Confessions
   
  

 /===================( - Port Island - SEES Co-Ed Dorm - )====================\ 
|                                                                              |
|  On paper, this building is a co-ed dormitory for students of Gekkoukan High |
| to live in for whatever reason. In practice, thanks to meddling by Shuji     |
| Ikutsuki, this is the home of SEES. Keeping close to one as protection from  |
| the Shadow threat, this is where almost all of them come at night.           |
|  The lobby of the dorm is quite spacious, bearing an appearance akin to a    |
| hotel lobby... all the way down to a sign-in sheet on the counter to keep    |
| track of comings and goings. Brown, earthy tones are the dominant colors,    |
| with a green floor with little yellow and orange tile patterns. A few        |
| couches face around a table at an unfavorable distance from the small old    |
| CRT TV in the corner. In the back is a small counter and dining table.       |
| Generous numbers of lamps keep the area well lit at night. Two restrooms,    |
| divided by gender, are off to the side of the hallway leading up to the      |
| staircase. The staircase is something of a square spiral that leads to the   |
| higher floors.                                                               |
|  Most of the SEES members spend their time here. One of the most common      |
| subjects among each other are primers on their own strengths and weaknesses  |
| in battle, spoken in peculiar amounts of self-aware detail. The only real    |
| downside to living here is that in order to get to Gekkoukan on time, one    |
| has to take the monorail.                                                    |
|===============================( - Players - )================================|
| Shinjiro Aragaki [DS] <Castor>                                               |
|===============================( - Objects - )================================|
| The Possessed Table                                                          |
|================================( - Exits - )=================================|
| Up <U>:                  SEES Dorm - Living Quarters                         |
| Out <O>:                 Port Island                                         |
 \============================================================================/
Fumiya's first trip to see his parents since exiting Mikage-cho was taxing. While his mother was glad to see that he was alright, much of the time was spent with his father pushing his own blood pressure to inhuman limits. Fumiya kept his patience through the verbal barrage, because while being missing for two weeks wasn't technically his fault, he couldn't very well deny he wasn't looking for trouble at the time. So he kept his head down, nodded where appropriate, and apologized, which left his parents stunned. At the end of it they just issued one final warning for him to shape up, or else. The 'or else' could mean anything, it might just be them blowing smoke, so he left it hanging in the back of his mind while he stepped out into the city.

He had a destination in mind. There's a number of friends he wanted to check up on, and he knew where many of them lived. So he finds himself standing outside the SEES Dorm for the first time, taking in the architecture of the building for all of three seconds before walking up and knocking on the door.


Shinjiro had already debriefed with most of the other SEES leaders on what happened in Mikage-cho much earlier in the week, but that didn't stop him from being interested in other perspectives as well if they were readily available. Adachi's visit out to the dorm had thus been a matter of interest, and he'd taken the opportunity to talk quietly to the officer about the incident after Adachi had concluded his other business.

Not for Shinjiro the formalities and grandeur of the actual meeting room, unlike the Kirijo heir and those similarly-situated-- he was happy enough to discuss matters right in the lounge. He hears the knock, of course, and glances over briefly-- it's only those who don't have keys who ask for entry like that-- but an underclassman heads over to check, and so Aragaki turns his attention (mostly) back to Adachi.

Most of SEES is, by now, informed enough of 'who's who' among Persona users in the surrounding few cities to know who to allow entry. The girl recognizes Fumiya as 'in the know,' so to speak, and so she lets him in after a few moments. Shinjiro and Adachi would, doubtless, be readily visible even from the entryway.


Of all the members of SEES, Shinjiro is by far the one Adachi trusts the most. Perhaps it's that Hierophant vibe. Either way, Adachi actually put himself out there far enough to come and rescue him out of the TV. It was a really different experience--you really don't get the same thing out of it watching it on the Midnight Channel as you do actually being there. All the same, he's not going to be going to too many. He doesn't really want it getting out to the KDA that good ol' Fumbles has himself a Persona, even if he's got Mitsuru backing him up that she 'discovered' his talent.

