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“Alright,” Makoto says, tracing a finger down her English notes. She crosses three different lines of color-coded highlighter until she arrives at her chosen question. “What does the idiom ‘jack of all trades’ mean?”
Ryuji groans and half-collapses onto the table, making a loud enough thud to startle Sojiro. Akira chuckles before thinking through the phrase in his head, turning Makoto’s words over and over, listening more for their enunciation than their meaning. When she switches into English her voice is always sharp– it has a hint of Johanna’s roar in it that doesn’t always come through in Japanese.
Ann answers before Akira’s done nosily musing on the nature of Makoto’s personality, though. “It’s kind of like… someone who’s good at a lot of things, but not great at any of them, right?” She gently chews on the end of her pen.
Makoto nods. “Exactly that. The full phrase might show up as ‘jack of all trades, master of none’, but they’re likely to use the shorter version. Although…” Makoto looks even more pensive than usual, and Akira picks his head up to watch her face more keenly. “I don’t think they’re going to ask about this on the test, but there’s one more part to the phrase that people don’t usually think about. The full phrase is ‘jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one’.”
Akira’s shoulders go a little tense. This didn’t sound quite like one of Makoto’s endearing little “well, actually” moments, but he isn’t sure what’s changed. Ryuji’s whining is making it difficult to concentrate on introspection, though, and he playfully prods Ryuji with the end of his pen.
“I’m sick of this crap, man,” he groans, now with his cheek mashed against the table. “When am I ever gonna say that kind of thing?”
Makoto smiles, just slightly. “Well, you could make the argument that our very own Akira is a jack-of-all-trades. He’s skilled at acrobatics, academics, the culinary arts…”
“You sure he’s a jack-off, though?” Ryuji slumps himself upright, nearly knocking his raggedy notebook off the table in the process. Ann giggles, and Makoto blushes as she rises to correct him, but Ryuji is undeterred. “Akira’s mastered plenty of stuff, man.”
Akira himself can’t help a quiet laugh. “I have to agree with Makoto on this. I’m still pretty young to have mastered much of anything.”
“Nah, I think you’ve totally mastered something by now.” Ann sticks her tongue out, contemplating. “Like… being a good leader? Or making friends? You picked all of us up in, like, weeks flat.”
The bell over the door rings, and a wash of hot air ripples through Leblanc. “My apologies for my tardiness,” Yusuke drawls. “There was an urgent problem with one of my latest canvases that I had to resolve…”
The conversation drains off into Ryuji’s light-hearted bitching and Ann’s gentle ribbing, but Akira returns only to his notes, unhearing. Master of none , he thinks, tapping his pen against his dog-eared notebook. Master of none .
—
It’s only when Akira ascends to the loft that he finally takes a deeper breath, watching the light flicker. He’s about to trundle his way back downstairs for a better lightbulb when his phone goes off, and he pulls it out almost immediately. At this time of day, he’s come to expect a curt message from Iwai, gunning for some late-night work (no pun intended).
Makoto’s icon pops up, though, which is odd– she must be on the subway by now, and she doesn’t often text unless she’s relaying urgent information, pragmatic as she is.
Akira, I’m so sorry for the interruption– I know you were about to get to bed when we left. Akira notices she’s still typing, so he does, in fact, jog down the stairs in search of fresh lightbulbs. By the time he’s dragged out the step-stool to get at the high cabinets in the bathroom, Makoto has added: I left my bookbag at Leblanc, so I’m doubling back to get it. Again, I’m so sorry for all the trouble! I’ll just duck in and get it, or you could leave it outside on the chair if you’ve already locked up.
Akira drags the stool in front of the cabinet and stands on top of it before texting her back. nah cmon in , he says, i’ll unlock the door for you. He sorts through the cabinet just long enough to upend all the dust in the world directly onto his head, and he coughs his way out to the bar before he can aggravate his mild dust allergy any further. After he wipes his glasses clean he scans the booths and finds Makoto’s bookbag sitting gently right where she left it. As he leans to get it he spots another book upon the floor; its blue cover sticks out from all the dark wood paneling.
Akira scoops up both the book and the bag with relatively little gymnastic exercise. The book itself is a German textbook– and in English, if Akira needed any more reminders that Makoto’s favorite hobby is overachieving. He idly flips through it, flopping the bag back down onto the seat, shortly followed by himself as he puzzles through the text.
