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Sanada is still awake, seated at the table in the lounge, flipping through a thick textbook with a studious look on his face. He only glances over when the floorboards creak, a single eyebrow raised in question.
“Ah, it’s you,” Sanada comments, and closes the textbook with his thumb trapped inside, holding his page. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Not as such. Makoto usually isn’t awake at this hour; the missions recently have been draining, but not so much because of the lack of sleep. It has been the activities themselves, the Shadows they’ve been up against, which have been sapping his energy… but they didn’t have a mission tonight, so frankly, Makoto isn’t all that tired. Just going by his usual routine, except that he decided to come downstairs for a glass of water. Maybe that was a bad idea. He hadn’t really expected Sanada to be awake still.
So, Makoto shrugs. Yes because he couldn’t sleep—no because that isn’t why he came down here. Sanada tilts his head to the side, but he doesn’t regard Makoto in the same way as Takeba or Iori. Much like the other first year, Kirijou, Sanada largely seems keen on minding his own business where Makoto is concerned. At the very least, Makoto’s idiosyncrasies—whatever those are, people tend to have a reaction to them—don’t seem to bother him.
“All right,” is what Sanada eventually says. He uses his elbow to knock back the seat next to him. “Want to join me, then? I’m just getting some studying in before I turn in. To be honest, I struggle to sleep at this hour myself. It’s probably worse because I haven’t been able to get out there and fight for a while, though… but I’m guessing you don’t really want to hear about that.”
Makoto shrugs again. He doesn’t have much of an opinion on it; if Sanada wants to talk about how restless he’s been, he’s more than welcome to. Makoto isn’t sure he can understand the feeling, if only because those late-night ventures into Tartarus haven’t particularly “fulfilled a need” for him in the same way they seem to for Sanada. (Though the guy seems to have boundless energy for all areas of life, so it might not even be that profound. Maybe he just needs his time out and about like a golden retriever. That wouldn’t be surprising, from a guy who smiles as easily as Sanada.)
Whatever the case, Makoto hadn’t been that thirsty, so he does take the proffered seat at Sanada’s side. He leans over to take a closer look at the textbook, more out of curiosity than anything. Sanada obligingly lifts the cover so Makoto can see better. Nothing too exciting, just an advanced physics textbook, written in English.
“You won’t have to read this one,” Sanada assures with a chuckle. “I just try to keep ahead of my studies. It helps, you know, when we have so much else to keep track of.”
Perhaps that’s true. Makoto has been finding more and more ways to keep busy on his own time, primarily because people just keep approaching him at school. He never has a very good reason to say no to anyone, so he doesn’t… which leads to less and less spare time. It doesn’t seem as if that’s what keeps Sanada busy—at the very least, Sanada seems pretty good at evading what he doesn’t want to commit to—but where Makoto feels indifferent to it, maybe even a little ambivalent, Sanada seems to thrive with a packed schedule.
Different strokes. Makoto looks away from the textbook, turns his gaze to the rest of the lounge. Like the world at large, during the Dark Hour, everything takes on a slight green glow. Within the dorms, it’s slightly less eerie, just because of the presence of other living people. (As opposed to the coffins and the blood.) The green is still a little unsettling, though. It certainly paints the furniture in a different light. You know what they say about everything being scarier in the dark.
Although… maybe scary isn’t the word that Makoto would use for it. There was a time when he thinks he might have been—somewhere in that territory, perhaps. Back when he was young, when everything felt so much larger. (Makoto does try not to think too heavily on these days, but the thoughts do arise periodically, particularly in the quiet.) The coffins themselves are enough to frighten anyone, nevermind a kid who just saw a pair at a funeral. Who saw the bodies—though this, Makoto adamantly refuses to look back on, diverting to the safer topic of the Dark Hour itself and releasing a soft breath.
It had been frightening at first, he thinks. Not just the more nightmarish aspects, but the ambiance of the hour itself, the way the entire world seems to just… go to sleep. Which is an apt description, considering. The coffins, the shadows that lurk, the utter silence… Makoto really does not remember much of what he was thinking and feeling back then, but he imagines that it’s the same as trying to remember what it was like the first time you cried, if you’re someone who cries a lot. You can’t really put yourself back in that headspace. It has been almost a decade since then.
Makoto finds himself picking at the cotton fuzz on his pyjama pants, and stills his hands. This train of thought is making him restless, which he isn’t used to. At least while they’re exploring Tartarus, the nerves can be put to good use. Although it might be a mischaracterisation to call them nerves; Makoto doesn’t so much fear death during those missions as he does find himself hypervigilant, overly aware of every threat, every possible mistake. Call that the mind of a leader.
Perhaps it’s the silence, then, that’s toying with him now. Takeba and Iori are a lot of things, but they’re personable, to be sure. The unending dialogue that they keep up is usually plenty for Makoto to distract himself with, if he notices his nerves starting to fray.
“Are you hungry?” Sanada asks suddenly. Makoto glances back at him, sees that at some point, he’d closed his textbook—properly this time, with a slip of paper to mark his spot rather than his thumb. “I can’t recommend midnight snacks as a regular habit, but it’s all right to enjoy them from time to time.” His lip quirks. “Besides, you look bored.”
