's ended up comes over. She says very kindly that she'd noticed him just sitting there for the second half of her shift, and is he okay.

He tells her he's fine, is surprised by how well he lies, and when she's gone he starts to think that maybe he should start figuring out what to do next. The fact that he looks so bad that a random person he's never even seen before had felt like she needed to come over and check on him is a pretty bad sign. But it also snaps him out of his fugue, a little bit, and once he's gotten over his daze, he has to start thinking about what's happened.

The way Yusuke had looked at him, or not looked at him, makes it impossible to doubt that Yaldabaoth had done exactly what he'd said he was going to. He'd taken the Phantom Thieves' memories of being the Phantom Thieves.

(Apart from Akira's, which is... honestly, so far he's only been thinking about what it means to be the only one of his friends that remembers)

(But the sudden realization that he's the only Phantom Thief left is heavy in a completely different way)

He probably needs to check in with the rest of them, to make sure it really has affected everyone, but he can't make himself pick up his phone and call right now. Because it just makes absolutely no sense that it would have only effected one person, and because he doesn't think he could handle calling and hearing who is this when they pick up. He'll see them at school tomorrow, anyway, and then... he'll know for sure that everything's broken in a way that he doesn't know how to fix.

He's going to have to show up to class and sit down behind Ann, and she's not going to know him but he's going to have to sit there, six days a week for eight hours a day--

No, he... he doesn't think he can stand that today. It'll be bad enough tomorrow, and he's not going to know how to face it then either, but at least right now he has the choice to put it off. Maybe it's selfish, but he's still seeing Yusuke's blank expression every time he closes his eyes, and he doesn't have it in him to add any other faces to that mental gallery.

But there are other people he can try and talk to. People that maybe wouldn't have been effected, because Yaldabaoth had said the Phantom Thieves, the Phantom Thieves, but the Phantom Thieves aren't the only ones that had come out of that theater. None of them are going to remember what happened there, but he needs to know if they remember him.

His hands are cold and shaking as he finds Katsuya's number on his phone, and for a long moment he just stares at it, too afraid to do anything else. It's... if Yaldabaoth had taken everyone from him, then he really doesn't know what he's going to do.

(But he'd said Phantom Thieves)

(It has to be just them)

(What if it's not?)

He doesn't mean to hit the button to start the call, and doesn't realize he has until the tinny sound of Katsuya's voice drifts up from the speakers.

"Sorry," Akira says, picking the phone up hurriedly, so that he can actually hear Katsuya, and he can hear him. "I didn't really mean to... sorry."

He must sound pretty defeated, because Katsuya--who had been in the middle of what seems like a lengthy speech--stops and asks, "What's wrong?"

And he's worried, which means he knows who Akira is. It's what makes sense, he's not a Phantom Thief, but Akira hadn't really believed it until he'd heard the truth right there in Katsuya's voice.

"You're okay," Akira blurts out.

There's a brief pause, and then Katsuya says, "Of course I'm okay." His voice, still worried, is quieter now. A little more gentle. Less worried about what Akira's doing and more worried about what's happened.

"Did anything weird happen to you?" Akira asks. "Or to Maya, or anyone?"

"Nothing," Katsuya says. "What happened by you?" He doesn't ask if something's happened, but Akira figures that's probably obvious in the context.

"I..." He's in the middle of Shibuya Station. "Can't really talk about it now, there's a lot of people around. But I just needed to make sure you were okay."

"Everyone here is fine," Katsuya tells him again, as if he knows that Akira needs to hear it, and hear it again, and keep hearing it until somehow he manages to believe it. "Can you get somewhere safe where you can talk?"

Akira takes in a shuddering breath. "...can I come home?" he asks.

The words slip out before he realizes that he'd planned on asking the question. It's just that Katsuya had said safe, and the only place Akira can even imagine being safe right now is Sumaru. This Side or the Other Side, it doesn't matter, he just wants to go home.

"There's the probation..." Katsuya.

"But that doesn't mean I have to be in Tokyo the entire year, right?" Akira says. "I can visit. Just--a weekend, or a day, or anything, please?"

"Akira..."

"I need to go home," Akira says.

Katsuya sighs. "Alright," he says. "But is there anything you can tell me now?"

No. Because everything is horrible, everything is broken, and he can't figure out how to explain that without dumping the whole story out in the middle of Shibuya station. "Can I just tell you when I get home?" he asks. "I will, I promise. But it's not a good time, and... I need to figure out how to explain it anyway."

"Okay," Katsuya says. "Then come home this weekend, and we can talk about it. Whatever it is."

"Thanks," Akira says.

"But just tell me," Katsuya says. "Whatever happened was... bad, wasn't it?"

"Pretty bad," Akira whispers.

"Alright," Katsuya says. "Well whatever it is, we'll figure it out when you get here."

Akira shouldn't actually feel reassured by this. He doesn't think there is a way for them to figure this out. But he does. His hand, which hasn't stopped shaking since he first pulled his phone out, goes still at last. "Thanks, Katsuya."

"I'll see you soon," Katsuya says, and hangs up.

Akira lowers his phone back into his lap, and sees to his surprise that he's gotten some messages while he was on the phone with Katsuya. They're sitting there waiting for him on the home screen.

And then he sees that actually they hadn't (most of them) come in while he was on the phone with Katsuya. It looks like he'd actually missed them coming in while he was panicking enough for random strangers to notice.

There's a message from Alibaba, first of all. Several of them, actually.

Yu had texted too. Just to check in, the way he's started doing a couple times a week since Akira actually got a phone.

As Akira watches, a text comes in from Maya, too. Apparently she'd heard enough of Katsuya's side of the conversation to be worried.

Akira doesn't breathe for a second. This isn't the first time today that he's been knocked over by some surprise, but this is the only one that hasn't been awful. Because sitting right here in his hand is a reminder that he hasn't actually lost everything and everyone he cares about. Katsuya and Maya are both still here and they both still remember. Yaldabaoth hadn't taken their memories. Or maybe he couldn't take their memories? The Velvet Room in the time they're going back to is safe. Igor's there, and Yaldabaoth is still twenty years away from breaking in. The Phantom Thieves had all come back here, so maybe that's the only reason he'd been able to get to them. And in a way, that's reassuring. He's not as all powerful as he wants to seem like he is.

(...maybe)

(Akira's not willing to count on that)

And it's not just Katsuya and Maya that remember, because Yu does too--at the time, he'd sort of wondered why everyone else he knows that has a Persona hadn't been at the theaters, but right now he just... doesn't care. It doesn't matter whether or not Yu had been there, it matters that he's still here. Akira texts him back, which takes way too long, because first of all he's not that fast at it anyway, and second of all because the message gets a little lengthy as he tries to tell Yu how grateful he is to have him as a friend.

Yu texts him back immediately to ask what's wrong, and Akira feels a little bit better, again. He doesn't feel any more up to telling Yu what had happened than he had been for telling Katsuya. So he just tells him that he'll explain as soon as he can, and gets a reluctant okay back.

That just leaves the message from Alibaba. And as soon as Akira opens that up, he feels his stomach sink.

[secure conversation log]

Alibaba: So this might kind of come out of nowhere, but do the Phantom Thieves maybe take requests?

Alibaba: I know you have that website, but I guess I was wondering if I could ask you for help and if maybe you would change a heart for me

There's a long break after this message, before the next one had come through.

[secure conversation log]

Alibaba: Okay cool so you're not saying anything and that's kind of freaking me out, but I'm going to go ahead and ask anyway

Alibaba: Can you maybe change my heart?

The rest of what she says, Akira can't bring himself to really read. He skims it instead, the lengthy pouring out of Alibaba's feelings as she describes how hard it's been to be stuck in her room and her mind, the way she's been carrying around the fear of dying there. He doesn't know exactly how she's gone from being a threat to a confidant, but she has. Technically she'd been the first person he told about the Other Side, even if that had only been because she overheard him talking about it first.

He thinks he probably would have at least tried to help, if she'd sent this message yesterday. It probably would have been something everyone would have been interested in, because Alibaba knows a lot about the Phantom Thieves. It's pretty easy to imagine that they'd want to try and change the heart of someone that already knows their secrets, and might possibly be less likely to leak that after a change of heart. And Akira does sort of like Alibaba. He's really confused by her too, they have almost nothing in common, but...

[secure conversation log]

Akira_Suou: So

Alibaba: Oh hey you're back

Alibaba: I sort of word vomited all over this, uh...

Alibaba: Sorry, I feel really awkward now

Akira_Suou: No it's okay. I just

This time, he's the one that takes a long pause. He hadn't told Katsuya what had happened and he hadn't told Yu, but it looks like he's going to have to tell Alibaba, of all people. Because... she's asking for help that no one can give her. She's asking for help that she needs, and she at least deserves a real explanation for why she's not going to get it.

[secure conversation log]

Akira_Suou: I know you don't like big blocks of text, but I need to get this all out at once so you don't misunderstand and think I'm saying no just because I want to? Because I honestly wish I could say yes, it's just that there's no Phantom Thieves anymore. Something... really bad happened today. And it's stupid and unfair and I'm really not sure what that means exactly, but things went really wrong, and the rest of the group doesn't remember anything that's happened or that they're Phantom Thieves or anything.

He hits send, and then just stares at the words right there in black and white. Like it somehow makes it more true.

[secure conversation log]

Alibaba: ...

Alibaba: What?

Akira_Suou: So... wow I really don't know how to explain this

Alibaba: Try!

Alibaba: How do you just stop remembering that you're a Phantom Thief???

Akira_Suou: I guess it's a little bit like how we change hearts?

Akira_Suou: Changed hearts, I mean

Alibaba: You're doing a really bad job explaining

He tries to do better. He really does. He starts explanation after explanation, only to delete them and try something else. Nothing sounds right, though, it just keeps feeling like not good enough to explain the whole horror of what's happened. Except also he sort of doesn't want to have to get into the full horror, because it's horrible, and so he just keeps ping-ponging between extremes, until finally Alibaba apparently gets tired of waiting for him to say something.

[secure conversation log]

Alibaba: It's okay, you don't have to tell me

Akira_Suou: I'm sorry, I'm trying I promise

Alibaba: Something went wrong when you were trying to change a heart, I guess?

Akira_Suou: Kind of. It was sort of... change of heart adjacent. But the thing that went wrong went really wrong, and now everyone else is kind of... not remembering. And they can't remember or something bad's going to happen

Alibaba: Is this end of the world bad too?

Sometimes, it terrifies him that Alibaba has overheard so many of the dangerous secrets in his life. But in this case, at least, he feels like at least she'll understand why she can't just go around him and ask one of the other Phantom Thieves what's going on.

[secure conversation log]

Akira_Suou: Not end of the world bad, but bad for them bad, at least

Alibaba: Like what kind of bad?

Akira_Suou: I'm not sure and scared to find out? Something powerful hurt them, and warned me that it would be worse for them if I tried to help them remember.

Alibaba: Oh

Alibaba: So that's really the end of the Phantom Thieves

Akira_Suou: I think so. I can't do it by myself, so...

Akira_Suou: Look, I'm really, really sorry that we can't help you

Alibaba: Yeah

Alibaba: Me too

She doesn't say anything else, and neither does Akira. He puts down his phone, feeling worse than he had before he'd picked it up, then starts to gather his things so he can get going. The train going back to Yongen-Jaya is leaving soon, and he can't sit here forever, so...

He slips into the crowd, navigating fully on autopilot. It's been months since he first came to Tokyo, months of riding this same subway route back and forth between school and Leblanc. That's probably why he barely notices the ride, why it feels like he gets on the train, blinks, and suddenly it's time to get off again. He joins the (much smaller) crowd getting out at Yongen-Jaya, and makes his slow way back to the cafe.

Sojiro's the only one there when he gets in, which isn't super unusual. Especially since it's later than he usually gets back.

"There you are," Sojiro says, as Akira heads past him toward the stairs. "I was starting to wonder if you were coming back at all tonight."

He says it like a joke. Akira's face does something that feels like an impersonation of a smile. "Sorry," he says. "It's been... a long day."

"Sure. No cat today?"

Akira feels himself stumble at the question, feet going numb for half a second. He steadies himself, and thinks--of course Sojiro would ask about Morgana. He's the one that had insisted on the cat supplies that are taking up so much space in Akira's attic room right now, and Akira has seen him sneaking food down to Morgana more and more often since he'd first found out about him. He might not have any idea that Morgana is more than just some cat, but he'd liked him anyway.

"I don't--" Akira says, and then chokes up before he can force another word out. The thing Yaldabaoth had done keeps finding new ways to be horrible, and he's just realized that he has no idea where Morgana is now. Everyone else has a regular life to get back to, but where is Morgana supposed to be? Wandering around with no one that can understand him? Or back in a Palace, like he had been when they'd first met?

"He ran off somewhere, didn't he?" Sojiro asks, and when Akira looks up at him, he's shaking his head. "I've always been worried about you carrying him around like that. Did he get spooked by something."

Akira makes a noncommittal noise, not sure if he can even get a lie out right now. 

"Well I'll keep an eye out for him here," Sojiro says, genuine sympathy in his voice. "And if you want, I'll see if I can call around to a few animal shelters while you're at school tomorrow."

