Chapter Text
Sae let out a sigh. Notably, the first relieved sigh of the day. She took a sip from the hot, black coffee Sojiro placed on the counter.
“Rough day?” the barista asked.
How was she supposed to answer that question? Would rough even begin to describe it? The appearance of the so-called Phantom Thieves didn’t only make the Japanese law system look like a joke, it also caused her boss to apply even more pressure on her than usual.
With Madarame’s confession the week before, the Phantom Thieves have caused quite the spark. Most people doubted their existence, but a good amount still realized that someone out there was doing a better job dealing with criminals than those who are supposed to. She had gotten her boss's permission to investigate further into the Phantom Thieves, but she realized that that only raised his expectations for her. Sae needed to prove their connection to the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns, whatever the cost.
The cost in question was her insufficient sleep, making her a regular at LeBlanc at this point. Sojiro raised his hand, waving it slightly around.
“You still there?”
Sae snapped out of her trance and looked back at him. “Hm? Oh, yeah. ʼRoughʼ sums it up pretty well.”
“I can tell.” Sojiro chuckled, before turning away to clean the countertop behind him. “Drink your coffee before it gets cold.”
She had grown fond of this place quite quickly. She has never seen more than one, maybe two other customers here. Sojiro didn’t ask too many questions either, which she greatly appreciated. He’d probably be a nice guy to talk to, but sometimes she just liked to appreciate the silence.
She took another sip and tried to think about nothing for just a minute. Hell, even a second would be nice. But it’s impossible. How was she supposed to not think about the Phantom Thieves? Their motives, methods, whereabouts, just anything. Relaxing here didn’t work. At that point, she might as well get back to work again. She finished her coffee before getting up “Thanks for the coffee, money’s on the counter.”
A warm summer breeze glided across Yongen-Jaya and the afternoon sun tinted the neighborhood in a calming orange. In the middle of all, the woman dressed in black felt her phone buzzing and took it out of her pocket to see what caused the notification.
Makoto : Hey sis, I’ll be eating out with friends today, but I prepared dinner for you, it’s in the fridge.
Sae
: Sure. Have fun.
She shoved the phone back into her pocket and leaned against the wall, a tension building up within her. Eating out with friends when she should be studying? How does she have the time to think about these things? Aside from the irritation she felt, she started feeling another, nastier emotion.
“Friends,” she scoffed.
She pushed herself off the wall and steered toward the neighborhood's main walkway, deeply sunken in thoughts. Wasn’t she already monitoring Makoto’s studies enough? Isn’t she old enough to know that-
Sae’s internal rambling was interrupted when she ran into another person. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled and kept walking. However, an uneasy feeling within her made her turn around to look at the other person.
It was a middle-aged man with shoulder-long, grey, greasy hair. He wore a black coat, stained with all kinds of things. Sae stood there for a few seconds, watching him. She wasn’t sure if the man even noticed that the two bumped into each other. His stumbling took him to a door in a back alley, the sign next to it reading ʼTakemi’s Clinicʼ.
The prosecutor decided to follow him, suspecting the clinic might be as dubious as it looked.
Right when she raised her hand to grab the door handle, she heard the man loudly arguing. Not being able to make out what exactly he was saying, she pushed the door open just a gap wide.
“You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me!” the man loudly slurred. Contrasting his aggressive tone, a woman's voice answered, calm and collected. “No, like I said, we do not offer any performance-enhancing substances.”
“Quit fuckin lyin' to me, bitch!”
“Alright, that’s enough, I’m gonna ask you to leave the clinic right now.”
“I’m not gonna do shit!”
Sae opened the door and saw the man standing at the reception counter, blocking her view of the woman behind the counter.
“You little-” As the man moved toward the counter, Sae had no time to think. She quickly approached the man and delivered a kick to his waist. Not powerful enough to leave any permanent damage, but enough to make an impact.
As he stumbled and fell to the ground, Sae felt something sharp grazing her right thigh, causing a searing pain shooting through her leg, but the adrenaline numbed it enough for her to not pay any further attention to it.
Looking at the man lying in front of her, she notices the bloody knife in his hand. Fuck.
“If you don’t leave within the next 7 seconds I will take this to court and I swear to god you WILL lose.”
The man looked up at her, still startled by the sudden attack, and quickly got up before reeling out of the clinic. A few seconds of silence passed after he left, both women trying to calm down from the agitation. But with each passing second, the adrenaline failed to cover the pain, causing Sae to let out an involuntary groan.
“Are you hurt?” she heard the woman behind the counter ask. Sae turned around to look at her.
