Chapter Text
Futaba woke up in a mostly dark room, the only light came from a crack in her curtains. She scoffed while closing the curtains and turned on her computer in complete darkness. The brightness from the screen came as a shock to Futaba’s eyes, but within a couple minutes her eyes would adjust. Her screen flashed the date 5/11, 2016 while she opened various tabs but Futaba focused on a coding project, typing away until her fingers began to cramp up. She yelped in pain, shaking out her hands and stretched them out in front of her. Futaba looked at her hands with a scowl. A red string tied around her pinky.
The red string of fate. It was supposed to connect “destined partners” together regardless of time, place, and circumstances. It was supposed to tangle and stretch around everything, but it was so resilient that it would never break. Or that’s what all the myths and legends said. In reality everything people believed about this string was false. It could break and it was not perfect, Futaba learned that the hard way.
It led to Futaba staying isolated in her room for years never leaving her room. She had everything that she could want in the house she resided in and was grateful for what Sojiro did for her but she could never be around him without a passing glance at the thin red thread dangling, severed and connected to nothing. It was always too much for her, the memories of her pseudo family, memories of her mother, memories of her uncle, but worst of all the ghost of her mother. Although safe in her room, she’s becoming frustrated with her situation. A bunch of the protagonists in her shows have gone through far worse than her and have been doing more than Futaba has ever done. Granted they were fictional, but she looked up to them regardless.
Futaba began to type again, but she had a nagging feeling at the back of her head. She brushed it off and continued to code but her typing became slower and the code broke so often that she turned off her computer and decided to finally do something about her nagging feeling. She was going to write a promise list. She dug around her room looking for a piece of paper and something to write with. She began to write the promise list, peaceful memories flowed back into her mind only to be followed by memories of her uncle.
“It’s just a promise list. Why can’t you write anything? It’s a shame I raised such a disappointing child.”
Futaba felt nauseous, she turned up the volume on her headphones, threw down her pen and paper, frantically searched for her water bottle and slowly sipped on water. Each sip was hard to swallow and it got easier as the bile was washed down, but she could still hear her mother taunting her. After a couple tortuous minutes she could no longer hear her mother, which allowed her to catch her breath as she looked at her finished promise list.
Promise List:
- Leave the room for an hour.
- Clean her room.
- Have an actual conversation with Sojro.
- Leave the house.
Simple tasks in their own right, but for Futaba each one felt like a mountain that needed to be climbed. She knew the difficulty of her challenge so she didn’t set the month timer her mom usually gave, instead she just decided to finish it at her convenience. With that Futaba began to start on this journey by working down the list. It was late into the evening, Sojiro was set to arrive soon so Futaba continued to code before eating and going to sleep.
When Futaba woke up it was past noon, Sojiro was already at Leblanc working. She slowly creaked her door open, poked her head through the opening and looked around carefully. No one was there, of course no one was there. She started a stopwatch and made slow, careful steps to avoid putting her full weight on the floor. Each step she took was met with uncertainty, and every creak from the floorboard made Futaba pause, unsure of whether she should continue, but when she made it to the first floor she looked at the door leading outside to her left and the living room to her right. She could knock out the fifth promise right now but she could only stop and stare at it. She walked backwards carefully as if she had just encountered a wild animal.
She continued backing up until she felt the warmth of the carpet. She had wandered into the living room. Futaba looked around for anything to do. The kitchen was connected to the living room and there was a couch that Futaba wanted to sit on and wait out the remaining time but she was worried about any consequences that may arise, so she remained on her feet walking around the house gazing at the decor. She didn’t know what she was looking for, probably nothing. It was something she did to just pass the time. She didn’t dare look at the stopwatch knowing that looking at it would make the time pass slower. Futaba felt like she was snooping around the house which did not help Futaba’s nerves. She looked around feeling the carpet against her feet, but in her search she found a photo of her mother, in a simple brown frame right in front of the tv. Futaba picked up the photo frame, tears welled up in her eyes and she began to choke up. It was a picture of her mom, Sojiro, and herself. They were all smiling.
“Look at what we could have had if you didn’t go and ruin it all.” her mother chided
Futaba’s body felt weak. Her shaky hands were unable to hold the frame. The glass broke and the picture slipped out of the frame. Futaba’s flight or fight activated, it was time to flee. She ran back to her room crying, she locked herself back into her room hiding under her blanket, but it did nothing to stop the ghost of her mother. When her mom finally stopped, Futaba worried about what would happen, she just broke one of Sojiro’s pictures. Would Sojiro yell at her? Beat her? Starve her? Her brain was thinking of any and every situation possible while her heart was racing. Her vision began to blur and she found it hard to breathe before everything turned to black.