"Thanks," Akira whispers. He knows Morgana isn't coming back, and he hopes they're not going to find him stuck in an animal shelter. "I, um... I actually have to go home this weekend for some family stuff. But if we... if we find Morgana..."

They're not going to find him, and Akira is surprised by how much he wants to see Morgana again. He'd been so against bringing him home, but now he'd have happily paid for Morgana to eat fatty tuna sushi every day, as long as it meant Morgana would remember.

"That's bad timing," Sojiro says. He's frowning as he says it, he doesn't make it seem like he's frowning at Akira. If anything, he seems sympathetic. "But I'll keep an eye out for him while you're gone."

"Thanks," Akira manages to choke out. Then he runs upstairs before the conversation can go anywhere else that he doesn't want to talk about.

For a while he stays huddled up on his bed, as the room slowly starts to go dark around him.

Then he takes out the journal where he writes his letters to Tatsuya. He hadn't had it with him when he got dragged into the theaters, so it's been a while and he has a lot to catch up on. But he doesn't really want to explain everything right now. He just wants to say you lived this too, how do I get through it?

-//-

Tatsuya -

It's been a while since I wrote to you, I guess. Sort of. Today I went to Mementos with everyone, and we got dragged into a sort of... I don't know. It was this kind of in between place, like it wasn't This Side or the Other Side, it was just kind of it's own thing. And it was between times, too, which I know sounds crazy but I'll explain that part later. That part... it was actually good. 

But then the thing in the Velvet Room sort of grabbed me on the way back out and told me he was going to stop everyone from remembering and he did and I can't figure out what to do. I want to talk to you so much, I know you know what this is like and no one else does. I just want to start screaming. How am I supposed to just pretend everything's okay now? How did you do it for months? I can't even figure out how I'm going to handle tomorrow, but I don't have to just handle tomorrow, I have to handle every day after that.

It's like he killed them. Like they're still out there walking around, and they're still the same people. But they were my friends, and I only just started to believe that, and he killed my friends without killing the people, and I hate it. I'm just figuring it out while I'm sitting here writing this, but it feels the same as when the Demon Painter came and told us that Kotone and Minato were dead.

That's what he did. He killed my friends.

- Akira

-//-

The only reason Akira manages to go to school the next morning is that it's Saturday, and he's going home to Sumaru instead of back to Leblanc after class. If he hadn't had that to look forward to, he knows he wouldn't have been able to get through seeing Ann and Ryuji at Shujin.

And he's right, it's awful. Ann's already at her desk when Akira walks into the classroom, staring out the window with her chin in her hand and a distant expression on her face. She looks sad, Akira thinks, the way he dimly remembers her looking in the first couple days after Shiho tried to kill herself, before Akira had known she was working with Ryuji and Morgana in Kamoshida's Palace. He'd barely paid attention to her then, but today he can't stop himself from staring a little as he stops between her desk and his. 

He wonders if maybe there's a reason her expression now looks so much like her expression then--without the Phantom Thieves, that would still be the biggest and only thing that's happened to her this year. Obviously it's still a big thing, but she should have at least had something good to balance out the bad. And she doesn't.

He stares at her a little too long or a little too hard, apparently, because Ann turns around and meets his eyes with a flat look. "Did you want something?" she asks.

"Sorry," Akira says reflexively, and shuffles past her to his desk. 

"Whatever," Ann mutters, her gaze drifting back toward the window.

Akira opens his mouth, then closes it again, then thinks no, he has to at least say something, so he asks, "Are you okay?"

"Fine," she says, without moving.

Neither of them says anything else for a long time. The rest of the classroom starts to fill up as their classmates start to trickle in before the final bell. Akira's really not planning to say anything else, because it's... pretty glaringly obvious that she's not a Phantom Thief anymore, the same way Yusuke hadn't been a Phantom Thief anymore when Akira saw him at the station yesterday. But then about a minute before the start of class, he realizes there is actually something he needs to ask her.

"Um," he says. "Ann?"

"Yeah?" she turns around, not really interested.

"Have you seen a cat around anywhere?"

Morgana isn't lost the way Sojiro might think he is, but he is still lost, in a way. Yusuke, Ann, Ryuji--Akira knows where to find all of them. But Morgana could be literally anywhere, in the real world or in somebody's Palace or even Mementos. The only half hope Akira has is that he might have ended up with one of the other Phantom Thieves out of just... habit, or a familiar feeling, or something.

He'll never know if he doesn't ask.

"A cat?" Ann asks. "No, why?"

Well... he's asked, and now he knows.

"No reason," Akira says, and after that he's saved from trying to figure out what to say next by the bell ringing, and Kawakami coming in to start class.

The day crawls. Akira takes absolutely nothing in.

He looks for Ryuji during lunch, but doesn't find him. After school, though, as Akira's heading downstairs and thinking ahead to getting home, he spots one of his classmates trying to flag Ryuji down in the hall. He's calling his name and sort of waving his arms, and it takes Akira a second to remember that this is supposedly the person that's been running the Phansite. He's never actually talked to him (he takes another several seconds just to remember that his name is Mishima), but Akira's pretty sure that Mishima doesn't have any non-Phantom Thief reasons to be talking to Ryuji.

If Futaba remembers the Phantom Thieves, that means other people can too. And the last thing Akira wants is for Mishima to just start blurting out stuff about the Phantom Thieves without knowing that it could do who even knows what to Ryuji.

He picks up speed and manages to catch up to them just in time to hear Ryuji ask Mishima what he wants in a tone that makes it clear he doesn't think there's any reason for them to be talking. And it's not like Akira had needed any confirmation that Ryuji doesn't remember either, not really, but that does it. That, and the blank look Ryuji gives him as Akira stops right next to the two of them.

"What'd I do to get so popular today?" he complains.

"Uh," Mishima says, and gives Akira a sideways look. "Sakamoto, I thought you might want to talk about... you know." And then he looks at Akira, again, with an expression that pretty clearly says please go away. He's familiar with that one from seeing it aimed at him about a hundred times in grade school. 

...Mishima doesn't know that he's a Phantom Thief, Akira realizes. Which means that as long as he's here, Mishima's not going to risk talking about the Phantom Thieves. Which is... weird and backwards, but at least it's working.

"What am I supposed to know?" Ryuji asks.

"You know," Mishima says, and this time he looks over at Ryuji and raises his eyebrows a couple times.

"Totally clueless," Ryuji says. "What did you need, by the way?"

He's looking at Akira, whose mind blanks. For some reason, the first (and only) thing that occurs to him is the way Ann had tricked him into coming up to the roof to talk to Ryuji, back when Akira was busy ignoring him. "Kawakami was looking for you," he tells Mishima.

"Really?" Mishima asks. "I thought I saw her leave already."

"Uh," Akira says. There's a second of silence, before he just shrugs and says, "Nope."

"I guess I better see what she wants then," Mishima says, and backtracks toward their classroom.

As soon as Mishima's gone, Ryuji shrugs and leaves too, joining the crowd of other students heading out for the weekend. Clearly he doesn't have any intention of sticking around to wait for Mishima to come back, and since they're heading into the weekend, that probably buys Akira at least a couple days to figure out a more long term solution. Unless maybe Mishima just comes right back out, sees Ryuji's gone, and tries to text him about the Phansite.

...this sucks.

And also he probably needs to get out of here himself before Mishima comes back and gets annoyed at him for lying about Kawakami. That's probably not going to take a ton of time, so Akira hurries for the stairs and heads down as fast as he can. At least he's heading home, and maybe someone there will have a suggestion.

The farther he gets from Shujin, the better he feels. He doesn't actually get as far as feeling good, that would have been definitely a stretch after the last couple days, but he's already done the hard part of forcing himself to double check that none of his friends know him, and now he can look forward to going to see people that do. 

It's not a short trip, and Akira's impatience to get out of Tokyo makes the train ride back to Sumaru seem longer. By the time he's actually there, it's past sunset, and the streets are already dark. Still, when he gets out of the station and looks around, he's home. He knows this city, had grown up in the Sumaru of the Other Side, had spent... more of his childhood than he was supposed to wandering around the city on This Side, instead of being in school. 

Almost twenty years ago, awful things had happened here. But those things are in the past, and there are terrible things happening in Tokyo now. Sumaru feels safe in a way that Tokyo doesn't, and Akira lets out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. Maybe this feels a little bit like he's running away from his problems. Maybe he is running away from his problems.

But it's not like he can do that forever, and being home for one weekend doesn't feel like too much to ask for.

"Akira?"

He hadn't been expecting anyone to be here to pick him up, the station isn't that far from the house, but when he turns around, Katsuya's right there. Looking at him like he knows exactly who he is, which feels like such a tiny thing to ask for, but...

"Hey," Akira says. His voice cracks around the word, and suddenly his eyes are wet.

Katsuya hesitates for a long second, then puts a hand on Akira's shoulder. He seems surprised when Akira can't help but lean into it a little, but...

It's been a bad day. And he's had a chance now to see what it's like to have other people to lean on, just long enough for it to hurt when it was taken away.

"The Phantom Thieves are done," he says quietly. "The thing that took over the Velvet Room took everyone else's memories."

"Ah," Katsuya says. There's a lot of emotion packed into that one syllable, and he tightens his grip on Akira's shoulder for a second. 

"It's a long story," Akira says. "Can we go back to the house and talk about it?"

"Of course," Katsuya says. "This doesn't sound like something we should be talking about here anyway."

It's not as crowded as Tokyo, but there are still people around. Other people that had gotten off the train with Akira. "Yeah," he says quietly. "Makes sense."

"Come on," Katsuya says, letting go of him and pointing him toward the parking lot. "Let's go home."

Chapter Text

June 2016

-//-

Katsuya takes Akira home.

Akira doesn’t say anything on the drive, and Katsuya doesn’t push. If nothing else, anything they talk about now is just going to have to be repeated when they get back. Maya’s not going to let either of them get away with excluding her, which is more than fair.

He keeps looking over at Akira, at the way he’s folded himself up, leaning on the car window as he watches the scenery fly by. Or doesn’t watch, maybe, because his eyes are fixed on something a thousand yards away, something only he can see, and Katsuya isn’t sure if he’d welcome an interruption right now.

But here they are. This is exactly what he’s been so afraid of, all these years—for Akira to be hurt in the way that he’d watched his brother be hurt. There’s no sign of physical injuries on Akira, although Katsuya does note he looks exhausted, but there are just so many other ways for a person to be hurt.

And Akira obviously has been. He doesn’t talk about This Side’s Sumaru City being home. He doesn’t look for comfort, and if it’s offered, he isn’t comfortable with it. Except that in the past couple days, he’s seemed almost desperate for all those things—for home, and for comfort.

When they finally get to the house, and Katsuya parks in the driveway, Akira says, “Hey Katsuya?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re family, right?”

Katsuya turns to look more directly at him, frowning at yet another out of character surprise from Akira. This is the person that has spent ten years making it very clear that his adoption is something that has absolutely no meaning to him beyond giving him a legal right to exist on This Side. It’s ink on a piece of paper. He makes a point of calling Katsuya dad when there’s anyone else around to hear, and never when they’re alone.

“Of course,” he says.

Akira looks over at him. Then he sees that Katsuya’s looking right back at him, flushes and looks away. “Okay,” he says quietly.

“You don’t believe me?”

“I’m trying to,” Akira says.

“What’s making it hard?” Katsuya asks. “You’ve known us for a long time. You know that Maya and I both want the best for you.”

“Yeah,” Akira says. “But—” he chews on it for a second, then says. “You had to do all this. Because I came out of the Velvet Room, and I came from Tatsuya, and you weren’t going to say no to that, were you?”

“No,” Katsuya says. “But that’s no different from having a child naturally, is it? You might as well look at any parents with their children, and say that those parents had to love their children, because those children came from them and from their significant other. That’s the same thing, those parents didn’t get a choice.”

“I guess not,” Akira says, looking startled. Then, more quietly, he adds, “You said love?”

That had been a slip. Not because it isn’t true, but because Akira is skittish and easy to spook. And right now he’s vulnerable, more so than usual, so Katsuya genuinely doesn’t know what might drive him farther away.

But he’s said it now. Backing away would be worse.

“You asked whether we’re family,” Katsuya says. “Family are people that you love.”

Akira goes very still, and then after about thirty seconds he opens the car door and gets out. Katsuya curses as quietly as he can, then gets out too, trying to figure out how to do damage control. He still has no idea what Akira’s been through, so he has no idea what might be stepping too far out over that invisible line of things he shouldn’t say. He goes around he front of the car, and says, “Akira—”

The hug that Akira suddenly blindsides him with is the absolute last thing he’s expecting. This is Akira. This is not something he does, except that he’s doing it now, with what feels like all the strength he has in his body. And Katsuya can’t think of anything to say, the only thing he can think of to do is to return the gesture. Akira is small, his growth stunted from years of malnutrition as a child, and then sporadic food deprivation whenever he was on the Other Side. He’s sixteen, probably, although no one really knows exactly when he’d been born, Akira himself included. But holding him for the first time, it hits Katsuya how much he feels like a younger child.

“I’m really sorry,” Akira says.

“Don’t be sorry.”

Akira takes a long, shuddering breath. Then he says, “I can’t go back to feeling alone. I had friends, and then I lost them, and part of me wants to never try and make friends again because the past couple days have been awful. But also I don’t think I can keep going if I don’t have people I care about, I need that.”

