2026-07-22: Q&A
- Log: 2026-07-22 Q&A
- Cast: Futaba Sakura, Ren Amamiya
- Where: Back Alleys - Leblanc Cafe
- OOC Date: July 22, 2026
- IC Date: December 13, 2012
- Summary: After the others have gone home after a Phantoms meeting, Futaba and Ren talk about seeing someone die, their respective pasts, and the history of the Phantom Thieves up 'til now.
<Pose Tracker> Futaba Sakura has posed.
12/13/20XX - EVENING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Cm74nDhac
Everyone went home, probably so it didn't get *dark* dark. Even if a lot of them may be going home to places where things aren't too closely watched, it's good to do, right?
Of course, for Futaba Sakura, this place is home, more or less. Or at least it's an annex from home. Just at this moment, she is seated at the bar with a double-sized serving of curry and rice in front of her. Flanking it is a cup of coffee (Chiapas blend - from Mexico, light roast, some stone-fruit notes) and a glass of water.
om nom nom
Other than Futaba and Ren, though...
"Mid-week's dead, huh?" Sojiro Sakura muses. "Alright... I'm heading out. Close things up for me when you get done, would you?" This, to Ren.
And to Futaba...
"You're alright?"
Futaba, who had her mouth full, gives a thumbs-up.
"You've got your key and everything? I'm going to lock up the house, but if you need to head back..."
"I've got the key," Futaba says.
Sojiro seems uneasy about this, but after another long look at Ren, he moves to get out from behind the counter and head out the door. There is time, perhaps, to ask where he's going, although Futaba isn't that interested.
Once he's gone, though, Futaba takes another couple of bites of the curry and rice before her spoon clinks on the plate and... stays there.
Quiet rests in the confines of the Cafe Leblanc for a few long seconds. Futaba takes a deep breath... and lets it out... and picks up the cup of coffee to take a slurp. This seems to bring her courage.
"U-um." She stops the trailing-off before it goes farther, though it takes a beat for her to articulate what comes next. "... You said you were having nightmares, when everyone was talking." Futaba looks up from her curry, holding her coffee cup in both hands, as much for its warmth as anything.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Granted, it's December, so on a strictly light-based system, it probably is dark dark. It's probably not so late people have to rush to catch the last train, though.
It's as good as home when your home is less than a five-minute walk away. For Ren, it is home, more or less--though as time goes on and they get more comfortable with Sojiro now that he's more comfortable with them post-Futaba-heart-change, it's "more" rather than "less." Hell, he's even teaching them Leblanc's curry recipe, though tonight it's not their own curry they're eating next to Futaba at the bar.
They're likewise mid-chew when Sojiro addresses them, but that's fine. Ren looks up and nods. They likewise watch the exchange between him and Futaba, chewing, chewing, chewing, and finally swallowing. "I'll make sure she gets home safe," they reassure him. This will mean walking her home later, even though it is less than a five minute walk away. Why not? This neighborhood's quiet, but if it puts Sojiro at ease, Ren hardly minds.
Morgana had his own little plate with hot milk cooled down to room temperature earlier, then went out for a stroll. Must be nice to have that fur coat in this weather, though Ren of course didn't say this. Neither does he ask where Sojiro's going; Sojiro has long since trained them to refrain from prying into his business unless they absolutely must. They nod again, this time in farewell, when he finally leaves.
Ren and Futaba both return to their dinners. The magic of Leblanc's curry is that it doesn't matter how many times a day Ren eats it, he never gets tired of it. If things ever get serious between them and Akechi, they wonder if they could bewitch his indifferent tongue that way too...
They notice with a side glance that Futaba stops eating, even though her plate isn't yet clean. They don't remark on this either. They take a drink of their own coffee, likewise sidelined with a water, and moves to continue eating when she speaks up.
"Hm?" They look back at her, and don't prompt again until she actually forms words. Their eyelashes dip at the comment, then shut as they nod for a third time. "Yeah. It's starting to taper off, though." They look back down at their plate, though they don't yet scoop up their next bite. "I know everyone's here for me, too. That helps a lot."
They pause, then look back at Futaba wordlessly. They don't quite know how to ask what they suspect is coming next, so they let her bring it up at her own pace.
