We're starting on the 17th since it's when I got my second checkup, however we're going to skip ahead to the 24th when I went back to school. The time of my medical exam was probably around 10:00 AM or so? Maybe later. As for the 24th, let's say that it's just after school, so 3:30.

  Turns out I was being melodramatic.

  On the outside it looked like I had been jumped. Multiple tests ran across my body proved that most the wounds were superficial. My broken mind had been unable to comprehend that the burns had been healed by Metaverse magic until I was stripped in the operation room, saving me an extremely uncomfortable explanation. Little hammer things showed that my knees were just pushed to their limits rather than being broken. A pulled muscle along my thigh was painful as heck and the worst injury that I got. If I had to guess then it was the kick maneuver on my bike that had yanked the muscle and the running afterwards making it worse.

  'Worst' just meant severity. In terms of cosmetics, oh boy, there was a reason that Sojiro was trying to force me out the door so we could get a mortician. Convincing him that I wasn't seriously hurt and could last a good night's rest was the damnedest lie I'd ever told. Going to sleep while my hip was throbbing brought nightmares of my thighs popping off like a Lego. Sojiro woke me up to herd me into the back alley clinic, who looked like she was going to castrate me as her bill. Scrapes ran red and black lines across my arms. My knees had bruises which made walking difficult. Blisters popped in strange patterns across my feet. A tiny piece of hair burned off; it was found when I rubbed a hand down my scalp, falling on my leg. Before I could hide it, she picked it up with a furious glare.

  Unless the volleyball I played was pitched in tar, my injuries were not from sports. That excuse left through the back door the second that she had lifted that hair. Kids beat you up, Yakuza rubbed out their cigarette in your hair. Being underneath the two adults' suspicious stares was weighty. They both had vision. The full manifold of my injuries may have been hidden, but what was visible told enough. I didn't even know if I could go to work as I was.

  Saying that out loud didn't get me any fans.

  "Are you even taking your probation seriously?" Sojiro roared. He was standing up and looming over me, not caring that we were in public. "You come home every other day looking like you've gotten attacked by a raccoon doing who-knows-what—definitely not studying! I don't think I've seen you come home with a single book! Do you think that you're just trying to hide from me? No! It's not about doing the right thing so I don't take away your free time. I'm looking out for your future and you obviously don't have many people willing to do that since I was the only one willing to take you in! What are you gaining from getting into back alley fights? Huh? Because from where I'm looking, all you've gotten was a wounded pride. You look like you've been murdered! Just after I got a call from the school saying that you almost got in a fight. With a girl, huh? Did your pride demand that you had to get yourself beaten up? What the hell were you thinking? Are you going to answer anything or just sit there?"

  I looked back to the doctor. She wasn't going to help. I looked within myself for strength.

  "Sorry, partner, but I'm sitting out of this one," Arsene said.

  If even a facet of myself ducked out then I was truly hopeless. There was no option other than doubling down. So with all the charisma that is hidden within this dumb body, I clenched a fist to my heart and started doubling down.

  "I was playing—"

  "I called your parents and they said that you have to be pried away from your computer!" he roared in my face. I leaned back like I was on a rollercoaster. "So take those lies and shove them up somebody else's ass. I want you to sit here and prove that I'm not being taken for a sucker."

  My throat was dry. Nothing came to mind.

  "It's the truth."

  He held the position for some time before walking to the door. He spun around and pointed at me.

  "I'm paying for this. If you're hurt again then you're not getting a cent from me. If the cops come in for any reason, I'm pointing them towards you."

  The door slammed behind him. The doctor didn't flinch. I did. She gave out my diagnosis neutrally. Weeks of taking it easy. No more 'sports'. She stretched out 'sports' as long as her breath could.

  Home became hellish. Sojiro looked offended by my presence and I still had nothing upstairs. Not even wanting to think about the Metaverse, I now had no fun projects to do. So for the next three days when I was recovering to the point of being able to walk I was just staring at the ceiling. I read a lot on my phone. News articles and the like. There was a lot of stuff that happened during the week. For the first time in a long while I opened all my social media stuff. Still blocked by everybody at home. Learned that I was blocked by people in Tokyo preemptively, meaning that my accounts were also leaked. Cyberstalked Makoto until I learned that she wasn't active on anything. Leaving mean DMs would've been as far as I went, I swear. Had to call work and say that I wouldn't be there until my injury healed. They graciously accepted.