Mainly he's here to day to see what was going on in the outside world that perhaps the news wouldn't have picked up on, as well as just catch up with the 18-going-on-50-year-old. Likewise, Adachi glances over at Fumiya when he arrives, dark eyes widening slightly when he recognizes him. Huh. What's he doing here?

Well, probably none of his business. He looks back to Shinjiro. "So that's it, huh," he muses. "Guess there wasn't too much more than there was on the reports mailing list." Adachi pauses, then regards Shinjiro. "...How were you holding out? It must've been a lot quieter without all the kids running around."

...doesn't he mean all the /other/ kids?


Fumiya exercises considerable willpower by not hitting on the girl that opens the door. Really. It takes a lot for him to just smile and nod politely.

The surprise over seeing Shinjiro /and/ Adachi out of the corner of his eye probably helped a bit.

He actually looks a little dumbfounded for a moment, as they're two people he really didn't expect to see in the dorm. He knew Shinjiro was connected, but what were the odds he'd be here right now? Fumiya hesitates a moment, and finally decides his main purpose for dropping by can wait. He knew Thora wanted to bring him to Shinjiro herself, but she's done enough for him, and it's time to start owning up to things without being pushed by someone.

"Er.. A-Aragaki-san, Detective Adachi, I wasn't expecting to see you both here." He nervously looks over his shoulder to see who else might be able to eavesdrop. "Would... er... do you have a moment? Um..." He glances momentarily at Adachi, wondering if he should ask to talk to Shinjiro privately. But since Adachi is a cop 'in the know', it might be good to let him hear this too. Plus talking to them both at once will save him from having to talk about this twice. "..both of you?"


"It was quiet," Shinjiro confirms, apparently comfortable enough with Adachi to let an actual hint of faint amusement show through in his customarily-stern expression. "Quiet like it used to be when we first started. I thought I missed those times, but..." Once he actually got a taste of what the dorm was like when it was a lot emptier, he found he didn't actually care for it at all. He almost kind of -likes- all the chatter now.

When Fumiya approaches and addresses them both, however, Adachi might notice some of that relaxed nature evaporate, Shinjiro's usual forbidding countenance returning. Not that Fumiya really sets Shinji on edge-- it's just that the older boy has a definite image he maintains for those he doesn't know quite so well. Perhaps it's not exactly socially appropriate to be quite so severe, especially given how nervous Fumiya is, but nobody ever accused Shinjiro of having considerable interpersonal skill.

Grey eyes regard Fumiya as the other boy stammers out his request. Huh-- Shinji knows enough about Fumiya to be aware that this is kind of uncharacteristic. "Don't know about Adachi," he replies eventually, "but I got time." /Fumiya/ wouldn't be acting this nervous if it weren't something important, right? "There's a meeting room across the hall," he adds, as Fumiya checks for eavesdroppers.


Adachi laughs a little in return when Shinjiro implies that he'd actually started to like all the damn noise. Hmm. Maybe he's a little like that too, huh. He's started to get used to all the noise from all these stupid little fucks. Not these ones *specifically*, but... from certain people. He's come to realize that there are more people who're important to him than he once believed. Go figure that it'd take a seven-year-old girl demanding to know if he loves a woman for him to really realize that...

Where Shinjiro shifts back into that severity, though, Adachi shifts into his wide-eyed, almost boyish demeanor, giving him a surprised air, which is fair enough given that Adachi *is* kind of surprised. Huh. He can see why a random kid might want to talk to Shinjiro, the eternal senpai, but him too? ...well, whatever. He glances over at Shinjiro, then looks back to Fumiya. Shinjiro is right; this *is* out of character for him. Hell, the kid seemed easy as pie when he thought he might be getting targeted by a murderer. Why so nervous now? It's a little intriguing, which is why the detective says, "I don't mind, Watanabe-kun. What's up?"

If they go to the meeting room, well, he'll just follow. He's just a visitor, after all.


