Chapter Text
Persona 5: Daywatch
Thursday, 1 September 2016
Early Evening
Yongen, Leblanc
Futaba tapped away at her laptop at the very last bar seat, fiddling with a worm intended to allow her to override video broadcast transmissions. She couldn’t think of a place to use it, probably never would, but everybody needed a hobby. Sure, she promised Akira she’d help with the Phansite, but it had another admin to help moderate it and her bots were more than enough to control most flamers.
Sojiro tossed the dish drying towel over his shoulder and turned down the remaining coffee siphon. “C’mon, kid. You’ve made new friends and not just gone out, but gone to the beach.” He came to a stop on the other side of the counter, a proud smile wrinkling his face. “God, Wakaba would be so proud of her little lady.”
Futaba’s stomach did a flip.
Standing straighter, Sojiro planted a hand on his hip. “What say we go celebrate a summer of blue skies and unexpected victories?”
Opportunity sparkled in her eyes and she started tapping her fists beside her computer as she chanted, “Sushi! Sushi!”
Sojiro laughed, the kind of pure, inclusive mirth she hadn’t heard from him since the last time he and Mom were drinking together. “Okay, kid.” He pulled out his phone to browse for places to go.
She slipped out hers to summon her Key Item so she could bring him. Maybe find out how much progress was being made on the nieces and nephews front. The others made a big deal about him having a suicide attempt, but a huge chunk of teenagers went through that. Hell, learning she wasn’t alone but that not only Akira but even Mishima had been there chipped away at the sense of isolation which helped push her to that point in the first place. A few minutes later he sent his ETA. “Okay. My Key Item will be here in five minutes.”
Sojiro blinked.
“I mean Akira,” she explained. She’d teach him RPG terms some day. They had to sink in eventually. “’Cause if I have him I’m guaranteed to complete a quest?”
Sojiro gave a small head-shake and, “Kids and their games,” before returning to his phone. “Ever been to the Golden Bowl? We’ve never been to Ginza, but they specialize in sushi and it’s got good ratings.”
The bell jingled as the transfer student pushed the door open. Futaba chirped, “C’mon, we’re goin’ to dinner!”
The frown mid-way through forming on Sojiro’s face pressed into a thin line, but after a deep breath he sighed. “Fine. Drop off your things quick and let’s get going.”
Akira gave a nod with his gaze off in the distance as he treaded upstairs. He didn’t look like he’d advanced to next base with Hifumi, but he also didn’t look like they had a fight. Progress?
Futaba decided to call it another victory for the day, whatever it was, and danced on her bar seat.
Sojiro held on to annoyance with her for a few moments longer before pressing a hand against his back like some old man. “I suppose he must’ve had something to do with your breakthrough. You two seem joined at the hip lately.”
“Nah. That’ll be him and Hifumi, soon enough.” She let out a cackle.
A touch of pink coloured Sojiro’s cheeks and his eyes widened. “Futaba… a girl like you shouldn’t be talking about such things!”
She waved him off and returned to her computer worm. “Bah. There’s plenty worse online.”
Morgana padded closer from the stairs. “So where are we going?”
“Sushi,” she said as her focus slipped back to her code.
She could practically hear the sparkle in his eyes. “Take me with you! I didn’t get enough of salmon roe. Or anago.” He panted. “Fatty tuna…”
Sojiro frowned. “Where is he? All the kid needs to do is drop off his bag.”
“He doesn’t hate it, but he’ll change out of his Shujin uniform if he has the chance,” Morgana explained.
“He’s making himself presentable,” she said part as translation and part to defend her adopted family. She blinked and turned to the team leader. “Where’d you eat sushi? Somewhere cool before you got a fur coat?”
His lip twitched and she caught a hint of fang before Morgana scowled. “No. We had a celebration after Kaneshiro’s change of heart and we all met at a sushi bar in Ginza. They made me hide, but I got to sit next to Lady Ann.”
A thrum passed through his throat and Futaba tried to think of how to shut down a cat who thought he could date the blonde model. She was pretty sure Japan had more kinds of p*rn than anywhere else in the world, but with a cat? Squick.
Footsteps thudded down the stairs and Akira strode out, straightening the sleeves of a thin black jacket over a white shirt. He’d also replaced the red-and-black plaid pants for solid black slacks. “Okay, so where we going?”
Futaba saved her project and closed up. “Sushi. You may thank me now.”
Morgana hopped up to one of the bar seats. “C’mon, Joker! Time’s wasting. There’s a fatty tuna out there with my name on it!”