  The middle of the week had me so bored that I visited the fansite. The replies it was getting petered out to a very small, very desperate minority. Most were people whose hearts have been so distorted they steal juice boxes from their local mom and pop stores. The most recent one was pleading for a good specimen of his ex's heart so he could figure out how that bitch's emotions turned so black. It wasn't deleted when I checked later that week.

  Magic waved its metaphorical fingers around and I was at least walking by the time the next examination came. Using Pixie to speed up the recovery time made me a human bound to different rules. These rules were envied, desired, and that's what I was expecting when going to the doctor again. She was similarly cold to me. Professional, but cold. I was not anticipating any bedside manners from her in the future since her best praise for managing to stay still was, "don't give Sakura-san any more trouble."

  Going back to school was the most painful part, if you'd believe it. I earlier mentioned that it was my ignorance that made living tolerable. As if responding directly to that belief, the crowds adapted their strategy. If I wasn't getting hurt from their words, then real action needed to be taken. Actual circles formed around wherever I went. People who saw me going into the bathroom would wait outside until I came out. It was a comical amount of paranoia and I started becoming unsure of things that seemed so sure before. Maybe Shujin did deserve to be lit aflame in a third round of nuclear hellfire.

  Oh boy, was I in a bad mood. At that time it seemed the only high I'd been allowed was immediately after beating Kamoshida. The palace presented itself to me—bam!—and I took it down and had spending money to expand. From there the whole operation went downhill. You can take this as a metaphor if you want. The risks of greed and so on. But having a comfortable existence shouldn't be greed. I messed up. Everybody told me that I was a kid and that it was okay to make mistakes. They never said that there were mistakes I couldn't make. There were mistakes that took away my opportunities to live with my parents, make friends, have my own belongings without bending over backwards, take away my privacy down to what's in my bone marrow. Brooding over it made me even more mad. Kawakami didn't look like she wanted to be near me when she gave a not-so gentle reminder that I had to take therapy.

  Even she couldn't hide the surprise from her voice when she stopped the boy who was still a patchwork like Frankenstein. "Oh, and congratulations on your exam score, by the way. I don't think that anybody was expecting you to get the average with your conduct, especially with how you zone out in class."

  I nervously chuckled and pressed my palms together. "Please don't tell the other teachers? I like them."

  "Does that mean you don't like me?" she retorted, an eyebrow risen to the heavens.

  "Nah, I like most of my teachers this year. Good variety and good amount of passion." I blinked, realizing who I was talking to. "It's also awesome how sassy you are."

  That eyebrow didn't go down. "Right answer. Now hurry along. You'll probably get expelled if you don't go today. It's honestly amazing that Principal Kobakawa hasn't done so already."

  Only when going outside did I allow myself to fist pump. One thing went right! Nobody is better at not c-wording than I am!

  The nurse's office isn't a place you ever want to enter. If you're in there then it should only be for avoiding something, otherwise that means you're in trouble and there's only a school nurse to help. I'd sooner trust a foreign mercenary with my life than a school nurse. School teaches them how to do that same dead glare where you're just another body in the long line of idiot kids who come crying because of a booboo. This overlay had already colored my lens when I walked in. Some budget therapist that they dredged up from some fake school to assuage the parent's concerns wasn't there to save my mental state. If I was depressed, then at least give me the depression room (empty save for a chair and a drink of water) rather than forcing me to talk to a random dude. I did not care how hot all the girls said he was. I am not a girl.

  The formality was way more homely than you'd expect though. It had the horrible pink and green combination on the curtains and floors which screamed medical, but it was roomy. That's already an improvement from my old school. Chairs and a table were in the center. Sitting on them made me sink in an appreciable amount. Free snacks were provided! He wasn't lying about that. Real plants grew! In pots there were some guys that were taller than me. That was awesome. Growing up with plants in every room made you miss it more than you recognized.