Her gaze fell upon a short-haired bluenette wearing a white lab coat. A doctor working as a receptionist? Well, considering the clinic was rather small… The doctor, apparently called Takemi, having noticed Sae’s discomfort, stood up from her chair, a concerned look on her face. A black choker adorned her neck and her dress was… short.
“No, it’s f-” Sae sighed. Now was not the time to put her pride above everything else. God, she hated showing vulnerability. “Y-yeah.”
Wincing as she moved forward, she realized just how much her leg hurt. “Stay there.” Takemi rushed through the door, now standing in front of Sae. Her eyes darted toward the prosecutor's thigh, where the fabric of her trousers was torn apart.
“Let’s get you into the exam room.” In one smooth motion, she grabbed Sae’s arm and put it on her shoulder, holding her close to support her. Slowly, they took one step after the other into the other room, where they stopped before the examination table.
“Alright, pants down, Miss Prosecutor,” the doctor chuckled. Her choice of words and tone didn’t go unnoticed by Sae, but what shocked her much more was something else.
“How do you-”
“You were on TV a while ago. Good Morning Japan, was it?”
Oh god, if she wanted to forget one thing, it was this goddamn TV report. Averting her gaze at the mention, she nods.
“That’s right. It’s not something I like recalling, to be honest.”
“Neither would I.”
Sae was taken aback by the doctor's bluntness. Takemi looked at her for a moment, then spoke up again. “As silly as it might have sounded, your pants are in the way. Take them off and sit down, I’ll treat the wound.”
Sae tried to comply, but parts of the fabric were stuck to the cut, making it more difficult than expected. She grimaced as she got over the worst part before sitting down on the medical bed. Looking down at her thigh, she realized just how much she was bleeding. The six-inch cut looked back at her, ridiculing her for acting before thinking.
“This will burn quite a bit, but I need to disinfect the wound before I can bandage it.”
As cool as the antiseptic was, it DID burn. Like hell. As Takemi treated the injury, Sae tried to distract herself.
“I’m… sorry, I just have to ask. What was that man talking about earlier? Performance-enhancing substances?”
The doctor stopped moving. “I guess I do owe you an explanation for that. However, in all honesty, I had hoped you wouldn't ask.”
The doctor looked away for a second, before looking at Sae with a stern expression. “A public prosecutor getting in on the pestering isn’t something I wish for.”
Letting out a sigh, she got back to treating the wound before continuing her explanation. “A while ago, when I worked at a university hospital, I led the development of a cure for a rare disease. It wasn’t done yet, but one day I got taken off development, and the rest of the process was rushed. It… put a patient of mine into a coma. I knew it wasn’t done yet, I knew it shouldn't be used yet. I knew, I told them, and yet they proceeded. And blamed me for what happened.”
Sae, too stunned to say anything, stared at her in disbelief. “I got fired from the university hospital and got nicknamed 'the plague'. That’s how I ended up in this back alley. I don’t exactly mind it though. Developing medicine is still my passion, and I can do that here just fine. My medicine is licensed, if that’s what you're wondering. I’m not sure when or how the drug rumors started, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was done by the people who ostracized me from the industry to begin with.”
After a few seconds of silence, Takemi looked up at the prosecutor's face with a smile. “I’m sorry, that was a bit much, wasn’t it? I normally don’t overshare like this, but considering what you did earlier…”
“What I did earlier was stupid,” Sae responded plainly. “I was careless. But taking into account what I got from it, I might as well could’ve kicked harder.” Sae mumbled the last part, not knowing if she actually wanted the doctor to hear that.
She did hear it, however, as proven by her chuckling. “Nice moves, by the way, Miss Prosecutor. You looked really cool there.”
The sudden compliment tinted her cheeks slightly pink. “It was pretty rusty. I did kickboxing for about ten years, but I rarely get to it now.”
“Rusty or not, you got that guy out of my clinic. Thanks for that, really.” Takemi looked into Sae’s eyes for a while, then went on.
“Alright, please stand up, I’ll put the bandage on now.”
Sae did as the doctor asked and slowly lifted herself from the bed. “The cut isn’t deep enough to cause any long-term effects, but the pain might last a while,” Takemi started explaining as she gently wrapped the bandage around the prosecutor's thigh.
“It’s important for the wound to be taken care of to prevent an infection. To ensure that I suggest you come back soon so that I can take another look at it. Just to make sure it heals well. Also, I can give you some painkillers, though I need you to fill out a form first.”
As the doctor moved towards her desk to grab something, Sae looked down at her leg, the neatly wrapped bandage now covering the cut completely, and put her pants back on, feeling the slight pressure on the wound caused by the dressing.
