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it-will-not-last-the-night · 6 years

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Fracture-Chapter 1 (Rough)

Fracture:

Of course a fracture and a break were essentially identical, they refered to the same thing, fracture was merely the more precise, and wider, term. Fractures could be simply hairline or severly compound, but either way they mended with time. Of course, that didn’t mean they were ever completely restored.

Hairline Fracture: The evening of the 12th of December.

Ann let out the deepest, most contented, sigh of her young life, a noise pulled straight out of her depths and ushered into the artificial light of the Shibuya Diner she was in, as she eased herself against the leather exterior of the Diner’s seating, sliding down somewhat, stretching her arms out wide on either side as she tipped her head up to gaze at the ceiling above.

They had done it, they had well and truly done it, and Ann’s sigh communicated that sheer sense of relief in ways words might struggle to. It was the sort of expression that would be difficult for anyone to understand, anyone who had not travelled into the mind of a would-be Prime Minister of Japan to foil his nefarious schemes for political domination, that is. For, unbeknownst to it, the small Diner in Shibuya was playing host to a victory party, of sorts, the two boys, four girls and one cat (who would strenuously object to being called such a thing) celebrating their triumph.

“Feeling tired? It is getting a bit late,” Ann lazily rolled her head to her right, where Makoto sat with a soft smile, not minding Ann’s arm basically wrapped about her shoulders, as on the other side the blonde was vaguely aware of Futaba ordering yet another round of drinks for the table. In truth she felt exhausted, they all did, the combined fatigue of stress and their close call with death in the Cognitive World, when Shido’s Palace had almost collapsed on top of them, had left all of them more drained then they seemed, particularly now that the high of escaping the Palace alive had begun to ebb away. Still, though she was aware that she felt ‘tired’ she also still felt that same frenetic energy fuelling her, maybe leftover adrenaline still pumping through her body? The important part was that she still had enough in her to give Makoto a wan smile as she answered;

“Tired? After these two weeks I think I sort of forgot what tired even means, I’ll need to get a whole new definition for it, something even worse then ‘I spent two nights not sleeping cause I had to cram for the exams’ ya know?” Ann said, with a languid shrug of her shoulders, enjoying the sensation of knots unwinding in them. Makoto, in all honesty, didn’t really know, but gave a small nod, understanding where her friend was coming from at the least, as she added onto Ann’s statement; “I’m guessing you weren’t sleeping very well either then?”

“I don’t think any of us were getting as much rest as we needed, honestly,” Haru’s voice, sugary sweet as always, joined in from across the table, the brunette clearly looking for conversation from the other side of the table, as Yusuke and Futaba beside her bickered about something. It was all Makoto and Ann could manage not to chuckle at the rather comically contrasting pair; Futaba short and squatting on the seats of the Diner, Yusuke tall and elongated, folded like some elegant Praying Mantis along side her.

“Well…we’ll have time now, after all we’re in the waiting period again,” Ann turned to her other side, to give Ren a smile, drawing her arms away from Makoto and Ren’s shoulders to instead stretch them above her head, waiting for that satisfying ‘crack’ noise to come; “You hear Joker guys! New orders are to sleep in and sleep long, so I think we should all take a leaf out of Futaba’s book and fall into one of those mini-hibernations,” Ann leaned forward, onto the table, resting her head on her arms and giving Futaba a cheeky grin, the bespectacled girl haughtily crossing her arms as she spoke;

“Sleep? Nah, I got way to much energy to do that now, ‘sides, I’ll be up all night refreshing the news sites, wanna make sure I catch it the moment they report on that asshole’s confession,” the look on Futaba’s face instantly reminded Ann that, however committed she’d been, this had still meant more to Futaba than it had to her, and the blonde straightened herself out again, even though there was really no need to.

For a moment a silence hung over the table, not out of awkwardness or anxiety, but a genuine silence of fatigue, the sound of Yusuke munching on something small and flavourless, and of Ren’s fingers doing something on his phone, the only noise in the brief vacuum.

“Well...it probably won’t happen tonight Futaba, remember there is normally quite a wait before the Change of Heart really sets in,” Makoto said, one hand rubbing at the back of her neck, trying to work the stiffness out of it.