  Being face to face with the guy wasn't too much different than last time. Even with my reputation taking another nose dive, he was still pleasant enough to never look intimidated. A huge plus in my book. I was pretty sure that most of the faculty would object to being alone with me. If we had a report card then this forced therapy session I was being thrown into was among the best of them all.

  We didn't speak at first. Some generic lines and 'how do you do's' came while I tried to think about what to talk about that wouldn't out me as the maniac who stabbed Kamoshida's shadow in the head.

  "I can see that you're tense," he said, which did the exact opposite of what he probably wanted and made me more tense. "This may be too little, too late, but I'd really like to help. I'm just here to listen. If you want to talk about your home life, that's fine. If you want to talk about your school work, that's fine too. If you want to talk about something you did with your friends then we can chat away. I'm only here to listen as you're only here to talk."

  A sardonic laugh accidentally slipped through. "I think that I'll be expelled if they don't think that you're making progress."

  Hit the nail on the head, as he immediately started fumbling for words. "I-It would've been much better if they didn't coerce you into coming here. I see no reason that we can't try and make something of it however. There's problems in your life that I'm sure you want a sounding board for. Let's at least manage to use this time productively rather than staring at each other. If you want, I could even start with something of my own. It's better that we naturally talk about things you're comfortable with than have you feel as though you're forced to speak.."

  I didn't want to be seen as a stereotypical edgy teen. Already my feet had risen to hike onto the table, needing to be forcibly lowered back to the floor. If playing ball was required for my future, then I was willing to bat. I'm not that stupid. I know how therapy works, I know that even if he's a second-rate therapist he still probably wants to help a little, and so I didn't make it a mission to drive his head into the sand; that was for theoretical troubled elementary Akira, not nearly fully grown Akira.

  "Fine." I rolled my eyes and went for what immediately came to mind. "I'm kind of tired of being some sort of spectacle."

  Maruki seemed surprised that I started off with something that sounded deep. "What do you mean by that?"

  What did I mean by that, I asked myself. It was kind of just aired out there without any deeper thought. I leaned back on my chair, trying to feel like I was a bit more intellectual than normal so I could speak without making an idiot of myself.

  "Here's what I think: I think that people are always nasty. People lie, cheat, steal, gossip, and generally want to be mean because it feels nice. When you're mean, you feel like you have power over another person. It's addicting. I've won fights before and I know how it feels when you drive the idiot's head into the sand." I rolled my shoulders at the thought. If my awakening made me ludicrously mad, thinking of stabbing Kamoshida's head made me ecstatic. "Most people can't and won't get into real fights, but they still want the power to be mean."

  "The 'power' to be mean as in it takes something tangible to be mean?" he asked.

  "Not really, I don't think? I don't think I understand the question. What I mean is that people want to feel like they're over another person. They can't do it physically so they do it like what all this is." I threw my hand behind me as an emphasis. "But it's worse than that. They're too scared to risk themselves being the victim. They want risk-free meanness. So they're mean to their kids, their girlfriends, their waiters, social outcasts and the like. I think that it's people like me who they're the most honest about."

  "People like you as in," he didn't want to say it, I could tell from the hesitation, so he improvised with, "rulebreakers?"

  I scarfed down a few of the cookies before continuing. "Yeah, that. They want to be mean so they do it to people who it's safe to do so. It's not about thinking that I'm morally reprehensible. They just see a criminal and they finally do what they fantasize about, what's probably been done to them before. I bet most of them wouldn't care what sort of crime I was here for. They want to spread a lie so they think of one: that I carry around a knife. They want to cheat so they look for an easy out: that I scared them from doing good on their tests. They drool over all of this and leap at the chance to finally act out on their fantasies."

  I took a long sip of my drink, daintily waiting for him to regain himself. His eyebrows were knotted as if I said something profound.

  "That's certainly a perspective, Kurusu-kun. I admit that I wasn't expecting such a pessimistic viewpoint, or for our session to be around philosophy," he said.

  I scowled. "It's not really philosophy."

