Chapter Text
July 22
After School
-//-
Akira spends his first week of summer vacation stuck at school, catching up on exams.
He tells himself that he's lucky, actually, to be here right now. After all, he'd missed the last few months of his second year of high school, and then the first few months of his third year. If he hadn't had people around him that absolutely aren't going to stand for him letting his grades slide, or if his teachers at Yasogami hadn't been willing to help with tutoring, there's no way he would have caught up.
He's lucky that he's going to be caught up with his classmates when everyone comes back at the end of summer break.
He's lucky that he's only going to miss one week, and that he's still going to be able to make it up to Tokyo to meet his friends for the cross country road trip they've been planning.
And he's lucky not to be dead, because most people don't get to come back from that. Akira knows that he's lucky to be sitting here at all, still breathing, hurt beating, alive enough to be worried about his first semester finals.
The exams are administered in his classroom, just Akira and the teacher that had drawn the short straw and is stuck proctoring. Akira fidgets his way through the last exam, one eye on the clock, trying hard to stay focused when all he wants to think about is how close he is to getting out of here and finally starting summer vacation.
When the clock finally ticks down to the last five minutes he's allowed to spend on the exam, Akira finally gives up on double checking his answers. It's been a long two months, and there's literally nothing left in his brain at this point for him to spend on the test. He puts down his pencil and rubs at his face, which apparently catches the attention of the proctor.
"Are you finished?" he asks. "Or do you need the rest of your time?"
"I'm done," Akira says, and stands up to hand in the exam. As the proctor pages through the exam, checking that everything's there, he can't help glancing over his shoulder at the window. It's a beautiful day out, perfect summer weather, and he's itching to get out of school and meet up with his friends.
"Ready for summer break to start?" the proctor says conversationally.
"Very ready," Akira says, and the proctor gives him a thin smile.
"Can't blame you," he says. "I'm ready myself." He pages through to the end of the exam, then nods at Akira. "Looks like this is all good."
"So I can leave now?"
Another nod. "Have a good summer."
Akira thanks him and scrambles to grab his things. He's halfway to the door when the proctor calls out after him.
"One second," he says. "I forgot, there's some kind of issue with your class registration paperwork that they wanted me to ask about before you head out."
So close. Akira glances out the window again, then walks (more slowly) back toward the front of the classroom.
"So I know you were enrolled at another school last year," the proctor says. "And we have your records from there, that's all fine. But when you came back this year, your enrollment information was with a different address, and your guardian contact information had changed. I guess your homeroom teacher didn't catch it until it was time to run the end of semester reports, and they asked me to just confirm with you today."
"Oh," Akira says. "Right. So, I actually haven't been living with my parents for the past few years. They were out of the country, and there was an accident."
"I think I remember hearing something about that," the proctor says.
Akira's absolutely sure he had. According to his sister, who hadn't even been out of elementary school at the time, everyone had been talking about his situation after he got arrested last year. When it finally came out that he'd been living with the Dojimas because his parents were dead, it had fed the gossip mill for months.
The fact that his parents aren't dead anymore has really made dealing with those rumors more complicated.
"I was staying with the Dojimas while they were gone," he says. "Now they're back, and I'm living with them again." He says this as casually as possible, to cover up all the impossible things that had happened to get his parents back. And, hopefully, to avoid any more questions. The truth is that there's no great explanation to give people that explains everything that had happened over the past eight years. The best they've been able to come up with is that his parents had been an accident overseas that left them presumed dead, and even that's not particularly convincing when people start pressing too hard.
"It's just that I wondered," the teacher says, and his voice is almost sheepish. Like maybe he feels a little ridiculous for bringing it up at all. "I know it's all rumors, but I've seen stories online about something that happened in Tokyo a few months ago, about how all these people that were assumed dead were suddenly back. It sounds a lot like what happened with your parents, doesn't it?"
Akira shrugs. As if he doesn't know exactly what had happened in Tokyo. As if he hadn't been one of the people to use the last shreds of power from a fake god and a broken utopia to force those people back to reality with them.
