Chapter Text
Akira stared at himself in the mirror. Gray eyes stared back at him.
That was definitely his face.
He grabbed his cheeks with both hands and pinched – hard. They flared with pain. His eyes watered. This was definitely, totally, one hundred percent real.
Fuck.
He was standing in the cramped bathroom at Leblanc. He had brushed his teeth at this sink hundreds of times, and he was wearing a uniform that he had worn for nearly a year now.
But everything was wrong.
The uniform felt stiff on his shoulders, as if he had never worn it a day in his life. There was no cat fur covering his pants, and the scratches Morgana had left on the porcelain sink the time Ryuji had shoved him off of it were gone as if they had never existed. The small tin of hair ties that Ann had left in the cabinet was gone. He had used his old red toothbrush this morning; the one that Futaba had dropped in the toilet after he had teased her a bit more than usual. When he had ambled down the stairs, exhausted and his head spinning, Sojiro had met his eyes with the stare of a stranger.
Everything was wrong.
He checked his phone. The date told him it was April 10th. He checked again. The date didn’t magically change. The MetaNav app was gone.
Fuck.
Akira pressed his hand to his abdomen, and when he pulled it away, he saw-
-blood, dripping off his fingers, running down the palm of his hand. His knees crumpled. He fell. His teammates screamed his name. A malevolent god laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed-
“Kid! Hurry the hell up or we’re going to be late!”
His hand was clean, the skin smooth and unblemished. He was even missing the callouses he had earned from weight training with Ryuji. His arms were too thin, his legs were too unsteady. Everything he had worked for was gone.
Akira pressed his other hand to his mouth, trying to resist the wave of nausea that wracked his body.
Fuck.
He inhaled sharply. This was fine. This was totally, completely fine.
“Kid!” Sojiro snapped, losing his patience.
Akira’s eyes burned. He pressed the heels of his hands against them, breathing deep, until stars burst behind his closed eyelids.
I’m going to throw up.
The bathroom door slammed open.
“Kurusu! Wha-” Sojiro cut off when he saw him.
He wondered how bad he looked, to turn Sojiro’s annoyed expression into one of concern.
“M’fine,” Akira mumbled, desperately hoping that Sojiro wouldn’t see how much his legs were shaking. “Let’s go.”
Kobayakawa was alive.
Akira walked into the principal’s office and stared at him as if he had seen a ghost. A disgusting, vaguely egg-shaped ghost, but still a ghost all the same.
The lecture went in one ear and out the other. He barely paid enough attention to nod at all of the appropriate moments. He had heard all of this before anyway. Instead, he stared at Kawakami. He studied the dark circles under her eyes and the lines of irritation tugging her expression into a scowl. He glanced away before she could catch him looking.
He thought of all the friends he had made who no longer knew him, and he felt nausea resurfacing. He bit down on his tongue. The pain kept him from being sick, and maybe quite possibly from losing his mind.
The traffic was terrible on the way back – the same as last time.
Sojiro growled at the traffic and took his frustration out on Akira – the same as last time.
Akira leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. The cool glass soothed the headache beginning to form behind his left temple. The way it made his glasses press against his face was annoying, but he didn't take them off. They were a shield, of sorts, and he needed them at the moment.
“Hey! Kid! Pay attention when people are talking to you. Being polite goes a long way in fixing your reputation.”
Akira sighed and sat up, pinching the bridge of his nose. Sojiro watched him, eyes softening a bit.
“Does your head hurt? I don’t have anything that could help with me, but there’s a doctor near Leblanc who sells effective medicine.”
Takemi. Oh hell. He was going to have to endure all of her experiments again. The thought did little to make him feel better.
“Sorry, I’m fine,” he told Sojiro and dropped his hand into his lap. Sojiro frowned at him but didn’t say anything.
Akira’s throat ached and his eyes burned but he looked out the window and stubbornly did not cry. He thought of learning how to make coffee and the warmth of a home and the feeling of family and this was not helping.
“Why did you bother?” The question was out of Akira’s mouth before he even knew what he was thinking. He cursed himself for speaking, for caring, for failing, for losing everyone he loved and everything he had chipped away at himself for.
Sojiro huffed. “I don’t think you’re really in a position to be asking.”
Akira nodded, his throat closing even more.
“But uh, well… I think everyone deserves a second chance. So, don’t mess this up kid.”
The fact that Akira didn’t laugh out loud or start screaming was a testament to his remarkable restraint.
It was his second first day at Shujin Academy.
He woke to the sound of rain against his window.
Akira took a moment to consider how truly miserable his existence was.
Nice.
I don’t want to do this.
Too bad, Kurusu. Life sucks. Get off your ass.
He hauled himself out of his bed with the sheer force of his will. His blanket got caught around his ankles, and he toppled over onto the dusty attic floor. He groaned loudly and stared at the floorboards. He was a Phantom Thief for fuck’s sake – he should be more coordinated than this.