  "I beg to differ! This is a view about how the world works. This is the essence of philosophy, even if it has more practical implications than the nature of reality which you probably associate philosophy with." Maruki chuckled, patting down his chest. "I'd like to think that I understand why you think like this, but let me raise a rebuttal from the opposite side: this way that people act isn't normal and only happens when they see something which threatens their worldview or their living situation. All of those examples that you raised are false equivalencies as they happen for different reasons."

  "Uh huh?" I goaded. Keep him talking and that takes more time away from our session, letting me escape without saying something embarrassing.

  The superior smile that he gave didn't feel like he was mocking me. From him, at that time, I felt like it was a good-natured one, one of the few that I'd ever been given in the city by someone who knew most my baggage. "I'd think that being a therapist would qualify me as having an opinion. I've worked with tons of different cases and know plenty of my colleagues who have worked on those which you're referring to. Why I'm not convinced by your viewpoint is that the reasons why people do bad are as diverse as they can be. Personally I'd like to think that it's only when harm comes upon a person that they do bad, but there's no real way we can test this hypothesis in this world. What I can say confidently is that not everyone who has slandered you is doing so to act out a power fantasy. At the very least, can't we admit that there are just as many completely deceived by the rumors and are genuinely offended by a false image of yourself?"

  I shrugged, not even bothering to answer that. I'm not sure how far out the rumors had gotten anyways.

  "People are scared of the outside too. They're scared of the outside because the outside means potential." He stopped himself for a moment, putting a finger against his lips. He was so deep in thought that I was able to stuff more cookies into my mouth before he continued. "I mean to say potential because 'potential' could mean good or bad. It's boundless, like the number zero. Potential can come from within or without. It can be voluntary or involuntary. Some people are already scared of the potential that they hold within themselves. Can you imagine how these types would react when encountering unwitting outside potential?"

  My eye twitched when I finally connected the dots. "I love being referred to as 'unwitting outside potential'."

  "But you've caught on to what I was saying," he said with a smile. Again, I couldn't find any malice in it. "It's the potential which scares them. The potential that you're truly here to do bad or the potential that they've been wrong the entire time. The potential to change their lives for better or worse. If they are already scared of the potential inside of themselves, then I believe it's just as normal for them to be scared of potential that'd come from without. Do you not agree?"

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  See, the thing is that I got what he was saying, and somewhat agreed with it. The thing is that I think he'd done the thing that all philosophical types do: behave randomly by saying nonsense that barely has any connection with the real world, and force my completely reasonable words into this thing where it looks like we're arguing. Were we even arguing? Sure we were, because I'd taken the position as devil's advocate for him to occupy my therapy time with philosophical ramblings, but we didn't need to be. How does 'unwitting outside potential' contradict people being nasty? That just means they can be nasty and scared! Argh! And that argument is so stupid that it's coming back to haunt me months later! Whatever! Let's stop getting distracted! I talked and managed to leave that session without actually making real progress other than making him think I'm a little more erudite than my everything suggests!

  Time passed as I fell into a normal routine. I went to school, sometimes went to work, spent time outside, sometimes went to therapy, before coming home when Sojiro locked up and fell into bed. Like I said though, my luck has to be in the negatives with how often things happen to me, or maybe we all downplay that constantly being outside means that we're constantly having new experiences. Don't answer. As I was trying to withdraw into myself, things happened which seemed random back then, yet having foresight makes me question if it were a conscious effort of dragging me back into the Metaverse long-term.

  There's two things I'm talking about here. Mostly I'm referring to the plant shop, but the first thing that happened was before that. Around the 30th we were meant to do some stupid school appreciation thing or something. My memory's pretty good except when it's around something that bores me to tears. As proof, I kept forgetting that we were doing it until I arrived at school and got rushed across the city. Dressing in Shujin's bright red jumper made me feel a bit like a tool when I was surrounded by the typical dress-to-impress culture of Tokyo. But I'm a guy and I can get away with dressing like an idiot. Once again I'd like to be thankful that I was born a guy.

  It was a sunny day when we were forced to do manual labor for the good of the public. Obviously I think it's a good thing. Take a sour disposition and saving babies would have me still grumbling under my breath. Walking there had me grumbling that the school didn't do a good enough job at warning us ahead of time. Don't think that I was intentionally coming late. Since there was nothing to do at home, I'd been traveling earlier than ever. With only a vague understanding of where we were heading, my route towards there was a little messy. It was only because of a flash of blue, bright enough that it stuck out from the crowd, that I happened to choose the route I did.