(As if the effort hadn't ended up killing him)
"I guess," he says. "But that's all just rumors and whatever, right?"
"Oh of course," the teacher says quickly. "Of course it is, yes. But people are saying it had something to do with the Phantom Thieves, and... well, everything they've done seems so incredible already that I suppose it's a little easier to believe that there might be a kernel of truth in it." He laughs. It's a self-conscious sound. "I think we all want to believe there's someone out there doing things like that. Incredible to think about, isn't it?"
Akira shrugs again. He stands there, only half human after too many close encounters with things that don't belong to this world, his eyes golden behind his glasses, newly alive again after the rest of the Phantom Thieves (and so many other people) had reached across the edge of reality to bring him back, and says, "I guess. It sounds pretty made up, though."
The teacher laughs, and shakes his head. "It really does," he says. "Anyway, I'll let your homeroom teacher know your new address is the right one."
"Thanks," Akira says. "So can I go, or...?"
"Go on," the teacher says. "Enjoy your summer."
It takes everything in Akira to not bolt out of the classroom. He's very ready for summer vacation, and by the time he's out in the hall, he's already stopped thinking about the awkward conversation he's just escaped--it's not like it's the only time in the past few months that he's had to duck weird conversations about his parents or the Phantom Thieves. Most people don't see the rumors of people coming back from the dead as anything more than some weird new conspiracy theory, but there are people who believe.
Akira's still not sure how he feels about that.
And luckily, today is not the day when he's going to have to figure it out. Today, he's going to run home, catch up with the people he cares about, celebrate the start of summer vacation, and finally stop procrastinating on his packing, maybe. On Monday he'll be meeting a bunch of friends in Tokyo to start a cross country road trip that he's been looking forward to for weeks, and he doesn't think it's possible to be more excited.
He'd told his test proctor that his home address is the new one his parents have moved into, and technically that's true. Legally, it's almost impossible to think of an explanation for why he'd have registered with another address now that his parents are in town. And practically speaking, he does spend probably close to half his time there. But the Dojima house has been home for a long time, and it's still the place where his dad and his sister live. He's not just going to move out and pretend that they're not family, even if they are a more complicated family now than they had been a year ago.
And anyway, today he has his packing to do. Most of his stuff is still there, so that's where he goes.
Nanako's the only one home when Akira gets in, and she answers his shouted I'm home! by running down the stairs and asking, "You're done with finals now right?"
"Finally done," he agrees.
"Good," Nanako says. "I need help getting the garden set up before you abandon me for your trip, and Dad said not to bother you while you were studying."
Akira scoffs. "I'm not abandoning you."
"You are abandoning me so you can spend a month stuck in a car," Nanako says. "The least you can do before you leave is help me with the garden."
"You're just upset because you get carsick."
"I do not!" She pauses, then admits, "I don't usually get carsick, anyway."
But Akira knows she doesn't really like long drives, even if she doesn't actually get carsick as much as he's pretending, which is probably why she's not coming on the trip. It had originally been planned as a group trip for all of the Phantom Thieves, but honestly there's just so many of them. A lot of them are busy already, and it's not like they would have been able to cram them all in an RV or something either. So after weeks of back and forth and trying to figure out details, they've settled on the half dozen of them that are both free and interested in taking the trip; himself, Lavenza, Yusuke, Haru, Makoto, Futaba, Ryuji, and Morgana.
It's going to be nice, Akira thinks. A good chance to see his friends in Tokyo. Last year, when he'd been staying at Leblanc, he'd seen these people pretty much every day. Now that he's back in Inaba, as much as he loves being home again and back with his family, he misses his friends.
(It should have been easy to drop in for a visit. They still have the TV World connecting Inaba to Tokyo, no more than half an hour's trip away)
(But, well...)
They work on the garden. They talk about their plants and whose turn it is to feed the cat and what their friends have been up to. They're out there for a while, and only when Nanako's mom--who had come home a while ago--comes out to call them in to dinner does Akira remember that oh yeah, he was supposed to be packing.