<Pose Tracker> Futaba Sakura has posed.
It does seem to ease Sojiro to hear that Ren will make that commitment. "Thanks. And hey, cross your fingers for me."
But why?
A mystery. Sojiro is gone.
It is only Futaba and Ren (for Morgana has dined and gone on an excursion himself... but to where?) Futaba is pivoted in her chair to look towards Ren. Her fingers fidget on the coffee cup. A little steam forms on her left lens; she shifts the coffee, to stop it.
"... I heard," Futaba starts, but then stops, and frowns slightly. Her eyes turn towards the coffee cup as if to divine a truth, but instead it becomes another silence.
"I mean," she says, "I'd heard that that's normal. It goes away after a while. Your cognition might not totally process it, but it gets further and further away."
Heard? from everyone?
"..."
Futaba kicks her legs back and forth.
"... Did it happen to you from anything before? You didn't seem like you get scared easily... But I guess it's not exactly like being scared, either."
After this she puts the coffee cup down and picks up her plate. Her legs come up, heels tucking against her butt as she scoots back on the stool and rests her plate on her knees. She reaches without looking for the spoon and gathers a bite of the curry, eating it despite the... considerable reduction in distance from the plate to her mouth.
Then again.
After bite three she looks back up towards Ren, especially if they haven't spoken up by then.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Ren did say as much about the nightmares tapering off earlier, so they think that's what Futaba means at first. They say nothing at first as a result. When she clarifies her actual meaning, though, they blink once. Then they nod and bow their head. "Yeah."
This isn't the only trauma they've suffered. They know something about the distance of time easing the pain... though the biggest thing that keeps a bad event from becoming trauma is support. That's why they'll get through this, while their arrest still haunts them.
Case in point: when Futaba asks about any other nightmares they've had, they're silent for a moment, then choose not to talk about that. Instead:
"...Yeah. I have a tendency to get nightmares when I'm really stressing about something. When we were working on changing Kamoshida's heart, for example. We didn't know for sure if it'd work. Morgana warned us he might even die--he couldn't say for sure it'd work out the way we hoped. But we were desperate, and willing to try anything." Ren looks down at their reflection in their coffee. "Back then, I got nightmares about getting expelled and kicked out of here, and having to sleep on the streets."
In other words, they didn't expect anyone to help them. Not even the friends they'd just made. Why would they? Back then, they still barely knew each other. If even your best friend of ten years can cut you off, if even your own parents gladly agree to shipping you far away from town, what reason would they have to believe in anyone anymore?
It's different now, of course. The bonds they've formed by now, they have faith in. Back when everything was still uncertain, though--when they were fresh off their arrest trauma...
"...What about you?" they wonder quietly. "It must've really messed you up, what you saw."
At least the man they saw die was a stranger. Futaba's experience must have been so much worse, even if she knows the truth now.
<Pose Tracker> Futaba Sakura has posed.
Ren pulls back the curtain to their heart, somewhat. A total unveiling it is not, but it is something. Futaba keeps eating in her peculiarly postured way but her eyes stay fixed on Ren as they lay it out.
The first change of heart.
"... So you didn't know if it'd work at all, but you tried anyway."
...
"heh! That's completely unscientific," Futaba says, but then she balances the plate a little - most of the curry's gone at this point - and turns to put it back on the countertop.
The nightmare was living on the streets. Futaba thinks back - to the first time she heard the two of them speak. "... I don't think Sojiro would've really just..."
She doesn't commit to it. Maybe it's from uncertainty, maybe it's just the struggle of relating to others. At least Ren is there, and they are easier to talk to.
Clanking her spoon on the plate a couple of times, Futaba looks at the post-prandial wreckage. "Yeah. I saw it... happen. I got... really scared about crossing the street, even if..." Another trailing thought. Her head lifts slightly. "But it was the same as you. It did get better. Or... I guess I'd say, I didn't have nightmares as much."
"I had to go to a couple of different places. Mostly relatives I didn't really know much. I don't think they were close to Mom any more. One place in Kanagawa, it was really bad... it was summer and the roof leaked, and I woke up in the middle of the night when it was dripping on me."
Clank, clonk. "... It was the worst."