Sojiro swatted at the at-the-moment-cat team leader with his hand towel. “Down! Away!” He frowned at the kids. “We’re going to a proper restaurant, not a cat cafe. Bad enough you two keep letting him down here.”
Futaba turned a smirk on the team leader now hiding underneath a chair. “Tough luck. I’ll be sure to eat your fatty tuna.”
The look of betrayal on his face surpassed anything she thought a feline was capable of. If only he didn’t slink away when she opened the camera app on her phone.
Sojiro closed out the register and locked it. “C’mon, kiddos. The cat can take care of himself, we need to get going. Their website said materials are limited and I haven’t had sushi since the party at Blue Cove.”
She blew a raspberry at the team leader but Akira swatted her arm. “I’ll bring you a couple. Go clean up those straw things you’ve got all over my work bench.”
Morgana slipped out from under the chair. “They’re homunculi and it’s my work bench!”
Sojiro cleared his throat from the door and Futaba grabbed Akira’s hand to dash off into the concrete wilds of Tokyo.
Thursday, 1 September 2016
Evening
Ginza Sushi Bar
Akira picked up another sea urchin sushi with a set of chopsticks and popped it into his mouth. The briny taste hit rather hard, but contained an unexpected sweetness. Too bad they were interrupted at the celebration for Kaneshiro’s change of heart.
A commis chef came and set a tray of sushi with Futaba’s latest order down in front of her. His squint at the chopsticks in the transfer student’s left was interrupted by flabbergasted wide eyes when she ignored her chopsticks and reached straight out for her rolls and started stuffing them in her mouth. He trudged away muttering something about whether seven years was worth it.
Akira elbowed her. “Hey, hey. Easy. You’ll make yourself sick.” He covered the tray with his hand to block her. “Slow down and savor it.” He would never admit he shoveled food down as fast as he could while at the Institute, but Mother was very particular about proper eating etiquette. And she was right about one thing – you couldn’t savor the full range of flavors with a quick bite and swallow.
Futaba stuck a tongue out at him, with no few half-chewed rice granules stuck to it.
Sojiro, sitting at her other side, nudged her with his elbow. “Futaba! Nobody’s going to be taking your food, it’s okay to ease up a little.”
Futaba swallowed with large enough motion to make her head bob, but that just seemed to catch something because she slapped the table.
Akira took her empty tea cup and filled it halfway, then handed it to her. She threw it back like Mother did a shot of scotch.
This time she swallowed with a little less force and a look of relief smoothed the crinkles at the corners of her eyes. She held out her cup for a refill, then drank that and set it down with a heavy thunk. “Gotta hit the porcelain palace.”
Giving a long-suffering sigh, Sojiro pointed down a hall and she took off. He watched her with a wistful, distant expression. “Funny how a few years can seem a lifetime ago. We used to go out to eat every time I had an excuse to visit Blue Cove – Wakaba, Futaba and I. Futaba was pretty much like that too, but that’s to be expected from a woman as willful as Wakaba. She just didn’t have arms long enough to get into this much trouble when she was a little girl.”
Akira chewed and swallowed his last urchin sushi. “She sure seems to have gotten over her fear of the outside.”
The smile on Sojiro’s face slipped away, but it was the way those brown eyes bored into him that made the transfer student feel exposed. “Still working on the Tokyo crowds, yourself?”
If he hadn’t just swallowed, whatever was in Akira’s mouth would’ve gone down. How did the old man somehow always know?
The corners of Sojiro’s lips turned up. “I’ve been around the block a few times, kid. You go to school, and you visit your friends out there, but the way you let out a breath when you step inside… it’s like you’re holding your breath the whole time out there.” He picked up a salmon sushi. “Hell, even I thought the crowds and hectic pace were a bit much when I first moved here.” He popped it in his mouth and chewed.
Akira let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I’ve been working on it by volunteering with Toranosuke-san, but… how did you get over it?”
Sojiro swallowed and poked at another sushi. “Same way you youngsters do your laps in at gym class. You just do it. First day of the year it’s always hard, and last day of the year it’s so easy you finish four and you haven’t broken a sweat.”
Akira’d been a runner his whole life, it was one thing he and Ryuji shared that they couldn’t describe but just knew. Though he’d never experienced the difficulty others talked about with laps or jumps, he understood the point. Akira shrugged and popped another sushi in his mouth, looking to the hallway where the hacker dashed off. “Would be nice if things could improve that much for everyone.”
“Trouble on the home front?” Sojiro asked with the tone of somebody who suspected, and wanted to put a conversation hook out there.