"Are you staying here tonight?" Chisato asks Akira on the way in.
"Probably not," he says. "I mean, I'll probably just end up coming back to finish my packing tomorrow, at this point. And I want to spend some time with Mom and Ryou before I leave, so I'll probably head back over there after dinner."
It's funny, kind of, how fast it's gotten to be normal. Bouncing back and forth between this home and the one where his parents live. There had been a whole period of his life when he didn't feel like he had anywhere to go or anywhere that was home, and now he has this whole set-up between two families that are both his. Something that should have been complicated, but just feels natural.
Dinner is lively, which is probably Akira's fault, if he's being honest. He's excited and full of energy about the start of summer vacation and the end of exams, and it spreads around the room until everyone's in a good mood. His dad gets home halfway through the dinner and shakes his head at the three of them, all laughing about an old story Nanako's telling from when she and Akira had been younger.
"You," he tells Chisato as she laughs. "Are encouraging them." But he's smiling as he says it--he's smiling a lot more these days, Akira has noticed. His hair's grayer too, it had been noticeably grayer on the day Akira came back from being dead, so he thinks that's probably... well, he'd died and when he came back after six months, his dad looked like he'd aged at least six years.
But he's back now, Chisato's been back since January, and Akira thinks he's seen his dad more happy in the weeks since coming back than ever before.
"I don't know how you've kept this house from falling apart all these years," Chisato says, still laughing.
"A lot of crossing my fingers and hoping for the best."
"Hey," Akira protests. "We're not that bad."
"How many times has the world almost ended?" his dad asks. There's just the slightest hint of exhausted sarcasm in his voice when he says, "It's happened so many times that I'm starting to lose track."
"Plenty," Akira says immediately. "But we keep stopping it, it's not our fault that they're happening."
His dad only shakes his head again, and changes the subject. "Do you have your train ticket yet?"
"Dad--"
"Did you buy it?"
"Come on, I don't need to take the train to Tokyo." Suddenly, it's a lot harder to meet his dad's eyes. "That's what the TV's for."
"You know why that's a bad idea right now."
Next to Akira, Nanako is suddenly focused on her dinner, and Chisato gets up to get something from the kitchen, putting a little bit of distance between herself and this conversation. She's not really a parental figure for Akira the same way his dad is, she's closer to something like a stepmom. And this particular argument is between Akira and his dad.
"That only happened once," Akira says.
(It's actually happened twice since he came back from being dead)
(But there had been other people around the first time to freak out about it, and the second time Akira had been alone. And having seen that it would freak out his friends and family, he'd decided when it was over to not tell anyone it had happened again)
"Once is enough," his dad says. "I've told you, I don't want you in the TV until you know what's going on."
"Dad--"
"This isn't up for discussion, Akira. I've told you that before, Emi and Ryou have told you that before, you're not going back in the TV, you're not going back to Mementos, you're staying firmly in the real world."
Akira goes quiet. There are very few things that his dad will absolutely put his foot down on, but keeping him out of the metaverse has turned into one of them.
"I'm sorry," his dad says, after a long, almost painful silence. "I know this is important to you. But you were gone for months, and we didn't think you were ever coming back. Nobody wants to lose you again because of... whatever happened before."
"I know," Akira says quietly.
Nanako, almost cautiously, asks, "Did... Akira, you said you were going to see if you could talk to Igor about why it happened, right?"
"Yeah," Akira says. And then, because he can't quite stop himself, he adds, "But the Velvet Room door's out in Tokyo, and I'm not allowed to use the TV to get out there, so I haven't had a chance to talk to him."
His dad raises his eyebrows, probably at Akira's tone. Akira drops his gaze and mutters, "I'll talk to him on Monday, I'll be in Tokyo anyway."
His dad nods approvingly. "Good," he says. "I'm not saying you need to stay out of there permanently, I just want to make sure you're not going to be hurt again."
"Does Lavenza know anything about why it happened?" Nanako asks.