  The girl who was backing away was unfamiliar, as most people were to me. The whole situation kind of stank, really. A flashback struck like a truck, leaving me sweating. When the fat perv actually touched her though, I remember gritting my teeth and pushing ahead. I'd barely stopped before ramming into the asshole's back. He looked like any chubby bastard that could be working at a corner store because he has no prospects in life. I wouldn't have normally stopped. Becomes a whole different thing when a guy probably three times my age was holding onto a girl's wrist in an awkward position. I probably looked like a delinquent from hell when I walked around his broad back so that my face was nearly pressing against his.

  "Hey, the fuck you doing to her?" I asked.

  Two pairs of eyes in an entire crowd turned to me. That's what made this the most despicable. Guy was obviously not her dad and had that sleazy look men got when their penises were talking. Meanwhile everybody was too busy disassociating to notice.

  "It's none of your business," the guy said. He was fixated on the visible scratches that were on my face.

  "Think it's everyone's fucking business if you're being a creep in public. Get your hands off her and go jack off if you're that horny, fuckin' perv," I said.

  Maybe I was a little hyped up from the Metaverse though. The extraordinarily few times that I've stuck my neck out, I was way more meek. The cursing and confrontational attitude were definitely new. It worked though. The man didn't seem intimidated per se, but the results spoke for themselves as the girl's arm was allowed to loosely return to her side.

  "What, you think that it's like that? I was just being friendly. There's nothing there to appreciate anyways," the guy said. Guess he thought that the last words were cool because he casually walked away as if nothing happened.

  I looked at the girl. She looked back at me.

  "Um," she said, and stopped. I definitely didn't come down with a knight in shining armor approach. Talking with a savior was meant to be star-crossed, hearts flying, the whole drill, instead of me glaring because my day had gotten a little worse.

  Rolling my eyes, I stalked off to the park. The people in my group avoided me. A good chunk of the school day was spent cleaning before I went home.

  The more impactful day was on the first, a sunny day. We couldn't appreciate it buried underground in a coffin as we were. My skills had grown which sounds like a brag but I had it on good authority that I'd improved. Hanasaki still vastly outstripped my own skill. It was a playful dig that she held over me. Meanwhile I was doing a bit by easily lifting the larger potted plants above my head when moving them whereas she could barely drag them.

  That day I'd been obsessing over the same topic that popped in my head after my previous therapy session: I still wanted to go to the Metaverse. Though the surprises were nearly intolerable—as what could be a worse surprise than nearly getting gored?—I'd actually experienced a surge of confidence when the healing I'd been doing every night finally bore results. By the time that my next check up during the second came around, I'd most likely be given a clean bill of health and give the doctor an aneurism trying to figure out how weeks of recovery were condensed in under a month. The problem was that Jose promised consistent employment with something that honestly was less boring and just a wee bit harder than making pretty bouquets. I wanted the job. I could not get the job if I couldn't hurry through Mementos.

  Just thinking about it was enough to make my palms clammy. It was a bit of a blur with how much adrenaline was choking out my arteries, and afterwards was more like a play-by-play of the major events from how tired I became, but the immediate consequences the next day were seared as a permanent memory. Getting screamed at while aching was horrible. The vague outline of my tormentor was sketched out in the margins of my notebooks. Barrels the length of my knife. Dark stains on the sack. Those chains, rattling; I jumped when I was passing by a janitor locking up a chain link fence, grumbling under his breath as he finangled with the padlock.

  But even that wasn't enough to stop me. I was getting through the surprises. Wormholes, the reaper, so what? Nearly everything could be planned around. If I stuck alongside Jose then I'd be racking up money. That required me to save up for another bike, which was a painfully slow process with only the flower job.