Months ago, the transfer student would’ve thought it nosy and pushed the man away. Now he just wanted some clarity. “Hifumi’s title match didn’t go so well, and she’s keeping a brave face, but it shook her. Shogi’s one of the core fixtures of her life, and she just lost the biggest match of her life.”
“So far,” the restaurateur said before popping another sushi in his mouth, giving a quick chew, and swallowing. “I know Japan’s pretty bad about this, but… You’re a bike-rider, you should understand: nobody learns to ride without falling down a few times. Get up, dust yourself off, and be glad you didn’t run into a trash can.”
Akira swallowed a bite of fatty tuna. “Only an idiot would ride so badly he’s smashing into trash cans.”
Minato-ku, Junes
Hanamura Yosuke let out a sudden sneeze, then swatted for the papers sent flying from his desk in the mid-management office.
Teddie caught one of the airborne papers with a grin. “Are you bearly hanging in there?”
Ginza Sushi Bar
Akira picked at the vinegared rice on his tray. “Between the game and trying to prepare for another court appearance to help her mom, she hasn’t had any time this week. I never relied on family, but she had one worth the yearly reunion. And just when her mother shows a willingness to reform, the so-called ‘justice system’ is trying to throw her away. I just wish the world wasn’t so eager to kick good people in the teeth.”
Sojiro swallowed another slice of sushi. “Ah. Her mother one of those people to get swept up in all the Medjed hoopla?”
Turning over a fatty tuna roll, Akira sighed. “Kaneshiro, actually. Money laundering. She’s going to prison or away into protective custody. Either way, Hifumi’s losing her mother for years.” He flipped the fatty tuna again. “I’ve had years to think about what I’d do if my old man died. Wished him dead. But Hifumi… she had one of those big families that get together and smile at the camera and aren’t faking. They went places and did things for fun. She even still wears that pretty knot in her hair in memory of her mother. How do I help her when the same people who put me through a kangaroo court are the ones with her family?”
Letting out a long breath, Sojiro looked over the transfer student. “You just can’t leave things alone, can you?”
Akira picked up his fatty tuna and stared at the spiral. If he were someone more gutsy like Ryuji he’d just pop it in his mouth, throw out some confident platitude, and cruise on with ease instead of letting the conversation get awkward and heavy.
A hand snatched out over his shoulder and grabbed his tuna. Futaba popped it in her mouth and plopped down, chewing. “Mm. He may be a cat, but Morgana’s got good taste.” Hopping onto her stool, she flaunted a grin specked with rice. “Hifumi-san’s gonna be fine as long as you’re there to keep her warm.”
Akira could’ve sworn his face burst into flames. “Futaba!”
She cackled, then spotted movement behind the counter and threw her arm into the air. “More anago, please!”
Friday, 2 September 2016
After School
Shujin, Academic Building Rooftop
Akira blinked against the brightness of the sun as he stepped out onto the roof, and slipped his satchel from his shoulder to elbow. As the brightness of the roof resolved into clear shapes, he recognized the auburn-haired upperclassman kneeling next to the carrot planters.
Smiling, she straightened her back from tending the remaining carrots and brushed at her track pants as best she could without getting up from her knees. “Akira-kun, I haven’t seen you since Tanabata.” Her smile faded into commiseration. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to go.”
Stomach grumbling, Akira set his satchel down. “I didn’t have a date, but a couple friends invited me because they knew I was new in town. I made tanzaku. Ate a bunch of fried foods.” He felt tremble in his stomach. “Definitely paid for it later that evening.” He opened his lunch anyway.
“Oh, I love squid tempura.” A frown slipped over Haru’s face and she turned back to her planters to pull weeds. “Or used to. My fia—father doesn’t allow me to have it anymore.” She pushed a smile out. It looked like Hifumi when she put on a brave face to make him feel better.
Akira pulled out the box of vinegared rice and pickled vegetables and popped its top off. “You already have something? It’s no tempura, but it’s what I have this week.”
Senpai’s smile faltered and her eyes flicked down, back up, then down again. “I…” She looked to the modest plastic container. “Thank you, but I already ate. Right now, I’m trying to get my babies healthy again.”
Akira sat down against a desk, pondering as he ate. The team went to Mementos yesterday and even dealt with a few requests on the way to Yuuki, but a location for Matsush*ta still stumped them so they didn’t have a definitive target. After chewing on a store-bought carrot he thought to mention, “Your carrots were good. Better than this one, actually. Boss-san said it was good even before he found out they came from a rooftop garden. You’ve got an amazing green thumb.”
She gave a weary smile, a trace spark in her eyes reminding him of Hifumi when she realized she made a poor move – at least, before she decided how to crush him. He couldn’t decide what Senpai was holding back, though. Her face wasn’t tense enough for the smile to be forced.