Akira shrugs. "She doesn't know that it happened at all," he admits. "You and Daiki know because you saw it--" The first time, anyway. "And then you guys told Dad and my parents, but I didn't... I don't want to worry anyone else." They'd spent enough time worrying about him while he was gone. They don't have to worry, now that he's back, that something in that whole process might have gone a little bit wrong.
"You shouldn't lie to your girlfriend," Nanako says.
"I'll tell her Monday too," Akira says. "She's going to want to know why I'm going to the Velvet Room anyway."
"You shouldn't lie to your friends either."
Akira doesn't answer that. He's planning to tell everyone about it eventually, just not right now while he's right in the middle of it. When it's over, and he can explain what had happened and why it's not going to be happening again, then he'll tell them.
He doesn't stay much longer after that. He finishes dinner, helps with the cleaning up, then heads back to his parents' house for the night. He's tired anyway, so he's not leaving just because he wants to avoid any more awkward conversations, although that's definitely part of it. He walks from one home to the other, lost in thought, and doesn't do a great job of putting on a convincing smile for his parents when he finally gets back.
Luckily, they're a little distracted.
"Your mom's on the phone with her sister," Ryou says when Akira gets in, before he even has a chance to announce that he's home.
"Aunt Kuon finally got in touch?" Akira asks, his own problems immediately flying out of his mind.
"A few minutes ago."
Akira pulls his shoes off and goes a little farther into the house, attention thoroughly piqued. His mom's been trying to get in touch with her half-sister for months. Last year, when reality was broken and the two of them had actually had a sibling relationship, that had been the first time that either of them had known the other one existed. Akira's mom had remembered, because she has a Persona and that's what it takes to remember any of that fake reality. But Kuon Ichinose doesn't have a Persona, so she doesn't remember. As far as she knows, the first contact she'd ever had with Emi was when Emi reached out to her in February to make contact.
And she's been anything but open to the idea of meeting. Akira had missed most of the early attempts his mom had made to get in touch, but even when he finally came back to life in June, they were still barely in contact. They'd gotten to the point of exchanging occasional emails, but Akira has the impression that his aunt is keeping Emi carefully at arm's length. She'd asked Emi not to reach out again until she was ready, which is why this is such a big deal.
"She's in the bedroom," Ryou says, and Akira nods. So at least they're not going to be interrupting whatever's going on by standing here talking. "I'm assuming she wants to give Kuon some privacy."
"Probably," Akira says. "But this is good, right? This is a good sign?"
"I think so," Ryou says. He looks toward the bedroom door, expression worried. "I hope so. I think Emi needs this."
Akira nods. He thinks his aunt needs it too, although... maybe not. Maybe she's someone completely different in reality. Maybe Maruki, when he was giving everyone what he thought their perfect reality was supposed to be, had decided that his mom and his aunt needed to be the kind of sisters that got along and liked each other. Maybe Kuon Ichinose is someone completely different. She wouldn't be the only person that had gotten a complete personality rewrite during that time.
But if she is the same person, just more alone, then Akira hopes she'll eventually decide to meet with them.
He sits and talks with Ryou, not really about anything in particular, until after about fifteen minutes his mom comes out of the bedroom. She's looking thoughtfully down at her phone, although she manages to smile when she sees Akira. "I didn't hear you come home," she says. "Welcome back."
"I just got in a few minutes ago," Akira says. "Ryou said Aunt Kuon finally called you?"
"Well," Emi says. "She didn't call, I guess she's not ready for that, but we did get the chance to talk over texts.
"How did it go?" Ryou asks.
"I'm not exactly sure," Emi says. "I'm a little worried, actually." She joins them at the table, still looking at her phone in concern. "She said she's been thinking a lot about our emails, and that she wanted to meet before it's too late."
"Before what?" Akira says. "Why would it be too late to meet you?"