"How'd you end up on probation?"
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
"Yup."
As they said: they were desperate and willing to try whatever it took. The alternative was Ren and Ryuji (and Mishima, but this isn't about him) getting expelled, and Kamoshida continuing to pressure Ann for sex, this time after having raped her best friend. None of them could let any of that stand. Thankfully, it did work out in the end.
Futaba laughs and calls it unscientific. Ren crooks a smile at her. "None of us in the start were exactly scientific thinkers," they reply. "It was just Ryuji, Ann, Morgana and me." Ren and Morgana are reasonably intelligent, but Ren's a lit nerd rather than a science nerd, Morgana has amnesia, Ryuji and Ann are especially prone to thinking with their hearts instead of their brains.
They fall silent when Futaba tries to defend Sojiro but trails off. They look down at their plate, idly scooping up rice and curry. "...Probably not," they agree quietly. "But back then, he didn't seem to like me all that much."
Futaba admits to gaining a fear of crossing the road--then describes a bit about the relatives she lived with in between her mother's death and moving in with Sojiro. Ren glances back at her. "That does suck," they say of the dripping rain. "Could they just not afford to fix the roof, or...?"
Once again, they fall silent at her last question. They spoon that curry into their mouth to give themself a bit of time. They've told this story a few times now, but they're never a fan of recounting it. After they swallow, they take a deep breath in through their nose and out through their mouth. That always helps calm them down.
"So, I was walking home after practice one day. It was late, after dark. I overheard a man and a woman arguing on the street. The guy was drunk and trying to force her into a car, and she was begging him to cut it out. When I approached, she saw me and begged me for help, so I got in between them."
They slowly twirl their spoon on their plate. There isn't much curry left, but it's hard to feel much appetite right now. "...I only touched him a little. Just on the shoulder, and only to turn him around. But since he was drunk, he lost his balance and fell on the sidewalk, hit his head. He got pissed and said he'd sue, then forced the woman to go with his version of events. The two of them clearly knew each other, so..." Ren shrugs, eyes still down. "When the cops showed up after someone called in a public disturbance, it was two against one, you know? So they took me away. Sure enough, the guy took me to court, and... he had really good lawyers, I guess. The judge ruled against me and I was convicted of assault."
They set their spoon down and set their hands down on their thighs as they stare at their plate. "My old school expelled me over it. The court said I had to do probation or go to jail, and my parents went with probation here in Tokyo. Get me away from home long enough so everyone could forget what happened. Sojiro-san's a friend of a friend of theirs, so he agreed to let me stay here. So... yeah." They gesture vaguely and without enthusiasm. "That's how."
<Pose Tracker> Futaba Sakura has posed.
"It's pretty hard to do an A/B test on stuff like that. But field observation's part of science too."
There's a question about the roof. "Mmmmm... I dunno... I think it was just poorly made or something. Or it was just bad luck. But I thought..."
Futaba doesn't really go into that. There's other stuff, bigger stuff, stuff about *ren* to hear. She picks up her coffee, holding it quite adroitly in one hand while watching Ren speak. A story.
Of course, it doesn't go the way you might imagine these stories would go. Futaba's lips purse for a moment. Her expression hardens at the rest of it. "Unforgivable," Futaba huffs out, her lower lip pooching out. It is not threatening. "He could've completely destroyed your life! Even if he did hurt himself when he fell over," because Futaba has immediately taken Ren's side and as such attributes all negative agency to the other, "that's way too much. He should've taken his lie and gone to Hell with it."
Futaba sips her coffee. angrily
"... See," Futaba says. "Sojiro really would've looked out for you. Now it's a habit." It's awkward, a rather blunt pivot towards the positive.
"I thought you might have been stealing jewels or something... or gotten framed for it, anyway." A beat. "... I guess you wouldn't be surprised, but... I searched for your name." Futaba adjusts her glasses. "All I found was stuff about figure skating. Was that video really you? I can link you later if you want. It's a really crappy video... but it did kind of look like you."
"You're a minor, even if you're bigger than Sojiro, so I guess your name wouldn't be in the papers." Futaba's lips purse slightly. "Not unless you'd actually done really bad."
Still... Even all the way back then, you were looking out for people..."