“It’s standard procedure. It asks for allergies and other medical complications.” Takemi turned back to her, handing her the piece of paper. “I understand,” Sae said, letting her eyes fly over the form.
Admittedly, this place did look sketchy from the outside, and the doctor's looks weren’t exactly conventional. But so far Takemi made a professional impression on Sae. The prosecutor was quite impressed by the doctors will to keep going, despite all injustice she had to face.
After sitting back down she started filling out the form. It didn’t take too long, considering her good health. In the meantime, Takemi swiftly moved around the room, putting away utensils and disposing of the leftover bandages.
Sae took one last look at the form to make sure she didn’t miss anything. “That should be it.”
The doctor turned back to her and took the paper. Glancing over it, she smiled. “Alright. I’ll get the medicine ready for you, Miss Prosecutor.” Sae raised an eyebrow at her choice of address, the doctor clearly having read her name on the paper.
“Thanks.”
“You can take these every 4-6 hours,” the doctor stated while handing a small box. They should work rather quickly. The bandage needs to be changed every day, or sooner if it gets wet.” It sounded tedious, but it was the consequence of her actions.
"Thank you, doctor. I really appreciate it," Sae said as she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a card. "And in case anyone bothers you again, please don't hesitate to contact me. I assure you that I am a better fighter in court than I was here,” Sae chuckles.
“I'm sure you've faced tougher challenges. Just remember to take it easy for a while." Takemi's lips curved into a subtle smile as she took the card.
Preparing to leave, Sae stood up but was quickly met with a wave of dizziness washing over her and gripped the examination table in an attempt to find balance.
“Easy there,” Takemi said with a concerned look on her face. “You did lose quite a bit of blood. Sit back down and wait here for a second.”
Trying to push the dizziness out of her head, Sae closed her eyes and lowered herself onto the bed slowly. The doctor left the room and came back with a glass of orange juice and two candy bars just a minute later.
“Here,” Takemi said, handing the items to Sae with a warm smile. “Take it easy, there’s no need to rush.” She meant it. Sae looked at her, then down to the glass of orange juice in her hands, and nodded.
“I just… I’m sorry for barging in and causing all of this trouble. This is rather embarrassing. I acted without thinking first.”
“What?” Takemi chuckled, tilting her head to the side to meet Sae’s downturned gaze.
“That man is the one who barged in and caused trouble. You listened to your guts and got him out of here. That isn’t embarrassing, it’s admirable. I can really consider myself lucky that you were here.”
Listening to her guts? That’s not something that Sae usually did. She was rather calm and collected, never acting impulsively. Or so she’d like to think.
With a shy smile, she tried to express her gratitude to Takemi for her kind words. The doctor smiled back at her and then continued cleaning up the room and restocking various items as Sae drank the orange juice and ate the snacks to strengthen herself, feeling Takemi glance at her every now and then as a way to check on her.
After finishing the snacks, Sae felt the strength returning to her body.
“Feeling better?” Takemi asked softly, a slight concern visible on her face.
Sae nodded gratefully. “Yeah, much better. Thank you.”
With caution, Sae rose to her feet once more, this time finding her balance more easily. “I need to get going now. I’m really repeating myself here, but thank you. For everything.”
Takemi's smile widened, genuine warmth shining in her eyes. “No worries. Take care of yourself. And thank you as well.”
With a nod of farewell, Sae left the clinic, a sense of gratitude still lingering within her as she stepped back out into the neighborhood, now painted in a serene lavender.
As she rode the subway back to her apartment, memories of the day flooded her mind. From the stress at work to the brief respite she found at LeBlanc, to the chaos breaking out at the clinic, and the caring nature of Takemi, it had indeed been a rollercoaster.
Yet, there still was something else. That message from Makoto. Did she really think she could allow herself to slack off now? In her third year? She has told Makoto how important this time was. She has told her multiple times, and yet she disregarded her advice like this? Disregarding her authority. Did she really think she knew better than Sae?
Her jaw tightened, tension spreading through her body. The announcement of her station snapped her out of it, at least physically. Stepping off the subway, the chatter of the people almost drowned her thoughts, adding to the constant stimulation of the wound. She needed to get out of here before it became too much.
Hurrying up the stairs as fast as her leg allowed her to, she emerged from the station into the cool evening air, her silver hair dancing in the night breeze. She sighed. Maybe she should just go home, it’s been a long day after all.
The apartment complex the two sisters lived in wasn’t too far from the station, the walk taking about five minutes. Sae entered the building and called the elevator that would take her upstairs. Following a *ding* the door opened, allowing her to step inside. Would Makoto be home? Sae pulled out her phone to check for the time. 10pm.
She better be.