Chapter Text
April. 11 2011
Yosuke looks down at the text from an unknown number, frozen mid apron removal. A weary cashier walks into the break room then right back out again seeing the expression on the Prince of June’s face. The prince doesn’t particularly notice, he shrugs off the rest of the apron and plops down on the bench to reply.
Sweet, simple, doesn’t address the immediate leverage this unknown number has on him. He gets a near instant reply.
Yosuke face pinches. He can already tell he has someone annoying on his hands.
Yosuke massages his temples. The headache brought on by being called into work on his day off only to be there for like an hour before being sent off exacerbated now. He might as well come clean.
And then another flurry of texts right after, did they have these in their drafts?
Yosuke’s stomach drops. What were they talking about??? Did this stranger really expect him to just, meet up with them like this? Was Saki in danger? Wait, is he being black mailed now??
“Son, can you please text your friends when you’re not at the work place?” Mr.Hanamura asks, startling Yosuke, he looks up and sees the crossed arms which pales him even more.
“Yeah, sorry!” Yosuke says, leaping up to his feet and snapping his phone shut. Mr.Hanamura nods before walking out of the room. Yosuke knows he hasn’t gone far though (his shift ends waaay later) so he lets autopilot bring him through the end of the day routine.exe as he mulls over what to say.
He ends up at his beat up bike and unlocking it as he makes up his mind. He leans against the bike rack checking for further texts (none) and sends something he’s probably going to regret.
---
Yosuke isn’t really certain what he expected when he pulled up to a small unassuming house. A bar or maybe a shady warehouse? He became less sure of any of these as he biked further into suburbia but, still. This was the address no matter how he looked at it. It took him a good 20 minutes to get here which he thought was pretty good time not being that familiar with Inaba. He saw a flash of a face through the window then the door of the home opened. He had no time to hide before an uncle-looking man appeared from behind it.
“Ah, hey, you’re the Hanamura kid, I should’ve figured when Yu said he knew you from the city, I’m Ryotaro Dojima, by the way.” The man who called himself Dojima said. He seemed friendly enough but Yosuke was on edge. He opened his mouth to respond but not before another voice called out.
“Hey Yosuke, long time no see partner!” A gray haired boy around his age stepped out from around Dojima and.. honest to god walked all the way up to him and gave him a big hug. Yosuke couldn’t even believe it. Dojima didn’t look like he quite knew what was going on either, not that Yosuke looked at him for long, averting his eyes with embarrassment. People didn’t just.. hug each other in Japan, especially not men. Was this guy from another planet?
“Just play along.” The gray haired boy whispered in Yosuke’s ear. Yosuke was not even sure how he caught that, he was so shocked. The hug mercifully ended but Yosuke was not looking anywhere but his feet.
“Uhh--err, hey, you-you’re the same as ever I see, uhh--” Yosuke stammered, choking on the part where he’d call this person by their name.
“Just call me partner like you always do, Yosuke. No need to be shy! Anyway, all of this to say… This is actually my uncle and it turns out I’m going to be living in Inaba with you for the next year! Isn’t that great? By the way, sorry to surprise you, I just wanted to see the look on your face, but I guess I should have let you know.” The gray haired boy said. Yosuke finally looked up (right, this guy was like, taller than him) and saw a serene smile. It was so perfect that Yosuke almost forget that it was pure acting.
“Y-yeah…” Yosuke managed to get out. Dojima cleared his throat, clearly tired of being around... Whatever was happening here.
“Yu told me you’d probably want to show him around town, you two should probably do that before it gets too dark. And don’t take him on your bike, that’s illegal.” Dojima said gruffly. Yosuke would be a little impressed that he acted normally after.. “Yu’s” display of (affection?) if his heart wasn’t still hammering from the stress of it all.
“Yesss uncle…” Yu sing songed before practically dragging Yosuke away. Dojima shook his head and headed back in the house. They rounded a corner and Yu’s hand abruptly dropped away. His expression completely changed to something neutral and cold.
“There is going to be a murder tonight if we do not stop it.” Yu said, lowly enough that only Yosuke could hear.
What?!... was what Yosuke wanted to say but Yu whipped out his hand and clapped it over Yosuke’s mouth. This guy!
“Keep it down, people around here are always listening. Let’s get going and I’ll answer your questions” Yu said in the same even tone as he removed his hand. He then walked right back and retrieved the bike. Yosuke took a deep breath, something about how seriously this guy was acting, this can’t be a joke… Wait, Yu was getting on the bike like he was going to be the one riding it.
“Uh that’s my bike, can’t I at least be the-”
“No. Get on before I leave you with all your questions unanswered.” Yu stated in a way that brooked no argument. Yosuke clambered onto the bike with no choice but to set his hands on Yu’s shoulders.
“Who are you? What’s going on?” He asked when they finally were able to stop wobbling dangerously through the back streets.
“I’m Yu Narukami. There’s a famous woman staying at the Amagi inn that will be murdered tonight if we don’t help her.” Amagi inn, famous woman… Wait that has to be!
