Work Text:
The Phantom Thieves were like family.
Perhaps a chaotic family, but they were like family.
Especially after Yusuke's last… 'family'.
Silently, Yusuke paused, shoving that thought to the side. He was here to paint, not think about.. him. A moment of silence before Yusuke managed to tune back into what his companion was saying.
"-nd honestly! It just makes the lore of the game vastly more confusing! Like did William steal from Edwin? Was all of William's ideas from Edwin? Even some of the lesser known ones?? It just, ughhh." Yusuke's orange haired companion groaned, her head hitting her booth's table with a solid thump. Yusuke heard the gentle chuckle of boss from behind the counter. He was wearing his apron and his hair had been recently trimmed.
Turning back to his orange haired teammate, Yusuke hummed thoughtfully around a mouthful of rice.
This, in turn. prompted Futaba to continue her rant. "I mean the gameplay's fun! Well, except for the fact that the mimic's stupid AI can just randomly teleport! Its really annoying that it can just randomly teleport and change suits on a whim. I mean I know thats the whole idea of the mimic, but they could've at least given it a better AI!" Futaba threw her hands back upset.
Yusuke nodded, not even having the faintest clue on what she was talking about. Silently pushing another spoonful of curry into his mouth, his lips curled up slightly as he chewed. "Hm."
"... You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" Futaba raised her head to stare at the blue haired boy.
Yusuke hummed. "I am inclined to agree. I have no idea what you are talking about."
Futaba narrowed her eyes. "That won't do. Come on." She tugged on his long sleeves impatiently. "Come on!" Futaba tugged Yusuke up, he wrinkled his nose at her and she paused, settling down to let the starved artist finish his meal.
She impatiently tapped her fingers against the booth, her gaze scanning the empty cafe of Leblanc as Yusuke chewed his food. Thoughtfully tapping his chin, he painted a picture in his mind's eye. But before he could finish his internal drawing, he managed to finish his meal. Now with no reason to stay at Cafe Leblanc, Futaba, the whirlwind she is, practically dragged the skinny artist away. "Bye Sojiro! I'm going to play games with Yusuke!" Futaba called after her father, yanking Yusuke towards Sojiro's house. The only reply was Sojiro's chuckle.
The pair stumbled outside, apologizing to the short blue haired woman who had been opening the door. The doctor Ren often hung out with, Tae Takemi.
They didn't stay long as Futaba dragged the artist away, skipping away with her captured arm.
Bursting into the house, Futaba dragged Yusuke, bursting into her room and throwing herself onto her chair, booting up her pc and opening up steam, clicking open a game with a brown bear staring forward, its cartoonish eyes staring straight into his soul.
Clicking the game open, Futaba grinned at the dark staticky screen which greeted the pair of them. The same bear stared straight ahead. Its colors dull and dark, a simple menu greeted the pair as they looked at the computer.
Yusuke inched forward, squinting at the screen, raising his hands to form a square with his hands. "Hm.. the colors do contrast quite nicely, although the light of the picture seems lacking."
"That's for a reason Inari." Futaba rolled her eyes with no real malice. "It's a horror game."
Futaba clicked on 'new game', talking outloud for Yusuke. "Basically, you're a guard at a pizzaria, and the animatronics are angry and you basically need to survive. The whole premise is you shut doors and flick on lights."
Yusuke frowned thoughtfully at the screen as it loaded in, showing a small room with a fan, a computer, black and white tiles and a smattering of posters on the wall behind it. He winced at the sight of the posters. "How unflattering." He murmured.
"It's a game Inari." Futaba kicked his shin lightly. "You don't pay attention to the background while playing.
Yusuke frowned, turning to study her confusedly. "Then why have such detailed paintings?"
Futaba huffed and amused. "Lore Inari! Lore!"
Yusuke only frowned, unsure what 'lore' was. He blinked blankly at the younger girl who remained oblivious to his confused stare as she tapped away at the game.
Turning back attention, Yusuke jumped in surprise when Futaba clicked open, her character pulling up a tablet and clicking it open to reveal three animals staring ahead, a faint haze of static over them. The closest was a purple rabbit with a guitar and a red bow. He stood on two legs, opposed to regular rabbits. From the angle of the 'camera' as Futaba called it, it almost looked like the rabbit didn't have any eyes. Only a blank black holes staring ahead, a black nose visible from the angle. Next to him was a yellow… bird of some kind. Also standing upright, wearing a white apron looking thing. They were also staring off camera like the rabbit, the angle also hiding the bird's eyes. Its beak jutted out and had eyebrows for… some reason? Yusuke narrowed his gaze at the animals.