(this was not actually terribly long ago Futaba)
"So that means the Thief part... That had to be Morgana's idea," Futaba continues. "Or I guess it just follows from the operations of the cognitive reality in a system of capitalist economy."
"I bet that guy has a really rotten heart."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
"You thought?" Ren prompts when Futaba doesn't finish her thought. They, too, prefer to hear about others than talk about themself--though if they're asked a direct question, they won't lie, and given how much about Futaba's painful past they know through her Palace, they're not going to downplay it or brush her questions off either. She's owed that much, in their view.
So even though they prompt her for more, they share their own story too. Futaba immediately going ride or die for them can't help but draw a smile out of them as affection swells in their heart. They really have made some incredible friends here in Tokyo. ...but eventually they have to go back to Inaba... No, they're not going to think about that. There's nothing they can do about that, anyway. Better to focus on what they can do.
That smile turns awkward when Futaba insists Sojiro would've looked out for them. They look away. "I don't know about that. He was really all about keeping your head down back then. We talked about it a little when I arrived, and... he said I should've minded my own business."
Maybe another reason why they thought he'd kick them out if they got expelled. They hook a couple fingers around the handle of their cup, but don't yet drink. Their back stiffens when Futaba mentions figure skating videos online, and they look away. "...Yeah, probably. I used to skate. Before the arrest."
Now they're downplaying and brushing off. It... hurts, to lose something you loved and were so passionate about.
"Stealing jewels'd at least be a classic phantom thief caper," they joke half-heartedly. "No, you're right. When we first met Morgana, he--" hmmm, it would definitely bruise his pride to mention he was in Palace jail "--was in a pinch, so Ryuji and I helped him out. We were in a pinch ourselves at the time; we'd stumbled into Kamoshida's Palace by accident and didn't know what the hell was going on. In return, he agreed to teach us about Personas and how to be proper thieves. Ann came in a little later when she followed us in, and she got in on it too."
They take a sip of their coffee, then fold their arms on the edge of the counter as they look back at Futaba. "After that, Yusuke joined us to help with changing Madarame's heart; then Makoto with Kaneshiro's; then Ichika and later Tsubasa with Kamiya's... and now you and Hibari. Kasumi--you haven't met her, she's before your time--she joined us provisionally for a little while we looked into a Palace for our school's principal, but decided not to stay on after we ended up not changing his heart. We didn't all agree on it, so..."
Unanimous agreement on a target is one of their rules, after all.
I bet that guy has a really rotten heart.
"...Yeah." In a mutter, they add, "Whoever he was."
<Pose Tracker> Futaba Sakura has posed.
(Futaba doesn't pick up on the train of thought that had trailed off there. Likely a tangential memory. Maybe it was just a moment of total memorable despair which is always hard to communicate in the best of times.)
Before the arrest, a goal. An aspiring dream.
Crushed by the nameless Guy.
"You'd have to fence 'em. That's when they'd get you," Futaba concurs about the jewels.
There's more stories. The origins... of Morgana. (Futaba is actually imagining Morgana tied up by a Shadow ball of string, so being in Shadow Jail is possibly not actually that embarrassing... by comparison. Futaba still has a ways to go to see Morgana by his true heart.)
"Heh! So he's the one who named. So all three of you had the Meta-Nav? How's Morgana get in without a phone? Or is that his problem," Futaba continues, eyes widening slightly. "He might've been stuck in there even if he'd gotten loose. Unless he could find a way out through Mementos or something like that."
Futaba finishes off the coffee, nodding along.
"So there's one at your school, too? With the principal, I mean. Or did you manage to steal his heart?"
But-- something's already flowing out. "Um-- what's your school like? I never got to entrance exams for high school..." It sounds wistful, and she's looking away from Ren. Embarrassed, perhaps. "... It isn't like a tough school or anything, is it? I know Skull kind of..."
seems like a delinquent
with his colored hair
HYPOCRITE THY NAME IS FUTABA SAKURA
"They never really show class in anime, anyway. It's always after school stuff, or just before. Maybe there's a lunch scene."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Crushed for no other reason than because Ren got in the way of his assaulting a woman who was crying and begging for him to stop.