"I don't know," his mom says. "She just said things might change after this summer, and she wanted to meet with me before whatever it is happens." She shrugs. "She wouldn't tell me what it was, but I guess that's not unusual. I remember she could be sort of closed off in Maruki's reality, and that was supposed to be a place where things were perfect."
Akira makes a skeptical noise.
"I know, I know," his mom says. "It wasn't. I just mean that if she wasn't a big sharer then, she's not going to be now. So I'm not really surprised that she didn't want to tell me anything specific."
"What did she tell you though?" Ryou asks. "Did you make any actual plans, or was that as far as she was willing to go this time?"
"We talked a little bit," Emi says. "She's in Sendai, we know that, so she suggested that maybe I could meet with her."
"I'm going to Sendai," Akira says. "It's one of the places we want to stop on our trip."
"I know," his mom says. "I was actually thinking that maybe I'd try and meet with her while you're in Sendai with your friends. So Ryou can go to Sendai with me, and if it goes well and maybe she feels okay with meeting the two of you too, we'll all be there."
"That'd be great," Akira says. He'd barely had a chance to see his aunt in Maruki's reality--in fact, it had only happened twice. Once when she'd come over to their apartment for dinner about half an hour after Akira and Ryou had learned she existed, and once when he'd gone to her place to hang out and watch bad movies, in what had possibly been the single normal afternoon in that entire month and a half. She'd seemed nice. From what he's heard and seen more recently, he thinks she also seems lonely. It would be good to help his nice aunt be less lonely.
"Yes," his mom says with a decisive nod. "I know we're not going to instantly have the same relationship we had in Maruki's reality, but I want to have some relationship. Or at least I want to actually meet her, and I guess if she decides she really doesn't want it, we'll... cross that road when we come to it."
Akira gets up and hugs his mom. "We'll figure it out."
"I keep thinking how horrible her relatives were," Emi says. "Even in Maruki's reality, they were bad people that gave her a hard time for being who she is. And that's not fair. If they're the same way here, I just... I don't know, I really hope she had someone else to help her through it."
"I'm sure she did," Ryou says, although of course none of them has any way of knowing that. "And anyway, she'll have you from now on."
Emi smiles a little at him, and Akira slips away to leave them there, figuring out the details of when and where they're going to meet Kuon. Now that the first surprise of hearing his aunt had finally reached out has worn away, Akira's remembering how tired he is. It's early still, but there's a specific, bone deep tiredness settling into him. It's something he's gotten way too familiar with in the past few weeks, ever since he came back from being dead. Most evenings, long before he'd usually be thinking about going to bed, he just starts to feel like he has absolutely nothing left in him to do more than plant himself in bed with a book or something that doesn't ask him to do anything that takes a lot of energy..
It's been easy to hide from his family so far. For the past couple months he's been really focused on homework and studying and desperately trying to catch up on everything he's missed while he was dead. So he doesn't think it's super weird for him to go hide in his room and study when normally he'd be out and doing things. That, combined with the fact that he's splitting his time between two different houses, makes it easy to pretend there's real reasons for how tired he's getting. He tells his parents that he was up late talking to Nanako. Or he tells his dad that he spent a late night helping Ryou put together a bookshelf or whatever for the house they're still not fully moved into.
A part of him knows he shouldn't keep lying. He hasn't felt completely right since he came back to life though, there's the tiredness, and there's the thing that had happened (twice) in the TV World. And a part of Akira is worried about how anyone would react if he tells them that maybe the whole coming back from the dead thing hadn't gone off without a hitch.
After all, no one else that had come back seems like they're having any problems. Of course, no one else had come back from the dead in quite the same way, using the Velvet Room, so maybe there's something there that explains what's going on.
...he has no idea what he's going to do when he's on his road trip with everyone else, though. Being on the road for a month with his friends feels like something that's going to demand a lot of energy from him all the time, and people are absolutely going to ask questions if he's just kind of shutting down at night. Morgana had shared a room with him in Leblanc for almost a year, he'll definitely know something's wrong, and Akira's just... not sure at all how he's going to explain it. He's sort of hoping that maybe when he's actually with everyone else, with them all being so excited, hopefully he'll be able to match their energy somehow.
