before midnight

[specterthief]

Fandom: Persona 5 Royal
Characters: Sumire Yoshizawa, Takuto Maruki, Shinichi Yoshizawa, Sumire Yoshizawa's Mother
Relationships: Sumire & Maruki
Word Count: 3755
Tags: Memory Alteration, Third Semester, Manipulation, Missing Scene, Unreliable Narrator, Gaslighting
Summary:
On January 9th, Sumire goes home.

originally posted on AO3 on december 27th, 2022

~~~

She gets home, somehow, after the Palace. She remembers Sakamoto-senpai offering her his shoulder to lean on on the way to the station. She remembers refusing, and the rest is a blur. Like she’s one of those walking dolls going through the motions—even aware of how badly she needs her glasses now, she’s not blind, and the muscle memory is still there. Her sense of direction had always been better than—was it better than Kasumi’s? Yes, she can remember if she reaches for it—Kasumi always got carsick trying to read a map, and Dad is terrible with directions, too, so Sumire spent plenty of long drives navigating, until she knew all the usual turns by heart.

It’s good enough. She doesn’t get lost. Accidentally or otherwise, she doesn’t walk off a bridge, or wander into traffic—ironic as that would be. From what Kurusu-senpai and the others have said about Dr. Maruki’s reality, there’d probably just be another Kasumi to take her place if she did, anyway.

Dad’s car is parked out front, and Sumire can smell dinner cooking as soon as she steps in the door. It’s early for Dad to be home from work, but she thinks she remembers him saying something on New Year’s, about having some extra time off this month so he can be with his family. She wonders if that’s Dr. Maruki’s doing too, if he expects gratitude for every positive thing that happens now.

Dad must have scheduled that in advance, though, right? Or is there any way to tell?

“I’m home,” she calls out from the entrance hall as she toes off her shoes and shrugs off her coat. She’s still wearing the clothes she was wearing before—before, but it doesn’t feel like she’s been sleeping in the same clothes for days on end. Maybe things work differently in Palaces. Why couldn’t Dr. Maruki change cognition so her clothes would never get dirty?

Her hair is tied up again too, perfect and clean and neat. For a second there’s a vague, hazy flash of memory—someone brushing it back, fingers on the nape of her neck—and then it slips away, if it was even real in the first place.

She pulls the ribbon undone and lets her hair fall loose, just as she hears Dad say her name from the hallway.

“Welcome home,” he says; his face is blurry like everything else, but Sumire thinks he might look surprised—but not surprised enough, really, considering. It’s been a week, she knows that, even if it feels like no time passed at all. It only really hits her then—she’s been gone all that time, she didn’t even tell them where she was going or call on her way home—she’ll have to think of an excuse, she’ll probably be grounded for the rest of high school, her parents must have been terrified.

So why is Dad so calm?

“Dad, I—” she starts, but he doesn’t seem to hear her.

“You’re just in time for dinner,” Dad says. He pats her on the head as he hangs up her coat. “I’ll help you unpack after we eat.”

“Unpack?”

Sumire glances down in the direction of Dad’s gaze, and—her suitcase and duffel bag are at her feet, damp like she’d just brought them in from the snow. She can even make out the shape of a luggage tag on her suitcase—she can’t read it from this far away, but it looks like it might be new, or at least in a new holder.

But she hadn’t had luggage with her in the Palace. Why would she? She hadn’t gone with Kurusu-senpai and Akechi-san expecting Dr. Maruki would keep her there. She hadn’t even changed clothes. Even if Dr. Maruki had—somehow—gotten her things from home, she hadn’t brought anything back with her other than what she’d had in her pockets when she left.

Sumire rubs her eyes, squinting as hard as she can at the familiar shapes, but no matter how she looks at them, her bags are definitely, unmistakably there.

“Are you feeling alright?” Dad asks, touching her shoulder. The contact almost makes her cringe, for a moment, but she can’t put her finger on why—at least beyond the bizarreness of him even asking that.

“I’m fine,” she lies, then quickly amends— “I’m just tired. Um, I had a really long day.”

She’s pretty sure Dad smiles; he pats her head again, at least. “Why don’t you hurry in before dinner gets cold? Your mother made shrimp in chili sauce—”

—with apples.

With apples? Why would she think of apples now? She’s cooked with them before—it could work with shrimp, even—like sweet-and-sour pork, maybe?—but she can practically taste them, can remember the exact feeling of her teeth closing on the tines of a fork being held up to her mouth—

“That sounds great,” she says automatically, and bites the inside of her cheek so she can taste that. There’s no way her parents will let her skip dinner and go straight to bed, and she knows, logically, that after everything that happened she should be hungry, even if right now food has never seemed more unappealing. Maybe if she just sucks it up and forces herself, a hot meal will help.