Is it any wonder that Ren's traded that passion for ice skating for changes of heart now?
Still, they aren't so caught up in their bitterness about the past that they can't give Futaba a sage nod. "Not a lot of places to fence stolen jewels in--" here, they let their Inaba accent shine through, "--a hick country town like mine."
Being the mayor's 'son' means learning how to switch back and forth between a 'standard' Tokyo accent at a very young age.
"It showed up on my phone first," Ren replies. "Then it spread to Ryuji's and Ann's. Morgana..." Ren frowns a little. "Doesn't need a phone. He can just go in." They pause. "He's got amnesia, so he doesn't know how he can do that either. He just does."
They nod, then shake their head, in regards to the principal's Palace. "We didn't have unanimous agreement, so we didn't steal his heart. I haven't checked since we last went, but he's still walking around, so I assume he's still got a Palace, yeah."
Out of curiosity, they pull out their phone and check the Meta-Nav. A moment of scrolling, and sure enough, Principal Kobayakawa's name is still on the list.
They're a little surprised about the question about school--but only a little. They tuck their phone back into their pocket and consider the question. "Not as terrible as I was afraid it'd be. My homeroom teacher's cool, and I've got a few friends, even setting aside the rest of The Phantoms," they reply. "But not great, either. It is tough, but because it's a fairly high-end prep school. When I transferred in, my record had already been leaked, so even now all these crazy rumors run around about me. It's not as bad as the start of the year, but most kids are still scared of me."
They pause.
"Ryuji got in on a sports scholarship, from what I heard," they add.
<Pose Tracker> Futaba Sakura has posed.
Futaba looks faintly surprised at the twang. Moderate though it might be, it *was* notable. But then the story of the app upload. "Ah... so it's a mystery power. I understand." This has the gnomic smack of a reference. Futaba picks up the water glass and brings it up to drink some.
"He hasn't been getting worse, right...? He's not a hell principal or anything?"
Specific illustrating phrase aside, how bad IS Kobayakawa compared to a modal principal in a Japanese high school? The school story seems to hook Futaba as well as the tragedy. She nods along. Her brow creases at the record *leaking*, but then relaxes.
"Heh heh!" (That was about Ryuji.)
"I can try to find the leaker, if you want," Futaba says then, kicking her legs again. "It's probably in the changelogs if they have digital recordkeeping. If it's all on paper, though..."
The kicking stops.
"... My powers can't extend that far."
"I didn't really have many friends at school... I just sort of showed up and read the book. That was enough." Futaba reaches up to shift one of the cans of the earphones away from her ear -- because she has, indeed, had those noise-cancelling headphones on her ears the entire time this conversation has been going on -- so she can scratch it with a fingertip.
"... It's funny, huh. Hibari" who has already hit first name basis it would seem "was talking about those rumors, but even out here... And it had to have gotten out somehow. Even if it was an idiot instead of someone trying to be cruel, someone had to say," Futaba concludes, before finishing off her water. "And if it was one of those adults..."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
"For him, yeah," Ren replies, nodding. "For the rest of us, it came from Igor." They pause. "Uh, Igor is this long-nosed man who helps people with their Personas... Uh, we'll take you to the Velvet Room sometime and you can see for yourself."
They don't explain that their version of the Velvet Room is apparently different from everyone else's. They never know how to put it in a way that doesn't sound completely insane. Or doesn't tell on them in a way they're not comfortable with sharing.
They just got several people saying they're surprised he gets scared, and that's after admitting they had nightmares after seeing a man get brutally murdered, something they think is honestly pretty normal.
"Mm... he sucks real bad, but he sucks in a way that's more like... being pathetic and paranoid. That's part of why we didn't change his heart. He's mostly about hunkering down and sucking up to the people over him than about actively making anybody's life hell." They rub their temple. Maybe they should check in sometime, see if Ruin ever came by again... "...his distortion comes from how he's actually an NWO stooge and takes orders from on high on who he admits as a teacher or a student. Kamoshida was apparently one of them." A tense pause. "So was I." They look over at Futaba. "His Palace was where we met Ruin for the first time."
