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a. Shibuya

Sumire's been meaning to expand her wardrobe for a while now, both here and at home. Kasumi chose everything for the both of them, so she only has the vaguest idea of what she's doing.

But! She has a - a date sometime soon! With a cute girl! So surely that means she needs to be able to dress to impress.

She's wandering around various clothing stores, occasionally consulting a packet of paper with labeled illustrations of various cuts of clothing. Sharp eyes might recognise the handwriting as Ann's, but the artwork decidedly is not. Even with that guidance, though, she... could use some help.

b. Tartarus

If Sumire's going to be any kind of use in Midnight-san's Palace, she needs some practice, and it's far better to get that practice with other people than to try to go into a cognitive space alone. Since there are regular Tartarus runs, she's opting to get in on one of those.

Even if the Dark Hour setting in and the high school exploding upward into a giant tower is... kind of alarming.

In proper Phantom Thief tradition, her outfit does change when she steps into the tower, but if anyone was expecting her to match the Violet they know, they're in for a shock. She's still wearing a leotard and long boots, but the leotard and its bolero jacket are a deep greenish-black, and the boots, more obviously green, have a faint snakeskin pattern. Sumire's gloves are blue-violet, and her hair pulls itself back into a bun, emerald-studded pins holding it in place.

She may be new to Persona combat, but she's ready to give it a go.

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Zenkichi chuckled wryly at the comment about his uniform. "It has its fair share of pains and gains but most of all- definitely belongs in some sort of museum."

He puts aside the shirt as he considers her question.

"Uh."

He falls short, a hand on his chin.

After a bit of careful contemplation he loses his initial social demeanour and instead grows more...awkward. Eyes cast away, even if his own visor prevented Sumire to catch that so really his expression would look far more serious then intended to be.

"I have...no idea."

"Then we can either wait for her to come back and offer input... or just grab one of everything and see what sticks."

Zenkichi let out a long-suffering sigh, rubbing at the back of his neck. “She said she’s making a Pinterest mood board.” He said the word like it was some arcane magic spell, like just saying it aloud might summon a swarm of aesthetic inspirations to drag him into the depths of teen fashion hell. “Whatever that means. But she’s been at it for a while, so… she’s taking this seriously."

His visor flickered slightly as he checked in on Akane’s network processes, scanning for any updates. No immediate responses yet, but knowing her, she was probably already knee-deep in some absurdly detailed reference catalog. Teenagers, he thought, shaking his head with a brief chuckle.

His visor flickered briefly as he pulled up his own connection to the NETWORK, his sensors sweep over the girl's linked phone as he reads the signal instinctively.

He sent off a quick ping to Akane’s private server—she was better at analyzing all that social data crap anyway.

Sent request: Hey, can you check in on this address and just find any matches?

If nothing else, it was good to know who he was dealing with in a place as...colourful as this. ~~Even if these tendencies reminded him of his time working in the public sector.~~

But first—he had a mission.

Zenkichi exhaled and turned back to the girl, giving her a once-over—not suspiciously, just in the way of a man trying to calculate statistics on how much she knew about whatever counted as “fashion” these days. Physically she looked about Akane’s age, which, in his mind, translated to: Probably knows more than I do about this crap.

He made a vague, sweeping gesture at the clothing racks. “So, if you’re somewhere in the same general age bracket as Akane, then I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say logically, you should have better instincts for what’s in fashion than I do. Because my instincts?” He pulled a random jacket off the rack—dark, practical, probably something he himself would wear. “My instincts are telling me to grab something like this, maybe throw in some jeans, and call it a day.”

He gave the jacket a critical once-over before tossing it back with a huff. “But apparently, that’s not good enough soo...I will strive to understand.”

Edited 2025-02-11 14:56 (UTC)

"Well, my instincts are 'let someone else choose it for me.' I'm still learning how to do this, and basically from scratch - my sister used to choose everything for both of us." She does have the cheat sheet Ann-senpai made for her, but that works better when the person who wants the clothes is... actually present.

"You can probably do a lot with a pair of jeans as the foundation, but that can't be everything, I do know that much."

Zenkichi grew quiet, lips pressed into a line. "I see," he nodded slowly. "Well, hey, I guess we will both learn something out of this."

He didn't exactly wish to reminscene old memories but more than that, he didn't want to disappoint her.

"I...have a vague idea of her liking dramatic clothing," he finally says, looking away as he fidgets with his own coat. "She doesn't want a monochrome palette, more reds and pinks. I think- she's sick of her CCAI uniform."

Ah-

"Zenkichi Hasegawa by the way," he finally answers. "But I would prefer just being called Wolf. You are...I may have cheated a little and recognized you through the network IP address."

"Sumire Yoshizawa, is it?"