Does he? Makoto really couldn’t say what expression he’s making right now. He’s not usually cognisant of it. Regardless, he’ll take Sanada’s word for it… and sometimes, when people offer something like that, it’s because they themself want it, and are looking for an excuse. Not to say that Sanada (who is a decent role model, all considered) is necessarily approaching it from that angle, but there’s no harm in saying yes if that might be the case.
“...I could eat,” Makoto says. Sanada’s eyebrows raise, like he hadn’t expected the reply, but he smiles a moment later. He claps Makoto’s shoulder and gets to his feet, nodding towards the kitchen. As any good role model, Sanada waits for Makoto to have stood and pushed his chair back in before he walks into the next room.
As Sanada flicks on the light, he admits, “I don’t cook much, so it’s not going to be anything super complicated.” He opens the cabinet and pokes through until he comes up with two cups of instant ramen, shooting Makoto an uncharacteristically mischievous smile. “Or complicated at all, I guess. Is this fine?”
Makoto nods, because it is. He doesn’t mind cup noodle, at any rate. What keeps him from responding properly isn’t the choice of snack at all, but rather an odd feeling, one that he had been more or less conscious of upon entering the lounge and finding Sanada still awake, but that has only intensified in the time since. He wouldn’t call it wariness, because really, what reason would he have for that? Either towards his upperclassman or the hour itself, it would just be irrational. (Beyond that, the hour is almost over, so if Makoto is feeling on edge on account of that, he’ll be over it soon. Maybe.)
More… Makoto rubs behind his ear and bites the inside of his cheek. When he was little—he remembers only one instance from when he was a child where he tried to speak of the Dark Hour with someone else. It hadn’t really been meant as a “confessional” in any sense. In the aftermath of the accident, Makoto spent a few years in court-mandated therapy. The professionals always seemed to know only about as much what to do with Makoto as his guardians at the time did, which is to say, nothing. Makoto really never had anything much to say in therapy, after all.
He did, however, mention the Dark Hour just once—not by that name, and not with any particular intention. It just came out in passing, about the coffins and the stillness. The therapist had stared at him for a long while after (for once not the one to fill the session with chatter) and Makoto got the distinct impression that it had been a bother to her.
After, he was sent to a psychiatrist and asked to repeat what he said. Makoto saw no point in doing so. He stopped therapy only a few months after that, anyway.
And maybe that’s it—what had bothered him then about the hour, and what continues to unnerve him now. How isolating— no, that’s too strong a word. How familiar it is, the solitude during this hour. In his room, by himself, Makoto can sink back into a very familiar place. Their ventures into Tartarus almost don’t feel real, and the wealth of things to divide his attention keep Makoto from being too introspective about it.
This, though, is quiet. And Makoto can hear the rest of the dorm as well, the creak of the ceiling overhead as someone upstairs goes to the bathroom. Sanada is subdued at this hour, but unquestionably here and and acting fairly normal, all considered. Apparently waffling over using the microwave.
He glances back at Makoto for a moment, then stops, his thumb hovering over the start button.
“What are you thinking about?” Sanada ventures after a beat. Not are you okay, which Makoto suspects would be warranted as well. He likes that about Sanada, he thinks. The guy certainly comes off as oblivious, and he is, but there are some areas where he can be remarkably down-to-earth.
Makoto considers the question. “I haven’t done this before,” he admits. “Spend time with… right now, outside of missions.”
Sanada tilts his head to the side. “It is odd, isn’t it? I’ve had a hard time getting used to it, even after several years.” He turns back to the microwave, apparently deciding to use it. “It reminds me of being awake as a kid, when you knew you weren’t supposed to be out of bed… Like I’m going to step wrong and wake somebody up and get in trouble.” He lets out a quiet laugh. It’s… a surprisingly apt description, particularly from Sanada, Makoto isn’t sure for a moment how to reply.
He… never really knows how to reply, to any of them. It’s obvious that Takeba and Iori find him unsettling at times, and that in itself Makoto doesn’t have any opinions on—it’s only natural, perhaps. Sanada (and to an extent Kirijou), though… He really is very normal, isn’t he?
“We won’t, though,” Makoto says eventually. “Get… in trouble.”
“Not tonight, no.” Sanada smiles, picking up one of the cup noodles. “Thank you for humouring me, Yuki. I needed the company, too.”
Makoto is so distracted by that, he almost doesn’t manage to stop Sanada from putting the cup in the microwave without adding water to it first. (Frankly, he’s not even sure you’re supposed to cook the foam cups in the microwave, but that much, Makoto isn’t going to complain about. The dry noodles are a much larger concern.)
Was that what he needed? Company? He’d come down for water. Then again, it’s been so long since Makoto has even thought about it—not that he’s wanted or not wanted to be around other people, just… He isn’t sure. He’s not sure he’d even be able to identify the feeling, if he was having it.
This is nice, though.
“You’re welcome,” Makoto says—probably an inappropriate amount of time after, because Sanada glances at him like he’s confused, one eyebrow raised in question. It lowers after a beat, and he offers another smile before his attention returns to the microwave. Watching it won’t make their noodles cook faster, though, so Makoto isn’t really sure why he bothers.