They shake their head at the offer. "Thanks, but I already know. It was a classmate of mine named Mishima. He used to be on the volleyball team Kamoshida coached, and Kamoshida forced him into it. We're cool now. He manages the Phan-Site, actually; he's a big supporter of ours. He sort of unofficially knows who we are--we won't outright admit it to him, but he has us figured out."
Futaba relates her own time at school back when she attended. That was 'enough,' huh... "Was it really? You didn't ever get lonely?" they wonder. They know well what it's like to say something is enough when it really isn't, because what would it change to admit otherwise?
<Pose Tracker> Futaba Sakura has posed.
"A long-nosed man?" Futaba asks, quizzically. "This sounds like a shady place... We definitely have to go." Easy for Futaba to say, sitting in a restaurant that's familiar and safe, second only to her house!! After that she frowns a bit again. The sketch of Kobayakawa is not giving her a burning desire to go enroll at Shujin, for certain. But the thought itself...
... Well, one step at a time.
"Maybe it's something really passive... I wonder if he's got a problem that's got nothing to do with school life," Futaba muses.
Oh.
Well.
That was a good guess. Futaba's eyes narrow in displeasure as she may be getting herself up to start pitching on going after Kobayakawa's heart on *general principles* until Ren reaches the end of the tale and concludes with the simple and direct fact: *Ren* was one of the people so ordered.
"But how..."
And Ruin, too! The twist on top of the twist throws off any immediate questions. Ruin! Mishima! Before Futaba can even hate the guy properly, Ren's already forgiven him! He's the webmaster!! "So that's who runs that place," Futaba mutters. "Tell him... No."
Futaba adjusts her glasses. "... Don't worry about it."
Leaving aside computer matters, things turn back to her. Futaba laces her fingers together; unlaces them; laces them a little differently. "... It was really lonely."
"My grades were really good but I didn't act like I studied... I wasn't kidding about just reading the book. I have a really good memory. They thought I was a weirdo... or like I was looking down on them... Being online was a lot easier."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
At least if Futaba did enroll at Shujin, she'd have lots of friendly senpais. Haru and Makoto will have graduated, but there'll be Ryuji, Ann, Kasumi once she meets her...
...whether Ren will still be there or not has yet to be seen, but that's still a good number of people she'll know.
For now, they crook a smile at her calling Igor shady and insisting they go. "Definitely," they agree.
"It's not unrelated to school life, but it's definitely more than just that," Ren replies. They hold out their phone so Futaba can see. "There's his name, location, and distortion." Principal Kobayakawa - Shujin Academy - bunker... Once she's looked, they pull it away.
"Wish I knew," they say grimly. "I tried talking to my parents about it, since they've got to know something, right? But..." They look away. "They just blew me off. I got caught up in other things after that, so it's still just one big question mark. Kobayakawa doesn't know, either; he's too unimportant to get told stuff, he just gets orders." They shrug. What else can they do?
Futaba doesn't seem too keen on Mishima. Ren glances over at her, but... she seems willing to drop it, at least. "He's not a bad guy. It was all Kamoshida's fault anyway," they reiterate quietly. "He hasn't done anything like that since."
But now the focus is on her. She admits she was lonely, and they nod like they figured, because they did. "People can be weirdly insecure sometimes," they say. "I hope you had some friends, at least, but... if that's what you had to deal with, no wonder online was easier."
They minimize the Meta-Nav to check the time then. At this point, it is getting late. "We'd better get you home soon," they remark. "Don't want Sojiro-san to worry." They look back at her. "But anytime you wanna come by and hang out, feel free. Just shoot me a text first so I can confirm I'm here."
She doesn't actually need to do that, but Ren still doesn't know she has Leblanc bugged.
<Pose Tracker> Futaba Sakura has posed.
Futaba frowns for a moment when she sees the name. Bunker.
Huh.
She doesn't elaborate on her friends, other than an "mm" which isn't a denial or a strong endorsement, before straightening up. "... there's melon sodas in the fridge if you want to come get one too."
Then she grins for a moment. "You got it!" NEW POLICY: TEXT BEFORE WALKING OVER
(she may still walk over for food if there's nothing in the fridge that she considers edible. Though she does have that tactical stockpile of instant yakisoba... But that'd probably be during business hours.)
And as for the bug...
She'll bring it up eventually.