Chapter Text
“Well,” Chie said, “it’s definitely raining.”
“Amazing deduction, Chie-chan.”
Chie turned away from the classroom window to glare at Yosuke, who’d stuck his feet up on his desk. Yukiko burst into a fit of giggles at the sight of her best friend’s face. Chie’s expression softened a little at that.
“The question is,” Yu said, not looking up from his crane in progress, “will it keep raining until midnight?”
The group all thought about it while Yukiko struggled to get her giggles under control. Eventually, Yosuke reached a verdict.
“Solid maybe.”
“Amazing deduction, Yosuke!”
Yosuke glared back at Chie, who was now smirking. Yu coughed politely before Yukiko could interrupt with yet more giggles.
“’Solid maybe’ isn’t a no,” he said, “which means we need to stay up to watch the Midnight Channel in case it comes on tonight. Spread the word.”
Yu turned and put the crane on Yosuke’s leg, which was in the way of his desk. He picked up his schoolbag, stood, and stretched out like one of his beloved cats. Yukiko raised an eyebrow.
“Are you going somewhere, Yu-kun?”
“I’ve got a fish to catch for a fox,” he said with an air of utmost seriousness. “Well, I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
Before the others could raise the obvious question of why exactly the fox wanted a fish – and why this would require such a degree of seriousness from their fearless leader – Yu walked out of the classroom and into the corridor. Students were dragging their heels, chatting to friends, sharing the latest gossips and complaints about the many bizarre teachers at Yasogami High.
(Though, none of them were as weird as that guy who’d lectured them at Gekkoukan. He was just plain strange.)
Yu made his way through the idling students. A long time ago, they would’ve parted like the Red Sea around him. These days, he mostly had to get past with an “excuse me” and a bit of nudging. It wasn’t one of the things he missed, truth be told.
He’d just made it out to the front of the building, when –
“Ah, speak of the devil! Narukami-kun, over here, please.”
The headmaster of the school was talking to a reporter, who was flanked by a sound guy and a man with a camera. Yu felt a feeling of dread twist in his stomach. He considered blowing the headmaster off for a moment, but relented. He went over to the group.
“Yes, sir?”
The headmaster smiled at the reporter.
“This young man here, you see, is Yu Narukami, the top student in the second year.” The headmaster patted Yu on the back. “He transferred here in the spring of this year, and since then his grades have improved quite a bit, his teachers tell me…”
The reporter smiled in that obnoxiously over-the-top way that was classic of reporters. Yu clenched his fist, keeping it out of view of the camera. It was a small comfort.
“Really? Well, young man, what do you think of Yasogami High School?”
She thrust the microphone into Yu’s face. Yu paused, then responded:
“I like it here. I have a lot of friends, and the teachers know what they’re doing.” Weird or not, the staff of Yasogami High really were all good at their jobs. Yu just wished their jobs involved less cleavage and hand puppets. “It’s a good school. I’ve been to a lot, but I think I’ve fit in best here.”
“Would you say your improved grades are the result of this school, then?”
The truth here would have been that studying resulted in being more popular, which was an important thing to work on when your immense supernatural powers required popularity to function correctly. The power of friendship was real. Of course, he couldn’t exactly say that on TV, so:
“I suppose, yes.”
“I see. Thank you.”
The headmaster patted Yu on the back again.
“I’m sure Narukami-kun has things he needs to do,” the headmaster said gently.
“Yes, sir.”
Yu quickly got out of the way of the cameras and set off down the road to the floodplain. He sincerely hoped that he wouldn’t have to rescue his school’s headmaster from the TV any time soon. What the hell kind of Shadow would he have, anyway?
--
Yu’s attempt to locate the Sea Guardian ended once more in failure. He returned home with aching limbs, to find that his uncle had brought Tohru Adachi home with him. Adachi’s attempts to entertain Nanako with magic tricks were interrupted by the little girl springing to her feet and racing over to give her brother a hug the moment she saw him. Yu bent down and hugged her back, feeling better already.
“Welcome home, big bro!”
“Hi, sis.”
Yu let go and ruffled Nanako’s hair, watching her bounce back to her seat at the table.
“Hello, uncle, Adachi-san.”
“You’re home late.”
Dojima had one eyebrow raised suspiciously, but at this point such remarks were made largely in jest. Yu’s uncle had to keep an eye on him, but a few months had taught him that whatever Yu got into, he could get himself out of without causing any real trouble or paperwork.
“Really, Dojima-san?” Adachi laughed. “Wow, you’re hard on that kid. Almost as hard as you are on me.”
Dojima turned his glare to Adachi, who play-wilted under it. Nanako pouted.
“No fighting at the dinner table!”
All three men made their apologies to the tiny but terrifying little girl, who brightened up the moment they did so. Yu sat down at the table in his usual spot just in time for the doorbell to ring.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”
Dojima got up and went to the door, exchanged some words with the person there, and came back in with bags from Aiya. Yu immediately felt twenty times as hungry as he had done before the bell had rung. Aiya was good at making him want more to eat than was reasonable.