“Everyone does,” Katsuya says quietly. “We all need people to care for.”

“I’m sorry—”

“This is okay, Akira. It’s okay to feel like this.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” Akira says. “I want to be part of this family.”

“You always have been,” Katsuya says.

Neither of them moves for a long time, until eventually Maya comes out and finds them just standing there in front of the car. “And what are you two doing out here?”

“I’m having a crisis,” Akira says, stepping back and away and ducking his face in a not totally believable attempt to keep them from seeing him wiping it. He’s trying to sound okay again. Almost laughing. His smile is brittle.

“I can see that,” Maya says, matching his tone. “Do you want to come inside and finish having your crisis in there? I can warm something up for dinner.”

“Yes please,” Akira says, and ducks around her to get into the house.

Katsuya stays outside for a minute with Maya. She looks out at him and asks, in a lower voice, her earlier smile gone, “Is he going to be okay? What happened?”

“I have no idea,” Katsuya says. “Let’s go find out.”

-//-

Akira tells them everything.

Almost everything.

He tells them about the theaters, about Yaldabaoth, about the nightmarish day and a half he’s had since coming back to Tokyo. The things he keeps back are the ones that are harder to put into words. How it had felt when Ryuji told him he didn’t need to keep using Joker as a codename. The day when Morgana told him that yes of course they’re friends, and Akira had finally believed it. Falling asleep, and waking up, next to Yusuke.

They talk for hours, sitting around the kitchen table where they’ve been sharing meals for years. Akira feels like he’s scrabbling for connection, all of a sudden. All these years, wishing for friends, and now he’s had a taste. Not just someone in the Velvet Room, Kotone or Minato or Yu that he’d see once a week, maybe. Real friends. And it’s like years worth of walls have come down, all at once, so suddenly that he can’t, can’t, can’t make himself face the idea of building them back up.

That’s what coming home has shown him. Home is the same, the city and the people are the same, but he’s different, and he’s not going back to the way he used to be.

He finishes his story by explaining what had happened when he got back to Shibuya yesterday, and then at school today. Running into Yusuke, the horrible conversation with Alibaba, trying to talk to Ann, and running interference between Ryuji and Mishima. When he’s done, he leans back in his chair and sighs. It’s late by now, close to midnight, and now that he’s stopped talking, the house is silent.

“That’s unbelievable,” Katsuya says, into that silence.

“Sorry,” Akira says.

“Not unbelievable in what you said,” Katsuya says quickly. “Just… unbelievable that anyone would do that.”

Akira takes a deep breath, and thinks of the horror the Velvet Room has been turned into. “I believe it,” he says quietly. “I think he’s capable of doing even worse things. And I think he seems like he likes it.”

“Alright,” Maya says, as Akira’s gaze drifts downward. “Well, he’s done what he’s done, and now we need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“What can we do?” Akira asks. “Elizabeth told me I’m supposed to be stopping Yaldabaoth, but it’s just me now. I don’t know how we could all have done this together, but there’s literally no way I can beat him by myself.”

“You do know other people that can fight Demons,” Katsuya says.

“Shadows,” Akira corrects automatically.

“I don’t think that’s the solution,” Maya says.

“I think it is,” Katsuya says. “Maya, look at what happened when—”

And the two of them exchange a complicated series of looks. They’ve known each other for a long time, fighting together and being together, and Akira can’t read anything into that exchange. He watches them look at each other, deciding for him what’s going to happen next. And he trusts them, absolutely, but he realizes as those looks fly across the table over his head, that he wants a say too.

He stands up, and they stop looking at each other to look over at him.

“We can talk about this out loud,” he says. “You don’t… have to decide for me.”

“That’s fair,” Maya says. “Then let’s start with this. What do you want to do, Akira? You’ve talked about what you can’t do, now that the rest of the Phantom Thieves are gone, but if that wasn’t an issue, what would you want to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want to take Yaldaboth down?”

“Yes,” Akira says, immediately, before he has even a second to think. He doesn’t know if it’s possible, he doesn’t think it feels possible, but he knows that he wants Yaldabaoth out of the Velvet Room. He’s awful. He’s destructive, and he’s already hurt everyone that’s supposed to be in the Velvet Room, and most of Akira’s friends.

“Okay,” Maya says. “Then do you want to be involved in that?”

Again the answer comes before he even has time to think. “Yes,” he says.

“Good,” Maya says. “Then we’re not going to take over for you.”

“We—” Katsuya starts to say.

“Are we?” Maya asks, a little louder, looking at him.

“It’s worth pointing out that we know what we’re doing,” Katsuya says. “We’ve done this before.”

“You’ve never been Phantom Thieves before,” Akira says.

“That’s not necessary to fight though,” Katsuya points out.

“It’s necessary for getting deeper into Mementos,” Akira says. “You have to be in the public consciousness to get farther in. And since I’m still thinking that getting farther into everyone’s Palace is the best chance we have of figuring out what’s going on in the Velvet Room, that’s really important.”

“But that just means that theoretically anyone can get into it,” Katsuya says. “As long as they’re well known.”

“Well known in Tokyo,” Akira clarifies. “Which no one we know is, except the Phantom Thieves. And if it was that easy to become well known, everyone would do it.”

“So we keep using the Phantom Thief name,” Maya suggests. “And build off of that.” She glances sideways at Katsuya, even as she keeps talking to Akira, “And in that case,” she says. “There’s absolutely no way you can be left out of this, Akira. You’re the only Phantom Thief left. No one else will know the difference if we take you out, but that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be consequences to completely replacing the group.”

Akira gives her a tight, grateful smile. Then he looks at Katsuya. He’s pretty sure that Katsuya would be happier if they actually could replace the Phantom Thieves completely. He doesn’t want to see Akira get hurt, which is… well, it’s nice to be cared about, but…

(But why doesn’t he want to be left out? He could have left this to Katsuya and Maya, and anyone else that’s willing to help)

(For right now, he just knows that’s not okay. He can figure out the why later)

“Here’s where I think we start,” Maya says. “Akira, you said that Alibaba asked you for help?”

He nods.

“Then let’s start with seeing if we can do that,” Maya says.

“And after that?” Katsuya asks.

“I don’t know,” Maya says. “I think step two depends how step one goes.”

“Um,” Akira says. Then as both of them look up at him, he realizes he’s still standing. He sits down, a little awkwardly. “It’s just… I think there might be a couple problems with that?”

“Go ahead,” Kaoru says.

“First of all,” he says. “Yaldabaoth was able to take the memories away from the Phantom Thieves. He didn’t do it to me for—I don’t know, for whatever reason. But he did it to everyone else. So if you’re going to be Phantom Thieves too, I don’t want him to get power over anyone else I care about.”

“That’s a valid point,” Katsuya says.

Akira nods, and doesn’t look at either of them.

“But as a counterpoint,” Katsuya says. “No one person can do something like this alone. And no one should try to do it with people they don’t trust. So if you’re certain that you want to keep going—” And here he pauses, as if giving Akira one last chance to change his mind and say that he’s willing to let them take care of this for him. Akira says nothing, so Katsuya continues. “Then you’re going to have to be willing to take that risk.”

“So are you,” Akira says quietly.

“Yes,” Katsuya agrees, and leaves it at that. Yes, they’re going to have to be willing to take the risk. And yes, they are willing.

“What’s the second problem?” Maya prompts.

Akira shakes his head a little and tries to focus on something other than the fact that doing this puts even more people he cares about in danger. “Right,” he says. “It’s not as bad as the first problem, it’s just that we don’t know Alibaba’s name. We’d still have to figure out the rest of her keywords, but at least we can guess those. There’s way too many people in Tokyo to just start guessing her name.”

Maya smiles in answer, a genuine expression. “That part’s easy,” she says. “Kaoru knows who she is.”

Akira opens his mouth, then closes it again. Hesitates. “Can I talk to her first?” he asks. “I think if she’d wanted me to know who she is, she would have had plenty of chances already. She might want to keep her name a secret more than she wants her heart changed.”

“Sounds perfect,” Maya says. “If you talk to her, I’ll talk to Kaoru. And in the meantime…” She turns, looking up at the clock hanging up on the kitchen wall. “I think we can all use some sleep.”

So… that’s that. Akira goes back to his room and after sending a quick message to Alibaba asking if she’s okay sharing her name, he pretty much falls into bed, thinking hard. Not so much about changing Alibaba’s heart, because that’s great. If they can actually help her, it’ll be at least one good thing he can still do. Help with. Whatever. It’ll be proof that Yaldabaoth can hurt him, but not stop him, and Akira sort of needs to prove that to himself.

He needs to see that he can keep going. He needs to see that maybe the Phantom Thieves aren’t over after all. That most of them are gone, but he’s still here, and that he counts for something.

And he also needs to figure out why it matters to him so much. It had taken him so, so long to admit that he was even a part of the group, and now that he’s the only one left, he can’t let go. He knows that what the Phantom Thieves are doing is good, he’s pretty sure that if he keeps doing what they’ve been doing, he’ll eventually find a way to stop Yaldabaoth, and that would be great. But why is this so important to him? Now that it would be easier than ever to walk away, and just let someone else take over, why can’t he?

Akira squeezes his eyes tight shut and thinks about it, hard. There’s literally no logic to wanting to continue. He’s been threatened, he’s been hurt, he’s lost friends, he’s had other people offer to take over. Going on is going to be so, so hard, and giving up would be easy. There’s no reason not to.

So if it’s not reason, then it’s something deeper. It’s something about who he is as a person. Maybe he’s just stupid, maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s too stubborn to stop.

Someone knocks on his door, and when Akira calls an acknowledgment, Maya comes in.

“I saw your light was still on,” she says. “Everything okay?”

“No?” Akira says, but it’s sort of a joke because obviously nothing’s okay. Maya laughs, anyway, and he sits up in bed as she edges her way inside, closing the door behind her. Maybe she really had come in because she saw his light on, but apparently now that she’s seen he’s awake, she has something she wants to say.

“Alright,” she says. “I guess that was a bad question.”

“I’m feeling a little better being back here,” Akira says. “Sort of, I mean. It’s nice to kind of have a plan, but everyone else is still…”

He trails off.

There’s silence for a second, before Maya says abruptly, “It’s not hurting them, you know. They might feel like something’s missing, but it doesn’t actually hurt to not remember.”

Obviously she’d know. Because she’d forgotten everything for a while too, until eventually she got so sucked into the next round of disasters that she’d had to remember. So Akira should believe her now while she’s trying to make him feel better, but he doesn’t. He’d seen how sad Ann was at school, because all she has left of this year now is the fact that her best friend had tried to kill herself.

“Maybe the actual forgetting doesn’t hurt,” he says. “But it took something good and left them with bad.”

“I know,” Maya says. “And I’m not saying that’s not hard, because it is… it’s a strange feeling to be missing something so important. But they can survive it. They’ll be okay.”

“I don’t want them to just be okay,” Akira says. “I want them to be…” He hesitates, trying to find the words. Eventually, slowly, he says, “I want them to be everything they can possibly be. Like—I want them to be Ryuji and Ann and Yusuke and Morgana, but also Skull and Panther and Fox and Mona. I want them to be my friends, and I want them to be the Phantom Thieves. They were so good at fighting Shadows, and they cared about helping people, and Yaldabaoth just literally took that away from them. They’re like… half of who they could have been.”

Maya nods. “I understand,” she says quietly. “But remember that they don’t know what they’re missing. You do, but… they will move on. You’ve seen one possible way for them to be, but there’s no one on Earth that can only be one thing. I watched my friends grow up and find other ways to be themselves. They were okay, and yours will be too.”

“It’s still not right,” Akira says.

“It’s not,” Maya agrees. “But I wanted you to know that things aren’t as dark as they probably seem right now.”

Maybe not. Maybe the Thieves will find other ways to be happy, other friends, other things to care about. That’s the best he can hope for, probably, so that all the pain will be focused on him, because he’s the only one that remembers. It’s just that it feels like not enough to hope for.

“If they can’t remember the Phantom Thieves without being… hurt,” he says carefully. “Or whatever Yaldabaoth did to them trigger, do you think that means I can’t be friends with them again?”

“I don’t think you would be hurting them,” Maya says. “But I think you might hurt yourself.”

“Yeah,” Akira says quietly. “I was just thinking, I mean… Ann sits in front of me in class, I can’t just avoid her forever, and—I mean—” He’s grasping at straws, he knows. Because he so desperately wants to just have his friends back, and even if they don’t know him, it doesn’t mean they won’t ever know him again, and he just… “I want to be their friend.”

“Oh, Akira,” Maya says quietly. “They don’t know you, and they can’t be the friends to you that you want them to be. But you’ll always be a friend to them, whatever they know or don’t know.”

“That’s not enough,” Akira says.

“It might have to be.”

She says it so kindly that Akira can’t be upset with her for saying it. Or at least, he can’t be angry. He can tell from the look in her eyes that she understands. That she’s been watching the friends she’d tried to save the world with grow into different people without her for the past seventeen years, and she knows how this feels. To be the one left behind.

Maybe that’s why Akira starts crying. Quietly, as quietly as he possibly can because he doesn’t want to worry Katsuya too, he buries his face in his hands and he sobs. Maya moves over and puts her hand—carefully—on his back. She stays there until he’s cried himself out, the way Tatsuya had once stayed with him while he cried for Kotone and Minato.

