Entry tags:
[FIC] Leave It Unmapped, Zero Escape, Junpei+Phi gen
Title: Leave It Unmapped
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
handmaid | ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
morphogenesis
Artist: N/A
Fandom: Zero Escape
Characters/Pairings: Junpei Tenmyouji, Phi, Canon OC, Phi and Junpei gen, background Junpei/Akane
Rating/Category: T
Genre: Mystery, Family/Gen
Word Count: 10,194
Warnings No Archive Warnings Apply, but mentions of parental death
Summary: Phi asks Junpei for a big favor: To help her interrogate her mother about her past with Free the Soul. When they dig, they reveal something Phi can’t walk away from unchanged.
Link to fic master post: ---
Link to art master post: N/A
For Small Fandoms Bang. Thanks D for your support and thanks to the mods for all of your hard work. Title from "May You Never" by Land of Talk.
Phi invited him to dinner; Junpei should’ve known he had a problem then, as Phi never volunteered to pay for meals or drinks. (She always had money for cute clothes and presents for Diana. Just once Junpei would like a present for the principle of the thing). He met her at a Korean grill, so she knew his weakness for bulgogi and cold noodles. She was good.
He tried to remember the last time they’d been together in-person and came up with New Year’s Eve, at a party he’d been pressed to throw as part of office decorum. He hated parties and had been trapped in his own so he hung out near the edges, letting his subordinates mingle and drinking alone. Phi’d approached him then and seemed distracted; at the time he wrote it up to her hating parties too. They’d worked together for five years and he wondered if he knew her at all.
Watching her kick the toe of her boot into the floor in the entryway, looking distracted, he had second thoughts. She’d cut her hair again and bleached it out, which he had Thoughts about considering it was hardly a fitting disguise for his favorite spy and missing persons investigator.
“Hey,” she said when she noticed him, and he raised a hand in response. She scanned him before finding his presence satisfactory and shrugging.
He got his cold noodles and slurped them in a manner she found obnoxious but he could always fall back on ‘It’s polite in my country.’
Phi said, “So look: I need a favor.”
Nothing good ever followed that phrase; Junpei knew from movies and TV and being entangled with the Kurashikis for years. He didn’t incur debt but it was handy to always have a few indebted to him in his pocket at any given time. Phi wasn’t one of them right now. Still, they were friendly enough and she’d saved his life a long time ago. Junpei could always say no if he didn’t want to.
“What?”
Phi spoke with food in her mouth and it was so annoying. “I think my foster mother has connections to Free the Soul.”
Junpei coughed on his mouthful of noodles. While Free the Soul had admittedly fallen off his plate in the past two years, he knew he had an obligation to pursue anything related to them and now Phi dropped the perfect if jarring lead in front of him.
Phi continued, “She’s old enough to have been active during their heyday. I finally found something with her real birthday on it to prove it.” She took out a folded up paper from her bag. (Junpei had nagged her a million times that presentation was important; weird, he never used to care about that himself. Being a boss made him lame.) The paper was a copy of an old birth certificate, the tears and folds replicated in black and white, and dubbed the old woman Phyllis Frost, born in the early 1900s in Germany. Her citizenship papers from her family’s emigration to America listed a different birthdate and he wondered why, although he didn’t know or care enough about early 20th-century American immigration procedures to guess. “And I found this…”
Phi handed this one over hesitantly; it was a black and white photograph of a younger woman, maybe in her thirties, standing beside a man who with a bit of imagination could be a younger Delta. He looked at the woman without a smile but some fondness in his eyes. They weren’t obviously Free the Soul-affiliated in the photograph, although Dr. (according to Phi) Phyllis Frost wore a pendant that looked like a stylized eye.
Phi said, “She won’t talk to me about it, but you know who that is.”
“Obviously.” Junpei looked at Phi with raised eyebrows. “How long did you sit on this?”
Phi looked annoyed to have been found out. “Just a few weeks, I wanted to look into it myself first.” She took her papers back from Junpei despite his attempt to grab them. “But she’s smart; she doesn’t keep anything else personal from before 2000 in the house. I found out she has a storage unit in Nevada but that’s about it.”
“...Do you want a ride to Nevada,” he said warily.
“No, I need an investigation partner and I trust you to keep your mouth shut.” She considered his bowl and he pulled it closer to himself, lest she dip her chopsticks into his precious noodles. “I don’t need anyone else to know about this.”
Junpei heard himself in those words; once or twice he’d sent her ahead on some hunt for information that he wanted to present to Akane after the fact rather than argue with her about what was a valuable use of resources. Phi had never betrayed his confidence and even took heat for him once and he slept a little harder that night.
Junpei said, “I’m interested—I am, but I have another obligation right now. Why don’t I send Mori with you?”
“My mother doesn’t want to see Mori,” Phi grumbled, and after a moment: “She wants to see you.”
“...Does she know my name?”
“I didn’t tell her, but yes.” Phi looked up from her photo and her face was tired, drawn. “She said she’d talk to you.”
“It’s...I kind of...”
“It’s a possible free tip on where Delta is.”
“How do you know?”
“She had letters from him as recently as the past year,” she said flatly. Any revelation about one’s parents was never easy and Phi’s was worse than his realization that his parents used to send him out to play so they could have sex uninterrupted.
Junpei put his hand in his hair and gestured with the other one. “Can you just tell me the important things first? Why do you think we live in a drama?”
“Dramas are interesting, this is tedious,” Phi said and went for her water glass rather than continuing.
“Fine. I’ll help you, I just need a minute to tell Akane.”
They agreed they would meet that coming Saturday and travel together to Reno where Phi had grown up and where Dr. Frost still lived. Junpei headed home with trepidation, unsure how to craft this so his wife didn’t get suspicious.