A dictionary appendix makes itself known to him, and he goes straight past the grammar section as he dives right into the words. Poring through words this arcane is kind of delightful, and it gets even more amusing when he imagines Makoto speaking in German. There’s an even more poignant contrast set up there: Makoto, working through syllables and half-rasping around each one as they demand.
He notices one word, though, marked with one of those little book-tab sticky-notes. The tab is red; the word is tausendsassa . The English description jumps out to Akira instantly: a jack-of-all-trades, a daredevil.
He snaps the book shut, because he’s not finding any words any cooler– or more self-descriptive– than that one. What could be more fitting for the Phantom Thief? He’ll allow himself a moment of justified egotism, blooming quietly in the space between him closing the book and sliding it into Makoto’s bookbag.
Akira is tempted to turn the coffee-pot burners back on and make himself a cup of decaf, but Makoto knocks gently at the door before he can really go into a full internal debate about it. He unlocks the door and holds up a hand, silencing Makoto mid-apology.
“It’s all good,” he says, grabbing her bag from the table. She sighs as he hands it over.
“Thank you again, Akira.” Makoto slings it over her shoulder in an uncharacteristic flourish. “I really shouldn’t have been so careless… If I had noticed it by the time I’d gotten home, I might’ve not been able to go back for it, and we’ve got the test tomorrow, and…”
“Like I said, it’s all good.” Akira shrugs, loose-limbed. “I could’ve even caught a taxi to bring it to you.” The expense wouldn’t even have been that bad– with all the jobs Akira likes to work, he can easily afford one late-night knight-in-shining-armor trip.
Akira tries not to think about why he works so many jobs. Akira tries not to think about what he’d do if he didn’t fill his hours with motion.
“Still…” Makoto folds her arms. She’s clearly also aware of Akira’s financial situation, logistical genius that she is. “Thank you again. I’ll see you tomorrow– and good luck, okay?”
Akira bids her goodbye, mentally thanking her for the well-wishes. He knows he’s going to need it.
It’s only after Akira drags the step-stool back to its place, closes up the cabinet, locks up for real, and ascends the stairs that he realizes oh, she was wishing me luck about the test, wasn’t she? He forgets, sometimes, that this part of the night is only for him.
Morgana snoozes quietly on his bed, bored by a long day of school and study. Akira knows exactly where to step to leave him unbothered as he begins to get dressed.
—
On some level, Akira knows that despite being a nationally-wanted freak with mind-bending demon-powers, he’s still a stupid teenager with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex swimming in hormones. On some level, Akira knows that he can be– and is, more realistically– both of those things. It doesn’t stop him from rationalizing his way through his decision-making process, though.
So when he slinks out into the streets, tracing his way through the dark, some part of Akira knows that he’s being a fucking idiot right now.
Akira couldn’t care less as he hops up onto a cinderblock wall outside of a bathhouse. He keeps his balance all the way until he jumps his way back down, landing on bent knees, just how the Metaverse taught him– for some value of ‘taught’. Akira always felt like the Metaverse set him free in ways beyond just awakening a Persona, like he had always known how to move like that before it unlocked that little hidden corner of his brain. That thought always made him feel a little better about all of this nonsense: if his Metaverse self can do this kind of thing, does performing the same tricks in reality really have to be so tough?
Sometimes they are; sometimes they aren’t. Tonight, even suffused in whatever restless anxiety he’s got buzzing through his head this time, his usual tricks breathe easy. Akira hops up onto a water-pipe on the exterior of a building, climbing up only one floor until he thinks better of it and slides his way back down. He’s grown comfortable with his indecisiveness on these backstreet nights– he has to, with how he loves to work up to a single, crowning trick each night.
(Part of him knows this won’t end with cheap parkour. Part of him knows he’s going to be sprinting down this hedonic treadmill until it goes somewhere far more destructive than running around deserted alleyways. Part of him doesn’t care.)
Akira’s path drops him out onto a much busier road, no longer choked by bumper-to-bumper traffic this late at night. Cars rush by, quicker than he usually sees them when they’re this close to the city’s heart. As if something about its heartbeat slows its own traffic to a sluggish crawl.