  If it's required, let me break it down for the people in back: I make around 3,200 every 2 or 3 days a week. After calculating the prices of my parts, my computer will be around 200,000 yen to make, most likely a little more. We're all smart people here. That makes me have to work around 60 times without spending a dime on anything else. Even if I get to work as much as possible every single week, that's 20 weeks. We're talking approximations here; sometimes I get more money, sometimes I have to buy food, and we're not even calculating prices rising or another more expensive part tempting me. Before you can really get on my case, let me preemptively counter by asking if anybody is okay with doing nothing for 20 weeks because that's what this alternative is. For around 20 weeks I can't buy snacks, have to make do with only my phone, and work. Please tell me that we're not being serious here. Even adults don't do that. The ones that I know drink every night and I was too young for that!

  I hope that giving you the full receipts makes this more realistic for you. It's not purely motivated by greed but by the youthful nature of desiring a better life. Even doubling my income would be fantastic. That meant saving every piece of yen that I got so I could get the same model since it served me well in the brief time it was around—25,000 yen. Get another bike and my computer becomes more of a reality. Patience. Patience, I repeated to myself, mourning over the 600 I'd spent that week on drinks and snacks. Even Maruki's free stuff wasn't enough to satiate me.

  Hanasaki tapped my shoulder. "There's that girl that came a few weeks ago who asked about the fertilizer. Come on up!"

  "Aren't you good enough for any questions?" I asked.

  She winked and not-so-gently slid her hands where I'd been grabbing the pot. She nudged my chest with an elbow. Finally taking the hint, I took the position of the person in front and waited.

  Truthfully, it was partially nice for her to do so since I wouldn't have recognized the girl without a reminder. It took serious thinking to come up with some recognizable trait that would piece together a whole. There were eyes and skin, normal human features. No yellow eyes. She was a girl and girls generally looked different than boys. I could almost definitely say that she certainly had some kind of brown that was either in her outfit or eye color or hair or maybe she wasn't Japanese. Pink was somewhere there too. It's only when the girl had finally parked in front of me that I recognized her from the sheep hair. Baah.

  Once again we were locked in a staring match. Dedicated towards this, I tried piecing together a permanent feature which I'd recognize. It couldn't be her nose. Noses were noses. Nor the color of her cheeks. All of them were human cheeks. Neither could it be her forehead. Foreheads were made of bone. Clothes weren't supposed to be permanent and don't get on my case of having the same outfit five times in my closet. Hair could be styled. What if one day the sheep girl comes in sheared? Then she'd be saying, "remember that conversation that we had?" and I'd say, "oh, sure, definitely, that one. Remember that. Uh huh. Yeah. Who are you again?"

  While I was trying to find some recognizable feature, she was sinking into the same deer in headlights expression like she had done the first time. I'd love to say it was recognizable if I didn't get that every time I bought bread at the school store.

  It was in her eyes. They were way more western than everybody else's. Most likely had some European in the family at one point. How could I not recognize somebody like Kamoshida while still knowing what a 'western' eye was? Don't ask me about my specific brand of stupid.

  It was getting tiring doing a staring contest. I very nearly waved a hand in front of her. "Hello? Anybody home?"

  Rapid blinks were my response. "Uh…"

  "So no?"

  Finally something rebooted. "I tried your advice. It worked. There's no snails anymore."

  "That's good?" I thought about it. "Good. I don't like snails either."

  She looked at me for a long time. "Does the baking powder make the soil worse? My plants haven't been growing as well."

  Realizing that we were doing this again—including the part where she left without buying anything—I descended into my lecture mode.

  "Alright, here's the thing: everything affects soil composition because soil composition means what the soil is composed of. This means that it's affected by everything that's around us. Yes, the baking powder might've been the last straw, but—hold on, you mentioned that you're doing these inside planters, right? Right. Okay. Baking powder may have been the last straw but it's everything that's affecting your plants. Even being in the middle of the city is prolly making the soil worse than it could be. There's ways that you can offset this. For example…"

  After a long lecture where she actually took notes on her phone, she gave a satisfied nod.

  "Thank you!" She edged away from the wall. We'd transitioned to the side of the shop so that the normal customers could still get their bouquets while we talked. "Your previous advice was marvelous. It's as if overnight the snails had disappeared."

  "'Marvelous', huh? What happened to the plant shop anyways? This seems like the kind of advice that you'd ask for them."