Or maybe Mom and Dad are just waiting to ambush her about where she was when they have her cornered at the dining table. She can remember them doing that—when Sumire wasn’t performing well, and she’d have to stand up for her—no, when she wasn’t doing well, and Kasumi would have to stand up for her. Mom and Dad like doing things as a team.

But when Sumire gets to the dining room, Mom just calls her name from the kitchen, her own face a blurry smile as well.

“Welcome home,” Mom says. She’s just coming through the open archway, plates of side dishes balanced on both arms, when the rice cooker chimes Amaryllis from the kitchen counter behind her. “Sweetheart, could you help me with the table?”

“I’ve got it,” Dad cuts in before Sumire can answer. “Look at her, dear, she’s exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” she protests weakly, but she’s sure it’s obvious on her face—and Mom, after giving her a look over, seems to agree. Mom and Dad bring the last of the food out as Sumire drops into a chair—Kasumi’s usual spot, she realizes, that she’d been sitting in for the last ten months—and starts serving herself some shrimp.

“Poor thing,” Mom says, ladling her out a bowl of miso soup. “Did you at least have a good time at camp?”

The shrimp in Sumire’s chopsticks slips out of her grip. She watches it fall to the table for what seems like ages—halfway to her plate, right next to the pickled daikon, leaving a red-orange smear on the tablecloth. She should pick it up before it stains, but her hand doesn’t want to move.

Her parents don’t seem to notice. Dad isn’t even looking at her; he’s looking at Mom, shaking his head. “I don’t know what they were thinking, sending the team up north in this weather.”

“What,” Sumire stammers out, her mouth suddenly dry, “are you talking about?”

Mom and Dad do both look at her then, but she can’t make out their expressions. She should go find her glasses, right now—she didn’t get rid of them, she just stopped wearing them, she must have them around somewhere—if she could just see their faces—but the impulse doesn’t reach her legs.

“Training camp,” Mom says. She sounds so casual, not even really confused, like this should be totally self-evident. “You did enjoy yourself, didn’t you? It’s such a shame you couldn’t have left after New Year’s.”

“I—” Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Sumire sets down her chopsticks and rubs her face with both hands. “Um—who told you I was going to training camp?”

Maybe Kurusu-senpai was trying to cover for her, to keep her out of trouble. Or—maybe Akechi-san? Somehow she doesn’t have the feeling he’d do something that nice, but he’d at least have Dad’s number. But still, if they’d followed up at all, if they’d asked anyone—

“Hmm, wasn’t it Dr. Maruki?” Dad says, and Sumire’s stomach flips.

Mom nods. “That’s right—he called from Shujin. It was such short notice, you couldn’t even meet your friends at the shrine before you had to catch the train.”

“But—but I—that’s not—” Sumire runs her hand through her hair; it’s warm in the dining room, but she feels like someone just dropped an ice cube down the back of her sweater. “Dr. Maruki, he—he doesn’t work at Shujin anymore. He hasn’t since November. I haven’t even spoken to him since then, not until he…”

Dark tendrils rushing toward her, grabbing her arms and legs and then—

Mom and Dad are both silent for a moment too long, and then Sumire feels something shift, like her center of gravity suddenly changes and then rights itself just before she falls over. Her eyes sting a little, like she’d just looked into a bright light.

“Silly me, it must have been your school coach,” Mom says. “That’s right, he wanted to make sure the team had extra time to practice for your next meet.”

“You’re working so hard.” Dad’s smile is just visible on his face—a dark streak beneath the red smudges of his glasses. “Training on New Year’s. You must be making your teachers proud.”

Sumire grips the edge of the table, her heart hammering in her ears. “I wasn’t at training camp.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you were.” Mom’s still smiling, too, like a mask—Sumire’s eyes are burning, tears only making it harder to make out anything on her face but the crescent moon curve of her mouth. She murmurs Sumire’s name as she reaches over to press the back of her hand to her forehead. “Are you feeling alright? You don’t have a fever…”

“I’m not sick.” The table digs into Sumire’s palms, hard enough to hurt. “I—I was here. I went to the shrine on New Year’s with Kurusu-senpai. You helped me with my yukata. Dad, you ran into us there, don’t you remember?”

Neither of them answer. She forces her hands to unclench and rubs furiously at her eyes, but that only seems to make things worse.

“I never went to training camp. I went to Odaiba the day after New Year’s,” she says, taking a shaky breath. “And I never came home. I was gone until today. Why do you think I was at camp? Why did you just believe that?”