Being pregnant wasn’t agreeing with Akane, she was on bedrest and oscillated between anger and hunger. This was normal apparently and Junpei hated it because he wanted to cuddle her, but she wasn’t in a cuddling mood.
He worked a lot, mostly because he wanted to take the next year off to be with the baby; Akane did not want to do the same which had made a weird fissure between them. He wouldn’t tell her what to do but it was...weird.
Akane was asleep when he came home, a book on her chest. She snored now that her belly was bigger and pressing down on her and honestly? It was cute. He took the book and debated getting her a blanket but it was hot in there already and she didn’t like any of the fussing. She was even cross with her brother and Junpei had never seen the two fight. He kissed his fingertips and touched them to her forehead.
He asked himself if they’d be the type of parents that hid big things from their child and waited until they were caught to talk about them. He didn’t know how to explain some of the things he’d been through to be with their mother or even what he did for work. (Then again he’d never understood his own father’s job and didn’t care enough to find out now, he only knew Dad was very busy until recently when he’d had a heart attack. Junpei called often enough but they didn’t have much to say to each other before the baby.) He wanted to believe that was reason enough, but what if someday their child met their colleague in a restaurant and asked for help with investigating their own parents? Would they ever feel like their parents didn’t know the first thing about them, like he’d asked himself before?
He didn’t have the answer to that.
*
Junpei didn’t have to argue anything; Akane was relieved to have some time to herself as his trip coincided with something Aoi couldn’t reschedule that would take him out of state. Junpei felt guilty when he kissed her goodbye; she was already on her phone making plans for visitors.
Phi was in a better mood on Saturday, buoyed by the ability to act on her hunch now. She drove because according to her Junpei drove like a grandpa. That word was tainted now; he wished she’d stop using it in reference to him.
Ever cagey, Phi talked about the radio and work but didn’t give clues as to her mood. They were going to confront her mother about her dark past and Phi played it off like a road trip.
“What’s the old woman like?” Junpei asked. He pictured an older Phi, smart and bold but cantankerous with age. What kind of person could’ve raised Phi?
“Brilliant,” she acknowledged, “but a pain in the ass. She’ll mess with you just because she can, so you know.”
“She sounds like your mother alright.”
“Okay, Sigma.”
“Hey!” Junpei was way funnier than Sigma. “She does.”
“She was a researcher back when women weren’t supposed to be academics,” Phi said with a hint of pride. “I don’t think she knew what to do with a kid, so she treated me like a peer.”
This explained so much about Phi but Junpei didn’t say anything. “Why would she want anything to do with Free the Soul?”
“She was a woman of science, but she liked her esoterica. Her mother was that way. Mom took a sabbatical to live in a witch compound in the 70s and believes in her Third Eye.” Phi sighed. “I guess she was right about that. I could see her doing this out of intellectual curiosity.”
“But do you think she...participated?” He meant in their unsavory activities: kidnapping, torture, imprisonment, political corruption, and she could certainly perform illegal experiments…
“No!” Phi looked at him with surprise and anger. “If she did anything, she didn’t know what it would be used for. She’s not like that.”
“You sound convinced.”
“I know it.” She mumbled a swear as the person in front of them slowed unexpectedly and she had to tap the brakes, jerking the car.
In Sparks, Junpei’s card was declined while trying to pay for gas so Phi covered him, emphasizing ‘cover.’ He fussed, knowing this was the card that wasn’t maxed out (he was still awaiting reimbursement from Aoi, who had to approve all of Junpei’s statements; Junpei wasn’t allowed to buy alcohol with the company card) and called his servicer to verify he was really the person using the card to travel. Rectified, he bought a slushie and while his mouth was full of blue-flavored ice his phone rang.
“Where are you?” Aoi sounded accusatory on the other line. In the background was what sounded like a subway station. “I just got a text saying someone tried to use your card at a gas station out of town.”
“You track my card?” Junpei said, annoyed.
“Duh.”
“Fine Mama, I’m out of town. It’s for work.”
“Where’s the budget proposal and per diem submissions? You’re supposed to—”
“I know, I know, geez.” He held the phone away from his ear as Aoi continued to talk, then interjected, “You aren’t my boss. Talk to your sister.” This was technically true but in reality Aoi held all the money thus had the power to put Junpei’s balls in a vise whenever he wanted. To his credit, he’d done it only once or twice.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, yes, I wouldn’t just leave her. She’s got a million people checking on her every day.” He suspected she liked Seven the best as she always nagged him for this, that, and the other thing when it came time for him to leave. “This is really important okay? It’s about the foxhunt.” Their code word for anything related to looking for Delta.
“...Fine, my phone’s dying anyway. Talk to you later.” He hung up before Junpei could bid him goodbye.
“What is his problem?” Junpei muttered as he hung up.
“I dunno.” Phi had been hovering by his elbow and looked impassive. “He’s your brother-in-law.”
“Don’t remind me,” Junpei said lightly. “Have Sigma and Diana given you grief for disappearing?”
“I dunno, they haven’t called. They’re used to me being a stray.”
Junpei wasn’t sure where she lived or for how long; she had her checks directly deposited into an online bank account. She had mail sent to a post office box and always seemed to be departing from a new location when she was called to headquarters. Still it was a bit lonely to think of her without anyone to call.
“Do they worry?” said Junpei.
“Yeah.” Phi turned back and opened the car door. “I tell them not to be.” She pulled out of the parking lot too fast and he had visions of T-bone accidents.
They cruised through Reno and ended up following along the edge of a college campus. “I used to go here,” Phi said. “But life had other plans.” ‘Life’ probably meant ‘Akane.’ “I studied Geophysics in another life.”
“Business. I didn’t finish either.” Akane was definitely the reason for that.