Or maybe he'll have to say something. Maybe he'll have to explain that no, actually, he doesn't feel okay, he hasn't felt fully okay for a while, that he keeps hoping eventually things will get better even though they're not. Maybe he's finally going to have to explain that after everything they'd done for him, after the monumental effort it had taken to bring him back from the literal dead, it hadn't been enough.
How can he say that to his friends, or his family? To the Phantom Thieves he's supposed to be leading?
That's not a problem for now, at least. And it's not a problem for tomorrow. But the day after that, when he gets to Tokyo, it'll be basically over. He might be able to fake it for a day or two, but people are going to ask why he's so tired, why he's avoiding the metaverse, what's wrong...
He lays down in bed and reaches for his phone.
Lavenza
Hey, are you up?
Yes! Celebrating the start of summer break with Haru
While Akira had been the only one left at Yasogami catching up on his exams, he knows that most of his friends in Tokyo are on a slightly different schedule, and had also finished the spring semester today. Lavenza included, now that she's officially registered as a student.
Lavenza
Congratulations :)
:)
How do you think you did?
Nothing to write home about, I don't think. There's not as much overlap between Velvet Room knowledge and high school curriculum as I wish there was
Well I know you've been working hard, I'm sure you'll be fine
And what about you? You finished your make up exams today too, didn't you?
I have no idea, my brain is too dead to think any more about exams
Well luckily you don't have to think about them at all until the end of August
I can't wait to come up to Tokyo and see everyone
I haven't seen you in way too long
I came to visit Inaba right before exams started!
You can always come visit us in Tokyo too, you know :)
Except that he can't, because it's hours on the train, and he hasn't explained yet why he can't go through the TV. Not yet. Soon, when he's in Tokyo, where worst case scenario he'll have to explain why he's been so tired, and best case scenario he might get some answers from Igor in the Velvet Room.
Lavenza
Hey, do you think
Can we talk when I get up to Tokyo?
Is something wrong?
His fingers hover over the keyboard for a long time. He almost says no, of course not, everything's fine.
Then he remembers that this is Lavenza, and of course he can tell her.
Lavenza
I don't want to freak you out, but sort of yes
It's sort of awkward, I don't know how to talk about it
But can we just talk when I'm in Tokyo?
She doesn't answer for a long time, but her response does finally come through.
Lavenza
Of course we'll talk
I love you, Akira. If something's wrong, I want to be there with you
Thanks
I love you too, goodnight :)
He drops his phone, feeling inexplicably lighter already. He's still going to have to go through the process of explaining to Lavenza, and then probably to a lot of other people too, that his resurrection might not have been as perfect as they all wanted it to be. But their conversation just now has reassured him that no matter what happens, it's going to be okay.
He sleeps well that night. Almost right away after saying goodbye to Lavenza, he passes out and sleeps soundly, with less worry than he usually does. It feels like maybe, things are actually about to start getting better soon. He's going to be back with his friends in Tokyo, he's going to maybe have a chance to talk about this with people that will have some answers, and he's not going to have any choice about continuing to carry this around on his own anymore.
His phone lays on the bed next to his open hand, lighting up occasionally with new alerts that he won't see until morning.
Texts from friends. A few random app notifications.
And at some point, a few minutes after midnight, an alert that a new app is installing itself on his phone.
(In the morning, when he sees a new icon for something called EMMA sitting in the middle of his home screen, the first thing he does is text Futaba)
(Is whatever this is legit? he asks. This isn't the metanav all over again, right?)
(It's fine, she tells him. EMMA's pretty cool, actually, a new digital assistant app with a basis in artificial intelligence)
(Your aunt worked on it, she says. Kuon Ichinose did the original development for the AI before selling it to Maddice)
(It's fine)
(There's nothing to worry about at all with EMMA)
-//-
July 24
Morning
-//-
Lavenza has been around teenagers and students for long enough to understand that school is difficult and breaks are both important and highly anticipated, but this summer is the first time that she really understands it all the way down to her bones. But now, after her first (real) semester as a student herself, she understands why she's always heard people looking forward to summer.