He heard footsteps climb up the stairs and a surprised snort of laughter before it was properly suppressed. Akira cracked open an eye to see Sojiro trying to scowl at him, but his lips were twitching upwards against his will.
“The hell are you doing?” Sojiro asked, voice a combination of exasperation and amusement.
Akira groaned again. “Trying to get up.”
Sojiro raised an eyebrow. “You’re lying on the floor.”
“Emphasis on trying.”
Sojiro let out a bark of laughter before shaking his head.
“Hurry up and head downstairs. If you’re ready early enough, I’ll feed you before you leave.”
Akira’s head visibly perked up. Sojiro laughed again before making his way down the stairs.
He nearly burst into tears at his first bite of curry.
Finding Shujin was easier than the first time he had lived this day. His feet traced familiar pathways they had walked hundreds of times before. He cut through the crowds as deftly as a Tokyo native.
He had forgotten his umbrella again.
Cursing, he ducked under the very same awning he had stood underneath before. A blonde head of hair joined him, mumbling under her breath about the inconveniences of rain. He froze.
Ann.
He had forgotten that this was where they first met.
She reached up and squeezed water from her pigtails. Akira wanted to throw his arms around her and sob into her shoulder. Instead, he offered her the towel he had shoved into the bottom of his bag that morning.
Ann grinned, smile as blinding as her hair.
“Thanks!” she said happily, before accepting the towel from his outstretched hand. A feeling of warmth bloomed in his chest. She wiped her face down and handed the towel back to him, then frowned when she noticed he didn’t have an umbrella.
“You remembered a towel but forgot an umbrella?” she asked.
Akira laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah. Pretty stupid of me, huh.”
“I’d say,” she said, but she was laughing and Akira had missed her dammit.
He missed all of them.
A car pulled up next to them, and Akira frowned. He remembered this. The window rolled down, and the Phantom Thieves’ very first adversary stuck his head out to talk to Ann.
“Hey! It’s getting pretty late. At this rate, you’ll be late to school. Want a ride?” Kamoshida called out to her.
Ann paused, before opening her mouth to accept, but this time around Akira could see the hesitation in her posture and the wariness that crossed her face.
“Oh! Um…” she trailed off, but Akira cut her off.
“Actually, I’m a new student at Shujin and she offered to show me around,” he ducked his head bashfully and rubbed the back of his neck, playing the role of a new, socially awkward student flawlessly. Kamoshida studied him, and Akira remembered that he knew who he was – that he had been the one to expose his record to the entire student body.
“Oh, well… as long as that’s okay with you, Takamaki-chan?”
Akira shuddered at the way he said her name.
“Y-yes! Of course it’s okay!” she stuttered. Akira somehow managed to refrain from rolling his eyes at her notoriously bad acting.
“Well alright then, just don’t be late,” he said with an easy smile. Akira nearly gagged. The window rolled back up and he drove away.
Ann turned to him, gaze questioning.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
Akira shrugged again. “You looked uncomfortable.”
She looked taken aback for a moment, before she smiled at him again.
“I’m Ann Takamaki,” she introduced herself, offering her hand for him to shake. He stared at it for a moment before remembering that he wasn’t supposed to know her, and she didn’t know him.
“Akira Kurusu.”
They shook hands as footsteps splashed behind him, and he turned to see Ryuji dash under the awning next to them. He doubled over in exhaustion, his hands on his knees.
“Dammit! I’m so outta shape right now!” he complained. Ann stared at him with eyebrows raised.
“Sakamoto? Why were you running?”
“I was tryna stop you from gettin’ in the car with that creep!”
Ann rolled her eyes. “You know I can take care of myself!”
Akira would have argued that he came from the future and that she would have gotten in that car without outside interference, but he figured they wouldn’t have believed him.
“I know that but- aw what the hell, it doesn’t matter. Who the hell is this guy?” asked Ryuji, jabbing a thumb in Akira’s direction.
“Sakamoto! Don’t be rude!” Ann chided him. It was weird to listen to her talk to him without their old familiarity.
“I don’t mind,” said Akira with a smile. He offered his hand to Ryuji. “Akira Kurusu, at your service.”
Ryuji laughed and clasped his hand with his own. “Ryuji Sakamoto. I guess you must’ve convinced that asshole to fuck off, eh?”
Akira grinned. “I do what I can.”
Akira wanted to hug Ryuji so tight that he’d crack his best friend’s ribs.
“Well I hate to break up a budding bromance, but we’re going to be late,” Ann interrupted.
Ryuji rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright, let’s go! C’mon, I know a shortcut!”
Akira paused and pulled out his phone. The MetaNav app still wasn’t there. He frowned.
“Hey man! What’re you doing?”
Akira looked up to see his two friends staring at him questioningly.
“Sorry. I was just checking something.” He slid his phone back into his pocket.
In this timeline, Akira made to it to Shujin with two minutes to spare. There was no epic battle – no Persona awakening.
He wondered how much he could change until he permanently destroyed the space-time continuum.