They followed a side street off campus to a small house with aged siding and shutters. It was painted a shade of blue that he could tell used to be loud but the fading had taken a lot of its vibrancy. It needed more attention than its owner could give it, although the stone sculptures in the yard were well-maintained. The steps to the front door were concrete and crumbling. A short old lady waited atop the landing, half inside the opened front door. She considered them with a gaze Junpei was familiar with on Phi’s face.
They got out of the car and approached slowly, Phi ambling like she didn’t want to go.
“Jutta,” the old woman, Dr. Frost, said warmly. “You’re home.”
“I’m back,” Phi said. “My name is Phi.” She crossed her arms. “You would know, our father gave it to us.” She set the tone as adversarial from the first word, but Dr. Frost reacted as if she hadn’t said anything.
“Is this the young man you work for?”
Everyone must be young to her, Junpei thought. “Yes, hi.”
They went inside, Dr. Frost moving so slow it looked painful, and her house wasn’t the antique-filled, pastel and floral affair he expected from movies. It had cozy furniture and pictures and degrees framed on the wall (he noted a photo of Phi in a stereotypical high school graduation gown, another of her in a UNR sweatshirt), not a porcelain figure in sight. Dr. Frost had tea waiting and it was well-brewed.
They sat in her living room, Junpei smoothing a quilt underneath him for fear of wrinkling it. He felt like he had to be particular. He was possibly trapped with a Free the Soul collaborator and maybe Free the Soul cared about quilts.
“I pulled some of my old things out of storage, darling,” Dr. Frost began, “They’re in your room. If you could get them, please.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Phi,” she said with a note of placating.
Phi huffed but stood and went to said room. While they were together, Dr. Frost said, “Oh, my Jutta is funny, isn’t she?”
“Jutta?”
“It’s a German form of ‘Judith.’ Her middle name.” Her eyes slid back to the room where he could hear light shuffling as Phi puttered. “How do you like her? I’m sure she’s good at her job,” she said in Japanese. It was a bit stilted like she hadn’t used it in a while but surprisingly good for a foreigner.
“Oh, um, she’s great. I use her all the time.” He wished she’d offered him something stronger than tea. “When did you learn Japanese?”
“It feels like I did in another life. My friend Dieter learned it with me and we would practice together.” She smiled at him and he saw another woman in her face: Akane. “You may have known him as Delta.”
Junpei’s hand jerked. “Oh. So you do know him.” Case solved, he could go home now. “So why did you want to meet me?” he said this in English for Phi’s benefit, as she returned from the room.
“You’re as relevant to this information as she is.” She nodded to Phi. “I wanted to speak to Crash Keys directly.”
“Phi works just as well,” he said, trying to stick up for her.
“She isn’t you.”
“Me?”
Dr. Frost didn’t explain and instead reached into the box Phi had set on the floor beside her. She retrieved the eye necklace she’d worn in that old photo and said, “This is an ugly thing. I don’t know why I ever wore it.” She offered it to Phi, who held it like it was a bug. “You’ll never believe me, Phi, but I really didn’t know what he was at first.”
“Did you know after a while?”
Dr. Frost closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“So why did you stay?” Phi asked, not angry but almost hopeful-sounding like she wanted to be able to support what she’d told Junpei in the car.
“I didn’t stay long, but he was my best friend for a time. I thought I could change him. He used to…” Dr. Frost shook her head. “That was my mistake. You can never stop anyone from being who they want to be, remember that.”
“You have letters from him as recent as last year,” Junpei said. “Did you know that Phi was looking for him? If so, why didn’t you tell her?”
“Do you have a child?”
Phi leaned forward and interjected, “I’m not a child.”
“Quiet, Phi.”
Phi sat back in her seat, staring into the distance and looking like Junpei had as a teenager when his mother nagged him about his studies.
Dr. Frost repeated, “Do you have a child?” Her eyes were fixed on Junpei like he was prey.
“No,” he said, fighting not to say he was going to have one.
Dr. Frost switched to Japanese: “I don’t want my daughter involved. It’s easy as that, but it’s harder to control an adult than it is a child. You forget you can’t just forbid them from doing something and have that be the end of it.” She laughed. “I could never control Phi even as a child.”
“Talk about me in English,” Phi said.
“Oh let me practice my Japanese,” Dr. Frost said like Phi would be in on a joke. She continued in Japanese, “I can’t push her into danger. If I tell you everything, it’s not on my heart what you do with that information.” Her logic was...flawed, but Junpei was familiar with flexible morality. Dr. Frost certainly was.
Junpei nodded although he didn’t fully understand. “If he’s not your best friend, then what is he?”
She shrugged. “My family. I learned that when she did.” She nodded to Phi. “I always did feel drawn to him, even though we didn’t speak for thirty years. He wrote to me off and on. I finally opened the letters when Phi first disappeared.”
“What was in the letters?”
“Read them all, Phi only stole a few from me.” She looked at Phi who looked caught. “You’re transparent, young lady. The rest of them are in the storage unit, which she knows because she thinks I don’t check the login history on my email account.” Dr. Frost sipped her tea. “Do you have something to say?” she directed to Phi.
“A million things, but first off—”
“Phi,” Junpei said. “The car. Please.”
She followed him and they stood under the lone tree in the yard. With her lips pursed and arms folded, she looked like the child Dr. Frost spoke of.
Junpei said, “Did you really need my help? She’s saying...everything.”
“She wouldn't tell me a thing. Maybe you can convince her to adopt you.”
“No thanks. So this is how she treats her peers?”
“She’s infuriating,” Phi said. “What were you two talking about?”
He felt the moment was small but the feelings too heartfelt to share with Phi. Dr. Frost meant what she said, even as intent on riling up Phi as she seemed. “Just that you pestered her until she had no choice. Delta was her friend a long time ago. Do you think this is going anywhere?”