Finally, in front of the pair stood the same bear that was on the title screen. He was brown, his eyes also pitch black. He held a microphone as he stared off screen.
"We got Bonnie, Chica and Fredbear!" Futaba gestured to each of the upright standing animals with strange joints. "And finally, Foxy!" Futaba clicked her mouse, the screen changing to that of a set of purple curtains with a 'sorry out of order!' sign. Yusuke tapped his chin confusedly.
"There's none of those standing up animals there." Yusuke replied, squinting at the screen.
"He's behind the screen Inari." Futaba replied, flipping past the camera, arriving at a large area with a bunch of tables and chairs, each table had a neat line of birthday hats. But what startled him the most was the fact that the rabbit was in there. White eyes and blank pupils staring ahead at the camera from the right side of the room. Its mouth opened to reveal dull teeth.
Yusuke startled, leaning over Futaba's shoulder to peer at the screen. "How did the animal get there?" He murmured thoughtfully.
"Bonnie Inari! Its name is Bonnie!" Futaba replied exasperated.
"Yes this… Bonnie. How has it moved?" Yusuke murmured while studying the rabbit. He jumped as the screen jumped into static, fading back in with the bird now on the left.
"Preposterous-" Yusuke muttered. "How did it move there? It never even took a step." Yusuke remarked as Futaba flicked back into the office, turning left to click the lights on and turning right to click the lights on before they flickered out after a second.
It was like that for a while, Futaba locked in and clicked through cameras faster than Yusuke could even comprehend them.
He remarked, studying the game thoughtfully. His gaze scanned the dark light of the game thoughtfully. He hummed thoughtfully, his mind flicking from the aspect of the game to turn into his heart.
Yusuke's gaze drifted from the game to the girl next to him, studying the orange haired woman who was determined to win the game. Her eyes narrowed, her tongue faintly sticking out between her lips as her gaze was narrowed onto the screen.
He paused, studying how the faint light of the screen cast a soft shine over her features, showering her in faint dark blues.
An idea formed at the corners of Yusuke's mind, a painting fading into view. His eyebrows furrowed faintly in thought.
A sudden loud screech shot through Yusuke, causing him to stumble, jerking back as the noise emerged from the screen that Futaba paid such close attention to. Yusuke turned just in time to see a red fox with various holes in its body, an eyepatch opened up to reveal yellow eyes. The fox itself leaned in from the door, Futaba muttering under her breath as the screen faded to black with a game over on a black screen.
"Gosh darnit Foxy!" Futaba yelled angrily, clicking rapidly on the try again. Yusuke, captivated, admired her determination as she got into the zone, clicking and tapping away as she talked.
"You see, the whole lore of this game is that the animatronics are controlled by dead children who was murdered by this purple guy, William Afton, which btw-" Futaba continued on, Yusuke turning to study her again as she worked, her lips moving as she listed off the lore absentmindedly.
He could feel his heart race from the scare of the game, his mind turning over his emotions. Such raw emotions struck his heart, urging his mind to capture such feelings on paper. His hands itched to put his emotions onto paper, to express these intense emotions. His hand curled up by his side, fingers digging softly into his side, his gaze locked onto the game Futaba was locked on, her fingers rapidly moving, shifting the screen left to right as she fought against the moving metal animals. Pulling up the tablet to flick through cameras only to put it back down just as quick as she shifted through. As Yusuke watched, he noticed a number in the corner right of the screen. It steadily ticked up every minute or so, creeping steadily away from 11 pm.
It was fascinating, the feeling of the room the main character was in felt so tense, tendrils of worry practically radiating off the screen and leaking into the real world. Drawing out the eerie feeling into the present. It almost reminded him of Mementos for a moment. Screams of the public at the edges of his ears, the faint hum of lights above and the feeling of a bumping thump. In fact, so vivid, Yusuke had the urge to draw it. He was not one to leave such impulses to rot, as he whipped out his sketchbook, his fingers dancing across the soft paper. His pencil emitting soft scratching as he worked away, the only noise of the room being Futaba clicking away at her game and the shifting of pencil on paper.
Distantly, Yusuke registered the sound of a door opening and closing, but he did not pay much heed. His gaze laser focused on his sketchbook as he scratched into the paper.
