Persona 5: Beneath The Mask

CHAPTER XC

Chapter 90: Dissonance

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You didn't wait for the car to pull away before you turned on your heel and walked, not sparing so much as a glance behind. For all you knew, your father could be watching you through the tinted glass, lips curled in disapproval, stewing in the indignation of a man who believed himself owed your obedience, resenting you for the sheer audacity of choosing someone else over him. Over them.

But why should you care? Why should you look back?

Family was supposed to be a sanctuary, a place of unwavering loyalty, but all you ever found behind those gilded walls were snakes draped in the skin of men.

They feigned civility with practiced ease, wore their affection like a well-tailored suit, crisp and presentable, but empty of any real warmth.

They slithered through conversations with careful words, never speaking outright but always constricting, always tightening the leash around your throat until you learned to smile through the suffocation.

Even now, when they attempted the most basic gestures of what should have been parental concern, they failed so miserably it would almost be laughable, if it weren't so goddamn pathetic.

How could a man call himself a father without ever learning how to be one?

You walked down the nearly empty streets as it was almost 7 o'clock at that point. Leblanc would be closing in a few hours; you might as well stop by and see Sakura-san while you were at it.

The night air should have soothed you, should have settled the frustration coiling beneath your skin, but it didn't.

There was that lingering smell of rain on the pavement, mixing with the charcoal heat of grilled food from a small stall down the street, and the murmur of voices returning home from work.

You kept your gaze fixed ahead, unwilling to let yourself dwell on the comparison. To acknowledge the bitter joke that was the family waiting for you in that house. Some people were lucky enough to call their homes a place where love didn't have to be bartered for obedience. Yours was nothing of the sort. That house was an execution chamber with expensive furniture, a prison where the warden smiled at you from across the dinner table and pretended the shackles around your wrists were merely decorative.

To call that house of yours a home would be to mock the very concept of one. A home should be a place of comfort, not the hand that pushes you toward the gallows. Not the poisoned water in the oasis, luring you in with the promise of relief, only to choke you, to drown you, and then kill you.

You tried to suction air through your nose, but found it difficult as though standing inside a vacuum.

Breathe in...

You're fine. This is nothing.

Breathe out...

You crossed the street on autopilot, stuffing your hands deeply into your pockets, because they felt cold although sweat began to cling to your forehead in small lumps from the heat. Truly, summer is relentless this year.

You tugged at the collar of your shirt, trying to free yourself from the illusion of suffocation, though the feeling clung stubbornly to your skin. It prickled, burned, as though one wrong touch would be enough to peel it back and expose something raw beneath. You clenched your jaw and forced your steps to steady.

Akira doesn't need to see you like this.

The last thing you needed was for him to take one look at you and see through the cracks, to press just hard enough that the whole rotten mess spilled out. You couldn't. No, you wouldn't let him carry something like that. Not when he already had his own burdens to bear, when the weight of everyone else was already digging into his back.