Mom and Dad both just stare at her, like they’re frozen, smiles still plastered on their faces.

Just dolls going through the motions.

“I was with Dr. Maruki,” she continues, a little more frantically. “The whole time. He knocked me out, and took me—somewhere. I don’t know where I was. I don’t know what happened while I was missing. If my friends didn’t come to find me, I don’t know if he would have let me go. Are you even listening to me? That’s—that’s kidnapping, right?”

The clock in the kitchen ticks on and on and on. Nothing else in the house stirs. Part of Sumire wants to grab her plate and throw it, see if at least that gets a reaction out of either of them, but she can’t bring herself to actually do it.

“I was kidnapped,” she repeats—it’s an ugly word, uglier than she wants to use about Dr. Maruki, but how extreme it is is the point. Anyone’s parents should care about that. Even if it’s not exactly true, even if she knows she’s making him sound like some creep throwing her into the back of a van—after everything he did to help you, a voice in her head needles at her, guiltily—at least that horrible a lie should make anyone react, if only to tell her not to say things like that. “He could have done anything to me, and you’d have no idea. I don’t even remember. That’s horrible, right, Mom? Dad? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

She only realizes then that her voice has been climbing in both pitch and volume all this time; she’s practically shouting by the time her voice cracks on saying, tears spilling down her face.

Tick. Tick. The kitchen clock’s hour hand ticks over to eight.

“Third semester is starting tomorrow, huh,” Dad says, and it’s all Sumire can do not to scream.

Is this what it had been like, for them? Seeing her acting like Kasumi, dressing like Kasumi, calling herself Kasumi, all while they were grieving their other daughter she barely even remembered existed? Did Dad ever cry like this? Did Mom ever shout at her to just listen, to just say something? Coach Hiraguchi had spent months telling her to remember who she was—she’d thought it was some sports metaphor she didn’t get and complained to Dr. Maruki about it, and he’d laughed with her, as if he hadn’t known—

—and then Dad laughs, at something Mom says, and the phone rings in the front hallway. Twice, three times, four times, past when it should have gone to voice mail.

“Are you going to answer that?” Sumire sniffles, but she’s already half-certain neither of them can hear it. They don’t stop her from leaving the table, at least; she takes the time to make a futile attempt at drying her eyes and getting her hands to stop shaking before she makes it to the phone.

There’s nothing but a garbled mess on the call display. She lets it ring six more times before she picks up. She’s not even entirely sure why she does pick up, other than that she has the feeling that it’ll keep ringing until she does.

“Yoshizawa-san?” Dr. Maruki’s voice sounds distant and strangely distorted from the other line, like her—Kasumi’s—cell phone did when it was broken. “Yoshizawa-san, are you there?”

There’s a beat. Dr. Maruki exhales in a puff of white noise.

“I guess I can’t blame you for not feeling up to talking right now. You’ve been through a lot.”

“I’m here,” Sumire says. There’s a tremor in her voice that makes her cringe; she can picture the exact look on his face right now, the concerned furrow of his brows behind his glasses that makes him look more like a sad puppy than he should. It’s strange how just slicking his hair back made him look so much less kind, but even in the Palace, his face had been the same.

You’ve been through a lot. Akechi-san would probably say something crude about Dr. Maruki not taking responsibility for his actions, and Kurusu-senpai would frown, but in a way that makes it obvious he was thinking the same thing.

Maybe this would be easier if they were here with her.

“I know you think you’re doing the right thing,” Dr. Maruki says, as sympathetic as he ever was in one of their sessions. She can imagine his old office as clearly as if she’d been there yesterday, the one from before he came to Shujin, sitting in her seat in the corner by the window, eating—

—the taste of fresh apples on her tongue, someone holding a fork to her lips—

—the snacks he claimed were healthy and full of vitamins, fine to eat without throwing off her caloric balance for the day.

She knew he was lying, back then, but she figured if a doctor said it was okay, then a little white lie couldn’t be all that bad.

“Why can’t they hear me?” she asks. Dr. Maruki sighs again, and he sounds so genuinely weary that she almost apologizes then and there on pure reflex.

“I hate to see you making things harder on yourself like this,” he says. “I’ve been smoothing things over as much as I can, but you’re only going to hurt them—and yourself.”

His voice is so gentle, patient, like he’s talking to a child who he knows is struggling to understand him. Maybe she should feel condescended to—she does feel condescended to, a little, but as much as she knows she shouldn’t, she also feels closer to at ease than she has since she got home.

“Doctor…”

“I understand how jarring it must have been, but Yoshizawa-san, do you really think they’d be happier believing you were—” He cuts himself off, like he can’t even bring himself to finish the thought. “—Believing the things you were saying?”