Eventually, his simple pencil drawing urged him onto more, and his hands moved without his brain catching up, shifting the page onto the next and putting down a rounded head with mounted glowing glasses and a personality like fire. (Perhaps not fire… Yusuke recalls hearing Akira refer to the resident hacker as a 'gremlin', but Yusuke had yet to search up the meaning to that word.)
But his strokes became longer, more careful, as he adjusted him arm to not smudge his drawing, her gaze landing on the girl who grinned so widely back at him, captured in the moment, midrant about whatever 'Five Night's at Freddies' truly captured.
Perhaps he should try to look into this.. 'lore'. He tapped his chin, tipping his head thoughtfully. His gaze turning to his orange haired companion. Leaning so far forward had it not been usual, Yusuke would've worried over her eyes. He smiled faintly, his gaze flickering across her facial features as she stuck her tongue between her lips in concentration. Her brown gaze glittering with flicks of purple narrowed in concentration as she waved her long orange hair back away from her eyes.
He turned instead to study her room idly while she was quote 'in the zone' unquote. It wasn't the first time he's been here, nor will it (most likely) be the last, but it's changed vastly from the mess it was a year ago.
Idly, his gaze turned towards the set of figurines next to her desk, as if through telepathy, Futaba threw a hand into Yusuke's chest. "Don't you dare." She glared at him absentmindedly as she returned to her game.
Yusuke's hands paused, his hands dropping back to his sketchbook by his side.
His gaze landing on the orange haired girl's back as she pushed away from the desk with the screen displaying a '6:00 am'.
"Woo! I forgot how fun the first five nights at Freddy's is!" Futaba breathed outloud chuckling.
Yusuke's lips upturned slightly as Futaba spun in her chair to face him.
"Honestly, Scott had such a good idea in fnaf 1, he kind of flunked it in fnaf 4. Fnaf 3 had a novel idea, fnaf 2 isn't different from fnaf 1, and fnaf 5 is just lore based and completely unreplayable! At least fnaf 6 is speen-runable." Futaba complained loudly as she turned to Yusuke who only nodded sagely.
"Perhaps this… 'lore' could be useful in my art." Yusuke remarked outloud. "Hmm. Yes. I see it. I must leave, thank you for hosting me here Futaba." Yusuke replied loudly, pushing up away from the bed to walk down the stairs.
"Wha-? Inari?!" Futaba yelped, confused as Yusuke walked off. "INARI GET BACK HERE! WE'RE NOT DONE HERE! YOU NEED TO PLAY-!"
To say Sojiro saw something out of the ordinary wouldn't be right, watching Futaba yank the artist back to her room, him complaining about how he 'needed to get his ideas down' as the orange-haired girl dragged him back.
That was actually a common occurrence, especially after their mutual friend left to return home.
"Huh, wonder what those two are up to." His customer hummed thoughtfully as Sojiro turned back to the pair of girls.
"I really missed your coffee, Boss." The straight-haired girl murmured as she nursed a cup.
"Mhm. How's college treating you, Niijima?" Boss asked curiously.
A careful silence as the girl set her cup down. "Say boss, have you heard anything from Ren?"
"Except him bothering me to keep an eye on Yusuke and Futaba? Not really." Sojiro chuckled, his hands calmly cleaning at the cup between his hands.
"Aha," Makoto murmured, taking a sip of coffee. "They've been hanging out often haven't they?" She remarked, watching as Futaba wrestled the blue haired artist outside of Leblanc.
"Mhm." Sojiro agreed, turning his attention to the two wrestling children as Futaba was tugging on the much taller Yusuke away towards the house. His expression was curious as he regarded the two of them. His gaze thoughtful as he watched the pair wrestle.
"You know… Futaba's changed a lot." Makoto observed thoughtfully.
"Mhm." Boss agreed as he set his cup down staring down the pair.
Makoto smiled to herself, taking her last sip of coffee. Pushing forward some yen as she stood up, Makoto picked up her bag. "Thanks for the coffee Boss. It was a much-needed break."
Sojiro nodded as the brunette stood, stretching her limbs
As the brunnett left, Sojiro hummed to himself as he wiped away at the cup, setting it down into the cabinets behind him.
Entering the house, he could hear the excited cheering of Futaba and the yelling of 'Inari, not that!' above. He chuckled to himself softly, stepping into the building with a smile.
"Preposterous!" The voice of Yusuke was heard as Sojiro chuckled, closing the door behind him.