“I have no idea.” Phi shifted her weight to one foot. “What do you want to do?” It took a very long time to get Phi to defer to him as a boss.
“I think she’ll just take us in circles. Let’s go to the storage unit.”
When they went back inside, Dr. Frost said, “So soon?”
“Dying to,” Phi said.
“Ah, young man!” she called while Junpei was putting on his shoes again (damn habits). “Where you’re going next—take care of her.”
“It’s not too late to tell us the whole truth,” he tried.
“Oh young man,” she said slowly, as if talking to herself, “yes it is.”
*
Phi was determined not to act childish, but the second they were on the road and Junpei said, “So that was fun,” she blurted out, “She drives me crazy!”
“I can tell.” He shrugged. “She didn’t tell me anything she couldn’t tell you. I don’t get her.”
“Try growing up with her.”
Junpei must’ve decided to push as he said, “Did you get along with your dad?”
“My nana, her wife. And yeah. I did.” Phi missed her. She was the mediator between Phi and Mom when Phi was a teenager, and died when Phi turned fifteen. Years gone by hadn’t healed the wound left when she died. Mom’s house still smelled like her, sometimes. Mom always smiled when she talked about ‘my Judith,’ but Phi couldn’t smile and until recently that seemed like an irreconcilable difference. Now what the hell did she do with this twist?
A soft string tickled her inner wrist and she looked down to realize she’d been holding the pendant all this time. She wanted to throw it out the window while going 80 miles per hour on the highway. Instead she dropped it in Junpei’s lap. “Take this. I don’t want it.”
“Maybe it’s useful,” he offered. Phi never knew what to do with him when he was being nice. They didn’t not get along but she wouldn’t have called them friendly either; she respected him as her boss and they’d banter sometimes but she wasn’t about to go on and tell him everything about her feelings. The two people she did want to call, she couldn’t because they didn’t know she was doing this. Lies by omission had become too common in her life; she didn’t like lying to Diana but Phi’s mom—Diana’s daughter—was still a sore point for her. Mom had met them once out of curiosity, seemed to enjoy herself, and then bid them good lives and explained sadly she didn’t want further contact.
Phi didn’t speak to her for months. But when Phi wandered inside Mom’s house after a mission, tired and disoriented, Mom just put a kettle on to boil and tucked her into a bed that didn’t feel like hers anymore. It was another thing that drove Phi crazy; Mom got cross but never angry so teenage rebellion was pointless. She’d just smile like she’d been expecting Phi and kiss her forehead.
“Can we go?” Phi said. “I’m starving and we’re already late.” Their host wouldn’t care but she needed a reason for why she looked like she wanted to run away anywhere.
Junpei called someone during the drive. Phi didn’t understand Japanese and the tone of voice was difficult to hear in the language, but she assumed it was Akane judging by the whole. Pregnant thing. Phi couldn’t imagine either of them as parents but especially not Akane, who from the few times they’d spoken about work was miserable and cranky and sick.
Diana didn’t want any more children; it was a sore point between her and Sigma if he was to be believed when he called Phi, but he was still puttering around with his thesis so when exactly would he have time to rock a baby? He didn’t appreciate it when she pointed that out.
Junpei hung up and seemed tired, staring out the window and playing with a hole in the knee of his jeans. Ripped jeans may have come back into fashion; Phi spent so much time in and out of the mundane world that she stuck to clothes she wore when she was 20 and had no clue what was modern anymore.
“We’re already late,” he said by way of suggestion and they pulled over at an ice cream stand on the side of the road, the parking lot a postage stamp.
Over whiskey sour-flavored shaved ice, Phi asked, “How’s she?”
“The same.” Junpei held the spoon in his mouth and mumbled, “She’s on bedrest and hates it.”
“I bet.”
Conversation died and she felt silly for trying to bring it up. Obviously Akane was the same as before. “Boy or girl?”
“Girl. Found out last week.”
“Name?”
“I dunno yet.”
Phi held a spoonful in her mouth, letting the ice melt there until the beginnings of a headache grew in her brain. It felt refreshing. But what was she doing here on the side of the road in Reno with Junpei beside her, on a mission for nothing? “Sorry for dragging you out here.”
“What?”
“I think this was a waste of time.”
To her surprise, Junpei patted her shoulder instead and said, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I’ve wasted my time on way worse leads.” He stood up and threw away his unfinished container. Phi didn’t appreciate that; she would’ve eaten it. “This one might actually turn out.” He headed to the car, but looked over his shoulder and said, “By the way, call Sigma. He called Akane looking for you.”
“Akane?”
“She has no idea how he got her personal number. He’s...something isn’t he?”
“He’s something,” she agreed. She checked her phone and saw two missed calls from him. She had no energy to return them right now. “I’ll tell him to leave her alone.”
“Heh.”
They drove on.
*
Their host wasn't worried because their host was a tiny motel between their origin and their destination. Junpei made the reservation which didn’t surprise her when she saw it, a nondescript place a few blocks down from the shadier part of town. She swore he wasn’t happy unless he was near some reminder of his past life, spoiled by his current comfortable life but unsettled by it at the same time. The vacancy sign was handwritten and the vending machine outside dim and broken. She kicked one when it ate her quarters.
After checking the room out and satisfied it didn’t have bedbugs, she slumped over onto the bed and pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. “Hey, Sigma.”
“Phi!”
She smiled at the sound of his voice. “What are you doing calling Akane?”
“I figured she’d know where you were,” he said, guileless. Old Sigma had been blunter but since Young Sigma came back, she could be frustrated but was never unhappy with him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. What’s going on?” He was quiet for a moment before she repeated his name.
“Sorry, it just occurred to me you actually ask how I’m doing now.”