Sumire swallows. “I was trying to tell them the truth—”

“No, you weren’t,” Dr. Maruki interrupts crisply—and he’s really not wrong, is he? She hadn’t been telling the truth. She’d been making things sound worse to agitate her parents. She’d been making him sound worse. Like a criminal. Like someone they’d probably hate themselves for allowing near their daughter in the first place, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s only ever been kind to her, until now—and even now, he’s still concerned about her. However he knows what she’d said to her parents, he must be hurt.

“You’re right,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I understand—anyone would be having a hard time coping in your situation, and until my reality is stable, it’s only natural that things like this would be a bit unsettling. I certainly don’t blame you for being frightened.” Sumire can hear the smile in his voice, that little bit of brightness that lifts the weight of guilt off her chest. He’s not angry with her, at least. Not that hurt. “While I can see how someone could interpret my actions the way you described them, you and I both know that’s not what happened. I never meant to keep you in the Palace against your will—I only wanted to protect you until Kurusu-kun came to his decision. As soon as you woke up, you could have gone back to your life as Kasumi.”

Sumire looks down at her clothes—Kasumi’s sweater, Kasumi’s skirt, Kasumi’s socks. A life as Kasumi, blissfully unaware again, chatting with her parents about training camp and third semester because she actually believes it. “I know.”

“But there’s no way for your parents to understand that—to understand the real truth,” Dr. Maruki says. “And if they’ll be believing a lie regardless, wouldn’t you agree it would be better for them to believe a kinder one?”

Isn’t that what all this is about, though? A kinder lie instead of a horrible truth? Kurusu-senpai and Akechi-san certainly don’t seem to agree with Dr. Maruki on this, but—this is hardly the same as her entire life being the lie.

Just allowing her parents a little peace instead of more guilt they don’t deserve—that isn’t any more of a lie than it was to eat Dr. Maruki’s snacks without counting the calories. A little white lie. If the doctor says it’s okay…

“Of course, if you’d really prefer your parents believe your story—” Dr. Maruki starts, but this time Sumire is the one to cut him off.

“No,” she says. “It’s better like this. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Dr. Maruki exhales again, or—no, he laughs, so quickly and quietly Sumire barely hears it. “I’m glad you feel that way. To be honest, it would have been pretty awkward for everyone if they wanted to send the police after me…”

It really shouldn’t be funny, but Sumire tries to laugh too, just to feel in on the joke. She’s not sure quite she manages it; it comes out somewhere closer to a hiccup, but it makes Dr. Maruki laugh again too, a little more easily, and eventually, despite herself, Sumire feels herself smiling without forcing it.

“I can only hope Kurusu-kun comes around to our point of view,” he says, when he’s caught his breath. “But I’m sure he’ll understand once he’s spent a little longer in this reality.”

“Mm,” Sumire murmurs, not sure what else to say, or if he even wants her to say anything at all. Kurusu-kun certainly seems set on not coming around, set enough to be willing to fight her—and presumably Dr. Maruki—for that, but she doubts Dr. Maruki would appreciate hearing that from her.

“Haha, look at me rambling on for too long like always. I really shouldn’t keep you from your parents,” Dr. Maruki says then, with another little self-deprecating chuckle. “But there’s one more thing I want to say before I let you go.”

“What is it?”

“I never meant to do anything to hurt you, Yoshizawa-san. You do know that, don’t you?”

“I do,” Sumire says, and the call abruptly cuts off before she can say anything else, leaving her standing there listening to the dial tone like she’d never been talking to anyone at all, like the whole conversation had been in her head.

When she finally feels like she’s present in her body again, she realizes that her glasses are sitting in her skirt pocket, as if they’d been there all along. Maybe Dr. Maruki means that as an olive branch. Maybe she’d had them in her pocket all this time and didn’t notice. The harder she tries to remember, the less sure she is.

She washes her splotchy face in the the bathroom before returning to the dining room, hoping she can at least make herself look mostly normal. Her parents both look right at her as she comes in, their faces crystal clear, their smiles easy and gentle and not mask-like in the slightest.

The food is still steaming hot. The shrimp she dropped on the tablecloth is gone without so much as a stain. Her parents don’t ask what’s wrong, or where she went, or who she was talking to on the phone for so long in the middle of dinner. She’s sure that if she looked, there wouldn’t be any record of a phone call in the first place.

“You must be hungry,” Dad says. The kitchen clock ticks, and ticks, and ticks, but the hour hand hasn’t moved past eight.

It’s only later that night, lying awake in bed, that Sumire realizes that she has no idea which name her parents have been calling her.