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It was, Futaba groaned to herself, a bad day. The urge to go back to sleep was overwhelming. She buried her head in her pillow.
At the very least, Futaba’s bad days now were what used to be good days before the Phantom Thieves.
Futaba grumbled and threw the blanket to the floor. The stupid train of thought was making her feel worse. Her phone vibrated loudly near her cheek. Futaba debated leaving it, but knowing her friends it would be some catastrophic emergency that would lead to most of them piling in her room.
Again.
Despite her arm feeling about a hundred pounds she groped for the phone, squinting at the glare when she finally turned it towards her face.
It was just Sumire. There was a picture of a coffee beside a book, clearly in LeBlanc. The invite was passive and she probably wouldn’t mind if Futaba ignored her to sleep in more.
But that wasn’t who Futaba wanted to be. Not with all the hard work that the Thieves had done. And not with what she’d worked on either. How could she look Ren in the eye and truthfully say she’d been working on being more social if she wasn’t?
Futaba flopped out of bed onto the discarded blankets, pulling herself up with another groan.
-
Futaba stepped through LeBlanc around twenty minutes later. She’d washed her face, but the clothes were totally yesterday’s. Sojiro gave her a worried look but she waved him off.
Sumire faced away from the door, her head bent low while she read. She smiled when Futaba slid into the booth in front of her.
“Futaba, hi,” Sumire said, closing the book. She said the greeting softly. It was something they all were getting used to– though remembering Sumire-as-Kasumi was getting harder. Slippery, even. Out of all the Phantom Thieves only Ren and herself had managed any semblance of anything more than impressions. Futaba didn’t like to dwell on it.
“Your hair looks good,” she said, instead of anything else. It wasn’t a real surprise, since Sumire had spoken about it, but the length was strange. It curled around the edge of her shoulders, framing her face in a way the longer strands hadn’t.
Sumire touched the ends of her hair. “You think so? Doctor Haruno said a change would be good. I think she mostly meant styling, but well…”
“Totally an A+ look,” Futaba said, nodding.
“How have things been?” Sumire asked as Sojiro slid Futaba a hot chocolate.
“Oh you know, same old same old,” She took a drink, ignoring her dad shaking his head as he walked away. What did he know! “How was your…meet? Competition?” Futaba wished she could remember what the things were called.
“Oh it went well! I made,” she stopped and fidgeted, “I made second place, but it was very close.”
“Woo! Congrats!” Maybe there had been something to coming out. Futaba felt better. “You’ll be kicking their butt in no time!”
“Thanks!”
The conversation lapsed. Futaba was terrible at this. She lied. Nothing felt better.
“Uh– everything else okay?”
Sumire frowned, tapping her fingers against the table.
“It’s been a bit awkward. I still don’t know…how to react sometimes. Is it me? Is it some leftover bit of me as Kasumi? Or have I just changed so much that I can’t tell?” She paused. “Sorry, I know that’s– a lot.”
“It’s okay. You know, I don’t think you have to figure that out right now?” Futaba replied.
“I guess. I keep talking it over in therapy as much as I can. Well not– Not the cognitive stuff– I’m not going into it.”
“Duh.” Futaba couldn’t even imagine trying.
Sumire snorted, but her frown remained. “I’m not going into that. But I did say I pretended to be Kasumi. The doctor is helping but…even after getting my Persona it feels like there’s something else I’m missing sometimes.”
“That’s normal,” Futaba said, without thinking. She bit her lip and then continued.“I mean, my day today didn’t start with any stat boosts, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! I–”
“Nah, it’s fine.” Futaba finally took another drink. “I’m more impressed that you’re still doing therapy after– well after everything.” She let her lame platitude drop off. Sometimes people were good with mentions of the guys that had screwed them over. Sometimes they weren’t. The conversation was already fraught.
Sumire hummed, picking at a nail. She sat silent for a moment.
“I think it’s a leap of faith really. Hm...there’s the fact that it’s very unlikely to happen again and I am stronger, but–” Sumire paused again, frowning. “But, even with how strong I am, there’s still so much wrong. I don’t think I wanted to get better last time. I just wanted everything to go away. But now I want reality. I want to be here. With you, with my parents…I want to be me. That’s the difference. I want to hope again, I guess.”
She hadn’t looked at Futaba at all.
Futaba looked at her own nails. There’d been therapists. Not many, but some. Obviously, Futaba could look back and realize they were part of the Conspiracy, or paid off by one of those assholes, but back then they’d made her feel small and stupid.
There was no way she’d act the same again, but that disheartening feeling–
She wouldn’t do it again. But Futaba got it. What got her out of her room…well she’d wanted to hope again too.
“You’re super duper strong, you know? That’s why I think you’re really cool.” The latter part slipped out on autopilot and Futaba flushed. “A-anyway. If anyone gives you trouble I can just doxx them. Put weird crap on their instagram. Whatever you want.”
And now Futaba felt awkward. She resisted the urge to run into the bathroom. But, well, it was just an urge.
Sumire laughed, a smile spreading across her face. Her hand moved towards Futaba’s, then gave an aborted little jitter before it gripped the book’s spine. Futaba wiped her other hand on her pants and tried not to feel disappointed.
“I don’t want to overstep,” Sumire said, “But I think you’re pretty cool too. I don’t– I know what I’ve heard. But it sounds like you might be underselling how much you’ve done to get where you are.”
Just yesterday Futaba had gone and bought herself a new game. There’d been no Ren within range. She hadn’t even needed to fiddle with her phone and hover over the others’ numbers.
“Well, I am pretty great,” she said. Sumire winked at her and a gross swooping ran through her stomach. But this was about both of them being brave, or whatever. “There’s a movie this weekend. It’s about ballet or something. If you wanted to go…?”
“Ah, I’m free. Whatever works for you?”
Sumire flushed this time. It was a good look on her face.