“I’ve asked for years,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, just...thought about you.” She could picture his shrug. “I felt like I had to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Er…” Nothing, it turned out. The weird esper tingles said they should be in touch but about what exactly? He asked her if she’d seen pictures of his cats and when she’d next log on to the MMO they played together to keep in touch. His research progress was the same; to be honest she thought he had the potential to be brilliant but had chosen the wrong research focus for his skillset and was stuck in it in order to finish his Ph.D now. He always seemed tired and trapped when they spoke about it.
“Where are you anyway?” He sounded hopeful when he asked like he thought she’d say ‘California.’
Phi hadn’t wanted to be in California in years.
“Just working. I’m in the Southwest. Maybe I’ll come over if I feel like it.”
He chuckled and teased, “No you won’t.”
It stung but it was also true. She could surprise them one day but that required acknowledging and explaining how long it had been. Diana never acted disappointed but she must’ve been lonely.
Phi humored Sigma for a bit more before ushering him off the line with a promise to call again.
On schedule, Junpei knocked on her door and made her jump. He’d brought pizza and wings and hoarded the wings, dripping with mango habanero sauce, for himself. He focused so intently on eating they didn’t speak for a few minutes while they watched the news.
“So when we get the storage stuff, what’s the plan then?” He deferred to her thoughts, and Phi hesitated.
“Um…”
“Well there is a plan right?” He said without letting her speak.
“Quiet, I’m thinking. I don’t rush into everything like you do.” She could speak to him that way because frankly Junpei didn’t care as long as the work was done, and he liked her work. “I guess… Once we’re there we have to go through everything and see if anything can lead us to Delta. She must know something else.” Phi frowned. “She must.”
*
“Wow,” Junpei said upon beholding the storage unit.
“This. This looks like Mom,” was all Phi could get out at the pile of interlocked paintings, safes, trunks, dressers, and bags of clothing and assorted documents shoved into one space. She tugged on the handle of a suitcase that was wedged so firmly into place it didn’t budge until she leaned back with all her body weight. “Thanks, old lady.”
“I’m not getting paid enough for this.”
“We’re not getting paid at all.”
“Maybe you’re not, I’m special,” he explained with a smirk.
“So you’re getting paid way too much.” Phi resumed tugging on her suitcase and nearly fell as it slid out of the pile.
Piece by piece they pulled the unit apart, down to documents spilling out of folders and the booklice feeding on paper and ink. They busted locks, dragged totes, got grime under their nails, cut twine, hauled bookcases, and sat on the ground, boxes, any flat surface and picked over correspondence. (There were baby pictures of Phi in the mess. Junpei found them. It was the worst.)
In the end they ended up with a trunk they stuffed with papers and old albums. Mom didn’t keep any digital backups, possibly because she was Satan. Together they hauled it back to the car and before they left Phi looked the piled up junk up and down, wondering what was so important it had been left here in a different part of the state. Was it a case where Mom couldn’t look at it but couldn’t let go of it either?
What made anyone nostalgic for Delta anyway? She didn’t know.
“Yooo, let’s go!” Junpei called from his place in the driver’s seat.
Phi shook her head and walked to the car.
*
Once he got back to the motel, Junpei turned his phone back on and browsed the web to decompress. He checked baseball stats and distracted himself by shopping for baby items again (he had a wishlist ten pages long, and Akane said he had a problem). He knew having a baby and thinking about one were different, but imagining their baby in cute little animal-shaped towels and patterned onesies was just...adorable. Melting him.
Akane was hanging in; when he called she said she was tired and sore, so no change there. He asked but, no, there was nothing he could do for her. He sneakily ordered her delivery anyway and got a text an hour later with a thank you and heart emojis.
He took a shower and was about to leave to meet Phi for drinks when his messenger app showed a notification:
Tenmyouji!!! followed by an emoji of a magnifying glass, and a star.
Who is this?
This is Dr. Frost. Is this Tenmyouji Junpei?
Where did you get this number?
It was in Phi’s phone. :)
Junpei rubbed his temples and then typed, What do you want?
You are so much friendlier in person. I wanted to let you know you can reach me here in the future. A rainbow heart then. Why?
I’ll remember it.
Take care!! Another star and a diamond.
What a weird old lady.
*
Phi was waiting for him in the lobby, wearing a long coat and looking restless still. He was going to tell her about her weird mother, but one look at her showed she was in no mood to hear more about her family. He’d tell her later, he thought.
“Thirsty?” he said instead.
Phi was a pretty easy traveling companion. She didn’t complain and liked the same things he did in terms of stopping schedules, snacks, and trip activities. Namely, drinking in a bar with minimal talking, people watching and peeking at a TV playing a hockey game occasionally.
“Who doesn’t have any digital backups in the 2030s?” Phi said suddenly, swirling her rum and coke and tracing the rim instead of drinking. She’d stabbed her stirrer through the lime and left the lime impaled near the top of the stirrer like a warning. “The old woman makes no sense.”
“It’s kind of charming,” he admitted. “She’s like this relic from another era.”
“Because she is,” Phi said with a hint of a smile. “She still likes DVDs and pop music from the 80s.”
“Her and my mother. Maybe different groups, though.” Junpei sipped his drink before asking, “What do you think she wants us to do after all this time?”
“I don’t know,” Phi said. “I don’t think I care either,” she muttered.
“Mmhm, we drove out to Nevada and ripped apart a storage locker because you don’t care.”
“Be quiet and drink, Boss.”
He did gladly, realizing when forced into an environment with her that part of the reason it was easy to be with her was she wasn’t afraid to admit they had little to talk about. He got up and played a game of darts by himself, then one with her.
Phi seemed distracted by it, studying the board for a long time before throwing a single dart. “Do you think,” she began, tossing a dart up in the air before grabbing it, “we should’ve come here?”
Junpei watched her face for any sign of self-pity and sadness but she looked carefully neutral. “Only you can tell me that, right? This is your case.”
