[ Morgana trails down the stairs, yawning, at the same time, and for a moment Akira feels absolutely overwhelmed at juggling all the pieces of everyone's alternate lives. The lie felt smaller when he was dealing with them one at a time, but now -- seeing Futaba chirp a good morning and Wakaba offer Sojiro a considerably calmer smile; seeing the way Morgana still tries to twine himself around a chair before he sits in it; the way Akechi goes pale at seeing Wakaba.

It's too much. ]

「 Wow, you kind of look like crap, Akechi. Oh -- hey, Akira! Let's go to Akihabara this weekend, there's a new video card I wanna get! 」

「 She's going to try to make you get it for her. 」 [ Wakaba offers, dryly, and Futaba puffs her cheeks out in indignation. ]

「 I'm not going to make him buy it! It's a fair cut of the profits from stealing -- huh? 」 [ Futaba blinks, leaning backwards in a full body motion like she's completely off balance, and Akira feels his breath catch in his throat.

There's a second of silence in which nobody moves before Futaba restarts her sentence. ]

「 It's only fair when I help him get good at all his cool retro games! 」

Sure. [ Akira says it so quickly that he's very aware that everyone is looking at him. ]

I mean, I'll go with you this weekend. But I think Akechi has a cold, so he's going to stay here until the trains are less crowded.

[ It's a lie. It's a lie on a lie on a lie and it falls out so smoothly he knows it must feel fake, but everyone seems to accept it, and he reaches down for Akechi's wrist to pull him up the stairs.

He feels like he's drowning. ]