You end up encountering Kurusu-san in the library on Monday. It's an accident, in that you don't mean to encounter him, but you consider it a fortunate one, since you have no idea how you would have next encountered him otherwise. "Oh, Kurusu-san, right?" You greet him. If he's someone the cat from the future thinks is important, he probably is, even if he doesn't know it yet and you have no idea why.
"Y-yes. That's right. Good afternoon, Amada-senpai. Are you looking for a specific book, or...?"
"It's more of a subject," You say, not really sure how else to describe it. "Or a word. Do you know what an 'Arcana' is?" Not that you really expect him to know the answer.
But it is important that you figure it out, because you've been hearing it a lot recently, and you want to know what it is.
"Arcana... oh, like tarot cards? There's books in the back, far right, bottom shelf. Right next to the reference books." You're sort of surprised he could identify those so quickly. "I'm not sure why they're here, I think they were meant to go to the high school but got mixed up. But if you're looking for them..."
"I see. Thank you, Kurusu-san." The books are right where he said they'd be, of course. If he could list where they are so quickly, he probably spends a lot of time here. You make sure to make a note of that, in case it ends up being important later.
Right now, you have an actual mystery to uncover.
The first Arcana that you look up, flipping through the pages of your book, is Justice. You aren't sure why, it's just a feeling you get. Like the Justice Arcana is something familiar and important to you, rather than just an odd term used by Kirijo-san to describe Nemesis.
Tracking down the right section is harder than you'd thought. For some reason, you thought the Justice Arcana would be listed as card eight, but it ended up being eleven instead. You aren't entirely sure if that means anything or not.
Either way, the meaning's... sort of what you'd expect, from a card of that name. Justice is fairness, and all that implies. And reversed, can be interpreted as vengeance or holding on to a past injustice that can't be resolved.
You don't think you like the sound of the second part. For some reason, it leaves you with an odd bitter feeling.
Some things are best left alone. This is probably one of them.
"Hey, what are you reading?" You turn to see Morgana. You'd been so wrapped up in reading your book and petting Koromaru that you hadn't even noticed his presence. Probably not a good sign. It means that Shadows could easily distract you by handing you reading material and a cute puppy.
"It's a book on Arcana," You reply, because that's more or less all you're reading it for. You aren't really interested in learning how to read the cards beyond base meaning, anyway. All you need is the stuff that applies directly to your Persona, whose name you're starting to get a rather bad feeling about. And then, because there's another Arcana you know about and the one it applies to is right there, "Do you want to hear about the Magician?"
"Don't need to! It's... application of power, right? You know, creativity..."
You shrug, and flip back a few pages so you can find out. Sure enough... "Yeah, that's right. It also says you can be rather immature?"
"It says what!?" A powerful gust of wind picks up, and you barely manage to snatch back the book before it's carried away.
"Careful! I got this from the library!" You scold him. "...Also? I think you just proved its point." Morgana nervously glances around at all of the other things tossed about by the wind, including a sad Koromaru.
"R-right... sorry." Koromaru barks at him. "Look, I just apologized, didn't I? What more do you want from me? I already called dibs on the remote!"
...You decide to leave them to it.
Kurusu-san's in the library on Wednesday when you return the book, as well. "Do you spend a lot of time here?" You ask him, genuinely curious.
"Enough," He shrugs. "I don't- well, there's not really a lot for me to do at home, but if I'm reading a book, nobody bothers to look at what it is." There's something oddly sad about that, you think. "And... it's quiet here. Nobody raises their voice, or causes trouble... I like that."
Kurusu-san, you decide, is weird. But in a good way.
"I think I see what you mean," You tell him, because you honestly do get the appeal. It's part of why you like the shrine so much, and you think that, if your interests were more book-related, you and Kurusu-san might have ended up meeting sooner.
"Do you? Really?" It sounds almost accusing, the way he says it.
"That's why you were so upset by the cat, right?" Morgana was being loud, and yelling at him, and while he didn't get the actual words you did, he could probably put the pieces together.
"...Yeah. That's right." He hesitates before answering, as though he were the one worried about getting it wrong, rather than things being the other way around.
You're not sure why, given the kind of things that happen to you at midnight, but somehow Kurusu-san is the human you know who you understand the least.
There has to be a way to fix that.
[ ] Introduce Kurusu-san to Maiko. If both of your schoolmates are in the same place, you'll be able to figure things out by comparing the two. And it would probably do Maiko good to have more friends.
[ ] Bring Kurusu-san with you to the shrine. It'll be a good way to figure out why Morgana insists he's so special.
[ ] Just spend time with Kurusu-san on your own. No better way to get to know someone than talking to them, after all!
[ ] Don't bother. Some things are just meant to stay mysteries, and this could very easily be one of them.