The gardener turned back and returned to the last weeding of the box of planter carrots. “Sometimes I wish life was as simple as it would be for these plants. When the wind blows, they bend and return. When the rain falls, they shrug off the endless drops and grow. It’s like a perfect practitioner of wu wei.”
He’d heard of that from both his parents, especially when lecturing him. “’Doing nothing’, from the Tao Te Jing?”
Rising with a brightness in her eyes, Senpai smiled. “Yes!” Her smile faded. “But it doesn’t mean ‘doing nothing’, it means ‘effortless action’.”
Akira swallowed a large bite of rice and vegetables. He could feel his face tighten. “A bunch of nonsense double-talk designed to confuse the vulnerable into obedience. By definition action is effort.”
Senpai scowled. “It’s about right action. When you’re prepared and things are in order, action doesn’t require tremendous effort. It should be flowing, like water. That’s why water, the most humble element, is powerful enough to break down mountains.”
Swallowing another large bite, Akira set aside his lunch box. After making sure everything was down, he took in a breath. “Water doesn’t break down rock by being humble. It does it by being endless and always moving. Each drop breaks apart against the rock, it takes thousands just to break away a single grain. If anything, water isn’t a symbol of surrender, it’s a symbol of the power of persistence. The rock doesn’t bend, it can’t, but the rain and tides batter down through endless effort.”
She looked at the fist he raised in the air, the narrowness of her eyes gone. Her eyes remained steady on him for a long beat, then a strangled sound escaped her throat. Senpai pulled in a short breath, then her lips cracked into a smile and chuckling rumbled out of her, turning into an airy laughter that brought a warmth to his face. “I’d never thought of that. But I think you misunderstand the flexibility espoused by wu wei and Taoism. It’s not about passivity as much as readiness to engage any possibility. ‘To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders’. Lao Tzu.”
“Sounds like a Yamato Nadeshiko. The idea of people who surrender are attractive to stodgy conservatism the world over. I think that’s just strongmen asking for enablers. Real people have their own wants and wills and that makes them way more interesting than doormats.” Akira squared his shoulders. “Before the imperialists got their hooks into him, Watsuji saw unity between Kierkegaard and zen Buddhism.”
Senpai blinked. “Kierkegaard?”
Glancing at the team leader standing on a desk, Akira asked, “We got time?”
“I want you to rest, we already did a brief excursion to Mementos to change Mishima’s heart,” he said. “As long as you leave enough room to check supplies, today’s yours.”
Akira turned his focus to her. “Well, I can explain why I like Kierkegaard if you’d like a hand up here.”
She giggled. “I’m sure with your noble cat watching us, we can make some progress.”
“Hey!”
Friday, 2 September 2016
Late Afternoon
Mementos, Lobby
Akira rolled his head right and left, stretching out stiffness from navigating the churning masses after Shujin. Haru-senpai gave him a few things to think about. She might have praised the water for its apparent stillness, but she much more resembled its determined movement, wearing back and forth like the tides. He wanted to go into Matsush*ta’s palace and smash the place up with Ryuji, but Hifumi couldn’t summon Dihya in the real world to scan for him and Morgana’s ability to slip in and out of the thousands of palaces that might be in Tokyo wouldn’t help identify which palace went to the right person, so Akira left the rest of the Phantom Thieves to grapple with finding a needle in a needlestack. He breathed deep to ready himself before approaching the blue, barred door off to the corner of Mementos.
A melody like a distant concert hall provided almost enough of a sedate sense to counter the imposition of chains and a locked, barred door. Beyond stood his twin wardens, and past them the empty desk and twin guillotines. He sat down, crossing his legs. “I need to get some more of those protective charms or my friends are going to get hurt when it counts.”
Caroline cracked her baton against the bars. “You’re coming here with demands, Inmate?”
Akira sighed. “Fine, we’ll take this with part of a process. So, where were we?”
Justine flipped through a few pages and read. “A Pyro Jack which can impair your foes.”
Early Evening
Velvet Room
Akira wiped his chin and straightened from the steel toilet at the back of his cell. Neither he nor the girls had precise ideas where the power of his Persona needed to be – at least, beyond Caroline’s useless “Stronger, you weakling,” so after succeeding at chopping apart nine Personas to reach the Pyro Jack, he kept going. The problem was the irregularity of it. Merging two fiery Personas never resulted in another blazing Persona. Following their vague insinuations, he stopped on a powerful tortoise with cold fog rolling off its shell.
