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The tall, ornate base for Masamune’s statue is caked in the same shoddy posters again, but Yusuke slouches on a bench nearby. His face looks toward the decorated gate to Aoba Castle, even though he doesn’t truly drink in the festive sight.
Even from a modest distance, Ann and Ryuji can see the thick, shining glaze that cakes his blank eyes.
“H-how ‘bout I pay for all of us?” Ryuji murmurs, struggling to recalibrate their focus. “I-uh…look, I ain’t gonna act like he needs to be spoiled before we send the calling card, I-I just—“
Ann turns to him, hops to the tips of her toes (the pink heels of her tennis shoes almost let her reach his height), and brings a hand up to his hair. She tousles the fluffy blond spikes until he falls silent, recoiling as he reaches for her arm.
“Chill out already,” she sighs, her smile stretching as Ryuji’s face flushes baby pink. “Since when was it bad for friends to worry about each other?”
With a flick of her wrist, she brings her hand back before he can grab it. She plants her shoes back on the pavement.
“We can do both,” Ann states frankly. “We’ll take him out to shop and eat, and we’ll split the cost on whatever he buys.” Her pause is brief. “Should we give him an ‘allowance’ for the day?”
“I guess?” Ryuji gradually recollects his cool as he whines. “He’s still gonna blow through his money somewhere on our trip, sooooo—“
“Yeah, I know,” she replies. “So, don’t be the only one to pay for anything he wants this time. You shouldn’t have to blow your money for everyone else, right?” Ann lowers her voice as they resume walking. “We’ll go half-and-half on something for Yusuke to eat, and a couple of things if he wants to buy something—or one thing if it’s that pricey. Sounds good?”
“What’s ‘pricey’ gonna look like?” Ryuji inquires.
Ann wrinkles her forehead, her sunglasses barely keeping perched over her bright hair. Ryuji blinks, and her wrinkles have already undone themselves.
“We’ll see when we get there,” she hastily amends. “I got an idea for how much is too much, but like, what’s Yusuke going to be into and how long would it last him?”
For better and for worse, the predictions as to those answers are fleeting and ever changing. Yusuke seems to find a curious quality (be it beauty “conventionally” or otherwise) in just about anything. Just a personal attachment—even with nothing else to speak of—could make the clinching difference.
“Okay,” Ryuji says at ease. “We gotta get back before we talk about the calling card tonight. We got a few hours, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Ann beams, glossing over her phone’s lockscreen then shoving it into a pocket of her seafoam-green shorts. “We can be out for two or three hours! Maybe we should get back a half-hour ahead?”
“‘Kay, that’s that.” Ryuji perks up when their slower stroll brings them a single meter’s breadth from their friend. “Yusuke!”
At the sound of his name, the glaze over his eyes makes itself scarce. His lips part ever-so lightly as he blinks about thrice in rapid succession. Still, he calmly turns his head to face them. His midnight hair flutters in the motion.
As the plump and pretty server sets their orders in front of them, one at a time, the weight of their check mounts upon Ryuji and Ann.
Ann’s order hosts mostly salmon and tuna, with only a few other seafood. Ryuji felt good about the chef’s choice in nigiri and sashimi, and it is an expansive variety. Each of them also starts with a small plate of a single specialty roll. Together, it shouldn’t cost anything more than sixteen-thousand yen.
So on its own, Yusuke’s platter would have to be about twelve-thousand yen. His friends could still pay for it, but that doesn’t stop Ann from gawking in horror, nor the bead of sweat that rolls down Ryuji’s jaw.
His chopsticks elegantly pinned between his fingers, Yusuke seizes most of the ginger from his tray. With sushi, this is his ritual palate cleanser before all else. Everyone is done talking so they may feast.
Ann glances between her food and that of the boys. She swallows her delicious first piece of salmon avocado roll and lightly pokes Ryuji’s arm.
“If you pay for Yusuke,” she insists, “I’ll pay for us.” Caught in the middle of a bite, he blankly stares at her. “Our orders are gonna be, like, only three…or four-thousand? Well, look, ours’ll be a little more than his. My bonus from filling in for a photoshoot went into my account last night.”
Ryuji swallows his bite. “You sure?” he finally responds.
“Totally,” she says.
Yusuke turns to them. “Should I pay for my own order?” he asks, calm but earnest.
The two of them shake their heads. He may fall short on money somewhere on this road trip, but it was better later than on the very day they’re supposed to “spoil” him.