  Looking away, she said, "I didn't sense any passion in them. When I asked for more tips on the snails, they just kept trying to sell me something. I didn't like it."

  The entire time I was talking, another thread was weaving itself in the back of my head. I recognized what she represented: opportunity. It felt slightly bad using a girl who was nice enough to talk with me despite the circumstances but, really, wasn't she using me too? That's how I justified it.

  "You're from Shujin, right?"

  That deer in headlights look returned. Struck dumb, all she did was nod.

  "Do you have friends?" Realizing how that sounded, I held up a finger. "Sorry. What I mean is that I've kind of got stuff to say that I've been sitting on but nobody takes me seriously. Since you're willing to take my advice, would you do me a favor?"

  Just to prove that she wasn't just another prissy girl, a mistake I shouldn't have made after that whole debacle with the student president, she instantly became guarded. The mousy demeanor disappeared as she slightly slanted her body away from me.

  "What kind of favor?" she asked. Thankfully she managed to keep an angelically forgiving tone, proving that she was that little strike zone where she kept herself safe while maintaining incredulity towards people's goodness.

  "It's about how I got injured." To further the story, I rolled down my sleeve. An impressionistic painting was slathered across my skin with wild abandon. I let the clothes fall back down when she gasped. "I was minding my own business when these guys I refused a week before jumped me. See, apparently a biker gang has been picking up young recruits. Since these guys don't have licenses yet, they ride around on their bikes. Little bikers, you know what I'm saying? Either way, when I refused to join their little gang, they jumped me."

  "Are you okay!?" she asked.

  Hanasaki was giving me an unamused glare. Whoops! Forgot that I told her the 'truth' that I'd been jumped by an irate enemy team. While the girl was too focused on my arm, I locked my hands together in a pleading motion before continuing.

  "I'm fine. What I'm concerned about are these kids. They're basically part of the gang now and will trade out those bikes for motorcycles when they grow up. Nobody takes me seriously when I tell them about it, but I was hoping that you would have a little more pull? It's really bad that they're running around like this but it'll be worse if they start stalking around the school. It wasn't anywhere near, but I bet they want as many recruits as possible. It's better that everybody knows about it than not."

  She chewed the inside of her lip. It didn't take her long to respond.

  "Okay."

  I gave a smile. It didn't have to be faked. There was real satisfaction there. "Perfect. Let's say that I forgive you for not buying anything these past two times."

  She ended up buying a rose because of my comment. Hanasaki was glaring at my big smile.

  "I hope that you have a reason for that, mister," she said. "Either you're lying to me or you're lying to her."

  Without answering, I left and went home. The gambit wasn't guaranteed and it would only come into effect when I got my hands on another bike. I wasn't satisfied from only doing a single move however. Playing meant sitting down and finishing the game. After quietly reading, "Niijima Makoto," into my phone and getting a negative beep, I rolled over and tried falling asleep. Tossing and turning all night jostled the ideas from the cold side of my pillow to the hot side.

  Inside the doctor's office, she was having an aneurysm trying to figure out how my pulled muscle had progressed so rapidly. Every angle was attempted. Some reasons partially sounded like she was trying to convince herself that it was impossible, that her instruments were faulty, that I was just faking health to be a tough man. The amount of groping that was done with her spindly hands made me squirm in discomfort. The very brief silences were real estate for me to move in.

  "Yeah, the kids are trading in their bikes for motorcycles. It's crazy, isn't it? Wish that I knew before dropping all my money on it."

  "That doesn't sound real," she said.

  "My wounds are pretty real."

  Her dead fish eyes pierced straight through me before ending with a shrug. "Fair enough. Now, does this hurt?"

  Her nails nearly pierced through my skin. I yelped.

  "Hrm," she grunted in frustration, writing down on her clipboard. "So there is sensation in that part. What could possibly be going on here?"

  At the back of that same clinic was one of the homeless who was one of the most transient of the local population. He'd been addicted, went cold turkey after losing everything, and was now too sad and reeling from the consequences of his own actions to really help himself. From how conversations he'd been slowly regaining his sense of self enough to be fully present the whole time that we were talking.

  "Is that so?"