Futaba didn’t know what happened but she woke up in the middle of the night. Her blinds would never let any light in but her computer showed the time to her, 2016, 05/14, 11:37 pm. It was a bit more than 3 hours past Leblanc’s closing time, but the more important thing is that she had been asleep for 2 days. Futaba panicked moving some trash around to make room for her small frame under her bed, but she noticed a couple notes near her door. She quickly reached for the stack, but was only able to grab the top one.
‘You haven’t been eating anything. Are you okay? I’ll leave some curry outside again.’ -Sojiro
Futaba wiggled from under the bed frame, she opened her door slowly until she heard the clink of a plate against the door. She poked her head out looking around her before pulling the curry into her room. She poked the curry with the spoon provided, smelled it, and dipped her finger into the cold curry to taste it. When she deemed it safe for consumption she consumed the entire plate. Before she placed the plate outside she read all the other notes. She noticed that none of the notes referenced the broken frame, and none of them seemed to carry any ill-intent, instead they all radiated a sense of warmth and concern. She kept the notes near her computer and placed the plate outside before she closed the door. Futaba turned on her phone to scroll through social media before falling asleep, when she saw her stopwatch still counting the time. It read 59 hours, right. She was supposed to leave her room for an hour, but she didn’t know how long she was actually outside for. She turned the stopwatch off and browsed the internet. It seems that she needed to start over at promise 1 again, but this time she has experience and maybe next time she might level up.
______
Sojiro began to prepare for his day at Leblanc. It’s been a while since his picture frame fell. It was easy to clean but he had no where to put the picture, so it’s been taped to his bathroom mirror. Looking at his late friend and his daughter was a nice way to start the day. Maybe he didn’t need to replace the picture frame. Recently his daughter hadn’t been eating. He’s left multiple fresh plates of curry for the past 2 days but they were left untouched. Sojiro walked through the door and spotted an empty plate outside his daughter’s door letting Sojiro breathe a sigh of relief. He washed the plate and said goodbye to no one in particular, as his daughter was always asleep at this time. He walked over to his store, greeted the owner of the second hand store, and turned left into the alley where he opened the store.
Today was a slow day. Many of the regulars did not show up and it was almost midday with Sojiro stirring a near empty pot of curry. Looking in the fridge for the ingredients for his curry, Sojiro had all the ingredients to create a new batch, which seemed to be enough for the rest of the day, but he would have to go shopping today.
It was 6 pm Sojiro turned off the batch of curry and turned the sign to ‘closed’. No one else was going to be here today so he headed to the local grocery store. He stocked up on a week's worth of curry supplies but he was only missing a few cuts of ribeye and a couple pieces of ginger. There was still time before sunset so Sojiro dropped off his ingredients and took the train to Shibuya. He walked out and headed for the supermarket in the underground mall. It’s better stocked but it’s always been a pain to make the trip over here, it was crowded, overpriced, and made carrying groceries back to Yongen-Jaya difficult to say the least, thankfully he was only here for a few things.
Sojiro made his way to the meat aisle to pick up the few cuts of ribeye before he went to the produce aisle in search of ginger. He found a few roots of ginger but some of it was going bad and only a few pieces were any good.
“Hey. The ginger has gone bad.” Sojiro confronted the employee with a calm, even tone
“Our apologies. Thank you for telling us we’ll throw it away.” the employee apologized
“If it isn’t too much trouble, could you give it to me?” a voice beside Sojiro asked
“I’m afraid that that would be against store policy.” the employee responded
“But you had it on display and for sale. So your store is fine with selling poor quality items? The likes of which could possibly harm the consumer.” Sojiro turned to his left to see a tall, lanky, blue haired boy standing next to him
On one hand the kid was making a pretty good point but on the other hand it was a really dumb point to make.
“Kid.” Sojiro looked up at the blue haired boy, “Why do you want this expired produce?”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “Ginger has a lot of health benefits and although these are less than perfect it should still hold true.”
“But why would you need it? You seem healthy enough.” Sojiro replied
“Thank you. But ginger also provides calories. I would buy other produce but I am currently strapped for cash and I still need to take the train back home.”
Sojiro just stared blankly at the kid. He truly had no words in this situation. But he had one idea.
“Kid, follow me.”