An arts and crafts store feels appropriate for Yusuke. It’s also unsurprising by what he brings up for his friends’ approval—it’s an expensive haul. It’s a hefty stack of square origami paper, an “exclusive” palette of watercolor paints, and a large set of watercolor pencils.
“Sorry, we’ve gotta put back one o’ those,” Ryuji sheepishly answers.
Yusuke is unperturbed. “I actually have an alternative. One moment, please.”
He returns with the square paper still resting between his arm and chest, but his other arm holds another box.
Ann looks over the cover on the latter. “‘Origami star’ paper strips?”
“I wish to take up origami as a new hobby,” Yusuke proudly muses.
When they check out, sure enough, it’s cheaper than either one of the premium sets.
“It’s a better hobby than donatin’ blood,” Ryuji murmurs.
When Yusuke glares, Ryuji quickly rebukes, “What? I told ya already! If you didn’t slow down, it’d get even worse than you gettin’ pale and lightheaded.”
“My apologies,” Yusuke quickly concedes. “Your advice was quite helpful. I’ve tried to place two or three months between my donations.”
“So, is that better?” Ann asks Ryuji as they walk out of the store.
“Yeah,” he says. “We actually met up at the hospital when summer break started. I was just gettin’ outta physical rehab for the day.”
“Though I presume you didn’t wish for us to go there together again?” Yusuke says, his voice laced with a coy tone.
“Well yeah, I was happy to hang out,” Ryuji retorts. “I just didn’t wanna see your ass there.”
The lights of the RV are so dim that inching the switch one more notch down would turn them off altogether. The trio barely notices it, the moonlight doing enough by seeping in and setting their silhouettes aglow.
Ann gazes warmly—if also sleepily—at her two friends across from her in the booth. Her phone is open to a paused online video, the screen’s brightness at its most scant.
Yusuke is fast asleep. The side of his head nestles firmly between Ryuji’s shoulder and chest, his lower body angling itself so that his legs perpetually brush up against Ann’s one crossed leg.
Ryuji…actually wouldn’t mind this. It’s calming and cozy; he can pull his handheld console out of his duffle bag and whittle away at Innocent Sin for a while, and Ann can watch her videos. But tragically, a light dribble of Yusuke’s slobber seeps into his tank top (and barely breaches his bare skin), and now his face burns under the dreamy aqua eyes staring at them.
“Mm-mmh…hm…” Yusuke slowly opens his eyes. No one else has moved, and his whimper is the only sound to rise above their breaths. He tilts his head up to meet Ryuji’s dark oak eyes. “Ah, it’s you.”
“Y-yeeeaaa…uh…” Ryuji drawls confusedly.
Yusuke’s legs kick aimlessly, jolting Ann straight in her seat when a slow push collides with her own limbs.
“O-ow, ow,” she yelps, “cut it out!”
The other boy seems to finally realize where he is again. “Ah, I apologize,” he stumbles. “My dreams haven’t been quite so lucid for some time.” He pulls his legs back to return Ann’s space, but takes more from Ryuji as he slings his limbs over his lap. “Or so bitter, for that matter.”
The two blond heads slowly dart up, meeting each other in the eyes. This has to be what they and Yusuke had dragged one another around Sendai for.
“Do you need to talk about it, Yusuke?” Ann quickly interjects. “I’m sorry for hollering like that. I was spacing out pretty bad when you woke up.”
“It’s quite alright,” is her answer. His voice is sincere, even though his eyes lose focus on the gun graphic of Ryuji’s tank top.
The silence disconcerts Ryuji and Ann, who can’t bear it for a second more.
“Hey,” Ryuji chirps, patting the other boy’s shoulder. “Hey? Yusuke. Talk to me.”
Yusuke frees Ryuji’s lap of his own weight, taking his proper seat next to him in the RV booth. His head towers over Ryuji’s and Ann’s once again.
“I’m afraid I might not be so different from Ango Natsume,” he confesses. “He may be the one without inspiration, copying off other literature and even screenplays or video games.” He leans over, wrapping his slender arms around his stomach. “Even so, he was first a victim of that same corruption, his family name and his passion for writing used by his publishers so that they alone would reap the rewards—it’s from their false interest in his own career that he turned to such arrogance, desperate to succeed off the works of others, much like them.”
He leans back against the cushion of his seat, his arms still resting at the bottom of his torso. “When Madarame left, I fell into my slump in quite a similar way. I still remember how it felt to navigate, to be repulsed by any opportunity with the slightest sign of a poison that would mutate me into the spitting image of the man I once called my sensei.”