(He thinks she’s crying a little too, by the end of it)

But at some point, finally, exhaustion wins over everything else, and Akira slips sideways into sleep. And it’s funny, kind of, because he’s spent less nights here than he has in Leblanc, but this place is still home, it’s home on This Side, and after everything that’s happened, it feels good to be back here. Safe.

(His family’s here, or at least some of it. The parts that live on This Side)

He sleeps, dreamless, until late the next morning, when sunlight pouring in through the window wakes him up. It’s almost ten thirty, and he’s stiff and sweaty in the clothes he hadn’t changed out of last night. And he still feels heavy and weighed down by everything that’s happened.

But it’s morning now. And he’s cried for his friends, and a little for himself, and he has a plan, and that has to be enough for now. Like Maya had said last night. Step two has to wait until they see how step one goes.

He changes, and goes to the bathroom, and when he’s brushing his teeth he happens to look up at the mirror over the sink, and meet his own gaze in the reflection. What he sees there surprises him so much that he stops what he’s doing and stares.

The answer’s there. Why he’s doing this, when he could have just stopped.

He goes out into the kitchen, where Katsuya is sitting with a newspaper. Maya’s sitting at her desk nearby, working on something, and both of them do a pretty good job pretending they’re not watching him when he comes in. So he does his best to pretend he doesn’t notice while he finds breakfast. There’s leftover coffee in the pot on the counter, and Akira looks over at Maya—he remembers her drinking coffee when he’d stayed here after his arrest—and asks if it's okay for him to take what’s left over.

“Are you drinking coffee now?” Katsuya asks.

“I mean,” Akira says. “I’m living in a café, so I guess it kind of just happened.”

He’s half-expecting a lecture on caffeine or something, but Katsuya just kind of looks at him and nods.

The coffee’s not as good as the coffee at Leblanc, which is kind of a weird thought. The last time he’d been in this house, he hadn’t known that he liked it, or that he’d care much if one kind was better than another kind. There hadn’t been room in his life for anything except going back and forth between here and the Other Side, and scrabbling to keep up. Now there is. There’s time to figure out what he likes and who he is and even, finally, why he’s fighting.

“I figured something out this morning,” he says, when he’s sitting at the table with food and leftover coffee that’s not as good as Sojiro’s.

“What’s that?” Katsuya asks.

“That I can’t stop,” Akira says, staring down at the food. “I can’t stop being a Phantom Thief until Yaldabaoth is gone,” Akira says. “Because he’s just like Kamoshida and Madarame. He has power, and he thinks that makes it okay to hurt people. And I’m angry. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that, and someone has to stop him or he’s just going to do it again.”

“It could be someone else that stops him,” Katsuya says.

“Maybe,” Akira says. “But it’s not going to be, because I’m not going to stop fighting. That’s—not the kind of person I am.”

And he knows that now. The same way he knows that he knows that he likes coffee, and that he can make friends--the same way that he’s figuring out so many other things about himself that he hadn’t had time to learn before. And he’s fiercely proud of the discovery that he can’t give up.

Morgana used to talk about a Persona being the spirit of rebellion inside a person. Akira wishes he could be here to see him finally understand what that means.

No one brings up the idea of Akira sitting out again after that. Akira’s not going to listen to it, and he thinks maybe Katsuya and Maya can tell. Instead they talk about what they’re going to do, and how they’re going to do it. Alibaba hasn’t gotten back to Akira about sharing her name, but Akira’s pretty sure she’s read his message. They’ve been messaging long enough by now that he knows she’s actually more likely to be awake at night than during the day. So if she hasn’t answered, it’s because she doesn’t want to. She’s done this before sometimes too, where she’ll ignore messages for a couple days, then eventually come back and claim she’s been sleeping. But since no one sleeps for that long, Akira’s pretty sure that’s just code for her blowing him off, or avoiding a question she doesn’t want to answer.

They can’t start guessing at her distortion without knowing her name, so instead they talk about logistics. It’s not a quick trip between Sumaru and Tokyo, and Katsuya and Maya are adults with adult responsibilities and real jobs, so they won’t be able to do the Palace as quickly as the Phantom Thieves had done Kamoshida’s or Madarame’s. They’re going to have to make time once or twice a week, probably, when their schedules all line up.

It's a huge commitment for them to be making, Akira recognizes. For them to say they’ll keep making that trip out to Tokyo for as long as they need to get through Alibaba’s Palace. But then, it had been a huge commitment for them to take him in, and literally adopt him, like Katsuya at least is legally responsible for him until he’s an adult. Maybe he should stop being surprised that they’re willing to do so much just to help him.

They talk about Palaces for most of the day, until Akira finally has to leave to catch the train back to Tokyo for Monday morning’s classes. He tries (hard) to convince them to let him stay a little longer, just let the school think he’s sick or something, but Katsuya tells him very firmly that he’s capable of handling school, and that they’ll see him soon.

So back to Tokyo he goes.

He still doesn’t hear from Alibaba, but he does get a message from Kaoru when he’s on the train, asking about her. 

[secure conversation log]

Akira_Suou: I don't know if she's going to even answer me. She might just keep ignoring my question if she decides she doesn't want to tell me who she really is.

Baofu: Well I'm not going to tell you if she doesn't want you to know

Baofu: I don't want to make it sound like I know what her story is, because you don't get that from looking someone up online. But it seems like she's been through it. Nothing you're going to do is going to matter if she can't even trust you

Akira_Suou: I guess. I just hate wish she'd say something.

Baofu: She'll say something when she wants to, or she won't

Baofu: I also heard that you're having a problem with some kid at your school that's going to keep trying to talk to your friends. That kid with the website

Akira_Suou: Mishima, yeah. Why?

Baofu: Maya told me about him. I've been keeping his website down all weekend so he'll have something to do other than cause problems

Akira_Suou: Really?

Baofu: You think I can't?

Akira_Suou: No, I mean

Akira_Suou: Thank you.

Baofu: But you're going to have to figure something out when you get back to school. I'd say you should come up with a pretty convincing story, except you're a terrible liar so you might be better off just telling him the truth

Akira_Suou: I'm not a terrible liar! I've been keeping a whole other universe a secret since I was six!

Baofu: Yeah, until you started meeting people that would stand still and listen long enough for you to blurt it out. I told you, Maya caught me up

Akira_Suou: Well I'm not going to just tell some classmate I've only ever talked to like once.

Baofu: I'm not saying tell him everything, but he needs to at least understand that he's going to hurt your friends if he keeps talking

Baofu: Tell him something went wrong with a change of heart or something

Akira doesn't answer, mostly because he's still busy trying to figure out how to argue that he's not bad at keeping secrets, actually, when he realizes someone's staring at him.

He looks up and catches the eye of a girl on the other side of the aisle, who looks at him wide eyed when she realizes she's been caught staring. 

"Um," Akira says. "Did you need something?"

The wide eyed expression wilts a little into a sheepish apology. "Sorry," she says. "I just--do you go to Shujin Academy?"

"Yeah," Akira says, a little wary. "Why?"

"No reason," she says. "I just thought you looked familiar and I was trying to figure out where I've seen you before. I'm really sorry for staring!"

And she looks so frantically apologetic that Akira finds himself apologizing automatically right back to her, and there's several awkward seconds where neither of them can hear anything the other one's saying. But eventually he cuts himself off, shaking his head a little while she puts her hand over her mouth to hide a laugh. 

"I'm sorry," Akira says again. "I just, um..."

"It's okay," she says. "I shouldn't have been staring in the first place."

"It's okay," Akira says. Honestly, he'd rather have people staring at him because they're trying to remember where they've seen him before, then because they've heard the rumors about him carrying a knife around or whatever. "I'm Akira," he tells her. "Akira Suou."

For just a second, her face goes blank. If she hadn't been so expressive just a second ago, cringing in awkward embarrassment and trying not to laugh, he doesn't think he would have noticed it. But she says, "My name's Sumire Yoshizawa," and in the next second her face is animated again, and he thinks he must have imagined it. 

"Oh yeah," Akira says. "I think I've heard... you're the honors student, right? You're a first year?"

"Yes," Sumire says. 

"You do... you dance or something?"

(He's not the kind of person people bring rumors to, so all he knows is the odds and ends he's overheard)

"Gymnastics," she corrects. "I'm actually coming back from seeing a coach this weekend."

"Oh wow," Akira says, before he can stop himself. "Sorry, just--I didn't realize you were like... going to see coaches in other cities good at gymnastics. I just heard you did competitions and the school--"

He cuts off abruptly.

"And the school wants people that win at competitions?" Sumire finishes for him. "I... yes, they do. And I haven't been doing too well lately, which is why I went to get another person's opinion. My regular coach suggested that it might help, but uh..."

"It... sounds like it didn't go the way you wanted it to?" Akira asks.

"Not exactly," Sumire says. She takes a deep breath. "But what about you?"

"Oh," Akira says. "I'm from Sumaru, I just came back to visit family for the weekend."

"Well that's nice," Sumire says. 

"Yeah," Akira says. "It actually was."

There's still over half a train ride left, and it turns out that Sumire doesn't really like sitting in silence. Or at least, she seems perfectly willing to distract herself from her bad weekend by talking about anything and everything. Which, honestly, isn't the worst thing in the world after the last few days for Akira, either. Just kind of talking about nothing, feeling like he can be like everyone else, at least for as long as this train ride lasts.

They're just pulling into the station in Tokyo when Akira's phone buzzes, and he looks down at it to see that Alibaba's finally answered him. And she's said yes.

"You look happy," Sumire says, looking up from her bag. 

Probably way happier than a normal text would explain. "It's just, uh... good news," he says. "Something I've been waiting to hear."

"Congratulations, then," she says. And, as the train starts to slow for its final stop, she asks, "Maybe we'll see each other around at school?"

"Probably," Akira says, and that's the last thing he has a chance to say before they're spilling out at their stop. He sort of waves at Sumire, who waves back, and then he looks down at his phone, where Alibaba is still sending messages.

[secure conversation log]

Alibaba: I'm ONLY telling you because you said you needed my name to help

Alibaba: I really don't know what you want me to think when one day you're telling me the Phantom Thieves are done, and the next day you're saying you can do it after all

Alibaba: But I don't think you're the kind of person that would just... be an asshole to be an asshole

Alibaba: Even though I kind of feel like all this back and forth was kind of an asshole thing to do

Akira_Suou: Sorry. I really didn't think it would be possible when I messaged you before. Then I talked to my family and I think it might be okay

Alibaba: "Might"?

Akira_Suou: It's going to be okay

Alibaba: Then okay, I think

Alibaba: You ready for this?

Akira_Suou: Ready

Alibaba: I don't think you're ready

Akira_Suou: Definitely ready

Alibaba: My name's Futaba Sakura

Alibaba: I've been staying with Sojiro for about a year now, since my mom died

Alibaba: I guess since you're staying with him too, that makes us kind of step-foster-probation-siblings sort of

Akira_Suou: what

Alibaba: ...

Alibaba: I mean

Alibaba: I did ask if you were ready

Chapter Text

June 2016

-//-

Akira wakes up Monday back in his room at Leblanc, with half a dozen texts waiting for him to look at them. Which at first he doesn't really want to do, because it feels like it's going to take more energy from him than he actually has this morning. But they're there, and his phone won't stop blinking at him, so he rolls over and looks at who wants him.

Mostly, it's Futaba. She'd messaged him a few times overnight, apparently anxious over his reaction to finding out she's lived down the street with Sojiro all this time. He'd tried his best to reassure her yesterday, but the fact that he's kind of freaking out too probably hadn't helped.

He feels a little bit less freaked out this morning, probably only because he's had a decent sleep and some of the worst parts of the past few days haven't reconnected in his brain yet, but he manages to message her back with a reassurance that Katsuya and Maya are coming back in a few days so they can figure out changing her heart.

It's going to be okay, he tells her, and if that seems to make her feel a little better, it doesn't do anything for him.

It's Monday again, somehow. The weekend had passed in a blur of train rides and existential panic, and now he's facing the prospect of another horrible day of school with the friends that don't remember him. 

He dresses in his uniform, thinking as he does so how much he'd rather just get on a train back to Sumaru. Deciding that he can't give up fighting for the Phantom Thieves doesn't actually make it any easier to face the prospect of going back to school. But he has to, so he does, even though when he goes downstairs Sojiro tells him that he hadn't seen his cat at all over the weekend, and Akira kind of wants to turn around and go right back upstairs again. Instead, he manages to say something that he thinks might have been thanking Sojiro for keeping an eye open, and dart out the door before he has a chance to be called back to eat a real breakfast.

Today doesn't feel like a breakfast eating day. It feels like the kind of day where he's just going to puke even if he does manage to force anything down, and he'd rather not explain that. 

The train is fine.

Transferring at Shibuya is also fine, even though Akira can't stop himself from keeping an eye out for familiar faces. He's run into the other Phantom Thieves here plenty of times (they all have to transfer through this station), but today he doesn't see any of them. He does see Sumire Yoshizawa waiting to transfer onto the same train he is, but she just gives him a wave, and doesn't come over, which honestly feels like about his speed.

Morning classes are not fine, because Ann's there, but at least that's not fine in a way that he'd completely expected. He stares hard at the board all morning so that he can barely even see her in his peripheral vision, and as an unintended side effect, he actually manages to learn something, too. That's genuinely a surprise.