Sojiro walked to the register and sure enough the boy followed. Sojiro paid for his groceries and walked back to the station to take the train back to Yongen-Jaya.
“Sir, I’m afraid I don’t have the funds to take the train with you and still make it back home.”
Sojiro sighed and paid for his fare, eliciting excessive praise. The praise stopped and they rode the train in silence before the synthetic female voice announced that they were in Yongen-Jaya. Sojiro walked over to his store with the boy in tow. When Sojiro arrived, he turned the sign to open and started on a new batch of curry and a cup of coffee for the boy.
“Again sir I still don’t have money.”
“I don’t care if you have any money. You can wash dishes if you feel like it.” Sojiro groaned, pointing to the mess piled up in the sink
The blue haired kid stood up and examined the dishes. He grabbed the sponge and still looked at dishes as if the action was foreign to him. He gently placed the sponge on a pot and carefully rubbed the grease, but it did nothing.
“Do you not know how to clean dishes?” Sojiro asked in genuine bewilderment
“I’m afraid not. Usually a maid comes by to do the housework.”
I thought this guy was poor. Sojiro thought
“If you had maids clean for you, why don’t you have money for the train?”
“I believe the maids come by to help out my humble sensei, being a famous artist is time consuming.”
“And your sensei is….”
“Madarame.”
He didn’t have any knowledge of the art world or who that man was, but if maids were coming by to help him he must be popular. Something didn’t add up, but Sojiro let the matter rest.
“You're not helping, sit back down.”
“Uh-”
“Your food will still be ready. I’ll get the dishes done.”
The boy did as he was told and waited patiently. Sojiro plated up the curry and placed it in front of him. While he poured a cup of coffee he noticed the open sketchbook next to him, it was an extremely detailed drawing of Leblanc.
“Looks like you’re a good artist.”
“Not at all. I learned everything from my sensei, but I still have a long way to go before I consider myself good.”
Sojiro placed the cup of coffee next to the curry and began to work on the dishes. He heard a spoon scrape the plate vigorously while cleaning, he turned around and saw the kid devouring the food in front of him.
“Slow down. The food isn't going anywhere.”
“My apologies but this is the best food I have ever had.”
Sojiro scoffed and turned around letting a small grin paint his lips and turned his attention back to the plates that needed to be washed.
“I apologize. I wish I could pay you back but I still lack the funds to do so.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sojiro waved his hand dismissively, “Come by if you are hungry, can't have you asking to eat expired produce.”
“T-thank you.” the boy bowed and walked out the door
Sojiro started on the roux for the new batch of curry while listening to the news, most of it went in through one ear and out the other. As the light from the glass dimmed and right before closing time Sojiro cleaned up all the dishes, cleaned the floors, and was about to turn off the tv and lights, but an announcement caught his eye.
“Come by to the exhibit of the famed artist, Ichiryusai Madarame. This gallery will be open to the public for a while but don’t wait! Tickets will be on sale for the entire month of May and will last until the fifth of June.”
“So he’s a student of some big time artist.” Sojiro mused
Sojiro lit a cigarette for a quick smoke before turning the sign to ‘closed’. He greeted the owner of Yumenoshima and walked back home. He announced his arrival to his daughter who was still in her room and as he made his way to the kitchen when he heard a door close. He turned around and saw Futaba. Sojiro was surprised to see her, but he already dealt with one weird thing today, what’s another? He placed a plate of curry and a cup of coffee in front of her before he served himself the same.
“S-so h-how was yourday?” Futaba shakily asked
Taken back, Sojiro stuttered his response, “G-good.”
“that's good to hear. a-anything interesting?”
“Actually I met this strange kid. He asked a store clerk for expired ginger, because it had health benefits and calories. I didn’t know what to do so I brought him to Leblanc and gave him some food on the house. He’s a strange fellow, I'll tell you that.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Now that you mention it, no. What I do know is that he's an artist learning under the artist Madarame.”
Futaba hummed in acknowledgement. Sojiro was happy that Futaba finally decided to speak with him. They ate their dinner together in silence but that was fine. Futaba quickly finished her dinner and left the table.
_______
Futaba smiled as she went back into her room. Nothing happened when she talked with Sojiro! But she wondered about who this Madarame was. Every site she ventured to painted Madarame as a humble man, but Futaba felt suspicious about him. She continued to search more about him and found rumors of him being a bad person. She left all the sites and thought.
Popular person turns out to be an ass. Who woulda thought?
This issue didn’t concern her so she let it go and began to psyche herself up to finally leave the house.