She doesn't regret the decision to stay in the real world, and enroll in school. She occasionally feels slightly guilty, because her lack of an identity before this year means that the only way she was going to get into school was for Futaba to falsify her records, including her entrance exams. But she's here now, and she's doing her best, and it's hard, she does not have the previous years of education that would have helped her catch up to the same level as her classmates.
It's going alright, though. She's not at the top of her class, she probably never will be, but she's passing. So far.
(She'll see if that's still true when the exam scores come back)
For various reasons, she'd chosen not to join Ann, Ryuji, and now Futaba at Shujin. When she'd believed that Maruki's reality was true, that had been the school she was in. It had been Akira's school last year, and he's not here anymore. There are memories associated with that school, and she doesn't like all of them. It had been easier to start somewhere fresh, and so Lavenza had decided to go somewhere else.
Not wanting to be completely alone in whatever school she ends up in, she'd decided to join Yusuke at Kosei.
She's known Yusuke nearly as long as she's known Akira, and even if they're not nearly as close, he is still a friend. That, paired with the fact that Kosei is known for its art program (it is not exclusively an art school, but it does heavily promote that element of their curriculum) gave her hope that she wouldn't be the only person there that doesn't quite fit in, and doesn't necessarily have the strongest academic foundation.
Which turns out to be true. Kosei is a good fit for her.
She's still enthusiastically ready to not see it again for an entire month by the time the end of the semester rolls around, and summer break finally arrives.
Saturday is spent with Haru, who is done with her first semester of college too, both of them decompressing after exams. Sunday she packs for the trip, and on Monday she goes to Leblanc, early, to meet Akira when he finally gets there. Leblanc's the place they've all agreed on as their meeting place, the way it so often has been in the past, and this is where they'll be leaving from when they all leave together for the beginning of their trip.
When Lavenza gets there, Morgana and Futaba are the only ones already waiting. And since Morgana lives upstairs and Futaba only a couple streets away, that's not a big surprise. Lavenza has her bag with her and she adds it to the booth where the other two have already put their things, then sits at the counter next to Futaba as all of them exchange good mornings.
Sojiro looks up from where he's working on something in the tiny kitchen, and chuckles. "I don't know why I'm surprised that the three of you are the first ones here," he says. Catching Lavenza's gaze, he adds, "I guess you're as ready to be done with your first semester as these two are?"
"Yes," Lavenza says with a little laugh, after she realizes what he's talking about. She's in school for the first time, Futaba's back in school after conquering (mostly) her agoraphobia, and Morgana's in his first year of middle school after eventually being convinced that to fit in he is actually going to have to pick a grade that he looks like he fits into.
He'd complained for weeks about being enrolled in middle school, despite the fact that he looks much too young for high school, and only Nanako eventually demanding to know what's wrong with being twelve had made him stop. Not that Lavenza doesn't have any sympathy--she'd decided to start as a second year, thinking that since she's never had any real school, the few weeks she'd spent at Shujin in Maruki's reality might help make things easier. And it has, a little. If the second year curriculum is a challenge, she's sure the third year classes would have been even worse. But it does still chafe a little to know that she and Futaba will be the only ones still in high school next year, while everyone else moves on. It's already weird to be staying with Haru, and see her starting in college.
"You'll miss it when it's over," Sojiro tells her. "You can think whatever you want about school, but you'll miss it when it's in the rearview mirror."
Futaba leans forward, joining the conversation. "That's why we're going on this trip," she says. "That's what you're supposed to do in high school, right? Make all your good memories?" She grins. "Anyway, why do you think any of us is going to do something boring with our lives when we're done with school?"
"You're going to keep giving me heart attacks until I'm old," Sojiro grumbles.