It reminded him of the enervation that followed Kawakami-sensei no matter how much she struggled to both teach and moonlight as a maid. The twins took it aside to execute and infuse into one of the dull, crystalline shards he picked up from Shadows in Mementos.
Caroline set the now cloudy white crystal the size of his thumb on the shelf beside his barred door. “Not bad, Inmate. And here I was thinking you’d give up a while ago.”
Akira swiped the crystal and shot a glare at her. “The f*ck’s that supposed to mean?”
Justine turned a look of disappointment on him that hurt more than her sister’s baton strikes. “Like that, Inmate. You fear failure, so you set up the conditions for failure before you even begin, that you may have an excuse to externalize your failure. That is how you prevent yourself from forming bonds.”
Akira stepped back from the bars. He hadn’t gotten such a sucker punch from Shadow Togo.
An exchange passed between the twins before Justine rolled her eyes. She drew herself up to her stunted height and turned up her nose. “As expected of the human our master declared to have potential.”
Caroline let slip a faint eye-roll at her sister before recovering her composure. “Keep up your dedication, Inmate.”
Akira shrugged. “The national motto is ‘fly or die’. My old bastard never gave me much encouragement, but there’s just… something about the look on people’s faces when I exceed their expectations.”
The braided child masquerading as a warden gave a small nod, then turned her head to her sister. “Your task list does appear to be moving him along the path of improvement. He has been improving his focus and utilization of his Personas, as well as toiling away at the real-world bonds which strengthen them. Granted, it has required some chance encounters when the list implied an overriding sense of pragmatism at the start, but improvement is improvement.”
Justine stepped back, that baton falling slack from her feigned disinterest. “My list? I thought it was written by you.”
Akira smirked. “Clearly it was me.”
Both girls snapped, “Stay out of this.” A beat passed as Caroline flipped through the pages. “Hm, true. It is too precise for you.”
Justine gaped, then slammed her baton against the bars before he could even deliver a quip. “Silence!” She crossed her arms and tried to project the image of somebody in control, but that just made her look more like a toddler breathing between tantrums to the transfer student. After a few moments, she asked, “Are you sure it couldn’t have come from Master?”
Caroline’s eye flitted back and forth. “Impossible. He was surprised when the Inmate acquired a second Persona. He could not have had such a list written before then.” She looked down at her clipboard stuffed with papers, as if hoping to divine new meaning from them.
Akira stepped closer and braced his arms against the bars. “What if the list’s not for me? Not just for me, I mean.”
Justine scoffed. “Every item on it is a task for you to fill, idiot.”
He waggled a finger at them. “Overtly, yes. But internships are the same way: they all have company metrics, but they’re all about teaching the new worker to adapt to the particular corporate setting. And if it’s a good corporation, adjusting the company to take advantage of new knowledge and technology. Haven’t you two been getting better at predicting what combinations of Persona powers will result in a Persona with different power?”
Justine tapped her baton against her shoulder, her eye going to the empty desk returned to the center of the panopticon. “Should we consult Master?”
No words spilled forth, but the tightness in the hand holding her clipboard betrayed a tension that felt out of place. “All Master ordered was for us to oversee Inmate’s rehabilitation. Our only duty is to follow orders.”
“I remember hearing that about the Imijin War,” Akira muttered. “And Nuremburg.”
The twins returned to unison to shout, “Shut up!”
Akira backed up and shrugged. “I’m just saying, maybe one of the underlying purposes of the list is to help you learn about the power of Personas.”
“Power…?” Justine stumbled a half-step back and clutched at her missing eye, her other one scrunched tight. Even her ever-stoic posture curled in on itself.
Caroline slammed her baton across the bars, sending sparks zipping between them.
Justine shot straight, though her eye was a little too wide for her and her voice a bit too manic as she barked, “Caroline! Attend the Inmate’s benefit!”
Oni two blinked, but turned her shocked visage back to the transfer student at the moment in a striped prison uniform. “Very well. We’ve been expanding The Pit, you may now leave another Persona for us to beat into shape!”
He closed his eyes and Thoth, Egyptian god of knowledge and holder of a heavy book, materialized where Genbu once stood. “He’s pretty vulnerable to psycho-kinetics, do you think you could help?”
“Pft,” she spat with her baton against her shoulder. “Can we?”
Justine clutched her clipboard close and stared into him, her impassive mask back. “Merge your power with another’s once more, and we shall do so.”