It IS pretty unusual for Fumiya to act this nervous. Shinjiro's reputation can be pretty intimadating at times, but Fumiya has established himself as an ally with at least a few people Shinjiro is connected to, so the youth doesn't put off by talking to him anymore.

...ok, he's still a LITTLE nervous about it, even putting aside his current issues, dude has a scaryface.

"Yeah..." His eyes follow Shinjiro's intended gaze towards the meeting hall. "I'd rather talk in private, if that's ok." Waiting for the two to get up, Fumiya lets Shinjiro go to and open the meeting room. Once they're all inside, he remains standing, pacing just a little bit before speaking up, perhaps just moments before either of them could ask him to get on with it.

"It's about Mikage-cho.... well, no... it's more about the night before we all got teleported into that hell." He eyes Shinjiro, swallowing hard. "I don't know if you've talked to Thora since, she recommended I come see you. It's... kind of hard to talk about... it's just... well..."

Fumiya sighs and removes his glasses, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. "Hell, I'm just dancing around it." Re-adjusting his glasses, Fumiya leans against the meeting room wall, looking up at the ceiling. "Something happened in the lobby of the SEBEC building, before we all got zapped inside anyway. It really... really got the better of me while I was there too..."


It's rather funny how the two of them rearrange quickly into their usual roles when caught by a third party. Adachi adopts his boyish Fumbles demeanor, and Shinjiro lapses back into his grim severity. It's perhaps doubly intimidating because they're standing such that Shinjiro is the one whose back is facing towards Fumiya: he thus has to glare over one shoulder in order to survey the younger boy, and that's never a good thing for the recipient's nerves.

Shinjiro makes no overt reply to Fumiya's request that they talk in private. He doesn't make it a habit to waste breath on reassuring filler chatter. Instead, he merely turns, expecting both Adachi and Fumiya to follow, leading the way to the small room and letting them all in. He takes a seat, even if Fumiya won't; he has a feeling this might take some time.

He evinces no obvious sign of patience or impatience as Fumiya works up the nerve to get around to talking about what's bothering him. It doesn't even cross his mind to tell Fumiya to get on with it. He simply waits, his grey eyes watching Fumiya perhaps unsettlingly as the other boy paces back and forth.

Neither does he show much surprise when Fumiya mentions that he's here on Thora's recommendation, though he -is- a bit taken aback. Why would Thora send Fumiya to him? The matter doesn't become much clearer as Fumiya goes on. An incident in the SEBEC building? What kind of thing would Thora specifically think of him for? "I haven't talked to her yet," he says eventually, if only to elucidate that-- for once-- he doesn't already know what's going on.


"That's fine with me," Adachi says, getting up to follow Shinjiro into the other room. He stands towards the door, slouching slightly as he watches the young Inaban work up the nerve to spill his guts. The night before, huh... Fumiya must've been part of another group, because he sure didn't see him when *he* was going up. But if this is something that Thora advised him to go to *Shinjiro* about, and it's something to shake the usually blase kid...

Adachi's eyebrows narrow suddenly, slightly, and he turns his gaze over towards Shinjiro. Should he let Fumiya try to squirm and say it on his own? It'd be funnier that way, probably, and it'd be better not to seem too sharp. But what about Shinjiro? Adachi more or less accepts that he likes the kid (if he really thought about it, he'd probably realize that among the Persona-Users he knows, Shinjiro comes closest to being his best friend, which is just kind of /sad/), so how this goes down does actually matter to him. If he just came out and said it...

...then again, if by some freak chance he was *wrong* (he's pretty sure he's not, but that's the arrogance talking), he might accidentally blow Shinjiro's secret, and Adachi doesn't actually know if Fumiya knows. Better to keep his mouth shut, he decides, so Shinjiro can handle this at his own pace.

"What do you mean, 'something'?" he asks instead, attempting to prompt the teenager in something approaching an encouraging manner.