“Ooh, Chinese,” Adachi said. “Man, I wonder if you can get that super-sized bowl to deliver? It is a rainy day…”
“You can’t,” Yu said sadly, “I’ve tried.”
Before long, the entire group were chowing down on Chinese food and talking about their days. Dojima and Adachi had spent the entire day dealing with mountains of paperwork; Nanako’s class had finished the book they were reading together; and Yu had plenty to complain about in terms of always being the one called on by his teachers.
Partway through the meal, Nanako turned on the TV in the hopes of hearing the Junes theme song. Instead, she got the news.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Adachi said through a mouthful of rice, “isn’t that the head at Yasogami…? I remember talking to him back when those murders happened.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Dojima replied, watching curiously. “I wonder what they’re interviewing him about?”
“Of course,” the headmaster said on-screen, “the improvements at this school over the year are partly thanks to the work-ethic of our students. In fact, there’s many students who have made a marked individual improvement… Speak of the devil! Narukami-kun, over here, please.”
Nanako dropped her chopsticks in shock as Yu appeared on-screen. She didn’t blink the entire time that Yu was speaking to the reporter. When Yu was dismissed, she turned to her brother, eyes wide.
“Big bro! You didn’t say you were going to be on TV!”
“It, uh, slipped my mind.”
“My big bro was on TV!” Nanako giggled gleefully. “I’m going to tell everyone at school!”
“Ha!” Adachi clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t let it go to your head, kid. Though, I’m kind of surprised to hear that your grades improved. I figured you were just an egghead from the start…”
Dojima coughed.
“Well, settling into a new town can’t be easy, especially given what happened at the start of the year.”
“That’s true, I guess.”
Adachi went back to his meal. Yu looked over at his uncle nervously. He was bad at reading expressions, but Dojima seemed proud and pleased. Yu felt proud himself, but at the same time, that pit of resentment in the bottom of his stomach still boiled a little that this was the first time anyone had…
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Yu took it out and flipped it open, curiously.
From: Naoto. WE NEED 2 TLK. CALL ME WHN U CAN.
It wasn’t until Yu got up to his room after helping with the washing-up that he got the chance to call Naoto back.
“I’m guessing you saw the news, Naoto-kun?”
“Correct.” Naoto’s tone was serious. “If what we’ve put together about the pattern of the kidnappings is correct – and we have no reason to think that it isn’t – then you may be in danger.”
“I couldn’t exactly run away. Besides, there was a lot of other stuff on the news…”
“Yes, but need I remind you that you’ve spent your entire time in Inaba trying to be everybody’s best friend? Everyone in town is going to notice it. We have to consider the possibility that you could become a target.”
They were right, of course.
“Well, it’s still raining. The Midnight Channel will be on tonight, and we can discuss it tomorrow. You remember how to watch it, right?”
“Ah… yes. Look into a turned-off television at midnight on a rainy night, correct?”
“That’s it. See you at school.”
Yu hung up and closed his phone with a satisfying click. He glanced at the clock – it was eight pm. He had a few hours to kill, and some translations to get done. This, at least, was falling into place well.
--
Yu’s phone alarm buzzed to inform him that it was five to midnight. He blinked the English words swimming in his vision out of his eyes and turned the alarm off before it could wake his relatives up. Five minutes until he found out if the killer had made a really, really bad decision.
Yu tidied all of his translation work onto the desk in the corner. It hadn’t gone particularly well, but translation rarely did, especially when the original text contained more idioms than made any sense at all. Was it even comprehensible to a native English speaker? He doubted it. When that was done, he turned to the TV and counted down the seconds.
The Midnight Channel came to life on its cue. Yu’s heart sank into his stomach. The figure on the screen was a moderately tall teenage boy in the Yasogami jacket, his hair obscuring his brow. He held one hand lightly on his hip, and let the other hang by his side.
GREAT.
The moment it faded, Yu’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“S-Senpai!” Kanji was extremely flustered. “The Midnight Channel just now!”
“Calm down, Kanji-kun.”
“Calm down?! Senpai, that was YOU on there!”
“I’m all right – for now, at least. Panicking isn’t going to make this any better. We should just meet tomorrow to discuss it, okay?”
“Y-yeah, you’re right…” Kanji sighed. “I just… you can’t blame me for worryin’, Senpai.”
“I know. Get some sleep, all right?”
“Yeah. You too, Senpai. Night.”
“Night.”
Kanji hung up. Yu quickly sent a mass text to the entire team – We’ll discuss this at Junes after school tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’m fine. – and put the phone back in his pocket.
So. He was the killer’s target, was he? On the one hand, this was the perfect opportunity to set up an ambush and get the killer done for attempted kidnapping at the very least. On the other hand, the killer had gone undetected for months. Doubtless they had a few tricks up their sleeve. There was always the possibility, therefore, that Yu would end up in the TV anyway.
He didn’t have a Shadow. He’d never had a Shadow. Izanagi had come to him naturally, and the rest had followed behind. If Yu ended up in the TV, the biggest threat would be the lesser Shadows that might flock to him like moths to a light. Even then, he still had his Personae, and he always kept his glasses with him just in case.
So why was this making him so nervous?