Despite your tiredness, you didn't sleep well last night. To be expected, really, but it does mean you go through school the next day half-asleep. Your teacher calls on you one time, and it takes you a few seconds to even register what she just asked.
You get the answer right, after a few more moments of thinking, but you don't think you impressed her very much.
So, after school, you want to do something nice, simple, and uncomplicated. Ideally, something simple enough you can think of the possibility despite your brain being basically turned off today.
...Oh, Kyouma's showing off pictures he took during and after the typhoon a couple weeks ago. You guess that's as good an idea as any.
"We don't get rain a lot," He explains, like none of you are already aware that you don't get the normal weather for a coastal city. "But we had a lot of it then, so I wanted to remember what it looks like." His pictures are arranged in a deep blue folder with white corners. Each page is a clear sheet of plastic with four prints suspended in it.
The most common thing you see in these pictures is, of course, water. Rain thundering in sheets down the side of windows, at all times of day. Vehicles of different colors throwing up water from their tires- but from a safer distance than where Oyama-chan was standing that one time. A curtain of water behind an open door. Puddles rippling from being disturbed.
It's a mundane topic, from someone whose stated interests aren't mundane in the slightest.
That storm wasn't exactly mundane, either. I'm not sure what happened, then, but something did.
"Were you doing this that whole week?" You poke at a picture that focuses less on the rain itself, and more on how it effected the light streaming in through his window.
He nods. "There wasn't anything else I could do. There wasn't anything good on TV. ...Nothing my parents would let me watch, at least. They thought, with the weather how it was, it'd be too scary." He sounds incredibly unimpressed with the idea.
You can't really say anything about that, though, since you've never asked him about his taste in horror movies, and you're pretty sure that's what he's talking about. You don't even watch horror movies, you have enough nightmares as it is.
The idea of running through Tartarus as a sticky red substance pours down outside is disturbing enough for that. This is how you know Kyouma has no awareness of the Dark Hour- he'd definitely have tried to get a picture. And, if his camera runs on batteries, complained about it not working.
Still, seeing the project he does have... you sort of wish you'd run into him while he was working on it. "I'm surprised you didn't get any pictures of lightning."
"I tried. They all just ended up washed-out." You guess you can't argue with that.
When you and Futaba talk about Morgana, you do it at school, where he isn't going to be. It's a matter of simplifying things- you don't think he's going to start talking about time travel in front of someone who knows nothing about it, he hardly even talks about it with you, but he might forget how little context Futaba has in comparison to the two of you.
"I... kinda want to ask my mom about him." You assume that the notebook she's writing in is for school, but her handwriting is so bad, there's no way to know for sure. "But she's so busy, and- and it'd be weird."
You suppose that, if your life still had an adult figure who didn't know what was going on, you'd find it weird to try telling them about it, too. And that's without factoring in that this is about Morgana specifically.
"Would she know what he is? He doesn't know what he is." Or, if he's figured it out, he hasn't told you about it. He's just let you go on thinking that he's a normal talking, transforming cat. Like a magical girl mascot desperately pretending not to be one.
"I mean... it's like she knows everything. Those words... I can spell them or say them. Not both."
I think that might just be a science thing...
You guess that means that, whatever her mother's working on, it's really complicated. There's multiple things involving Personas where you've only figured out what the words mean from context, but at least you can pronounce them. "Maybe I can help figure it out if you write them down? Just-" You're spared from telling her her handwriting is terrible by the arrival of another person.
Oyama-chan's braids, as you'd expected, are back the way they were during the typhoon. "Hey. Is Amada-kun bothering you?" She asks Futaba, a wide smile on her face.
...Would she be asking that question if Isshiki-chan's hair was orange?
Futaba flinches. "U-um, no... no, I... I asked him to talk to me..." She flips the notebook shut with a loud thwack. It's louder than her actual voice.
"Why would you do that!?" As if the idea that people might like your company is somehow offensive to her.
"Why shouldn't she?" You became tired of Oyama-chan a while ago, and that was before she started talking about you like that to other people. Everyone around you is starting to look in your direction because of how loud she is.
"He's not a normal person," She tells Futaba, without acknowledging that you've said anything.
Futaba blinks at her. "Um... yeah?" And maybe that's to be expected. She knows you have a talking cat. Telling her you aren't normal is like telling Makoto-san the Dark Hour is green.
"...You know? And you're still talking to him?" Her earlier traces of friendliness are completely gone, replaced by confusion.
Futaba looks at you. "...What's her problem?"
You sigh as loudly as you possible can. "Being an orphan isn't contagious, Oyama-chan."
"I mean, your dad left you, so clearly-"
"...I don't have a dad, either." It takes you a moment to realize she even said anything.
But this stops Oyama-chan in her tracks. "...Oh. There's something wrong with both of you." And then she leaves without so much as an apology for interrupting your conversation.
The conversation doesn't continue, either. It just feels too weird.
Today's lunch contains an apple. Neither you or Akira own fruit knives- you don't think Akira's been allowed near a knife in his life- but an apple is the kind of thing you can just bite into. Nice and simple, like you've been wanting things to be.
Since Oyama-chan confronted you yesterday, you've been hearing a lot of people whispering about you. It's nice to just sit down with a friend and try to forget about it.
Akira turns his apple over in his hands. It's yellow, like one of the bookmarks he's been hiding in his desk. "Senpai?"
"Do you need something?" If he wants a knife, you're sure one of his classmates would be willing to let you borrow one... is what you'd say before you started hearing the whispers.
You... feel a lot less sure about that now.
"...My parents aren't good people, are they?"
[ ] Write-in.