Fumiya stalls for another moment, trying to find his words. It's harder than he thought, confessing this to two people at once. He thought it would get easier after he already told Thora, but perhaps that just goes to show how much Fumiya trusts her. Honestly, he never really thought too much about how he trusted her before, he's actually a little surprised to find it's quite a bit.

But he still needs to come out and say it. Especially now that he agreed to enter the meeting room and is now effectively trapped. He could probably just run out easily enough, but how would that look? Taking one final deep breath in through his nose, he decides to just take the plunge.

"I was with the distraction team in the lobby. It was me, Yosuke Hanamura, Hinata Itoh, Shiki, Itsuka, and some other girl I didn't recognize. Without going into details about how it happened, I found myself pinned under cover from a group of armed security guards. I didn't have time to think, and while they were shooting at me I thought they could change their mind and aim for one of the others at any time. Shiki and Itsuka were occupied with another big dude, so they wouldn't have seen it coming. I had to act, so..."

He grits his teeth, breathing sharply. This part wasn't easy, it still hurt to recall it. "Thora told me you have a Persona, Aragaki-san. Have you ever tried to use it on a person without one?" Fumiya asks, innocently, unaware of /why/ exactly Thora sent him to Shinjiro. "I just wanted to get them to stop shooting, I didn't really know how badly it could have hurt them..."

He stops again, remembering the pool of blood gathering at the door of the elevator, and shakes his head. "I killed them." He says vacantly.


Blissfully unaware of Adachi's thought processes (and unaware of just how Adachi thinks of him, for that matter-- the intricacies of friendship are just not things that Shinjiro really thinks about), Shinjiro just waits patiently as Adachi-- for once, thinking altruistically of another person-- exercises discretion, and prompts Fumiya to spill the beans. Shinji is soon rewarded-- if the revelation he receives can really be said to be 'a reward.'

His expression, when Fumiya confesses, is very telling: first, it's surprise; then, the distinct hurt of someone who has gone through the same; and lastly, a forced, pale-faced sort of calm. His mouth thins, as he finds a way to blame himself even for this occurrence. He should have tried harder to keep other people from making his same mistakes...

"I haven't -tried- to," he says eventually, his words heavily weighted with old guilt-- and that one particular word given a rather definite emphasis. "But I know what happens."

He just looks at Fumiya a while, his eyes distinctly gentler-- if very sad. Well, now he knows Thora sent Fumiya to him!! "Come here," he says abruptly, glancing towards one of the chairs across from him around the table. "Sit." Standing around under scrutinizing eyes is no way to feel comfortable. "Christ. No wonder Kobayashi sent you here." He sighs, before-- perhaps realizing his words could be construed as harsh-- he says a little more kindly (if not exactly happily), "Guess she didn't tell you why she said to talk to me, in specific..."

Shinji still seems to be reeling a little emotionally, from having been hit quite suddenly with this topic... Perhaps Adachi will have a kind enough heart to help him a bit?!


So Adachi was right. Hell, of course he was right; why wouldn't he be? He knows the pattern, knows Thora, knows Shinjiro, knows why one would send somebody who's distraught to the other.

/Congratulations, you're a murderer,/ he thinks, regarding Fumiya. /Don't feel too bad, they were trying to murder you too, so it was basically you or them! That's how the world generally works anyway; if you don't get them, they'll get you. And hey, it gets easier the more you do it. Trust me, I should know!/

Adachi refrains from crooking the edges of his lips up in a smile. The look on Shinjiro's face, even if it's funny in its own respect, helps with that bit of personal restraint.

He sits with the other boys when Shinjiro tells them (well, Fumiya) too, watching the teenager as he struggles with the emotion he just got slapped in the face with. It's easy to see the sadness, the guilt, the self-reproach--after all, Adachi knows to look for them. He keeps quite for a while longer too, but when Shinjiro starts to struggle with words, he rubs the back of his head, then regards Fumiya.

"Aragaki-kun has some personal experience with this," he tells the boy quietly. "It's not really my place to talk about the details, but... a few years ago, when he was still starting out, he lost control of his Persona, and a bystander got caught up in it."