Akira likes the speed, though. Without losing his stride, he vaults himself over a bike rack and into the road, watching the traffic, fox-like, as he walks. His heart pounds as he crosses the first lane and a sedan rushes past behind him. The wind tousles the battered, nondescript hoodie he wears only for these outings.
A truck– one of those little ones that Futaba loves to point out, because apparently they look dorky to her– blazes its way around the bend, and Akira jogs ahead a few steps to escape the narrow beam of its headlights. He doesn’t escape the pulse of adrenaline that only gets stronger when the truck honks just a couple feet from his ear. He shoves his hands and breaks into a run, just for the last few steps–
–and he reaches the opposing sidewalk with a feeling almost like shame burning in his gullet. He isn’t usually scared when he does things like this. When he is, it’s a good fear– the kind that lets all his pain bleed out. This new fear, this actual fear, resonates in his bones. If he tries hard enough he might be able to alchemize it into self-blame, so he starts the process as he prowls back into the alleyways, away from rushing lights and nervous shudders.
This backstreet is starting to cross out of Yongen-Jaya; Akira can tell because some of the streetlights have burnt out. Even so, he nudges his way into an even narrower alleyway where the press of darkness is even stronger. A/C units thrum and churn as he tracks his way to nowhere. He ducks underneath a low-hanging cable where it’s come detached from its unit.
Akira’s mind wanders to one of his previous tricks: an actual rooftop leap, achieved only a few nights ago. He had easily scaled his way up a fire escape, making a short hop to the rooftop. He remembers the feeling of exhilaration when he’d looked up and seen that the press of tall buildings was absent here, and that he could actually see the skyline, brimming with light for miles and miles. It was a discovery all his own.
He had stood from the ledge after minutes on end, suddenly overcome with restless understanding. Akira didn’t know quite what he was meant to do– besides whatever limited evidence had been handed to him by the Metaverse and a lifetime of shitty action movies– but his legs led him to back up anyway. He let his muscles go tense as he readied himself, kicking off into a full-blown sprint-step- leap –
–and, now that he thinks about it, it really wasn’t that far of a jump at all. He might have even been able to make it at a jog. The adrenaline that burnt him to his core then feels just… pitiful now.
Wandering about the city like this used to make his heart pound with anticipation, with unfamiliarity. The tiny town he used to call home didn’t have any parts that felt quite so dense and dangerous as the streets here. Even the forest at night, which his parents cautioned him at length to stay away from, was more peaceful than anything else.
This, though? Even veiled by the dark and surrounded by sounds unfamiliar to him and depths untraversed, Akira feels bored .
Akira grits his teeth and checks his mental compass, wondering whether to double back. He does have a test tomorrow, and certain feline authorities love to insist on the importance of regular teenage sleep habits.
(Part of Akira doesn’t want to believe him. Part of Akira doesn’t want to listen to anyone who tells him about what he should do. Part of Akira doesn’t want anyone to care about him, because then at least he wouldn’t have to listen to anyone’s moralizing.)
He spitefully twists his way back away from Yongen-Jaya, passing by a drunken, besuited businessman who almost looks like he’s about to lose his grip on his briefcase. Akira grimaces– if he’s going past other pedestrians, he’s going the wrong way. He follows a stray cat down yet another alleyway, watching it bound effortlessly up the awnings and pipes with envy. The passage is far too narrow for him; the props around won’t support his weight. He quickens his pace and turns the corner–
–and trips hard and fast, hitting the ground with his arms outstretched. There is a terrible stretch marring his left wrist, like God itself decided to give his limbs a yank . “Shit,” Akira hisses, huffing and groaning to himself as he begins the long and arduous process of rising to his feet. He braces his shoulder against the wall and slips his legs back underneath himself, stumbling like a newborn deer in the undergrowth. He scoops up his phone as best he can, shoving it back into his pocket.
His wrist feels uneasy and limp. It throbs with pain when he tries to bend it, and he remembers, faintly, a similar incident that happened when he was very little. He remembers his father’s scolding much more keenly than he remembers the actual injury, but this still feels vaguely like a sprain.