Friday, 2 September 2016
Evening
Shibuya, Underground Walkway
Feeling drained in more ways than one, Akira stepped into the walkway and tried to sort out where to go get something to eat. Hifumi would be busy today, so there would be no purpose in trying to rush. She wouldn’t even be available to text about weapon modifications, so unless the others had upgrade plans on their own, Akira couldn’t see the need to visit Untouchable today. Food it was. Just not from somewhere within the train stations, he learned from searching for an umbrella that the already marked-up Tokyo prices were even worse right next to transit centers.
He spent a few minutes searching for places Hifumi might be interested in visiting too, and wound up on the line to Ikebukuro Station for a sit-down Chinese restaurant. With rush hour being much longer than an hour around the weekend, he felt crushed like sardines in a can and pushed for the street. Once reaching a bus station for the last leg of the trip, he leaned against the stylized steel frame holding up a cover for a rain shadow.
After a few minutes of phone shogi, lights and the revving of a diesel engine brought Akira’s eyes up to one of Tokyo’s older busses. He boarded and took a moment to pay for the last leg of his trip, but just as the driver reached for the handle to slide the doors closed, Akira spotted a brown-haired figure sprinting for the door. Having been late for the bus before, he stepped into the door zone and reached out to yank the person on board.
Had he known it would have been what some hailed as the second Detective Prince, and others condescended as the Defective Detective, he would have let the bus drive on.
Akechi’s face flickered with gratitude, what may have been disgust, and even an instant of bared teeth and furrowed brow before he was back to smiles and the transfer student questioned whether he saw any of it. “What an unexpected surprise. I must thank you for coming to my rescue.”
“Please pay and take your seats,” the bus driver stated before sliding the doors closed and stepping on the gas.
As the bus pulled back into the street, Akira spotted a couple girls run up to the bus station. Ryuji would’ve had an inappropriate comment about a guy running away from eager groupies.
Instead, the transfer student waited until Akechi counted through pocket change, then had to search through two more pockets for additional change to make the fare. Akechi turned that smile on him, but there was a sharpness in his eyes as they headed to the overhead grips. “I don’t always keep enough pocket change for exact fare, understand.”
“Tell you what,” Akira said, waking his phone back to the browse for restaurants Hifumi might like. “Point out a good sit down place and we’ll call it even. Preferably vegetarian, unlike Officer Ichijou, Hifumi’s not big into meat.”
Akechi gave a smile as if he’d achieved a victory of some sort already. “I happen to have had a client in the area who may have introduced me to an appropriate venue. I personally would have preferred a location with exquisite drinks, but despite my best searching I’ve yet to find a brew that makes people less stupid.”
Akira quirked an eyebrow.
Akechi’s smile itself took on a sharper quality. “Let’s just say that since some Phantom Thief fan hacked Medjed, I’ve been harassed by fans who claim I was wrong about the Phantom Thief.”
Akira tightened his grip on the overhead grip as the bus rounded a corner. “The Phantom Thief did hack Medjed’s website.”
Akechi’s smile evaporated and weary lines etched across his face. He let out a sigh of either disgust or disappointment, it didn’t have enough energy to be clear. “The hack is a change in modus operandi. The Phantom Thief’s previous victories were all specific – even named – operations, complete with the gasconade of a desperate theater performer.” He gestured to the door as much as he could with that metal briefcase in hand. “Next is our stop.”
Akira’s gaze bored into the self-styled detective.
That smile never wavered. “It is quite a respectable cafe. Quality, and privacy. The latter would be rather nice, today. Though if you know of Togo Hifumi, I’m sure you already know about the trouble fans can make for anybody who doesn’t meet their arbitrary standards of intelligence and attractiveness.”
Akira’s feigned smile vanished. “How do you know Hifumi?”
“The pawn of KFTV’s chief of program scheduling? She’s been in the studio once or twice for whatever is filmed after I finish a guest appearance on Good Morning, Japan.” He gave a smile – no, more of a smirk, though disapproval shone in his eyes. “Apparently being in the same room for a few seconds, or leaving a building at the same time, is enough for some of our mutual fans to start spinning long rumors of an affair that are as fantastical as they are disgusting. Now her mother, a close associate of Nakao Hiromi, is the interesting one.”
The bus pulled to a stop and Akechi stepped off.
This wasn’t according to plan, but Akira couldn’t just walk away after what he said. He followed. “Why?”
Akechi took his metal briefcase in both hands and hummed. “I do have some confidentiality agreements to keep, but I suppose I could discuss portions of it for a client.” His eyes flicked to a restaurant with a rain-stained awning and stairs up.