He doesn't really need to *specify* that said bystander died, right?


After finally saying that much, Fumiya exhales as if he were holding his breath since he walked into the dorm. Having deflated, he accepts Shinjiro's offer of a seat, and just slumps into it, trying to gather his thoughts into something coherent again.

Truthfully, Fumiya didn't quite guess why Thora sent him to Shinjiro. Just part of his bad habit of not thinking things through, he just didn't spend any time reflecting on her motives. When Shinjiro starts to reveal that he knows why Thora sent him here, and especially when Adachi lets a bit of info slip in advance, Fumiya is visibly surprised.

Shinjiro's more gentle expression almost startles Fumiya, and the gears in his head start to turn as he arrives to the proper conclusion. He had a hard time imagining someone as smooth and awesome as Shinjiro losing control of anything, it didn't mesh with his street rep! Instead of trying to push Shinjiro to explain himself, Fumiya keeps going.

"I'm not sure what bothers me more, the thought of killing people or... or just /not knowing/ the truth. Were they in on everything Kandori was doing, did they know what could have happened, or were they just hired guards trying to get by? Did they have friends, families, lives outside of SEBEC?" Fumiya's heard enough nasty things about Kandori to make him doubt any security personel were totally in the dark, but the nagging sense that he'll never know for sure won't let him focus on that possible silver lining.


Shinjiro flinches a little as Adachi explains he has 'personal experience' with losing it. It's brief, really just a tic of his outer self-control, but it nonetheless reveals that despite recent events... Shinjiro still has some problems thinking about those events. He shuts his eyes, as if to push that unease away and regain composure, and when he looks back at Fumiya it's with that stern, controlled regard that the other boy might expect more.

Got 'caught up in it,' Adachi states euphemistically. "I -killed- her," he says, as if unwilling to excuse himself from the full impact and culpability of that even now. "She wasn't even doing anything. She was just there. I was careless."

He lapses into silence as Fumiya goes on. He's already shaking his head before Fumiya has quite finished speaking; it seems he's got some momentum back. "You're trying to justify what you did. But whether they were guilty or not, whether they were in on it or not... that doesn't matter. Even if you kill to defend yourself, you should not feel it any less. None of us Persona-users should get on a path where we're OK with killing others." That is one belief he holds strongly... the belief that even justified killing can warp the soul.

But on the other hand... "That said. You tell me what would've happened if you -hadn't- done something. You would've been killed. All the other people there with you would've been killed." His sharp grey eyes survey Fumiya. "In that instance, you did what you had to. And now you know what kind of force is too much for a regular person to take."


/What a stupid thing to wonder,/ Adachi thinks as Fumiya frets about whether or not those guards had lives outside of their job. /What does it matter if they did or not? They wouldn't have lost any sleep if they'd killed you and your friends, so it's a waste of time trying to do the same for them./

He gives Shinjiro a long look when he cuts past the euphemisms. The detective doesn't say anything, though. If it were just the two of them, he'd be a lot more blunt, but with someone else in the room... Perhaps it just goes to show how much more Adachi trusts Shinjiro than most everybody else, even if they have some very different ideas on killing. Then again, Adachi's a murderer, and even if the first woman he killed was an accident, the second one he threw through a TV knowing fully well that it'd probably lead to her death, and he didn't--and still doesn't, so long as he keeps that heavy curtain over the window--have any regrets about it.

He listens to Shinjiro lecture Fumiya, though. /He's actually pretty good at this,/ he muses. /I wonder how many times he's made talks like this before.../


Fumiya almost winces when Shinjiro tells him what he needs to be told. That's right, it doesn't matter if they were guilty or not. Part of Fumiya desperately wants to find some way to justify his actions, to make it 'all right' to have done what he did. But that's wrong, completely and utterly. He can only manage a weak nod when he's told that Persona-users shouldn't start to believe it's OK to kill others. Until then he never gave that much thought, foolishly thinking of this as kind of a game or adventure, but he never would have thought it would get so bad that he'd have to believe something like that.