The four of them keep talking while the rest of the people going on the trip slowly start to filter in. Makoto first, timely as ever. Then Haru, who teases Lavenza on her way past about being so excited to see Akira again that she hadn't even waited before leaving the apartment this morning. Yusuke wanders in with a bag and a blank canvas, and Ryuji comes running in last with a bag that looks big enough for maybe one or two changes of clothes.
So now they're just waiting for Akira. Who is really the reason they're doing this trip at all--he'd been dead for four months, and this trip is a chance for his friends in Tokyo that have missed him and don't get to see him as much while he's in Inaba to catch up. Just about all of them in the city, apart from Ann, are going. And the only reason Ann's not going is that she'd already had plans with Shiho. Lavenza knows she and Akira are planning to hang out later in the year to make up for it.
"Does anyone know when he's even supposed to be getting here?" Morgana asks after a while.
"Train gets in at two," Sojiro says, because of course he's keeping track of the details.
(Wait)
"He's taking the train in?" Lavenza asks.
"He probably has stuff with him," Morgana says.
"I suppose," Lavenza agrees, and checks the time on her phone. It's close to two now, but after he gets in he'll still have to take the subway out to Yongen-Jaya, it might be closer to 2:30 or 2:45 by the time he gets here, depending how well the subway schedule matches up with the train coming in from Inaba.
Lavenza stands up.
"What's up?" Ryuji asks.
"I'm going to meet him," Lavenza says. "I just--" She's thinking about what he'd said when he texted her two days ago. She's been thinking about it a lot, actually, ever since they had they had that talk. There's something wrong, and it feels strange to have no idea what it is. She's used to being close to him, to being a more present part of his life. This distance is awful, and she doesn't want to wait any longer to close it.
"I'll be back soon," she says. "With Akira."
And then she's gone, leaving most of her stuff behind apart from her phone and her train pass.
By the time she gets to the station where Akira will be arriving, it's just about two. A little after, actually, and for a horrible second she looks at the time and worries that she's missed him. There's a crowd of people here, of course, and he doesn't know to look for her here. He'll be expecting her to be waiting in Leblanc with everyone else--
"Lavenza?"
She's only halfway through realizing that more than likely the only thing this trip has accomplished is to make sure they miss each other, when she hears his voice behind her. She turns, and there he is, looking surprised but happy to see her.
"Surprise," Lavenza says, and watches his face light up with a smile. He puts his bag down at his feet and hugs her, an embrace that lasts probably a little too long to not look weird and out of place to the people around them. Not that Lavenza cares, at all, about what anyone else thinks of them in this moment.
"I didn't think you'd be here," he says, when he does finally pull back. "I thought we were meeting at Leblanc."
"I was impatient," Lavenza says. "You haven't been up here to visit at all."
"Well..." he hesitates. Unexpectedly. There's a kind of flicker on his face like he's not sure how much to say.
"Akira."
Still, he doesn't say anything.
"Trickster."
He lets out a long sigh and rubs at his face. "Sorry," he says. "I just don't want you to be disappointed."
"I won't be," Lavenza says. "I promise."
Akira nods. There's an almost distant expression on his face, and he doesn't refocus on her until Lavenza takes his hand and holds it, tight. Then he sucks in a deep breath and says, "We don't have to do this right away, but we need to talk before the trip starts. Maybe in the Velvet Room."
"Did something happen?" Lavenza asks.
"Not exactly," Akira says. "Sort of? Nothing recent, I just..." He looks over at her, and for the first time, Lavenza sees in his eyes that he's afraid. "I'm starting to think I didn't exactly come back right."
Lavenza's heart drops like a stone. "You haven't said anything about that," she says.
"I was hoping it would fix itself," Akira says. "And I wouldn't have to worry anyone. But I mean... it hasn't fixed itself, and I think the Velvet Room is probably a good place to start asking questions."
"You're probably right," Lavenza says. The Velvet Room had brought him back, and he's as much a part of that place as he is of this one. "Everyone's waiting for us in Leblanc," she says. "We should probably go back there and at least drop your things off, but maybe we can stop there tonight. And you can explain the whole story."