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["Number two"? Who's number one!

Akira will not pout over this, or give any indication that he cares at all, but huh. Guess he doesn't win the top spot just for sharing souls with Lupin.]

Thanks.

[He comes in, giving the place a look around as he does. He hasn't been here much, and it's always enlightening to see the inside of someone's home - or it would be, in a place where they weren't so limited in their decorations, but ah well.]

[ his sweet cardia from home is #1, alas... her spot may never be vacated.

it is indeed pretty bare; Lupin has a bunch of doodads stored up in his room, but the common spaces shared between himself and Akechi are sparsely decorated. He's gone through the trouble of finding a non-broken vase and putting it on the coffee table with some flowers inside, at least, and it's all quite clean, despite the town's best efforts. ]

I'd offer you some tea, but I haven't any, so... how about a glass of water?

[The vase is something at least!]

That would be great, thank you.

[So polite. Akira will wait patiently, looking around but not touching anything, like a good, well behaved boy.

Such is his way when he's Akira, not Joker.]

[ good thing it will only take him like two seconds to get a mug (sorry, that's the best he can do in Chroma) of water - he won't have to stand for long. He gives Akira a quick nod of acknowledgement, then hurries off to the kitchen to get it, calling to him from the other room as he does so. ]

So, what brings you here? Just swinging by to say hello to your old man? What a good kid.

[ it has been a while since that message!! ]

[Ah, maybe he should just swing by to say hi more often, if that makes Lupin happy...

But alas, that is not why he's here! Though he's pretty sure Lupin won't be upset about it.]

You said we could talk if I wanted to. About... stuff.

[Way to go there, champ; that couldn't have been more vague.]

[ luckily, he 100% understands what Akira's saying, even if he's being super vague! Lupin pops back out of the kitchen, holding out the mug filled with relatively-cool water in his direction. ]

I thought so. Want to come up to my room, then?

[ there is someone else living here, after all... and Lupin doesn't know if he'd want to talk about this in a place where Akechi could theoretically waltz in on them. ]

...If you don't mind.

[It's probably better if Akechi doesn't waltz in on this, it's true. Partly because things between him and Akechi are... a bit awkward, right now, but also because he just prefers to keep these kinds of things to himself - and to Lupin now, it seems.

So he'll stand up to follow Lupin to his room.]

I wouldn't invite you if I did. Come on.

[ he leads the way up the rickety stairs to his room. Unlike the sparse living areas, Lupin's space is full of signs of life - there are various bits and pieces he's gathered from around the town neatly organized on shelves, ranging from pieces of scrap metal or wood that he thinks he might be able to get some use out of to broken toys to bits of pretty rocks and minerals with their color restored. In the corner is a desk topped with a handful of tools and works-in-progress that Akira will probably recognize from his own thievery: lockpicks, half-finished smoke bombs. The asymmetrical opera mask he wears when he's on a job sits in the desk's upper corner. It's on the verge of being cluttered, but Lupin keeps everything just organized enough to look like a collection rather than a bunch of a junk.

That said, his bed obviously isn't made. He scratches the back of his head. ]

You can sit on the desk chair if you want. It's a little wobbly, though. [ he keeps trying to fix it, but it's stubborn!! He plops himself down on the edge of his bed. ] How are you feeling?

[A wobbly chair is something he doesn't mind. Akira sits in it, looking around the room with appreciation. This room fits Lupin's personality a lot more than the downstairs does, and his gaze lingers on the various thieving tools for a moment before he refocuses on Lupin.]

I'm... alright.

[Better than he was at first, at least. It's maybe not outstanding, but it's functional.]

I've only known those guys... for a few months. But it's still strange, being without them.

[ he nods, giving Akira an apologetic smile. It must be rough. It's not something he's ever had to deal with, either - he's never had a close friend disappear from his life without warning in any context, save for when his mentor died years ago. Even in Chroma, he's been fortunate enough to keep everyone that he cares for. ]

The other phantom thieves, you mean? You might not have known them that long, but you must have had a special bond with a group like that.

[ he knows what it's like, too; he has his own group of law-breakers that he hangs around with. Even if some of them aren't his friends, they're still his comrades. ]

Yeah. We really do.

[He cares about all of them, and he knows they care about him too. He knows he would worry endlessly if they were here, especially if any of his non-Persona user friends showed up, but at the same time, he can't help but miss them.]

The thieves are my best friends.

[ Lupin watches him for a few seconds. Akira is fairly quiet; he doesn't think he's ever heard him make such a bold statement, and that only drives home how much the other thieves matter to him. He wishes he could comfort him better, but the fact of the matter is that he simply doesn't know what happened. There's so much about this place that's out of his control, out of the range of his information-gathering, out of reach, and he respects Akira too much to feed him an empty reassurance on Yusuke's whereabouts. ]

... Don't give up on him. He's strong. I'm sure the phantom thieves have gotten out of tighter pinches before.

...Yeah, he is.

[In more ways than one. Yusuke is physically very strong, one of their strongest, but he's also emotionally tough, to have dealt with all he did before they met, and after. With all he's been through, he never stopped being him.]

Wherever he is... he's probably doing an abstract landscape painting of it right now.

[It's easier to think of him that way, even if they don't really know. Yusuke out there somewhere, painting, as it should be.]

[ the comment gets a little laugh out of Lupin. ]

I bet he is. [ a soft smile, slightly bittersweet. ] I never did get to see any of his artwork.

That's too bad.

[He's sincere when he says it, and not only because Yusuke is his friend.]

It's abstract, but... I always understand the feelings he's trying to convey.

I get it. To be honest, I like that kind of artwork more than the usual portraits and landscapes.

[ of course, Lupin's imagining something closer to impressionism or romanticism than the true abstract art Yusuke does - it hasn't really been "invented" yet in Europe in his time. ]

[Akira doesn't know enough about art history to correct him, so he just nods in agreement.]

Hopefully one day you'll get to see it.

[He'll think like that. That he'll see Yusuke again, that maybe even Lupin will get to see him again. He won't get bogged down in the thoughts about what could have happened.]

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