He believes it now.

He relaxes, just a little, when Shinjiro acknowledges his one thread of hope. It's certainly true, those guards weren't willing to wait for a surrender before they started firing, they didn't even say anything or ask them to stop. His own life wasn't the only one on the line, he had to make a choice. But the fact that there could have been a non-fatal choice will haunt him for awhile. "Yeah..." He says quietly. He has a pretty good idea what not to use on regular people, ideally he'd never use his Persona on them ever again.

Fumiya stays quiet for a few moments, before looking at Adachi. "Um... I guess the reason I asked you to listen too... well, you're a cop who knows about all this stuff. So far Kandori hasn't tried to go after all of us who were at SEBEC that night..." That Fumiya's aware of, anyway, though he expects something resembling retaliation eventually. But as far as the death of those guards goes, Fumiya has a hard time imagining that would /legally/ come back to haunt him, but that doesn't mean Kandori can do nothing. "I guess I'm not even sure how to explain it, I just felt it was right to confess it to an officer, for some reason..."


Shinjiro perhaps purposefully left the thought in Fumiya's mind that there could have been a nonlethal choice... left it in the form of phrasing that suggested that, had he made a different judgment about how to attack, he could have come out of that situation with no blood on his hands at all. While he wants to comfort-- knowing full well how scarring it is to kill another person, much less several-- he also does not want to leave the necessary lessons untaught.

Leaning back in his chair, Shinjiro watches Fumiya a little narrowly as the younger boy considers what he's been told. Fingertips drum absently in a nervous gesture as he eventually cuts his gaze away. He remembers this quite well; that much is visible in the reluctant remembrance coloring his expression. He remembers when it stopped being a game for him, too.

"Once you've killed someone," he starts again eventually, "it doesn't do them any service to forget about them. Or to make it all right that you've killed them." Shinji might not have ever known Ken Amada's mother before he killed her, but now? It's likely he'll remember her, annually, until his own death. "It's hard to deal with, knowing you've killed somebody, that you'll never be able to excuse it by thinkin it's 'all right,' that they deserved it. But with time I came to figure that discomfort is our due punishment."

He laughs, short and rough, the sound less one of amusement and more just sardonic. "When it comes to this kind of 'undetectable' killing, we won't be punished as we deserve unless it's by ourselves." /Adachi/. "However... you can't suffer to the exclusion of living your own life. Learn from it and go forward with it."

Shinjiro lapses into silence as Fumiya explains why he wanted Adachi along too. He glances neutrally to the officer for his input.


Shinjiro can think that if he likes, that it's never okay to kill, that you should always remember. It's fine with Adachi. After all, he doesn't intend on ever getting caught. It's kind of hilarious when Fumiya turns to him about all this, saying it just felt right to talk to a police officer (/detective/ e___e Adachi still has *some* pride), especially one in the know. He gives a glance over Shinjiro's way, before he looks back at Fumiya and gives him an encouraging sort of smile.

"Well... I went through Mikage-cho, same as you. We didn't talk much, but I remember we met up at Fort Junes at least once. Remember the slushies? And..." He rubs the back of his head. "...I guess you could say this isn't the first time I've heard something like this. It's weird to say this as a detective, but I know a pretty good number of murderers." cough cough cough cough

Discomfort's their due punishment, huh... Now that really *is* funny. He keeps himself from smiling, even though he'd /really like to/, and when Shinjiro looks over his way, Adachi gives a little shrug. He doesn't intend on punishing himself either, on top of not getting caught. "Speaking as a detective, even if I know you killed someone, there's really nothing I can do about it," he says simply. "I tried it before with Fujimori, and she didn't even get past questioning since there wasn't a weapon to actually pin on her, even though camera records showed she and her crowd of lackeys were there when no one else could've been." He scowls, just a little bit. Adachi doesn't precisely care that Fujimori gutted someone, but he *does* still hate that smarmy bitch. "So it really is up to you what you do about it, Watanabe-kun."