And then comes lunch.

Probably the most important thing to do today is to get to Mishima, and somehow convince him to stop putting Ryuji in danger by talking to him about being part of the Phantom Thieves. He hadn't had a chance to do that before school, because Mishima never gets to class early and Akira doesn't know what train line he comes in on, so there hadn't been a chance to ambush him there. But lunch is different, Mishima is right there on the other side of the classroom, and as soon as the bell goes off, Akira jumps up and makes a beeline toward him. 

"Mishima," he says. "Can I talk to you?"

Mishima visibly jumps, and gives him a skeptical look. "What about, exactly?" he asks.

Akira bites his lip, and glances around. None of their classmates are looking at them, it really doesn't seem like anyone cares, but on the other hand Ann is still at her desk, scrolling through her phone. Not listening, but just--too close to be safe. "Can we go somewhere else first?" he asks. "I kind of don't want anyone else to hear this."

Mishima looks mildly terrified, and Akira tries hard not to look terrifying. "I think I'm okay here, actually," he says.

"But--" Akira stops, and takes a deep breath. He can't force Mishima to want to go to some secluded corner of the school together, and he knows he has a bad enough reputation to scare off most people. No wonder Mishima's suspicious. "Fine," he says, and sits down in an empty desk next to Mishima's, lowering his voice. "But this is--it's about the Phantom Thieves."

Mishima, instantly, look somehow even more freaked out. "How did you know?" he demands.

"Know--"

"I'm not doing anything wrong with the website," Mishima whispers, the words almost running together in his anxiety. "I don't know any more about them than anyone else does, you can't get anything out of me!"

"What?"

"And if your name keeps showing up on the site," Mishima continues, ignoring the question. "That's not because of me. I don't put requests on there, I just make sure no one's being a jerk in the comments."

"This isn't--I'm not talking about the website."

(...people are putting his name on the site?)

(It makes sense that a lot of people using the phan site would be from Shujin, since it had all started with Kamoshida, and he knows he's the delinquent on probation that carries a knife to school, but...)

"It's about the actual Phantom Thieves," Akira says. "Not about the website."

Mishima looks down at his hands. "I'm not going to tell you anything about them," he says.

"Okay," Akira says. "That's fine, that's not why I came over here."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want to tell you something," Akira says. "I don't need to know who the Phantom Thieves are, I'm one of them."

Mishima's mouth drops open. It would have been maybe a little insulting, if Akira hadn't been busy being hurt by the fact that his name's been up on the phan site more than once.

"Oh," Mishima says. Then he rallies. "How do I know that's true?"

Akira's been thinking about how to prove it. Other than dragging Mishima into a Palace, which seems stupid (and would probably be pointless, because he doesn't think Ryuji ever actually showed Mishima a Palace either), the only thing he's been able to think of is his text messages. 

He pulls his phone out, opens the group chat he'd been added to a while ago, and offers it out to Mishima to see.

Mishima takes the phone, and scrolls through it. Akira can only guess what he's thinking, reading through it. Most of it's just back and forth between Ann and Ryuji, with occasional input from Yusuke, and even more occasional comments from Akira. Usually after being asked a question directly. But it's all there, decisions about when to meet, which hearts to change, how to send calling cards, everything. And even if Akira isn't the most talkative member of the group, it should be pretty clear that he's still a part of it.

"Okay," Mishima says when he's been scrolling for a while. Akira's relieved to hear a little less nervous hostility in his voice, and he's even more relieved when Mishima says, "And sorry for not believing you at first. I just didn't think you'd be the kind of person that would want to do something like this."

"I am," Akira says. "Which... is good now, because I'm the only one left."

Mishima looks at him sharply, and Akira squeezes his eyes shut for several long seconds. Then he opens them again, and explains. He tells Mishima--not exactly everything, because that's a lot, but he tells him the basics, like Kaoru had suggested. He tells them that everyone else had forgotten, and that he'd been spared because the thing that had hated him enough to do it in the first place had known it would hurt him more to remember.

It takes most of lunch to explain, in whispers, and in between long silences. At the end, Mishima slumps, and says, "So it's over."

"No," Akira says. "Not exactly, but it's going to be... harder. And you can't talk about any of it to Ryuji anymore, because I have no idea what it'll do to him if he remembers he was part of the Phantom Thieves, but I'm terrified he'll be hurt. If you don't believe me, you can always just wait and see if he ever brings it up to you. He won't, because he can't, and--"

"It's okay," Mishima says. "I... don't think anyone would lie about something like this. And it's just too much to be faked, anyway."

"Thanks," Akira says quietly.

Mishima shakes his head, and doesn't look at Akira. "I guess... now it makes sense why Ryuji kept telling me to keep your name off the site."

"I didn't know that," Akira says. "I mean, I didn't even know my name was on the site, but..." He shrugs.

"Yeah," Mishima says. "He got really annoyed about it a couple times, too. And I kept taking it off, and people would keep putting it back on, because everyone knows--"

And he stops. There's a strange, stricken look on his face.

"Yeah," Akira says. "I know, my record got leaked or whatever so everyone knows I'm on probation. Thanks for listening to Ryuji and taking it off, I guess."

The bell rings then, so Akira has to hurry back to his own desk. Behind him, he hears Mishima's chair scrape against the floor as he stands up quickly, and hurries out of the room. He doesn't make it back in time for class, and in fact, as the afternoon drags out, he doesn't come back at all.

It's not until the very end of the day, when Akira's picking his things up, that he realizes he's completely put his foot in his mouth. "Oh," he says out loud. "Shit."

Mishima had been the one to leak his arrest record. He remembers Ann telling him that once, weeks ago. And Akira had just blurted out that everyone knows, right before Mishima ran off.

"Is something wrong?" Ann asks.

"I just figured out I said something stupid to Mishima during lunch," Akira says, speeding up his packing. "Because of course I did, when do I not, and I think probably I should go apologize now? I--"

He looks up. Ann's giving him a taken aback look, and he realized that he's put his foot right back into his mouth. This isn't Ann, his friend, asking if he's okay. It's Ann, the stranger that sits in front of him in class, asking why he's just said oh shit very loudly for no obvious reason. 

He forces a laugh. "Sorry," he says. "Just kind of, uh--"

She actually smiles. It's not a very big smile, just a sort of polite, let's move on from this smile. But she also says, "I'm sure it's not as bad as it feels. Things usually aren't." 

"Not usually," Akira says.

(But sometimes)

"It's Akira, right?" Ann asks. "Sorry, I know we've been sitting next to each other all year, but I don't think I've even introduced myself."

"Yeah," he says, and he fights hard to keep the sadness from leaking into his voice. "That's right. And you're Ann."

"Right," she says. "It's nice to meet you, Akira. See you tomorrow."

She waves at him as she leaves the classroom, and Akira gives her a minute to walk out ahead of him before he leaves too, so he won't look like he's following her. Then he heads out, and before he can even think of where to start looking for Mishima, he finds him. Looking unexpectedly panicked, and apparently trying to find him.

Akira picks up the pace a little, rushing toward where Mishima is waving him down with almost frantic urgency. "Something's wrong," he says.

"I think so," Mishima says. "Do you know Makoto Niijima?"

"No," Akira says immediately.

"She's the student council president," Mishima says. "And she's been investigating the Phantom Thieves for Kobayakawa."

"The principal?"

Mishima nods. "And apparently she managed to get a recording of Ryuji and Ann talking about the Phantom Thieves last week."

"What?" Akira says. "How?"

"I mean," Mishima says. "Ryuji."

This is fair. He's not exactly quiet. 

"But I was going to..." Mishima shrugs. "I was planning to skip class this afternoon, but then I had to grab something on the way out, and I went past the student council room, and she's planning to confront them about it after school today."

"Oh no," Akira says.

"I thought," Mishima says. "If it's actually as dangerous for them as you said--"

"We have to stop her," Akira says. "Where is she?"

"I have no idea," Mishima says. "I know she's a third year, but I didn't see her when I ran up there to look for her, so I thought maybe we could both look?"

"Yeah," Akira says. "Except I don't know what she looks like."

"Oh," Mishima says. "Then I guess we should probably look together."

"Yeah," Akira says. "But fast. You said you already looked by the third year classrooms?"

Mishima nods. 

"Then I guess we can look downstairs," Akira says. "Or--you said she's the student council president, right?"

"Yeah," Mishima says. "We can look for her there."

They both take off running, attracting a few weird looks from the people around them, but when they get close to the student council room, Akira makes a quick, flailing gesture at him to slow down and stay quiet. They can't just go barging in until they know what's going on. 

"What are we doing?" Mishima whispers.

"Making sure they're actually in there," Akira whispers back. "What if it's just the rest of the student council meeting or something?"

"We'd probably get a lecture for breaking in and it would take forever to get out," Mishima says.

Raised voices from inside the room interrupt the rest of the conversation, and Akira flails for a second between wanting to press his ear against the door, and trying not to look like he's doing exactly that. Luckily, the voices from inside are loud enough that he doesn't have to try too hard to listen. He mostly just has to pay attention.

It doesn't take him long to decide that the muffled, louder voice in the room is Ryuji's. The quieter one is a girl that Akira doesn't recognize, but he hears snatches of her talking about a recording, and the words Phantom Thieves, all while Ryuji angrily denies what she's saying, sounding more and more outraged that she's accusing him.

"That's Niijima," Mishima says. 

"She must have found Ryuji already," Akira says. "We have to--"

And then Ryuji makes a noise from inside the room. It's not loud, exactly. That would have been easier maybe. But it's full of pain, and Akira makes a snap decision. He's never heard a sound like that from Ryuji before, not even when they're fighting Shadows they probably shouldn't have been facing yet. This is low and agonized, a kind of elongated groan, and Akira realizes they've waited too long. He shoulders the door open and is faced with the sight of Ryuji and a girl he thinks he's seen around school a couple times, on opposite sides of a table. The girl is standing, her expression and posture both confused and uncertain, while Ryuji is collapsed back onto a chair, his head in his hands, and the horrible noise still coming from him.

"What are you doing?" he demands. 

(He knows the answer, thanks to what Mishima had overheard earlier, that she's trying to show Ryuji proof he's a Phantom Thief)

(It's just that the only thing he can think of to do is to shout and make a scene, and try to drown out the sound of the truth that's hurting his friend)

"It's just--" the girl that has to be Niijima looks horrified. 

"We could hear him shouting from the hallway," Mishima pipes up. "We should probably go see if the nurse is still in."

Niijima stares at him, then shakes her head and leans over to shut off the recording playing on her phone. The sound of Ryuji and Ann (and, although Niijima wouldn't have been able to hear him, Morgana) talking about changing Kamoshida's heart stops right away.

(Akira doesn't remember this conversation, but he's spent a lot of time avoiding the other Phantom Thieves at school, so...)

(So maybe it only makes sense that he wasn't there for this)

When the recording stops, Ryuji shakes his head and looks up at the rest of the room. "I don't need to see the nurse," he says. "And I don't need to be here, either." He stands up, scowling at Niijima. "I don't know anything about the Phantom Thieves, I'm not one of them, and I don't care what you think you know."

"But I heard you," Niijima says, obviously exasperated. "Talking about changing a heart."

"Then you heard wrong," Ryuji says. He rubs at his head with one hand, grimacing in pain, and Akira can feel his own heart beating more quickly. Ryuji doesn't seem to have a problem talking about the Phantom Thieves, or... knowing about them. It's just that when it comes to being one himself, he's instantly and visibly in pain. So that's where the line is. He can't know that he is a Phantom Thief, no matter what.

"I'm out of here," Ryuji says, and Akira has to step back quickly to avoid being shouldered as Ryuji pushes between him and Mishima on his way out. When the door closes behind him, Niijima lets out a shaky little breath and runs a hand through her hair. 

"Well," she says, quietly. 

"What were you doing?" Mishima asks. Akira looks back at him, and he seems a little pale. Which is fair, because Akira feels like he's probably a little pale himself. He hadn't been absolutely sure what would happen if anyone pushed too hard on the Phantom Thieves. He would never have done it himself. But Niijima had, and now they know. The world won't end if any of the ex-Phantom Thieves are pushed to remember who they are. But the sound Ryuji had made, the way he'd cradled his head in visible pain, that's what Yaldabaoth had done. Which kind of makes sense. If it's his memories in his head that are different and messed up, why wouldn't he have been able to do this to their heads too?

"It doesn't matter," Niijima says. "I was... on the wrong track." She sits down heavily in her chair, and casts a look in the direction of the door. "I hope he doesn't actually need to see the nurse. He didn't seem like he was going to go."

"I think he'll be okay now," Akira says. Especially since Niijima has just said that she was on the wrong track. 

(She's not, but as long as she believes it, Ryuji will be safe)

"You're investigating the Phantom Thieves?" he asks.

"I don't know if investigating is the right word," Makoto says, with a wan smile. "But the principal asked me to see if I could find anything out, and I've just been asking questions."

"I think you're asking the wrong ones," Akira says.

Makoto narrows her eyes at him. "And what are the questions I should be asking?" she says.

"Oh," Akira says. "I mean--not those?"

"We should get going," Mishima says, and gestures urgently at Akira until finally he gives in and leaves the room with his classmate. When they've speed walked down to the first floor, Mishima asks, "Why did you say that?"

