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.