“...I guess,” Phi said quietly and hurled the dart so it bounced off the dartboard.
When they left the bar Phi drove, but she pointed them to the desert instead of back to the hotel. Junpei protested but she drove them straight out into the barrens, pulling off the highway and killing the engine and lights.
“I felt like stargazing,” she explained and got out of the car.
Junpei listened to the beeping of the open door alarm before shutting the door and joining her. Phi leaned against the hood despite the heat, or perhaps for it because the desert was cold at night, and looked up at the sky. “When I was little I liked to do this.”
“I grew up in a city,” he said. “I couldn’t really...do this.”
“Well, here’s your astronomy lesson.” She pointed out all the seasonal constellations and said to hold his breath for a shooting star but none appeared. “Part of the fun is just staring at them and thinking about what’s out there.” She shrugged. “What’s on Earth is cool, too. I used to like space.”
“What changed?”
“Akane sent me to the moon,” she said, though she didn’t sound angry. “...Despite everything, that was still pretty cool.”
“I still never want to be on the open sea.”
“Huh? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Oh, nothing,” Junpei said hurriedly.
When they tired of the sights, though Phi seemed like she never would be ready to leave, they drove back to the motel and retired to separate rooms. He thought that she looked happy there, better than she had in awhile.
“Goodnight, Jutta,” he said at the door and she flipped him off before heading inside.
*
Junpei tried to appear rested the next morning despite having slept like shit. Since Akane had become pregnant he had increasing nightmares of worst case scenarios, ranging from her being kidnapped to her dying in childbirth, nightmares so bad he woke up in the middle of the night from them. Usually he could look at her until he felt better but with her in another state he only had his phone and, after some complaining, Aoi spoke with him.
“What’s up?” Aoi sounded wide awake and chipper about it; he lived on an unknown schedule and Junpei didn’t know when was the last time Aoi lay down and slept in a bed. A closet, a couch, the living room floor, on the floor three feet from his own bed, certainly.
“Nothing,” Junpei lied. “I’m bored.”
“Uh, okay. How’s it going over there?”
“I think it’s going okay, but we’re not making much progress.”
“So it’s going poorly.”
“I guess.”
“...Junpei?” Aoi lowered his voice and Junpei wondered if he’d just been on the phone with any Aoi ‘company’ in the room too. “What’s wrong?”
Junpei stared at the ceiling and debated answering that honestly, but a worried Aoi was obnoxious and...well, he didn’t like to worry any Kurashiki. “Nothing. I’m safe,” he said to assure Aoi’s obvious fear. “Have you heard from Akane?”
“She was going to bed when I talked to her last. It is midnight, y’know.” Aoi clicked his tongue. “Go back to sleep. She’s fine. If I’m paying for this I expect something to come of it, by the way.”
That nagging in his head, Junpei tried to forget it when he met Phi later in her room to go over the evidence. They skipped breakfast and became engrossed in their task. He was used to her work style, or she his, and they made efficient, fast work of sorting everything by date and type of correspondence.
There were letters from Delta, unsent letters to Delta, little vintage trinkets that close friends would exchange like artwork and figurines, photographs together, and a square of cloth that looked like it had been cut from a Free the Soul robe. Dr. Frost had had this saved folded up underneath a bundle of letters in storage. She didn’t throw anything away so they also had to filter out assorted lists, notes to herself, and old paperwork from the important papers.
The doctor’s notes were careful, and her language to Delta precise but with a trace of warmth in it. Something jumped out at Junpei, from a scrapped letter: I never said I would give you Phi. Where is she? The date put it in December 2028.
“Do you remember what you were doing then? Before Dcom,” he said.
“I was still in school. I hadn’t told her about my plan, so it makes sense she thought I’d been kidnapped when I left for Dcom” Phi took the letter and read part of it aloud: “‘I’ve ignored your attention-seeking long enough. If you wanted to hurt me, you have. Give my daughter back and I’ll…’” She swallowed. “‘I’ll be with you.’ Well obviously he didn’t do that.” She seemed troubled by those words, as she reread the letter to herself, turned the paper over, and shook her head.
While Phi was quiet, Junpei had to say, “Do you think she did join him? And that’s why she’s still talking to him?”
“Talked to him. I… She didn’t.” Phi chewed on her thumbnail. “But she didn’t join him or Free the Soul.”
“About that…” Junpei felt heavy as he pointed to a different list, seemingly unimportant, but a timeline she’d laid out for a mystery project. It took place in the two years leading up to Dcom. While Junpei had been drowning in murder and mystery, Dr. Frost had been assembling grant proposals, tweaking research papers, leading a team of scientists, and overseeing construction plans.
For a project in the Nevada desert.
“What do you think this is?” Junpei said quietly.
“I don’t know,” Phi admitted. “I really don’t. She was secretive about what she did at work. Everything I know comes from her CV. She specialized in applied physics.” She listed a few unrelated subjects that Junpei made note of but they didn’t seem related. “I don’t know what she was doing working in construction.”
They pivoted to Dr. Frost’s seemingly unrelated research papers, even making a trip back to the storage unit to retrieve more binders and notebooks related to her work. For someone who refused to keep digital copies and was secretive with her daughter, she took exhaustive detail of what she’d worked on for the last thirty years or better.
She’d been working on a project with the Transporter when she found Phi, taken time off to raise her, and when she returned to the scientific world she began working on experiments related to “the application of the mind on material forces of the world.” Espers.
She’d traded her knowledge and services to anyone willing to pay. She was in high demand and had contracts showing she’d worked out of UNR for corporations, think tanks, NGOs, and the federal government. She’d been in talks again when she abruptly dropped everything and began her mystery project. Piecing it together—her proximity to Free the Soul, her body of research, her experience turning around projects, and Delta’s own goals—Junpei came to one conclusion.