"I don't know," Akira says. "I just... wanted to make sure she wasn't going to keep bothering Ryuji. Or Ann either, hopefully."

"I think she might start bothering you instead," Mishima says, glancing back over his shoulder. "You weren't exactly... not suspicious."

"I think that's okay," Akira says. "I'd rather have her asking me questions, it's not going to hurt me."

"Suou--" Mishima says, and then stops.

"What?"

"It's nothing," Mishima says. "Never mind."

"What is it?"

Mishima sighs, then asks, "How are you so bad at keeping secrets?"

"I'm not bad at keeping secrets," Akira informs him a little wounded. Mishima has no idea how many things he's keeping secret, and has been keeping secrets, since he was a kid.

"Okay," Mishima says. "Sure."

Akira sighs, and stops to look at Mishima. "Thanks for helping," he says. "And letting me know what was going on."

"Yeah," Mishima says. "Well, you're a Phantom Thief, so..."

He trails off. 

It feels weird to just hear it from someone new, but it's better than someone saying it to Ryuji or Ann. And Mishima could have just kept walking away after Akira said something stupid during lunch, but he hadn't. 

"I'm sorry about what I said at lunch," he says. "I mean, Ann told me that Kamoshida made you leak my record, but it was a long time ago, and I sort of forgot you were the one that did it."

"You're sorry?" Mishima says. "I'm the one that did it. I should be apologizing to you."

"Because Kamoshida made you, right?" Akira says. "It's not a big deal, he's awful. And it's not like I wasn't going to end up with a bad reputation somehow. It was the same thing at my old school."

Mishima doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't keep arguing. Which is lucky, because the conversation's actually getting pretty awkward. Instead, he says, "So I guess if you really are the only Phantom Thief left, you're the one I should be talking to about requests on the phan site."

"I don't know if you should," Akira admits. "I won't be able to do as much alone. It's dangerous to change hearts, especially if you don't have other people to help. I mean--I do have other people that can help, but they're not here, and they're already doing a lot just to come and help with the next... target." He stumbles a little over that choice of words, because he doesn't feel like Futaba deserves to be called a target the same way Kamoshida and Madarame had. 

"So you do have someone picked out for your next change of heart?" Mishima asks. "That's great. Even if it's going to take a while, at least we'll be able to show everyone that the Phantom Thieves are still around."

"Actually," Akira says reluctantly. "This isn't the kind of change of heart that anyone can find out about. She's not doing anything wrong, she just... needs help."

"Oh," Mishima says, and he's barely even trying to hide his disappointment. "Well, maybe things will change. And if you figure out how to start answering requests again, I want to be able to help with that. We should exchange contact information."

Agreeing is easier than arguing. Akira pulls out his phone.

-//-

Mishima turns out to be right about Makoto. She doesn't bother Ryuji again, and as far as Akira can tell, she never even tries to talk to Ann, but she does start investigating him. Which for her apparently means that she's going to follow him around until he does something that's suspicious enough to satisfy her. She's following Mishima too, probably because he'd been there too, when Akira managed to convince Niijima he's worth being suspicious of.

So it's actually a relief when the second years go on a social studies field trip to a TV station somewhere in the city. Akira has exactly zero interest in TV stations, but the important thing is that the third years aren't going. Since Niijima has started following him around other parts of Tokyo, even when he's not at school, this is a nice break.

And for Mishima too, it turns out. 

"I can't believe how much free time she has to follow us around," Mishima complains, when they're at the TV station, waiting for the filming to start. They'd ended up crammed into the middle of the class, Akira on the aisle and Mishima next to him, because neither of them exactly has friends at school, and at least they're willing to talk to each other. And they have been talking to each other, actually, because if nothing else, they have Niijima's stalking to commiserate over. Today, Mishima grumbles at him, "Has she been doing the thing with you where she follows you around pretending to read a book?"

"Not anymore," Akira says. "If she's looking at her book, she's not looking at me. It's easier to lose her, so she gave up on the book."

"It's not that easy for me to lose her," Mishima grumbles. 

Yeah, well, he hadn't had to learn to navigate through the Other Side's Sumaru City, avoiding trouble and danger wherever he could. One student council president is a lot easier than any of that had ever been. 

Akira makes an effort at small talk. "The only day she really left me alone was a couple days ago when my dad came out to visit," he says. Katsuya had made a trip all the way out to Tokyo so that they could work on figuring out Futaba's keywords--they'd finally stumbled on tomb, and it hadn't been hard to realize that as a shut in, she must have her Palace in the house where she spends all her time. They'd gone in for a quick look, but there hadn't been much time to look around the enormous pyramid before running out of time. The bright side, at least, had been that Niijima had given him a wide berth when she happened to hear Katsuya mention, loudly, that he was a police detective. 

"I think she was a little embarrassed to be following me around with him around," Akira continues. "And I think my dad was annoyed, he doesn't usually just start talking about being with the police just to make sure other people know it."

"Your dad's a cop?" Mishima asks.

"Yeah," Akira says. "Why?"

"It just wasn't what I expected," Mishima says. "Does he know you're--you know."

"Yeah," Akira says. "Him and his partner both do." He half smiles. "And Niijima's lucky Maya wasn't the one that came to visit, because she probably would have started following her around to try and talk to her."

"Really?" Mishima asks. "What does your mom do?"

It's not the first time people have assumed Maya is his mom, and Akira usually corrects them. The same way he would have corrected people that call Katsuya his dad, if he could have. Katsuya is legally his guardian, so he has to call him dad, but Maya is Katsuya's partner, and he could always put the space that he felt like he needed between him and her. It was like a safety valve.

(It's just that he doesn't really feel like he needs to keep his family at arms length anymore, after everything)

"She's a journalist," Akira says.

"Cool," Mishima says. 

One of the producers starts moving around the audience, shushing anyone talking too loudly, and making elaborate hand gestures that Akira thinks must be a countdown to when the show's about to start. The room goes quiet, faster than it would have if they were just sitting in their regular classroom. 

The show is... 

Not what Akira expects.

He'd thought it would be boring, but it turns out that the topic is the Phantom Thieves. The person being interviewed is some kind of local detective, mildly famous judging by the reactions he gets from the rest of the students are anything to judge by.

Akira doesn't care much about what he has to say. He's a detective, so obviously he's going to think the Thieves are doing something wrong. And honestly, he's not really saying anything. It's kind of a lot of talking in circles, but there's nothing in what he's saying that makes it sound like he knows what the Phantom Thieves are actually doing, or even that he has an opinion on them other than 'criminals, bad'. 

He ends up watching Ryuji and Ann more than the detective--Akechi--during the interview. As far as he can tell, it doesn't hurt them to just hear about the Phantom Thieves. The only time Akira's seen either of them actually in pain is when Niijima had started accusing Ryuji of being part of the group. And neither of them looks upset at all of this, either. Ann seems bored, looking at something on her phone, and even though Ryuji looks kind of pissed off about something, he doesn't look like he's in literal, physical, pain. So...

That's something.

The interview is almost over when one of the hosts decides that they're going to start asking questions of the audience. He assumes that they're probably going to ask for volunteers, but instead the host just strolls halfway up the aisle, and stops next to his seat. "What about you?" she asks, with a smile that looks phony this close up. "What do you think of the Phantom Thieves?"

"Oh," Akira says. "I don't..."

"Do you agree that they're the menace Akechi thinks they are?" the host asks.

(Akechi makes a joke that isn't actually funny, something about the word menace, and the audience laughs)

Akira hates the way the host's focus is so fully on him, and since this is actually going to be on TV, he hates the way that literally anyone watching is going to have their focus on him, too. But he stands up almost without meaning to, legs moving under the pressure of that attention.

He doesn't know what to say, for a second. His mind races with consequences, trying to figure out what's going to be the best answer to get everyone's attention away from him as soon as possible. There has to be some non-answer he can give that will let him just sit right back down without giving a real opinion--Akechi's been giving them this whole time, and he makes it sound easy.

But then his eyes land on Ryuji, a few rows in front of him.

His gaze sweeps on from there to where Ann's sitting. 

And he can't say anything to them anymore. He can't tell them that he's doing his best to keep the Thieves going, because it's the right thing to do, and because they'd started something great that he wishes they could still be doing with him.

But he can say something to everyone, and hope that the two of them hear it.

"I think the Phantom Thieves are heroes," he says. "No one else was doing anything to stop Kamoshida from hurting people here. No one even knew what Madarame was doing to--" 

(Yusuke)

"--to his students until he confessed. Except the Phantom Thieves knew, and they stopped him, and I think..." He takes a deep breath. "I think starting something like that must have been really brave, and I hope they can keep doing that."

(He hopes that he can keep being as brave as his friends had been)

The cohost that had asked him the question doesn't answer, but Akechi speaks up from the stage. "That's an interesting opinion," he says. "But possibly a little naïve, don't you think?"

Akira looks up at him, and their eyes meet. And, in a second like a flash, something almost jumps out at him. An awareness of something unseen, the same way he's aware of other peoples' Persona when he runs into them. It's happened with Katsuya, and Maya, and Kaoru. And with Minato and Kotone in the labyrinths. Tatsuya too. It seems like it happens with people that have more than one Persona, like they're just so overflowing with trying to contain everything, that it just spills out. And Akira sees that in Akechi too, and recognizes it, and for just a second he sees Akechi see it too.

(He doesn't like the way it feels)

(Something about the moment just feels--off)

"No," Akira says. "I don't think it's naive."

He sits down again, and the cohost (thankfully) moves on.

"You're really bad at keeping secrets, Suou," Mishima sighs.

And maybe he has a point, a little but, because Akechi actually spends the rest of the taping watching him. His face doesn't look the polite good humor that he's had since he sat down, but more than once--too often, actually--Akira watches his eyes coming back to him. Akechi's not exactly staring, but he is keeping an eye on him. And Akira wonders whether he'd felt the same thing, of all those Persona and their potential spilling out of him.

He gets his answer after the taping is finally done, and their teachers have finished dismissing them for the day. Since it's pretty late in the afternoon by this point, they're being allowed to go straight home instead of trekking back to school first, and it doesn't take long for everyone to start clearing out. Akira's planning to do exactly the same thing, when he catches a glimpse of Akechi in his peripheral vision.

"I was hoping I'd get a chance to corner you alone," Akechi says, with a smile that's about as convincing as the ones he'd performed on camera earlier. "Your comments about the Phantom Thieves was intriguing."

 Akira doesn't say anything for several seconds, sizing Akechi up as he tries to figure out what to say to him. He must have noticed the same thing Akira had, right? Or... maybe not, if he's not used to it. There had been a lot of other things going on, and Akira can't say for sure that he would have picked up on it the same way if he hadn't met so many other people with multiple Persona already. Maybe he actually hadn't sensed it the same way. Or just picked up on something without realizing exactly what it meant.

On the other hand, Mishima does have a point about how he probably could have been less obviously pro-Phantom Thieves, and maybe Akechi's put two and two together, and figured out to be suspicious of him. 

But maybe he hasn't?

Maybe he should be careful--

Akechi clears his throat, pointedly, and Akira realizes that he's been quiet way longer than he should have been, and just blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

"I didn't say anything that wasn't true," he tells Akechi.

The other boy chuckles. "Maybe in your own opinion," he says. "But surely you can see that not everyone would agree with you."

"Sure," Akira says. Akechi's tone is so smooth that it actually irritates him a little. He doesn't like how oily the words are, like they're too slippery to grab onto and get any real meaning out of them. "But if you don't, why are we talking about it?"

"Do you only ever talk to people that agree with your opinions?"

"No," Akira says. "But--" He trips over his argument, not sure exactly what to say. This conversation somehow feels more like a fight than it should. Like when he's recruiting Shadows into being his Persona, carefully edging his way along, trying to figure out which answers are safe and which ones are traps. Something about Akechi gives him the same sense of being in precarious danger. "Are you really interested in talking about whether the Phantom Thieves are heroes or not?" he asks. "You kind of sounded like you already have your own opinion."

"I'm always interested in other perspectives when I take on a case," Akechi says. "Especially when those perspectives seem to come from people that know what they're talking about."

What does that mean? Is he suspicious because Akira's an idiot that can't keep his mouth shut? Or because he'd sensed his Persona? Akira desperately wants to ask, and just make this whole interaction a little bit easier, but it's not like Akechi is automatically a good person just because he has a Persona, right? And he's literally trying to figure out who the Phantom Thieves are so he can arrest them. Akira doesn't want to be arrested, again, and he doesn't know how to get any real information out of Akechi without edging closer to that happening.

"I guess everyone at Shujin thinks they know a lot about the Phantom Thieves?" he says. "I mean, they changed Kamoshida's heart pretty early."

"So I've noticed," Akechi says. "Still, it might be interesting to continue talking. Would you mind exchanging contact information?"

He feels like Akechi has the very definite upper hand here. And the more they keep talking, the more information he's at risk of giving away to Akechi, which could potentially be bad, if he lets enough of it slip. But just... not keeping in contact also seems dangerous. Akechi's investigating them. So isn't this at least a chance to keep an eye on what's going on with that? 

He nods, and Akechi sends him his phone number. It's... a weird moment. Akira makes a mental note to ask for help on this as soon as he can--he doesn't have any idea how to handle this, but there are people in his life that probably will--and makes as quick of an exit as he can.