Akira growled. “Fine.” He stormed up to the restaurant. He tried to ignore the smug way the self-styled detective sauntered up after him. At least his description of the restaurant was accurate: faux-wood paneling and amber fabric highlights mixed with a pseudo-Egyptian styling. Most tables had a view of the entrance but thin wood walls between booths gave privacy. The smell of oil from croquettes or other fried fare floated out of the kitchen, but he still spotted the bright red of tomatoes on a few plates. About half of its perhaps two-dozen capacity was occupied today. “So what’s so interesting about her mother?”
All smiles, the self-styled detective slid into his seat. “I understand she was quite the shrewd individual, quite the head for numbers and with just enough knowledge of regulation to allow her to skirt legality.”
Akira wondered if he was talking about her blackmail, bribes, or involvement in Kaneshiro’s money laundering. “Sounds like every businessman ever. What makes her unique?”
Before the detective could answer, an elderly man with a limp and black vest stopped at their table. “Have you decided what you would like, or shall I get you something to drink and a few minutes to peruse our menu online?”
“Black tea. I wouldn’t mind a good cup of coffee, but this isn’t quite that type of establishment,” Akechi explained, smiling as if they hadn’t been interrupted and everything in the world amused him. “And I’ll have the zucchini ojji,” he finished.
“Do you carry TaP?” Akira asked, pulling out his phone to look for the restaurant’s online menu. The waiter nodded and slipped away. Even after finding something and setting down his phone, the detective sat there with a patient smile. “You know, Immanuel Kant would say that deception through incomplete truth is as unethical and corrosive to society.”
Without waggling his finger or dropping his smile, Akechi’s tone and cheery posture somehow still indicated the missing gesture, “He only said so as a contrarian against Benjamin Constant who argued the rightness of a lie depended on the social condition, Kant’s view stemmed from universalism and the view that men are rational.”
Akira snorted. “Well he was clearly wrong about that last point.” Having not read anything from Constant, he had no idea what to say about that point. “So what about Togo-san?”
Akechi’s smile relaxed at the quip, and his shoulders settled. “Ambitious and driven as any machine. There’s a reason she insinuated herself into management of programming scheduling despite having been an anchorwoman once.” He gave a hum of thought. “I wonder if she was raised on Epicurus in her forgotten childhood. He was one of the earliest philosophers not to shame people for seeking happiness and self-benefit in general.”
“Didn’t he also teach his followers that the gods did not care about right and wrong and there was no afterlife? I can see why people looked down on his lack of consequence,” Akira riposted before the server returned with drinks and a plate of what smelled of egg and fried flower but looked like green patties. “Oh, I’ll have the, uh… makudous.”
The waiter nodded and hobbled off to the next table.
Akechi had the more infuriating version of that superior smile on his face, as if he’d caught a bad move and intended to let him know. “Revulsion of Epicurus? Please tell me you’re not one of those childish people who pray to a sky daddy to make your life easier while somehow expecting the rules to continue to apply to everyone else. I would think Spinoza pretty well dissected the personal failings of such a stance.”
Akira wasn’t sure which one he hated more, not knowing whether the ‘detective’ was making a personal attack on his faith or never having read Spinoza to know what the man’s arguments were to refute. Hifumi surprised him with books, philosophers, and aphorisms he never heard all the time, but there was a quality of invitation to her that said, ‘come learn with me’. All Akechi shared was the contest. He returned Akechi’s overblown smile. “Well, if your fans are particular about your company based on looks or intelligence, I may be in trouble on both counts. Spinoza doesn’t sound familiar.”
That smug smile faded and Akechi looked over the transfer student. The corner of his mouth quirked up, but the fire in his eyes faded and took on the look of a frown despite the Makoto-like stoic control on the rest of his face. “I don’t know how connected you are to social media, but fans tend to connect and rally others, denouncing and harassing those they self-declare worthy of their ire. I wouldn’t wish that on you.” Something about his tone sounded genuine in the warning, almost melancholic, but a beat later that smile was up and it seemed like a plastic theater mask. “Baruch Spinoza was a seventeenth-century philosopher who recognized that organized religion was a human construct. To boil it down, he wrote that it takes a juvenile, self-important mind to believe that prayer can cause God to break all the rules made for the rest of the universe. It betrays a belief that the rules should apply to others but that special benefits should only exist for oneself. It was an outgrowth of the school of stoicism he learned from Seneca.” The cheery taught quality of his face faded. “Such a philosophy can only result in injustice.”
Akira sent himself a note to look up Spinoza. “Well, I’ve read Hegel for a while and I’ve never been afraid to look for the sliver of reason in a foreign phenomena.” He paused when a younger server, maybe member of the kitchen staff, passed by to deposit his oil-cured eggplants. The addition of a few slices of red bell pepper added a pop of color reminding him of Hifumi. After the boys dug into their food for a while, he asked, “So are you big into veganism?”