“She was involved with Dcom,” he said quietly. “She was.”
Phi gripped the notebook in her hands like it was a life preserver.
*
They took a break after hours of work. It was evening when they stopped and they hadn’t eaten all day. Phi went to get them something, suddenly very cagey and he could tell she needed to be alone.
Junpei sprawled on his bed and took his phone out. Why did you lie to me? he asked Dr. Frost.
Her reply was quick: About what darling? with a fox emoji.
You hid that you were involved with the Dcom project, and you hid that you worked with Free the Soul recently. And why did she leave it to him to be there when Phi found out? You should have told her and saved everyone the time.
Her reply this time took much longer, so long he went to the bathroom, checked the news, texted Akane, and then finally got an answer. Because she’ll hate me.
How else should she feel?
He didn’t get an answer to that one.
When Phi returned they ate dinner at a table they’d shoved everything off of, determining the work wouldn’t help them now. They had their answer about Dr. Frost’s involvement, but no clue what to do with it. It wasn’t bringing them closer to Delta, and Phi didn’t want to talk about it right now. Understandable.
“It’s still your case,” Junpei offered instead, and when he did that Phi didn’t answer. “What about going to her lab at UNR? Maybe her research there can help us.”
“I don’t know what she’s doing now. It’s in her office at home,” Phi said bluntly. She’d picked up the eye pendant again and studied it with a stormy expression. “And she hides her stuff pretty well.”
“Not well enough, we wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“We don’t have to go on anymore. I don’t care.” She bit down on a mozzarella stick and took a long time chewing. “I want to go to California.”
“Are you sure? I swear we’re getting closer.” He felt it was urgent to keep going, now, with Phi specifically. Her personal drama could wait and she was the one who was good at compartmentalizing, he thought. He didn’t hate the thought of going home to cuddle Akane and prepare for the baby but…
“I’m sure.” Phi didn’t look at him.
“Then let me come with you,” he urged.
“Fine.”
*
They ditched the car in a place where Crash Keys employees could retrieve it and transfer it to storage, then took a flight to the small city in California where Sigma and Diana lived. Diana kept busy as a nurse still and Sigma was still plugging at a Ph.D., Phi said. Junpei hadn’t kept in touch since the wedding despite overall enjoying their company. Junpei felt boring and there was never enough time.
Sigma was pretty harried these days anyway; he’d made the best of things since coming into a strange time with a girlfriend and adult twins a few years ago, but it must’ve been weird, Junpei thought.
Phi still wasn’t herself; her weird non-reaction to the news that her own mother had betrayed her in one of the worst ways was making Junpei uncomfortable. She played with her phone, ate normally, didn’t even drink on the plane (Junpei put away a tiny scotch bottle because, well, the thing was cute and he was thirsty for something other than water).
Diana rushed to them when she saw them in the baggage area, picking up Phi with her hug and strength hiding in her small body. She spoke at a rapid rate, catching Phi up and asking about her life simultaneously, and when she noticed Junpei she looked like she wanted to hug him but restrained herself. Phi seemed to melt into her embrace.
Diana already knew about the baby and she pestered Junpei for information as she drove them back to her home. He answered some questions before letting the conversation peter out, not to be rude but because he couldn’t think of what to say. Diana was so sweet and accommodating that he couldn’t understand her sometimes.
Phi dragged Diana into a back bedroom when they arrived at the house and Sigma was still at school apparently, so Junpei was left sitting in a sparse but cute living room and staring at his phone. He decided to call Akane and when she answered he only said one thing: “You’ll be a really good mom.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just something on my mind. We’ll be good parents but you’ll be a really good mom.”
“Thanks, but can I go back to sleep now? I’m uncomfortable.”
“Sure. Night.” He stared at his phone after hanging up and swore he was never going to be the kind of parent who sold his own child to the devil.
*
Judging by her face, Diana knew something was wrong when she saw Phi. Diana let herself be taken back and then she gave Phi a hug when the door was closed. They fell onto the bed and Diana curled up with her and let her talk for a long time. Phi’s stories wandered and she rambled because speaking the point out loud was too painful the closer she got, like running her finger closer and closer along her skin to the splinter.
Diana let Phi talk until she stopped and then connected her own dots. “I’m so sorry,” she said, rubbing her cheek against Phi’s head. She was; she held Phi until she fell asleep and when Phi woke up she was still there.
Diana brought her tea and laundered clothes. Phi forgot she left things here. Diana of course never forgot anything about her.
Phi still had a good mother, she thought.
But then again, she didn’t.
*
The next day Phi finally showed Sigma her findings. She didn’t talk to him, just showed him the papers and let him read them all and come to his own conclusion.
He bounced his knee as he went on and she knew when he figured it out as his face pinched and his frown was unmistakable. “Wow.” He paused and then settled on, “You were really an asshole in another life.”
Phi laughed and punched him hard, the sound a giggle unlike her. “Bastard,” she said, starting to get hysterical and his choked gasp was making her laugh harder. “You think—” She was choking too much.
“Because I wouldn’t know anything about how that feels,” he joked, and clapped her shoulder.
She quieted. “He wasn’t so bad. Just a tired old man.”
Sigma, usually unsettled by mentions of his other self, was thoughtful. “You knew him better than me,” he decided.
“I like you better.”
“No you don’t.” He caught her fist in midair with his palm in an old ritual. “What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t know. Why do I have to do anything?”
“You don’t want to take action? Are you okay?”
“Stop.” She considered his question but had no answer. Nothing could hurt Mom; she’d lived a long full life at the expense of a handful of people and who knew how many others. She’d had a career and a wife and child and not even cancer had taken her out. What could Phi do but melt into the scenery of Mom’s story? She didn’t want revenge, didn’t even think it was possible to extract anything from Mom that would make up for working with Delta on anything. Leaving her alone was the best punishment she could think of.