This isn't a part of Tokyo he's been to before, so he has to stop at the station and figure out how to get back to Yongen-Jaya. He's still in the middle of that when someone says, "Hey, Suou?"

And when he turns around, Ryuji's there.

Akira opens his mouth and then can't think of anything to say.

"Weird coincidence running into you," Ryuji says. "I was kind of thinking of trying to catch you on the way out, but I didn't see you."

"You were looking for me?" Akira asks. "You--I mean, why?"

Ryuji snorts. "You don't have to sound so surprised," he says. 

Yes he does, because Ryuji isn't supposed to know who he is anymore. Their friendship is gone for him, just like the Phantom Thieves are gone. 

"Sorry," he says out loud. "But I don't... think we've talked to each other before." 

His face feels wrong as he says it. He can't figure out what expression to make. 

(Maybe Mishima's a little bit right about him being a bad liar)

"No," Ryuji says. "But I heard what you said about the Phantom Thieves on the show, and I didn't know you were a fan."

"I don't know if I'd say I was a fan, exactly," Akira says.

"Sounded like you were," Ryuji says. "Which is a good thing! I think they're awesome."

Of course he does. They're his team, maybe more than anyone else's. They wouldn't have all come together in the first place, if it hadn't been for Ryuji. Akira definitely wouldn't be part of the group--he'd have stayed hiding in Leblanc, too afraid to even try.

"I heard they did some painter a few weeks ago too," Ryuji says.

"Madarame," Akira says quietly.

"Yeah," Ryuji says. "That's it. Hey, there's a Big Bang Burger up the street, do you want to maybe hang out and talk about them or something?"

"You want to talk about the Phantom Thieves?" Akira asks.

"Sure," Ryuji says. "Why not?"

Akira's been through this once before already. And last time, when Ryuji had tried to make friends with him, Akira had almost thrown it back in his face. Ryuji had kept reaching out to him, again and again, and he'd needed to, because just asking once wouldn't have done anything.

This time, he doesn't know if Ryuji's going to keep asking. They're strangers, as far as he knows. They haven't been through anything together.

But it doesn't matter, because this time Akira says, "Yeah, sure," and leaves with him.

And with a little bit of hope. There's no rule that says he can't be friends with Ryuji, even if he doesn't remember how they really met, or that he's a Phantom Thief. After all, This Side's Tatsuya and Jun are not just friends but together, and there hasn't been any remembering or world ending there. Why can't he be friends with Ryuji, if he wants to?

(It'll be fine)

(He's sure it'll be fine)

Chapter Text

July 2016

-//-

Makoto Niijima does not stop following Akira or Mishima. Which is annoying, especially now that Akira's started hanging out with Ryuji sometimes after school, and he still wants to make sure that Niijima doesn't get any reason to think Ryuji's a part of the Phantom Thieves. Luckily Ryuji still seems annoyed with her for dragging him into the student council room to question him, so when Akira starts showing him some of the things he'd picked up on the Other Side for getting away from people, so they can both hide from Niijima, he's more than cool with it. And so her whole following him and Mishima around thing keeps being just an annoyance, and not a real problem.

Until, suddenly, it is a real problem.

It's not a day where Akira's hanging out with Ryuji, luckily. If anything could have made what happens worse, it would have been Ryuji seeing it all. But it's actually the first day that Akira spends with Katsuya and Maya, going through Futaba's Palace.

(Which is... a really weird experience)

(The Palace itself is tougher than the two they'd done already, and obviously Katsuya and Maya are more used to fighting with each other than with him, so Akira spends the whole time ping ponging between feeling like a burden, and feeling like a third wheel)

They get out without any serious injuries, but when Akira feels solid, real ground under his feet, the first thing he does is lean back against the wall outside the Sakura house and try hard to get his breath back. He's been fighting hard for what feels like hours, and even if fighting is something he's used to, it's hard to keep going for as long as they have today. Especially when the Shadows in Futaba's Palace are such a jump in difficulty from the ones in Madarame's. 

Katsuya stands in front of him, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "You did really well," he says.

"Th-thanks," Akira says, around his panting. "I'm sorry I can't keep up."

"You kept up fine," Maya assures him. "And you did all the jumping around so Katsuya and I didn't have to."

He gives a kind of shaky laugh, and pushes himself back off the wall. Katsuya apparently decides he's given enough comfort, and steps back. "Are you going to be alright getting back?" he asks.

This time, Akira's smile is more genuine. "Leblanc's like two minutes away from here," he says. "You guys have to go all the way back to Sumaru."

"We'll be fine," Katsuya says. "And it's not your job to worry about us."

He doesn't actually say it's our job to worry about you out loud, but Akira hears it anyway, and rolls is eyes. Just a little, because it's cheesy, but he also appreciates it. "Do you want to come back with me and eat before you catch the train?"

"We have time," Maya says. "And that would be nice."

Akira feels better by the time they've gotten back to Leblanc and he's eaten most of a plate of curry. Katsuya and Maya have been up to Tokyo enough times now that Sojiro's starting to thaw toward them a little, which makes it a little less awkward. Not that Akira thinks Sojiro had disliked them to start with, but he just tends to be gruff with most people he meets. As far as Akira can tell, he just takes a while to warm up with everyone. 

And it's good today, because when Sojiro starts talking to Katsuya, Akira looks over at Maya, and says, "I've been making new friends. Well--a friend, anyway. I think."

"That's good," Maya says. "At school?"

"Yeah," Akira says. "And... also I've been remaking some old friends."

Because there's Ryuji, hanging out with him after class a couple times a week. And Ann, who's started to talk to him in class. 

Maya sighs. It might have sounded disappointed, except that Akira can hear the pain behind it. "You know," she says. "I never wanted to see any of them again after... what happened."

"Your friends?" Akira asks.

She nods. "I kept an eye on them, but from as far away as I could manage. I wanted to make sure they were okay, but I didn't want to see the way they'd changed. I didn't want to see them with all these parts of them missing."

Akira nods. He knows exactly what she's talking about, because he has to keep seeing that himself.

"But then Katsuya and I started dating," she continues. "And of course he wasn't ever going to abandon Tatsuya on This Side, they were always going to be part of each other's lives. And Tatsuya and Jun weren't dating then, but they were sort of getting close. So I had to meet them all over again, and... they were different."

Akira nods. "I know," he says. "I know both Tatsuyas."

"Of course you do," Maya says, with a quick, wan smile. "And you're getting to know your friends again now, too."

Akira nods.

"Are you okay?"

"Sometimes it really hurts," Akira whispers. Their whole conversation is in whispers, of course, because they don't want Sojiro to overhear them, but these words are so quiet that they're barely audible. "But I think not talking to them would hurt even more."

Maya nods, and reaches over to put her hand on top of his, and squeeze a little.

Akira takes a deep, slightly shaky breath, and starts to transition into the thing he really wants to talk about. "Sometimes it still feels like they still know me," he says.

"They don't," Maya says gently.

"I know they don't remember me," he says. "But I don't make friends this fast. There's still something there, right? I have to be at least familiar to them."

"Probably," Maya says. Reluctantly, like she doesn't really want to be saying it at all. "But it would just be a feeling. When I didn't remember, and Tatsuya was the only one that did, I would see him sometimes and think I was feeling something like--deja vu. That's all it was."

"Right," Akira says. "But that's still something. And with Ryuji and Ann, we go to the same school, they have a reason to talk to me, but they also have that feeling of familiarity, right? But if--if I wanted to go find... I can't find Morgana, I have no idea where to look for him, but if I went and looked for Yusuke, even though he's at a different school, I could still--I mean, he might feel--"

He's tripping over his words, stumbling, scared to hear her say no. Because he wants to go look for Yusuke. He wants to be able to build a relationship back up with him.

"You've already seen each other," Maya reminds him. "You told me that you ran into him."

"For like a second in the subway station," Akira says. "But if we actually saw him, and talked to him, if we just really saw each other--"

"It would hurt you so much, Akira," Maya says. "You said it yourself, your other friends have a reason to start talking to you. Yusuke doesn't."

Akira shakes his head and looks down at his half empty plate. He still hasn't tried to figure out how to put his complicated feelings for Yusuke into words for other people. He has a bad feeling that if he tries, he'll just start stumbling over his words again, and it'll only make everything worse.

"I know it's hard," Maya says. "And if you need to talk to someone, you know that I can listen, and Katsuya can listen, but you don't have to talk to him."

"Mmm," Akira says.

Maya pats his hand again.

Katsuya breaks into the conversation then, reminding Maya that they're going to have to leave soon if they want to catch their train. 

They gather their things, Maya hugs Akira goodbye, and he lets the hug go for longer than he would have a month ago. When she finally lets go, and Katsuya has said goodbye and make Akira promise that he'll let them know if anything happens, they head out to catch their train.

Thirty seconds later, Akira gets a message from Mishima, and learns that Niijima's stalking has escalated to actually dangerous.

[conversation log]

Yuuki_Mishima: So Niijima got us kidnapped by the mafia and I'm pretty sure they're still following us, help?

Yuuki_Mishima: You're good at avoiding people, we're near Central Street in Shibuya, help???

"I have to go," Akira says.

"Where are--"

But he's out the door and running before Sojiro can get the rest of his question out. 

He manages to get a pretty good description of where Mishima and Niijima are hiding out by the time he's able to get a train out to Shibuya. They're in a side alley off Central Street, close to where he knows there's a Velvet Room door. Not within line of sight, luckily, because Akira really doesn't want to have to have whatever this conversation is with the threat of Yaldabaoth looming over him.

Akira doesn't really expect anyone to be following him, but he's still careful to keep out of sight as he moves through the crowded streets. When he finally finds the corner where Mishima and Niijima are holed up, he's confident that no one knows or cares he's here.

...he's just not confident about what's going to happen now.

Mishima is incredibly pale, and Niijima is leaning against a slightly damp wall, her arms wrapped against her torso. She's shaking slightly. 

"What happened?" Akira asks. 

Both of them look at each other, then Niijima pushes herself up from the wall, and seemms to be trying to pull herself together. "It's my fault," she says.

Mishima mumbles something under his breath. Akira can't make it out, but it doesn't sound like he's disagreeing. Then he shakes his head, and reluctantly says, "I... kind of started it though. She was following me around again, and I just... got sick of it and we had an argument."

"Okay," Akira says. "And... then the mafia got involved?"

"The principal asked me to investigate the Phantom Thieves," Niijima says. "But when I started asking questions, people told me about something else instead. Some Shujin students have been working easy 'part time jobs'--"

(Akira can hear the air quotes)

"And that those jobs were paying a lot of money," Niijima continues. "But also that the people working at them were getting... scared."

Akira nods, because that's the main topic of gossip at school right now. Even he's heard it.

"So I asked her why she wasn't spending her time following them around," Mishima says. "Since we're not doing anything wrong and they're probably selling drugs."

"I hadn't made the connection to drugs," Niijima admits. 

Akira looks at Mishima, trying to figure out how she could have possibly not made the connection between teenagers suddenly having a lot of cash for easy work. It's the same kind of thing Akira's seen at home on the Other Side, except over there it's kids running alcohol or weapons, because it turns out drugs aren't that easy to make when all you don't have a lot of open space or chemicals to grow or make anything. 

It's still the same idea.

"So we argued about that," Mishima mutters, not returning Akira's pointed look. "And then Niijima got the bright idea to--"

"I know, I know," Niijima says. "It was--a bad decision."

"She decided she was going to go find the guy that was behind the drugs," Mishima says. "So she went and found some sketchy guys and--"

"Long story short," Niijima says crisply. "We were put into a car, taken to a man named Junya Kaneshiro, and blackmailed."

Mishima holds up his phone, and Akira walks over to see the picture on the screen.

"Oh," he says. "That's... a lot of drugs."

"And alcohol," Mishima says. 

Akira frowns at the picture. "Why did they do this, though?" he asks. "Most people interested in these, um--part time jobs get cash, right? Not blackmailed. They wouldn't have to bother paying anyone if they were just blackmailing them with stuff like this."

"I think it might have something to do with my sister," Niijima admits, after a second. "She works in the prosecutor's office, so I suppose he thinks he might be able to influence her through me, if we can't pay up."

"How much do they want you to pay?" Akira asks.

"It doesn't matter," Niijima says. 

"More than I think my parents have in the bank," Mishima says glumly. "Definitely more than we can get."

"Great," Akira says. 

"And also more than we can get while we're standing around in this alley," Niijima says. 

"Right," Akira says. "You said you were being followed?"

"That part might be my fault," Mishima admits.

"They were... willing to let us go after they took the blackmail pictures," NIijima explains. "But apparently he had mace."

"I panicked!" Mishima protests. 

Akira can't exactly blame anyone else for fighting back as a first reaction, but he does kind of wish that Mishima had thought before being kidnapped, instead of after. He doesn't think that's exactly going to help though, so he keeps it to himself. Instead he says, "So you have that Kaneshiro guy blackmailing you and his guys trying to beat you up?"

"It's been a bad day," Niijima says quietly, and Akira very carefully holds back a sigh. 

"Okay," he says. "Let's... figure out a way to get out of here without anyone seeing you."