A slight pause, a glance over at Shinjiro, and then he looks back at the kid with a shrug. "I could guilt you about those murders out of frustration of that fact all I wanted, but... in the end it wouldn't really change anything, would it?" His thoughts flicker briefly to two women and a man caught up in communication towers of various kinds. "Even if you regretted it, it won't bring back the dead."


Fumiya nods slowly at Shinjiro, keeping his gaze down. This was harder than he thought, and he doesn't even know if he feels better or not. It's probably something he won't notice for awhile. It's dumb to wish for a magic solution to make it all better. Dumb.. but he kind of wanted it anyway.

He remains silent at the 'discomfort is our punishment' statement. He really doesn't know /how/ to react to that yet. His first thought is that really doesn't seem like enough.

Detective, Officer, it's easy to mix up the two with Adachi for some reason. Suffice to say he's with the cops, that's the one fact that stands out the most in Fumiya's mind about him. A smile almost tugs at his lips when Adachi mentions the slushies, but the pleasant memory fades quickly. The rest of Adachi's advice gives him something to think about. He /wants/ to feel relief at the thought he couldn't legally be caught, but he can't let himself. He can't go and turn himself in, in order to make himself found guilty he'd have to prove /how/ he did what he did which would potentially jeoparadize all the other Persona users, this would be on top of actually finding the bodies. Who knows what became of them after the transfer to Mikage-cho. As it stands, it seems he's legally scott free. Emotionally is a different story.

"There's no 'if'..." Fumiya sighs at Adachi's last comment. He regrets it. He places his hands on his knees and shifts in his seat as if preparing to stand. There's not much he feels he can add, or that he's comfortable adding. Confessing this, to two people especially, was draining.


Shinjiro doesn't add too much to what Adachi has to say-- he doesn't even look at Adachi or Fumiya while they're talking, his troubled gaze fixed on the far wall instead. Looking at him might put a sense of unease in Fumiya. Is this kind of weighted, scarred air what he has to look forward to in his future?

He speaks up only once, when Adachi says regretting it won't change anything, with a faint sense of reprimand that's pretty strange considering it's a boy of eighteen addressing a man of twenty-seven: "That doesn't mean we shouldn't regret it."

But perhaps Shinjiro is feeling a little bad about being so grim about this all, because as Fumiya seems to become restless, he says suddenly, "Watanabe." Shinjiro seems to have a talent for that certain tone of voice that can say many things in one small word: don't go anywhere yet, I still have something to say, keep your ass in that chair.

"You're gonna feel like shit about it." Wait, wasn't Shinji feeling -bad- about being mean? But it seems he isn't done talking quite yet. "You'll feel relieved you can't be caught, and then feel horrible for feeling relieved. You'll feel like you weren't punished enough. You'll regret it. I know, because it's been my experience for the past three years. But it'll also get easier over time." He still isn't looking at either of the other two, but at least his expression is more wistful now than bleak. "Helps when you have people around who give a shit."

He seems just about as drained from the conversation topic as Fumiya is. Having said his piece, he won't stop Fumiya again if he wants to go.


Adachi doesn't respond to Shinjiro when the teenager reprimands him. The detective likes the kid, and has trusted him to see far more about himself than he'd let anyone else, but... well, for a guy with such a reputation for being a blabbermouth, he definitely knows when to keep his mouth shut. All he does is share an even-faced glance with him. ...and perhaps give him some companionable silence when he talks about having people around who give a shit.

Likewise, he won't stop Fumiya from leaving.


Fumiya damn near freezes when Shinjiro tells him to. Despite their talk his reputation is still pretty paralyzing. Though he doesn't answer when he's given the list of things to expect. It really /is/ just going to take time.

Finally, he stands, really feeling the weight of the conversation on his shoulders. But it's a weight he realizes he needs, and maybe he'll learn to notice it less and less. Not really sure how to respond at the end, he just manages a nod. "..er... thanks." He adds, awkwardly. There's no easy way to end a talk like this, so much like how he just decided to dive into it, Fumiya makes a quick exit.