Dread wells in Akira’s throat. They’d made plans to go Palace-diving the following day, after the test. Each minute that passes without any progress feels like it burns a hole in Akira’s head, and if he’s out of commission for this long he’s just going to be lying around completely useless –
Akira gasps for breath. The smells of old cigarette smoke and new trash rush acrid down his throat. He hates the prospect of inaction even more than he hates the insults leveled at him, the blows he tanks in the Metaverse, all the little injustices he’s had to suffer– all of that pales in comparison to stagnation. It’s a stupid, immature way to look at it, but Akira never actually argued that he was anything but. Nobody ever asked him whether he was ready to feel like an adult, did they?
Takemi. Whether or not she’s still open is a moot point; just the idea of dragging himself back to Yongen-Jaya has to be tempered with the knowledge that he can make this better, and then he can go right back to being everywhere he’s needed. He puts one foot in front of the other a few times before he can graduate to actual walking. His internal compass shows him the way, and he sways his way in the direction of home.
When he comes to the thoroughfare this time, he waits for the crosswalk, staring up at the little man with disdain. Some daredevil.
—
Takemi is, in fact, open, and she continues to be Akira’s favorite medical professional solely because of how few questions she asks. (Maruki will get bumped up a couple places when he stops projecting on Akira quite so hard.) She has him hold some ice to it while she prepares a simple compression glove to keep it protected, and Akira concentrates on the cold so he doesn’t have to think about tomorrow.
“I’d say you probably know a thing or two about treating injuries this simple already, based on your history with me, but in case you need a reminder: ice, rest, elevation, pressure.” Takemi sorts through one of the cabinets as she talks. “The thing you need the biggest reminder about is rest. You can still write with your right hand, so there’s not much of a problem there, but if I catch you so much as opening a door with your left hand you’re going to catch a lecture, at the very least.”
Akira nods. He can barely make himself participate in the conversation, let alone argue with her. A glove isn’t hard to cover up, but an ice pack is– maybe he can make up a story about falling down the shitty attic stairs.
By the time Takemi finishes the process of tossing him a compression glove and some painkillers, Akira’s made up a full cover story in his head that he can rattle off at will. He chuckles to himself on the way home as the absurdity of lying to his cat sinks in. The amusement wears off as soon as he unlocks the door to Leblanc and shuffles his way back in, slapping the ice pack in the freezer and trudging his way upstairs.
The tree outside is making a strange shadow against his window, grasping and undulating in the rising wind. Akira can’t find it in himself to do anything but slip back into his pajamas and shove Morgana to the side as he prepares for bed as best he can. He downs another painkiller before he sets his alarm and, in lieu of anything more effortful, rests his arm on top of Morgana to elevate it.
Morgana would seem entirely nonplussed about the whole situation if he wasn’t sleeping like a rock. His fur tickles Akira’s fingertips as Akira gives him a few absent-minded scritches, but the way his hand throbs immediately gives him pause. Rest , his addled mind supplies, rest .
He does, but unwillingly, like a child being carried to bed.
—
Ryuji is too busy trying to cram last-minute vocabulary words to notice Akira’s brace at first, but he does actually notice when he passes Akira a melonpan he got from the school store. “Uh, you good, man?” Genuine concern shines in the furrow of his brow. “Did you spend all night taking notes too hard or something?”
“Fell down the stairs,” Akira says, feigning the acceptable amount of embarrassment. “I keep forgetting how uneven they are.”
Ann gives him a sympathetic little “awww” as she puts her own notes aside. “Should we call off infiltration, then? We can always–”
“Shh, not so loud!” Ryuji hisses.
“It’s fine! You’re the one always blabbing about–”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Akira says, not really trying to be heard over their bickering. He turns away to attend to his own studying, as well as Morgana’s imperious demands for stealth pets.
By the time midday rolls around, Ryuji’s taken it upon himself to text everyone of the updated plans, which fortunately means Akira doesn’t have to care about looking like a useless bastard. Even by the end of the day Akira is still vaguely trying to think up ways to fill his days without earning a reprimand from Takemi.
He’s on his walk to the station when Ryuji catches up with him, huffing with exertion. “C’mon, man, slow down for once in your life, eh?” His tone is cheery even if his words aren’t, and he does his best to match Akira’s stride. “Don’t tell me you’re goin’ to work already?”
Today is the flower shop, and Akira already knows he can do it one-handed. He doesn’t have anything else to do, which is a nice way of saying if I’m ever stuck doing nothing for long enough I’m going to combust. “That’s what they pay me for.”