Akechi swallowed, more of his mask down than the transfer student could remember ever seeing before. “I don’t hate meat, but I’m not partial to it either. I can only afford a coffin cubicle, so any time I can get a client to pay for my meal I can’t afford to pass it up. I know my fans have numerous theories about my preference for vegetarian meals, but it’s not ecological – that would take a movement beyond the capability of the poor masses. It’s a matter of hard pragmatism: it’s almost always the cheapest.”
His phone buzzed. Hifumi sent him a text on their personal chat line, [Finished homework early, but I'm exhausted so I'm heading to bed early. Wanted to give you a heads-up so you don't think I'm ignoring your texts later.]
Akira felt a smile creep across his face as warmth bloomed inside. [Sleep well, Queen Togo. Assuming Yuuki doesn't find anything for us to take care of in the Metaverse, I was going to see Makoto tomorrow evening to make lunch for the week. Any requests?]
[Makoto-san said you were a capable chef.] A beat passed before she sent, [*Pout*,] then another moment later, [Cooking for another woman? Are you trying to make me jealous?]
[Just for the beach trip. You said you were busy!]
The [Teeheehee] she sent was so much like her, he could almost hear her dainty giggle. [Surprise me. If Makoto-san trusts your cooking, I will.]
[Maybe another movie night?] He explained, [It seemed to do Futaba a lot of good, everybody seems to love a big get-together.]
[Oh, Akira-kun. You were doing so well,] she replied. [Good night, Meldenya.]
When he looked up, Akechi stared at him with a very unamused expression. “Puppy love is not a good look on you. I thought you more savvy than that. Reliance on another person is a weakness asking to be exploited.”
Still feeling warm and lifted from the brief exchange with the shogi maestra, Akira gave a calm smile. “Friends are like mirrors, they help one see oneself. And sometimes there is one friend in particular who helps one see one’s best self.”
A snarl flickered over Akechi’s face. “Do you think such sentiment adds forgiveness or patience to landlords? Protects students from principals extorting his students?” His eyes glanced down at the clenched leather of his black gloves. His cheery mask returned, but not as wide a smile as before, as if he knew the game was up but muscle memory wouldn’t allow him to relax.
Akira swallowed a chunk of eggplant, not feeling as good about getting a one-up on the self-styled detective as he thought. “No, but immediate gain isn’t why people form friendships. That’s transactionalism, which is why my parents have virtually no relationship to speak of. Doesn’t mean I have to make their mistakes.”
Smile fading, Akechi’s reddish-brown eyes searched the transfer student. “You’re quite a surprise. You’ll have to forgive my little snap. We’re more than business partners, in a sense. There’s something about you that makes me feel more talkative. You’re not like the rest of the people out there, stopping at the first convenient conclusion. I knew you’d been baptised, but you’re not above the criticism of organized religion. That’s quite unusual for a Catholic.”
Akira swallowed. “I also don’t think the church is correct in its dogma that God is necessarily ‘all good, knowing, and powerful’. But whether or not Epicurus was the first to come up with it, I don’t buy the idea that the world would be better off without religion. It’s not just a social structure helping people slot into a world where the rich rule the weak and they have no power, it’s a set of tools for self-reflection. I can only imagine the nihilist I’d be if I never met a priest.”
“And the rest of humanity?”
Akira picked up a larger chunk of walnut. “Each person has to decide for himself. It’s not up to anybody ‘higher’ to decide for everyone else. Not church leaders, not my militant anti-religious old man, and not little people imagining themselves dictators. If God’s not going to force me to believe or think a certain way, who am I to tell everyone else? All I can do is the best I can where I am.”
Pausing to chew and swallow his last bite, Akechi looked over the other boy. “You’re quite the surprise, Kurusu-kun. Somebody looking at the broad story of your life from the outside could get a very different impression than the boy across the table. You’re much more interesting company than most of my clients.”
Akira brought up his phone. “Well, I know you keep yourself busy, but if you want to cross wits again…”
“I will say this, you’re always interesting. When I first saw you, I thought you were just waiting for an opportunity to call me the Defective Detective,” Akechi said, bringing out his phone to check the new number on it.
Akira picked up another bite of eggplant with his chopsticks. “I’ve got plenty of flaws, but even if you do too, it’s as pointless to harp on someone for one mistake as to make fun of a kid falling off a bike. It’s not stupid to make a slip and fall, it’s stupid not to get back on.”
Akechi laughed, his shoulders shaking. He checked the time on his phone and slipped it away. “Maybe I’ll see you in Kichijoji again.”