“Indeed, in all the prior cases there has always been a d- “Yusuke tried to begin, before Futaba simply spoke over him;

“I know, but its an imprecise art, isn’t it? You can’t say for sure something won’t happen tonight, now can you? Right Morgana?” Futaba ignored the irate glare Yusuke shot her, as the scratching sound of Morgana’s head poking out was followed by his answer, bright blue eyes watching them all carefully; “Its true we can’t say for sure it can’t happen in a night but…considering its never been like that, I think we shouldn’t count on it or anything, besides, staying up all night isn’t healthy for a growing girl! Why, do you think Lady Ann achieved such beauty by not getting enough sleep? They call it beauty sleep for a rea- mppphhhffff! “

“Whatever else Morgana had intended to say was lost as Futaba quickly, and rather roughly, pushed him back down into the bag, hiding him from the waitress approaching with a platter for the table, much to the most diminutive of the Phantom Thieves’ displeasure. Once she was gone his sullen head stuck out, giving a half-hearted glare at Futaba; “You could have just warned me,” he grumbled, whilst Futaba, for her part, gave a nonchalant shrug; “Had to make a split-second decision, we aren’t exactly meant to have cats in here, remember?”

Makoto didn’t need to pay attention to know what happened next, and she turned her head away from the overdone business of Morgana protesting he was not a cat, as Futaba snickered, the strategist of the Phantom Thieves instead returning her attention back to her blonde friend, noticing Ann was looking rather distractedly at her phone;

“What’s the matter? Did you get a message from someone?”

“No, no, I just…” Ann pocketed it, waving the question away with her hand, “…was checking something, nothing major though, don’t worry about it,” Ann certainly sounded convincing enough, and the grin she put back on her face appeared genuine to Makoto. Before she could ask anything else from her, Ann had already joined in on Futaba’s teasing, leaning over the table to waggle a finger at Morgana. It was all so familiar that Makoto would have no reason to concern herself…except for the way she now noticed Ren staring at his phone, in a different, but no less intense, manner than Ann had.

Nothing should be able to ruin tonight…so why did both Ann and Ren seem bothered?

There wasn’t really a single, firm, point he could pin down as the point at which he woke. The boundary between full consciousness, and only being half-so, was nebulous, a liminal thing, and by the time he realized it was his eyes staring out at night shrouded city, he’d already been staring for some time.

One blink, two, and slowly thoughts reorganized themselves from simply accepting stimuli to actually formulating coherently inside his mind, bringing with them the sudden awareness that he was awake, lying against a lamppost, head propped up against it and-

*Bzzzt* a buzzing from his pocket, his phone, interrupted his thoughts, he felt it vibrating in his pocket, and instantly reached a hand for it, trying to shift up as he did so, to get up off the ground, but before he could manage anything like that…

Pain, fresh, shot through him, his leg the origin point for an arcing bolt of it, traveling through nerves and synapses, using them like a ladder, all the way up to his brain, where they delivered their white hot package. He grunted, a grimace straining his face as, instinctively, both hands shot out and gripped around the meat of his leg, the phantom spot that had once been fractured, his phone forgotten for now.

“Fuck,” Ryuji cursed, rubbing his fingers against the leg of his pants, as if he could knead the pain out of it somehow, as he slumped back again, deciding to give the pain a few seconds to work itself out. He was, of course, far from unfamiliar to pain, particularly of this variety, but being familiar with it didn’t mean he was immune to it, and the throbbing currently taking up residence was stronger than normal. He presumed it was because of his hasty effort to get up, he’d tried to push down with just the injured leg, put all the weight on it for a moment, and then experienced the consequences of his rush.

Getting beat up certainly didn’t help, dripped bitterly in his mind, accompanied by an ugly, messy, flash of something in him, a brief feeling which made his stomach knot…

But it left as soon as it had come, leaving his brow furrowed and knuckles clenched, somewhat confused where such a vehement thought had come from. It took a few seconds of the quiet night’s near lack of sound, before he remembered what had made him stir in the first place, the blonde boy’s hand fishing out his rather outdated phone, to see who, or what, had left him a message. He clicked, the screen lighting up, there to display;

Ann: Hey? You okay? We’re at the Diner, we’ll still be here a while…

…

Relief? Well, there was definitely a sort of excitement, or, perhaps, something more like smugness? Ann being the first to contact him seemed about right, after all she’d instigated the reason he was still stuck here too, so maybe this was her way of giving an apology?

She still sucks at those then, is it really okay for her to just get away with this? He sat for a moment, staring at the message. Reasonably speaking he should have responded by now, it was the polite thing to do, after all, she was inquiring if he was alright;

If she actually cared about that would she have left me here to begin with? His finger hovered over the button, a click to get into his phone, a password away from sending a response, from letting her know he was alright, or anything else that might be in his mind and, oh, how his mind was churning right now, a frenzy of thoughts and feelings fighting for dominance. But, he knew, he should respond, he should, even if he felt angry, he should respond.

He should.

Just send a message. Just one word if he wanted. Just a Yeah. Just something. He should.

Shouldn’t he?