Ryuji lets out a dismissive little pssh . “You’re really gonna let your… evil corporate boss ride your ass like that? You gotta rest, man. Get revenge on those stairs by living well, or whatever.”
Akira smiles, but only a little. “I don’t really have an ‘evil corporate boss’, I have Hanasaki-san, and she’s a nice enough lady. And besides, I can get revenge on those stairs by earning enough cash to rip them out and replace them.”
Ryuji just gives him an odd look, and at first Akira just wonders whether he doubts Hanasaki-san’s benevolence. He looks just a moment too long, though, and Akira is about to speak when Ryuji beats him to it.
“Are you, like… good, man?” He sounds almost dejected, depressed. Like he’s wallowing in sadness for Akira. The absurdity of it almost makes Akira laugh, until the reality sinks in: Ryuji cares , goddamnit, and his heart is so huge he’s willing to let all of Akira’s sorrow into it.
With that in mind, Akira can’t help but turn away.
“I’m alright,” he says, showing just the right amount of injury-induced resignation. “Can’t play games or anything, and reading’s gonna be harder than usual, so I’m just gonna be bored as long as Takemi’s on my case about this.” In lieu of looking at Ryuji, Akira doggedly focuses his gaze straight ahead. “Maybe I’ll get Morgana to evolve opposable thumbs to help out.”
“Hey, don’t involve me in this!” Morgana pokes his head out of Akira’s bag, yowling with annoyance. Akira gently shoves him back in the bag and finally looks to Ryuji, surprised to see him still looking vaguely resigned.
“No, like…” Ryuji stops Akira before they turn onto the main drag with a hand on his shoulder. He takes a step back into an alcove, leaning against a vending machine, and Akira can’t help but follow. “Are you… good? You didn’t really fall, did you?”
Akira adjusts his stance. Careful, neutral. “What makes you think otherwise?”
Ryuji snorts. “That you didn’t take a tumble like that earlier in the year, when you were still learning the place. Or that you’re graceful as shit and you don’t fall, like, ever. I’m just saying, it…”
Ryuji cuts himself off, sighing heavily, full-lunged. “Look, man,” he says, and now his voice is audibly weighed down with sorrow. Low, quiet. He keeps going. “I’m not gonna sit here and accuse you of making excuses, but I… I used to do the same thing at school, when my dad was still around. Teachers would ask me about bruises n’ shit I picked up at home, and I guess they just ended up thinking I was stupid and clumsy with all the excuses I fed ‘em.”
His brow furrows. “But this isn’t about my sob story, this is about—look, man, I’m not gonna judge you, alright? I just wanna make sure that, like… there’s not someone we gotta go teach a lesson to, or someone we gotta get you away from, or… you get the idea, right?”
Akira, unfortunately, gets the idea. In this moment, surrounded by concrete and sunlight, he has absolutely no idea of how to phrase what’s been happening to him. The concept suddenly just feels absurd. He walks the night, and he climbs the city, and he gets himself hurt again and again–
Akira can’t turn away. He tilts his head just enough to try and make direct eye contact with Ryuji, even though he still only manages to stare at where the bridge of his nose meets his forehead. “You got me,” he says, trying his best to summon up a joke from nowhere. “I did something stupid, alright? And– I won’t do it again, if you’re wondering.”
Akira instantly feels unmoored the moment he says it. He feels a serpent coiling in his guts the moment he tries to think about what he’ll do in those quiet moments. The initial excitement of doing stupid shit out in the city has faded, sure, but what will he do without the ability to set his heart on fire at will?
Akira is infinitely grateful that Morgana doesn’t feel the need to chime in. Ryuji, however, does, if the set of his jaw is any indication. When he speaks there is no anger in his voice. “Dumber than falling down the stairs?”
“Yeah. Like I said–”
“Oh, yeah, I heard you. Akira…” All of Ryuji’s vigor seems to drain from him in one fell sigh. He loosely staggers over to Akira, putting his hand back on his shoulder. Where it belongs . “Look, I’m not… good at this kind of thing, right? I’m not– good at comin’ up with the words. But, man, if you’re really feeling that awful you can… I mean, I was gonna say talk to me about shit, right, but I just said I wasn’t good at words– ugh, what the hell.”