“Mayumi Yamano?” Yosuke whispered. Yukiko made an off-hand comment about it the other day when he was totally not eavesdropping on her and Chie. But, what did she have to do with Saki?
“Yes, she’s going to be murdered by someone trying to be her police guard.” Yu said.
“Wait, the police is in on this?” Yosuke seriously doubted a small town police’s capacity to keep a murder of a high profile woman from coming to light.
“Just one of them. Detective Tohru Adachi.” Yu said, like it was a fact and not that he wasn’t accusing one of Yosuke’s regular customers of attempted murder.
“Wait, stop, stop, stop!” Yosuke balked. When Yu didn’t stop Yosuke’s grip on Yu’s shoulders tightened and he shook. The bike veered dangerously near the flood plain bank but apparently Yu was an implacable god and quickly course corrected.
“Hey-we’re going to crash if you keep doing that.” Yu said, voice wobbling, but only from Yosuke’s attempts to stop their one way ticket to crazytown.
“Then stop already.” Yu sighed and braked. Yosuke jumped off as soon as he safely could and only stumbled a little before whipping around to glare at Yu. Yu didn’t get off the bike, he turned his head over his shoulder to face Yosuke.
“Where did you get all this information from?” Yosuke demanded.
“I’m psychic.” Yu said. If Yosuke somehow wasn’t seeing red before he could see it now.
“Just how stupid do you think I am?!” Yosuke yelled.
“Yosuke, I know you’re not stupid. No one would get on a bike with a stranger they just met if they didn’t have a reason. You're just bored.” Yu said like he didn’t have someone yelling at him. Like he didn’t say something that made Yosuke freeze in his tracks. That… that can’t be true.
“How-wa-you’re saying I’m bored enough to follow some stranger around to-to pretend like we’re going to stop the guy who buys our entire cabbage stock everyday from murdering a woman?” It was just impossible. There was no way this could happen. Not in Inaba. And Yosuke wasn’t some idiot bored enough to play along with this!
“Yes. You live in a very small town and people have been irritating to you at best and hostile at worst. Anyone would be bored and miserable in that situation. I have been there too.” Yu said with absolute conviction. Yosuke just stared, anger already starting to dissipate just from the sheer confusion. How on earth did Yu have such an accurate read on him?
“I should call the police.” Yosuke sighed with the last of his frustration, throwing out whatever ability to control the situation he had. He couldn’t even deny what Yu said.
“For what?” Yu said.
“Blackmail and theft.” Yosuke pointed out. Yu pretended to think about it.
“Then you should have called them earlier. Why didn’t you? I think you already know the answer.” Yu had him there.
“...How do you even know me? How do you know all this stuff about me? And what does this have to do with Saki?” Yosuke asked.
“Like I said, psychic. We don’t have any more time, the longer we wait the more likely we’ll find a corpse instead of Mayumi. Get on.” Yu said then turned his head to look at the road as he waited.
Yosuke got on the bike.
---
“Why aren’t we going to the inn?” Yosuke asked, noticing that they seemed to be going back the way he had come from Junes.
“We are going to find her at Junes.” Yu said.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Hopefully alive… I don’t know what her time of death was.”
“You really think we might find a dead body?”
“...Maybe.”
“I hope you’re right about this… partner.”
“Partner?”
“You told me to call you that!”
“Oh... I did. Totally.”
“You’re so weird.”
“We’re here.”
The Junes superstore loomed before them, people were still coming in and out despite it being nearly night at this point. None of the local shops downtown would still be open now. Yu took them to the bike rack and Yosuke locked it up with his key.
“We’re going to the electronics department.” Yu said, making a bee line there like he had been to this place before. He likely had, since all Junes stores had basically the same layout.
“She’s going to be murdered there?”
“Kinda. You’ll see.”
No matter how Yosuke looked at it the department was completely empty. He thought he saw someone at first but that was just the cardboard cut-out of Misuzu Hiiragi. It struck Yosuke as a little tonedeaf that the cut-out was still there despite all the news. Just goes to show how little people in this town were interested in wide-screen TVs. Well, except for Yu, who was standing in front of the largest model in the store. Yosuke walked up to him. Yu didn’t look away from the TV..
“Uh you told me we’re here to save a woman from being murdered, not to shop!”
“Have you gone to the bathroom?” Yu asked, catching Yosuke off-guard for the millionth time today.
“Yeah I went before I left, why do you-” Yosuke said before Yu sent him careening right into-- the TV? He flinched, bracing for impact but none came and his feet seemed like they were off the ground for far far too long before he rolled along the ground, bruising in places he had never bruised before. Disorientated, he tried to scramble to his feet.
“What did you do that-... for…” Yosuke trailed off, his question fading for a completely new and more pressing question. He looked around, seeing fog and..what could only be vaguely described as a TV set. He heard a sound behind him and spun to see Yu getting to his feet.
“Where are we?”
“Not Junes.”
“I can tell that!”
“Try not to panic. We’re in another world right now.”
“Is-is this psychic stuff?”
“Yes. Now follow me and I’ll explain. Try to talk very very loudly as well.”
“Where’s the exit?!”
“Yes, like that.”