  "Yes, it is." I smacked my hip. "Got me really good here. Can you believe it? The gang members back home just drive around at night and make a racket. Never thought I'd be attacked by people my age like that. You should tell the others to be careful."

  The coffee cup wafted its horrible odor onto me. Because I was sitting opposite to the nearest vent, it was blowing smoke over to me. Moving now would be awkward however, so I just bore it while talking to the lady who probably would've despised me from the bottom of her soul if she knew more about me. It went both ways, don't worry.

  She was holding a knuckle over her lips. "Now that I think about it, I remember there were a few cases about a gang about five years ago. You're saying that they're still skulking around?"

  "I've got the scars to prove it." Patting my arms didn't even make me flinch anymore. "I was hoping since you're a justice person that you had any way to get them? Attacking people on the street and destroying their stuff is pretty bad."

  "How do you think the justice system works? I'm not able to go pulling people off the street."

  "Kurusu-kun," Sojiro called out from the kitchen. "Stop bothering the customers."

  "'Kaaay," I said. One last check showed that the justice lady looked to still be in thought when I left.

  With the seeds of my future expedition planted, I was content. I recognized that I'd settled in some depressed median, where I wasn't happy with my life but not willing to leave it there. So instead I coasted from school to work to home without any long-lasting memories being created. I was content talking with Maruki even if we just ended up arguing about topics I didn't have strong opinions on while he fed information to his masters about how I was being rehabilitated. I left my classmates alone as they did with me, whispering viciously behind my back as they vacated any table I sat at. I glared at Makoto in the hallway once. Sojiro never did warm up to me, always suspiciously staring like I'd snap a table in half. Apparently the doctor was a regular at the cafe as she stopped one day to urge for some kind of clue on how I healed so fast. My homework was as terrible as ever. My pulls were as unlucky as ever, and my phone didn't appreciate being thrown onto the bed.

  Late at night I had started a habit. I considered it more like prayer, giving me the strength to work towards my goals. Through the lights from my window I'd open up that red app and stare at it for a while. It caused me so much pain yet there I was crawling back for more. Even Mementos, proven to be dangerous enough to bring me to an early grave, had me on my belly like a dog. I've lied. I've fought. All in the name of keeping this on the down low. The light from my phone would make the details in the dark fade into a soothing blanket. Lost in the soft nothingness, I'd just focus on my breathing until the edges of my vision were fading too.

  One day. I remember. I leaned into the microphone and whispered, "Sakura Sojiro."

  Bzzt! Candidate not found.

  I found her name through the public domain. I just looked up what I heard from another customer and scrolled down Google images. "Mifune Chihaya."

  Bzzt! Candidate not found.

  I just looked at the school's records. "Chouno Tomoko."

  Bzzt! Candidate not found.

  That one I was really hoping for because she graded me by far the lowest.

  A palace was all I needed. One palace being cleared and my old routine would be reestablished. I'd have a conscionable way to make money. With the money I'd buy a bike. With a bike I'd pick flowers for Jose. With the money I'd buy my computer and leave the Metaverse behind for good. A palace was all I needed. Plenty from the fansite gave me false positives of palaces that didn't have any keywords. I needed a palace, a real palace.

  From the little that I've pieced together, most people weren't evil enough to have a palace. It was laughable thinking that any name I'd gather would have one. Not to say that evil people walked around with a black aura and red eyes but that they weren't the types that were wreaking wanton destruction through Tokyo. These were the dictators, the megalomaniac CEOs, the politicians, the soldiers, the people who had the power to do evil. Kamoshida was just a fluke. Speaking random names into the app only reinforced that idea.

  But that was my greatest hint. It's those people that we all love to hate, the powerful, who blatantly do shitty things and try to force us to pretend that it's normal. One night I was getting sick of so many false results. So, screw it! Let's just go down the list. Let's see if those annoying people online were actually correct. 'Richest men in Japan' graciously popped up a list of full names for me to use and abuse. This one. Bzzt. This one. Bzzt. There was no penalty for being wrong and so I read down the list every single night.

  It's from that where I found a hit.

  "Okumura Kunikazu," I whispered.

  Ding!

  I stared at the red screen until it seared into my eyes.

  "Holy shit."