Ryuji grimaces, and Akira understands instinctively that all his frustration is directed at himself. He takes a shuddery breath, visibly stabilizing himself, before he speaks again. “You’ve got a lot on your shoulders, yeah? I don’t know if… if I can help, but god dammit, I wanna try. Alright? You gotta give me a chance to help out. And if I tell you some dumb shit then you can just brush me off– but you gotta let me try.”
Akira blinks. Ryuji seems to lose what little momentum he had, and he shifts his weight onto his back leg. He always moves like he’s a cobbled-together collection of limbs, a real lanky woodpile of a man, but today he feels so much more deliberate in his looseness. “Sorry, man,” he says, drawing back. “I didn’t wanna make that sound like an– an ultimatum or anything like that, but…”
Akira lets the silence fill the space between them. He watches Ryuji flounder for a moment, submersed in it, unwilling to let the silence fill his veins. “And, hey, we can just hang out or something, right? With the Thief stuff going on, I don’t wanna get a job or anythin’ just yet, so I’m always bored as hell in the evenings. It’s no skin off my teeth.”
Akira, perfectionist though he is, can’t stop himself from chiming in. “I think the expression is ‘skin off your back’.” He turns as if to leave, and feels something not entirely unlike satisfaction as he notices Ryuji turn almost immediately to follow him.
When Ryuji doesn’t immediately fall into step beside him, Akira looks sidelong at him. In profile, under the golden hour, his silhouette is awash in sunlight. The shadows make the terrible, sad set of his eyes all the more apparent. “I wasn’t kidding, man,” he murmurs.
Akira nods. He says nothing at all. The station comes into view.
—
“Come on,” Morgana yowls, “it’s time for bed.” He stretches himself in classic feline fashion, spelling a nice little upside-down V.
Akira had spent the evening confined to Leblanc like an understimulated zoo animal, pacing and restlessly trying his best to find any activity that was doable with only his right hand– which wasn’t much. He’d filled out the crossword a little clumsily and tried to read up for school, but everything just slipped out of his brain the second he wasn’t concentrating on it. By the time Sojiro had left for the day, Akira had slumped himself over a booth, staring blankly at a video on his phone about… something or other.
He’s on his second hour of dry eyes and throbbing temples by the time Morgana sees fit to start pestering him. The last thing he actually wants to do is get to bed– he knows a good pulse of adrenaline would fix him right up, he knows it– but his cat is, unfortunately, the guardian standing between him and further stupid decisions. He turns his phone off and gets to his feet, slumping his way upstairs to change.
Morgana comes padding up the stairs as soon as Akira is done adjusting his shirt over his brace. “Alright, go on,” he says, apropos of nothing.
“Chill out, man. I have to go brush my teeth first.” Akira rubs his eyes as he starts back down the stairs, vaguely cognizant of Morgana’s impatient huff.
His toothpaste– a cheap flavor Ryuji likes to call “the mintiness of a thousand suns”, after he’d stayed there overnight once– is a pleasant enough sear over his palate to be distracting. He manages to get a deep breath in before he trudges back up. Morgana is still standing at attention in the middle of the floor, watching him, utterly inscrutable. Sometimes Akira forgets how unreadable his face can be when his facial features aren’t magnified to cartoony proportions.
Morgana yawns before he mews a command. “Go on. You first.” Akira shrugs, plugging his phone in to charge– and here he notices a crack along the edge of the screen that he hadn’t seen before. He’d dropped it when he’d fallen, hadn’t he? Whether it happened then or later or a hundred years in the future, Akira still scowls as he tosses it down on the nightstand. He can afford a replacement screen, sure, but he doesn’t exactly trust the average tech repair biz considering how dangerous (and metaphysical) the information on his phone is. Maybe I can get Futaba to fix it.
When he lies back, trying his best to shimmy into a decent position, Morgana hops up onto the bed and worms his way beneath Akira’s sprained wrist, doing his darndest to form himself into a fuzzy little handrest. It is, in fact, comfortable, and Akira only feels a little guilty looking down at Morgana’s sad, wet eyes.
A little guilt is enough. Akira closes his eyes and thinks about the catharsis of letting himself get hurt– of hurting himself– and then he lets the thought go. It lingers at the edge of his mind like a leaf that hasn’t quite fallen from its tree, but the seasons are changing, and he knows it will have to drop eventually.
The wind howls: a gentle promise. The tree shudders outside.