"Yes. Violet, to keep things simpler, since there's at least three of me here and one of them... doesn't hear our names right." That's a complicated matter in and of itself, and if he's seen any of the discussion of Midnight-san's Palace or notes about Dr. Maruki, he'll have some insight as to why.

Zenkichi doesn't keep up with the network the same way Akane does and while he does acknowledge some things being specifically strange and outside his supposed timeline being: Yaldaboath, the god of control called upon by the masses, Dr. Maruki- the man who was just a cognitive pscience researcher working in the Kirijo Group who had supposedly awakened to the power of god and just the whole shit show with the Kirijo group, the mention of names does make him pause for a moment.

He did read some very interesting discussion on the board after all.

"Right...that's," his expression twists a little. "That's...not normal. Or makes things any simpler."

"..should I know anything else?" he asks but the way he's asking it seems more like he doesn't want to know anything else but the kids here concern him. Too much. With their little quirks. Jesus fucking christ.

"About me, or about Midnight-san? I don't know much about what's going on with her, but I've... been in a similar position."

Just, you know. Not nearly as codependent on her shitty, shitty therapist.

"Ha- isn't that a good question?"

He would like to know what Takuto Maruki is capable of- considering he knew him as one of the nicer bumbling researchers in Kirijo group who were only loyal to the company for the sake of not having anything else to live for. And a friend- even if they had grown distant. Due to circumstances beyond their control.

"You kids just keep giving me a heart attack with the things I have heard about. Whatever you wanna share to some shadow weapon who doesn't particularly like people wearing white lab coats aside from a few exceptions- I am all ears. Don't feel pressured to share what you don’t want to dive into. "

Edited 2025-02-28 08:30 (UTC)

"I was... in a bad place." To put it very mildly. "And my parents were worried about me, so they sent me to Dr. Maruki. His idea of helping was to make me think I was my dead sister. To be fair, it did stave off the immediate crisis, but mostly it just made things worse."

Zenkichi thankfully doesn't have a heart attack from hearing that but the lock he offers to Sumire is...something resembling to it. Like he needed a moment to really let those words settle before the shock took form into something unpleasant...

It hit him in all the wrong places. Made him think of how the Kirijo group controlled young unwilling teens or how Akane's soul was exploited by-

"Jesus christ," he blinks at her. "That's wow I am sorry- I am still trying to figure out where his line of thought was going..? There have to be far better ways to go about this." And why the hell does she still refer to him as Dr Maruki?! After all that?

"...Are you doing alright now?"

Edited 2025-03-13 21:36 (UTC)

Because she's polite to a fault, mainly. And for all she wishes he'd chosen literally any other method, he did keep her alive long enough to work out how to move forward.

"It's a work in progress, like most things, but my friends helped me shake off his influence."

This conversation was really turning the gears in his head- in a more so exasperated way.

Clearly there's some level of insecurity between the twins for Yoshizawa to turn to treatment like that. Or, somehow, every other Maruki aside from his had ended up as a therapist, pushing at people's boundaries in ways that should be deeply concerning for someone in a professional field pertaining to someone's mental health.

Zenkichi scratched his chin, glancing off to the side with an awkward tilt of his head. "...Well, if my Maruki ever mentions going into therapy, I think I’ll have to direct him to the ethics API code or whatever the hell you guys use for that."

That startles a small laugh out of Sumire, despite the heavy topic. If only it were as easy as an API code, huh...

"He means well, maybe better than anyone else I've ever met. But he kind of... can't see past his good intentions very well."

The corner of Zenkichi's mouth twitches up into something resembling a smile. It is a heavy topic. Heavy topic doesn’t even begin to cover it. Identity rewrite—cognitive rewrite—should never be taken lightly, no matter the intent behind it..

Maybe it was a bit worrying that Maruki was being left to his own devices back in their world.

And their world was a literal hell.

He keeps that information tucked away. He can't believe the words she's saying. It's too forgiving. Too benevolent.

And to think he’d gone to Maruki’s little party, shook his hand, made small talk over drinks. Who knows what was going on in that man’s head back then? Maybe, if this place wrangles him enough times, things will be different. Maybe.

He exhales, shifting through the clothes again, letting the silence settle for a moment.

"It’s funny how different universes work like that," he says at last, his voice softer now, a little less sharp around the edges. "You’re giving him too much credit, I think... but hey, that’s your call to make, not mine."

A beat. He glances at her, expression unreadable.

"Just...don’t let your kindness blind you. Wanting to believe in people, to give them a chance—that’s a good thing. But it doesn’t mean you owe them forgiveness."

"Oh, I never said I forgave him. Understanding why he did it doesn't change the fact that it hurt me."

Thank god.

"Phew," he shook his head as the smile stretched to a grin. "That's the spirit, alright."

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