Ryuji wasn’t the sort of person to contemplate the meaning of words, their origins, or the difficulties their conceptual frameworks might pose but, here, now, it did occur to him that the word ‘should’ was applied a lot more liberally than it probably ought to be. How many times in his life did he do things because he felt he ‘should’, even when he, if he actually thought about it, didn’t really have to.

But no. Ann was a friend, it was late, she was worried, he had to let her know, he should do so, it was just decent. His finger hovered over the phone;

And somewhere there was the sounds of chains rattling.

Ann stared at it, which, in this case, was referring to the noted absence of any text message, call or audio message by Ryuji.

What’s he doing? By the two ticks next to her message, greyed out as they were, she could tell he’d seen it, but he’d sent no message of his own, no attempt at communication. Even as she sat on the train, hunched over like so many other youth, the little image in the corner, next to his name, seemed rather out of place right now, a photo of the blonde smiling broadly, a group shot of himself with the others…

She looked up just long enough to confirm her location, she’d have to get off soon, and for some reason that idea disquieted her tonight. Ann couldn’t be sure, but she put it down to the fact that she was making the trip alone, something she used to be accustomed to but, for most of the last year, she’d almost always made this trip with someone else; Ren, Makoto, Ryuji, Yusuke or all of them even, the point was that she had grown used to having company. Already she missed the Diner and the lively conversation there, but they’d had to call it a night, make the last trains, and Sojiro would worry if Futaba was out to late-

Ren: Anything yet?

She glanced at the message for a bit, as if waiting for Ryuji to somehow butt in just as he answered, to undermine her, but it was a silly impulse and she ignored it;

Ann: Nothing yet…he hasn’t contacted you has he?

It wasn’t exactly a dumb question, personally Ann assumed that, if Ryuji was going to contact anyone of his own volition, it’d be their fearless leader and his best friend. Of course, tonight was a bit different, Ren had…left with them.

Ren: No…

Ren: I’d tell you as soon as he did, if he did. Hmm.

Ren and Yusuke were the only people she knew who’d actually type out ‘Hmm’. Normally she might have had a go at him over it but tonight wasn’t normal.

Ann: Can you try sending him a message, please?

Ann: I think he’ll respond to you.

I hope he’ll respond to you…

Ren: Of course, I actually just did send one already

Ann: Do you think he’s okay?

It was a lot more frank than she’d been intending her question to sound but, in her defence, she was pretty exhausted.

Ren: He’ll be okay Ann, he’s probably just pissed off…

Ann: Yeah

“Understandably” went unsaid between the two.

Ren: Anyway, I’ll let you know if he contacts me, but I’m sure we’ll get an earful tomorrow, so try not to worry too much, okay?

Ann: Worried? I’m not worried, just wanna make sure the idiot doesn’t get himself in trouble with his mom, if he’s out by the time she comes back, trust me, she’ll panic.

Ren: Right, noted, let me know if his mom contacts you then as well, okay?

The stop was approaching and Ann got up, fingers typing away;

Ann: Will do, good night

Ann: Oh, and tell Morgana and Futaba I said goodnight too!

Ren: I will, if Futaba ever actually goes to sleep…

Ren: Anyway, night!

Offline, his image read, and she looked back at Ryuji, their chat log, just one last check to see if he’d responded yet.

He hadn’t.

Nothing was supposed to be able to bring them down today, they’d defeated their own arch enemy. So why was this happening?

He beat his mom home, luckily, one of the few times in his entire life he could say, with all honesty, he was glad she had to work so late.

Shoes were kicked off unceremoniously into a pile beneath a shelf of irrelevant trophies, jacket was shrugged unto the back of a chair, and his face was buried in a pillow in a matter of moments, his phone still gripped in one hand.

He didn’t understand why he hadn’t responded, he knew he ought to of. Even when Ren had contacted he’d still just…just not done it. He’d thought to, intended to, but…but…

He sighed, giving up on yet another attempt at understanding, turning over onto his back, bringing the phone before him, its blue light sharp in the darkness of his room, hoping, somehow, swapping positions on the bed physically would change his thoughts.

It didn’t work.

His eyes blinked in the darkness, the sharp light from his phone, two notifications glaring at him from it, keeping the rest of the room from being recognizable as anything more than a series of dark blobs. He breathed in, mouth open, feeling the air rushing in…and then rushing out again as he exhaled open mouth. The tightness in his chest receded somewhat, although that just brought up the question of why his chest was tight to begin with.

One last time tonight he brought his finger up, intending to respond, it was better not to let a wound fester, better to confront it soon, better not to make one’s friends worry.

But are they your friends?

He let his arm grow slack and the phone fell to the floor beside his bed, softly, as one arm rested over his face, as if to stop his eyes looking up and he tried to let sleep take him.

That was when the real nightmare began.

#persona 5 #p5 #phantom thieves of heart #fanfiction #rough

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