For either of their shortcomings at any other time, Ryuji and Ann know to let the silence linger, to give it a second more to dampen the inside of their party’s RV. Yusuke doesn’t even flinch or dart his eyes elsewhere as he drinks it in. As for the pair of confidants, they take the chance to choose their words carefully.
Finally, Ryuji chimes in. “Is it a bad thing to know where he’s comin’ from? We got into his Trauma Cell, anyway, sure. But…I dunno if even Alice Hiiragi would’ve changed with every step we took as the Phantom Thieves. Not without what Ann did. You might be what Ango Natsume’s Shadow’s gotta hear.”
Ann’s eyes quietly brighten, her mouth dropping as she comes to realize it, too.
“What do you mean?” Yusuke interrogates.
Before Ryuji can scramble together a better explanation, Ann leans over the table.
“What you and Natsume went through,” she says, “really is similar, and that’s not a bad thing. I think Ryuji’s trying to say that the difference is in where you two are now. You got out of your slump eventually…but either Natsume hasn’t ever gotten out of his, or he only did by becoming just as bad as his publishers, and using people’s desires to do even worse.” The girl backs off again.
“I could’ve been doing the monstrous things that Alice was,” she laments, yet with increasing vigor and passion, “but she also could’ve been doing really good. She could’ve met people like you and Ryuji, or Ren and Shiho, or everyone else in our group. I can’t even pretend that I have my whole life planned out, or how I’ll be a ray of light for every person I ever meet. I just knew that Alice could be an inspiring light if she returned those stolen desires. Even after what Kamoshida did, Ryuji and Shiho are still here. Same with Mishima-kun…and me.” She takes a deep breath to collect herself, despite not being anywhere close to tears. “You’re still on a full art scholarship at Kosei High, Yusuke. And if Natsume turns over a new leaf, he could become a talented writer, too.”
“I think that’s something just his Shadow needs to hear,” Ryuji responds with an almost overly eager nod. “It actually makes it cooler that you got his keyword for us, right? Even if you only ever get to kick his Shadow’s ass with that, you still got him in the real world for his shitty take on Sayuri.”
Yusuke is caught off-guard by Ryuji’s latter point, the ensuing utter catching itself partway. But a nearly disbelieving chuckle restores a semblance of serenity to his beautiful visage.
“I couldn’t even bring myself to scream at him that night,” he muses. “It would’ve been rather undignified, I must admit. There was also my ulterior objective to receive our entry into his Jail. Yet, even beyond that, I suppose his ignorance was never unfamiliar to me.” He closes his eyes, the moonlight glowing softly against his eyelids. “The heart will forever be an enigma—and so I wonder if he may truly succeed his grandfather after this is over.”
Ann turns to Ryuji, providing him a silent, sugary-sweet smile. He returns it with a toothy grin.
“I only hope these nightmares will disperse once more, as well,” murmurs Yusuke. “And yet, I can’t help but…pardon—“
His sonorous yawn is almost an instant relief to his words.
“I guess you haven’t had sushi and ice cream that good in a while?” Ann teases him, gingerly standing up from her seat.
“How long did I sleep at first?” he asks them.
“Oh shit, not that long at all,” Ryuji sheepishly looks at his phone. “Ren said that the rest of the gang were gonna need another hour.”
Ann creeps over to his side and glosses over the text on his phone. “The same sushi joint?!” she gawks. “Well crap, I didn’t think they wanted to go there, either.”
“Sendai is best regarded for its beef tongue, correct?” Yusuke ponders aloud. “Perhaps we may all dine together over their specialty before we leave the city.”
“I’d say that works for me,” Ryuji replies. “‘Sides, our trip into Sendai Station today was just for us, and theirs just for them.”
“Right,” mutters a sheepish Ann. “Now I need to take a little nap, too.” Though gentle as she could humanly be, her abrupt nestle into one half of Ryuji’s lap still forces a yelp out of his mouth. “Sorry, you and Yusuke just looked really cozy over here.”
Yusuke murmurs his beg for pardon, but wastes no time to claim the other half.
Ann lazily drops her sunglasses on the table, nestling half of her lovely face in Ryuji’s chest. Yusuke follows suit, falling slack and snoring softly as soon as his eyes slam shut again.
With their weight heavy but gentle against him, even without any ice cream to have topped off his full stomach, Ryuji follows his friends into a sleep so quiet, yet far from alone.