They take a roundabout route through the neighborhood, one that Akira's gotten pretty familiar with over the past couple weeks. He has to keep coming to Shibuya because this is the only place he knows of in Tokyo to buy weapons and non-medical supplies--Ryuji has mentioned in the past that he'd been buying weapons and armor for the team from the airsoft shop here, so Akira's been making trips there himself, ducking Niijima all the way so she won't catch him buying imitation guns while she's convinced he's a Phantom Thief.

It's... probably going to be an issue, actually, that he's showing her this route now. If she goes back to following him and Mishima, he's going to have to find a completely different way to get around.

He tries showing them some other tricks too, but it's a lot easier to show them where to turn left than it is to try and explain what he's had to pick up from years and years of learning not to make mistakes. They're going the right way, but not--quite--as carefully as they should be. It takes about fifteen minutes before someone spots them and shouts. He and his friends (one of them a man with red, weeping eyes) start immediately running.

"Oh no," Niijima says.

"Time to run," Akira decides, and they do.

Mishima complains, though. "Where are we supposed to go?" he demands. "These guys are a big deal, they probably control--" he fumbles for a second, then blurts, "Probably all of Shibuya!"

Akira opens his mouth to answer, but never gets a chance. Before he can, a calm, mechanical voice announces, "Match detected. Beginning navigation."

"What?" Akira demands. "No, come on--"

But of course it doesn't stop the metanav from grabbing the three of them up, and whisking them away from the real world.

-//-

"So what did you think?" Maya asks, when the two of them are on the train back to Sumaru.

"Of the Palace?" Katsuya asks. "It was... strange."

"Very weird," Maya agrees. "And it's a different kind of weird from what we used to deal with."

"In some ways," Katsuya says. 

"And of course we're out of practice," Maya says. 

"It's not something that's easy to forget, at least," Katsuya says. "It comes back." A little more easily than he'd expected, honestly. The thought had crossed his mind more than once during the trip up to Tokyo that it might not be as easy to fight demons at forty three as it had been at twenty six. And in some ways it had been harder, but only in the way that most things get harder as he gets older. A Persona is still a Persona, and that part is just as easy as it had been seventeen years ago.

Maya's quiet for maybe five minutes. Then she sighs and says, "Alright, I'll just ask. What's bothering you?"

"Nothing."

"I can keep guessing if you'd rather do that," Maya says. "But I think this is probably faster."

She's not going to stop asking, Katsuya knows that, so he gives in. "You were right," he says.

"About what?" Maya asks. "Not that I don't like hearing that, but I'd like to know why I was right."

He half smiles, but it fades quickly. "About Akira," he says. "We should have told him everything a long time ago." He looks over at her, and adds, slightly hopelessly, "Or maybe we shouldn't have ever let him find out at all."

"Well that wasn't ever an option," Maya says. "This year was going to happen no matter what we did."

"I don't believe there's nothing we could have done," Katsuya says, mostly automatically. "But maybe... he could have been more ready."

"He's doing fine," Maya says. "You saw him. He knows what he's doing, and if he still needs practice, that's okay."

The problem is that Katsuya can't help feeling that if they aren't able to keep Akira away from fighting demons, then they should have been able to make him as ready as possible. "He's been doing this for months now," he tells Maya, quietly enough to keep anyone else in the train car from overhearing. "We had much less time than that, but I don't think his Persona are close to ours yet."

"That's true," Maya says, and he's not sure whether to be exasperated or grateful for how calm she is. "But I don't think that has anything to do with how much he's been fighting. A Persona doesn't exactly get stronger because you fight with it more."

"That has something to do with it," Katsuya says.

"But that's not all that goes into it," Maya insists. "A Persona gets stronger because you know yourself better. And Akira is... having a hard time with that."

Katsuya doesn't say anything to that. He doesn't have a chance, because after only a few seconds, Maya continues.

"I guess that's something we should have helped him with," she says, in a voice so bright it sounds brittle. "And not just because he needs to know himself to be able to fight. But just--as a person. I know it's normal to be trying to figure out who you are when you're in high school, but most people have a better start than Akira does. We just kept sending him home without asking questions. And then this year when he finally got the chance to try and learn who he is, it's like the entire world wants to punish him for trying."

"Not the entire world," Katsuya says. "Just one monster."

"That monster had better hope it never meets me," she says. 

Katsuya isn't privately convinced that any of them would have any better of a chance at fighting Yaldabaoth on their own than Akira does, but he recognizes the fierce streak of protectiveness there. And something else, trembling and vulnerable, underneath it.

"Maya," he says quietly. "Did you ask me what's worrying me because you'd rather talk about that, than about whatever you're worried about?"

"No," Maya says. Then, almost immediately, "Maybe. Do you know what Akira asked me today?"

"I don't," Katsuya says.

"He asked if I thought he should see Yusuke," Maya says. "The one friend that's not at his school, you know."

"Of course," Katsuya says. He's learned all of their names, and done his best to remember anything else Akira's ever said about them. It only seems right, now that they can't remember, that they should at least be remembered.

"There was something about the way he asked," Maya says quietly. "That made me wonder if... he would have been that desperate for any of his other friends."

"You don't think so?" Katsuya asks. "You know how long he's wanted friends like this."

"Yes," Maya says slowly. "But."

"But?" Katsuya asks.

"But maybe it's something more than friendship," Maya tells him quietly.

"Oh no," Katsuya says quietly. "That's not fair on him."

"I told him he shouldn't try to meet Yusuke," Maya says quietly. "It worked for Tatsuya and Jun because... neither of them remembered, but Akira does and Yusuke doesn't. It's not the same."

"I think that's the right thing to say," Katsuya tells her. "It would hurt him. And..."

She looks at him.

"And I think that if he really wants to go anyway," Katsuya says. "Then he will. And even if it hurts him, he'll know himself a little better. He'll know if he's the kind of person that needs to see for himself."

"He will," Maya agrees. "And if he's going to be alone for now, then he needs that more than ever." 

-//-

Akira falls into an unknown Palace with Mishima and Niijima right behind him, and wishes for the first time in his life that he was alone.

"What is this place?" Niijima demands.

"It's a long story," Akira says. "But it's... probably not going to be any safer than mafia goons chasing us around Shibuya, so just... be careful, maybe?"

He takes a look around, at what looks like a mildly distorted version of the real Shibuya--from this angle, at least, the most eerie thing about it is how empty it is. 

"What are you wearing?" Mishima asks, and Akira closes his eyes. They're standing in the middle of a Palace. He can't... not tell them what's going on. Right? He can't just take them back and pretend nothing's wrong, because neither one of them will believe it. 

"I don't know exactly how to explain it," Akira says, turning back to the two of them. "But it's because I'm a Phantom Thief, and this is the kind of place where I can change a heart."

There's a beat of silence, and then Niijma says, "I knew it," at the same moment that Mishima drops his head into his hands and says, "You are so bad with secrets, Suou."

"I know, I know," Akira says. "But we're here so... I can't exactly not explain. And we can't use ou real names here."

"Why?" Niijima asks.

"Um," Akira says.

"And why are we here?" Mishima asks. "If this place isn't even any safer than where we were before, we could literally have just--not come here."

"It just happened," Akira says. "It doesn't usually, but I guess something triggered it today." He pulls out his phone and sure enough, there's the metanav, open even though it shouldn't be. He'd used it to get into Futaba's Palace earlier, of course, but he'd closed the app after, even switched to a messaging app when Mishima asked him for help. It's open again now, though, and showing a display for a new Palace. Junya Kaneshiro, Bank, All of Shibuya. "We're in Kaneshiro's Palace," he says, so surprised that he just blurts it out.

"Kaneshiro as in... the Kaneshiro that just blackmailed us?" Niijima asks.

"Yeah," Akira says.

"Wait," Mishima says. "If this is a Phantom Thieves thing, does that mean you can change his heart here?"

"It's not that easy," Akira says. "But I mean--hypothetically, if... things were different and there were more of us, then yeah."

"Hmm," Niijima says, and to Akira's horror she turns around and starts walking into the Palace.

"Wait!" Akira says. "No, don't--"

And of course she doesn't listen at all. Akira grits his teeth and runs after her, Mishima lagging two or three steps behind until they finally manage to catch her. She's standing in front of what looks like a broken ATM, except that it has legs, and is crying.

"What... is this?" Niijima asks. 

He can explain, or he can not explain. Except that not explaining isn't a real option anymore, now that they're here.

Very carefully, because he knows he wouldn't want someone to surprise him like this, he puts a hand on Niijima's shoulder and steers her away from the ATM. "I'm not completely sure," he says. "But from what it's saying, I think this is probably the way Kaneshiro sees people."

"Like that?" Mishima asks. "That's not even a person."

"No," Akira agrees. "But..."

Explaining is the only option. And looking at them now, at their shocked and horrified faces, Akira thinks that maybe it's not the worst decision he could possibly make. Even if it had really been a choice. "This is... Kaneshiro's heart," he tells them. "Everything here is a reflection of how he sees the world around him. It's awful because he's awful, but there's also something here called a Treasure. It'll be buried somewhere deeper in the Palace, and stealing that is what changes his heart."

There's absolute silence after this, apart from the continued wailing of the ATM cognition behind them slowly breaking down. 

Then Mishima says, "Well that doesn't sound too bad."

"Then I think I'm explaining it wrong," Akira says. "Because it's pretty hard. There's also these things in here called Shadows. They're dangerous, and they're hard to fight. And then usually when we--" He stumbles, not sure if we still applies, then says more slowly, "When we steal the Treasure, the Palace Ruler's Shadow shows up too, and those are even stronger."

Niijima takes a step back, shaking her head in disbelief. But her eyes drift back behind Akira, to where the ATM has finally clattered out its last moans, and gone quiet. She studies it for a second, then looks at him. "Is this all actually real?" she asks.

He nods. "I know you wanted to find the Phantom Thieves for the principal," he says. "But this isn't just a school thing. And... I didn't mean to bring you here, but... it happened. So I guess I'm hoping that maybe you won't--tell anyone."

"I don't think I could," Niijima says, her voice almost inaudibly quiet. "No one would ever believe me."

"Nope," Mishima says. He looks around, his posture a little hunched over, and adds, "I don't think I believe it yet."

"Sorry," Akira says.

He snorts. "I especially don't believe that," he says, and points upward at something Akira hasn't noticed yet. But he looks up now--so does Niijima--and sees the floating bank hovering at the far end of the street.

(Despite everything, his first reaction when he sees it is to smile)

(It reminds him a little bit of home)

"Okay," Niijima says. "I need to see that."

And she marches off, straight toward the bank.

"She's crazy," Mishima says, in a voice that's actually a little bit awed. "I mean, I'm pretty sure I said that when she was just following us around with her book, but now I think she's just actually crazy. She looked exactly the same when she went to get us kidnapped."

"She's going to walk right into a bunch of Shadows if she's not careful," Akira says. "And she can't protect herself." He's not sure if he can protect her, honestly. He's been fighting all afternoon in Futaba's Palace, and he's exhausted. "We have to stop her."

"Maybe we should hurry," Mishima says. "I'm... guessing that's not good, right?"

The bank is moving. Lowering a little, and extending something that looks like a stairway, like it's getting ready to let Niijima inside.

"Nope," Akira says, and starts running. "Nope, that's very, very bad."

He's tired, but he's also scared, and he's had to run through hunger and pain before. Mishima doesn't look like much, but when he keeps pace, Akira remembers that he'd been on the volleyball team. Kamoshida probably hadn't been the kind of coach that let people get away with not running laps.

Still, somehow, they don't catch up with Niijima until they're inside the bank. She'd had a little bit of a head start, and that's part of it, but also he's attacked by Shadows that had apparently ignored her. Mishima makes a noise of absolute terror when the first one blasts an attack out, but by the time Akira's weathered that and called on the last gasps of power in Arsene to fight back, Mishima's recovered. 

"I didn't scream," he informs Akira, when the fight's over. "I think it was one of those things."

"Sure," Akira says, breathing hard. 

"What... was that thing?" he asks.

"It's called a Persona," Akira says. "And it's what we use to fight Shadows."

"But what is it?" Mishima insists.

There are so many complicated ways to answer. Akira goes with the explanation Morgana had always used. "It's a spirit of rebellion," he says. "And it's me." He groans and forces his tired muscles to start moving again. "Now let's go catch up to her before any more Shadows show up."

"Yeah," Mishima says. "That sounds like a good idea."

They start running again. This time, Mishima is a little bit faster than Akira.

And, finally, they catch up to Niijima. She's standing in a kind of back office room, flanked by Shadows, with a vaguely purple looking man in front of her. Mishima sucks in a breath and hisses, "That's Kaneshiro. I think? He looks... different."

"It's his Shadow," Akira says. "It's not really him, just... the distorted part of him, I guess."

Niijima hasn't even looked around at either of them. Her face is down, both hands clenched into fists so tight that Akira can see them turning white. And Kaneshiro's Shadow doesn't look at them either, because he's in the middle of what turns out to be a really awful tirade about... alternative ways she could maybe repay him. When Akira starts paying enough attention to realize what the Shadow's saying, it's in the middle of telling Niijima she could spread her legs and pay the price in her reputation, and her sister's.

She lets him finish what he's saying. Lets him rattle off all the horrible details of what he'd like to do to her. And then she raises her face, and says, "Shut up!" 

Her voice cracks like a whip, and echoes in the marbled room.