“You wanna get drunk?” she thought up, and they high-fived.
*
It was hard to decide where to drink between Sigma and Diana, as Diana only liked the kind of dive bars that scared bikers and Sigma was perfectly content with Happy Hour apps and mixed drinks at chain restaurants. Junpei was of no opinion except to nod subtly at Diana’s suggestion so Phi split the difference and picked a local bar she remembered liking and that they made some drink called a Mermaid of Death featuring coffee and chocolate.
She was three in when Diana firmly put a glass of water in front of her, and two more shots when Diana covered a hand with hers and made her take the water with the other. Phi remembered a conversation with Sigma about the merits of tankinis versus bikinis and then saying something that caused his face to twist in offense and discomfort. The night tilted sideways then and she remembered being helped out of the bar, aware she was That Girl now but feeling the others bore some responsibility for letting her become Her.
“You’re a bad boss,” she told Junpei as she was hanging out of the car’s back door, sprawled across the back seat with her feet in Sigma’s lap. “You let me do this.”
Junpei grabbed her shoulders and tried with some effort to hoist her into the car.
She woke up with a bad headache and upset stomach. Someone had left a glass of water and aspirin on her bedside and she rolled into a ball on the bed and groaned. She shambled out and washed up, then moved into the living room where Junpei and Sigma were watching TV together. The couch had neatly folded blankets, evidence that Junpei had been there last night. She couldn’t remember much but she hoped the rest of the night hadn’t been too embarrassing.
Junpei flagged her down on her way to the kitchen (hoping food would make her feel better). “Hey, we need to go back.” He put a phone in her face, showing a conversation he’d had with her mom overnight.
“How long were you talking to her?”
He dodged the question and instead said, “She’s willing to talk to us.”
Phi turned and Diana was standing framed in the kitchen doorway, watching her for a reaction. She wasn’t disappointed, her face measuring, and she looked at Phi as if curious, like they were kind strangers.
“I…” Phi shook her head. “I’ll stay here,” she offered.
“Go,” Diana said gently. She approached Phi and hugged her, making a noise of exertion as she did. “Then come back here.”
Sigma offered to come with them but Phi shot him down, saying it was work-related and boring. He gave her a reluctant fistbump and let her go.
“I worked on her all night,” Junpei admitted as they hustled through security and towards their gate at the airport.
“She worked on you all night,” Phi corrected.
“That isn’t... No,” he said. “I did. She’s only going to talk to you. She says she knows where Delta is.”
“Because she told us the truth before.”
“She gave me the location of a Free the Soul lab we didn’t even know existed. We confirmed it this morning.”
“Well what the hell does she want now?” Phi muttered, but he had no answer for her.
*
Phi had too much time to think on the way over. She remembered random childhood things with Mom, all perplexing. She thought of how her mother had lived her whole life, how she’d showed Phi how to conduct her life. Phi knew what she had to say by the time they, breathless, exhausted, arrived at her childhood home.
She reread the notebooks and letters earlier, and mulling over what they contained, she had her answer as to what Mom was thinking.
Mom was watching a movie on her old DVD player of all things, with a big, cracked mug older than Phi holding tea (likely spiked with gin) and a blanket on her lap that Phi remembered sleeping under as a kid on sick days. She wasn’t expecting them, given by her reading glasses and pajamas, and seemed cross they hadn’t called like this was a social visit.
“Phi?” she said cautiously.
“You said you wanted to talk.” Phi grabbed Junpei’s collar as he was trying to leave the room and yanked him back, pointing to a rocking chair in the corner. He sat down reluctantly and began picking at a lap blanket draped over one arm. “So talk.”
Mom to her credit did not jump into another story or obfuscation. “You know what you found in the storage unit.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me?” To Phi’s ears it sounded like a plea, and she realized with embarrassment it was. She’d spent a childhood learning not to ask for acknowledgement, instead excellence was just expected, and she was never broken up about it. It made her a stronger person, a better person. Here she was feeling weak and begging for something she didn’t think Mom knew how to give her.
“Because…” Mom took off her glasses, polished a lens, looked through them, polished again with deliberation, then put them back on. “I wanted you to find out for yourself so you could feel however you wanted about it.” She smiled at Phi. “If I was right in front of you, would you let yourself be so angry?”
“I’m not angry.”
“What?” Junpei said. He looked at her like she was crazy.
“Um.” Mom seemed taken aback. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Phi held up the notebooks she’d carried in with her, and then set all but one on the end table by the door, the same one that as a kid she’d forgotten her homework and her house key on, had knocked over once and cracked it right in half. “You crafted a good convincing story here, Mom, but you made a big mistake.” Phi opened one book she’d flagged: “‘I’ve ignored your attention-seeking all this time.’ How did you both do that and work with him on the Dcom project? That’s the exact opposite of ignoring him.”
“When was the letter written?”
“After you supposedly began working with Delta. It’s right after I would’ve disappeared in December 2028.” Phi approached Mom slowly, one leg crossing in front of the other in concentrated grace. She handed her the notebook and Mom took it reluctantly, removing a letter pressed between the pages. “Mom, what is the whole truth? What was Delta to you? Do you even know where he is?”
Mom read the letter instead of answering her immediately; she pored over the page and held up a hand when Phi urged her to answer. “You are so smart,” she finally said. “The tiniest creative liberty and you found it and used it against me.” She looked up at Phi and though she tried to appear calm, defeat radiated off of her. “I told the truth about Delta. He was my best friend, and I did love him. I left Free the Soul when it became apparent he was using it for dark means. I started writing to him after you disappeared because I thought he knew where you were, and I kept writing because I…
She shrugged. “I thought I could find him. That man I knew so long ago. I got some information out of him, like that lab, but he never confided in me like he used to.”
“You had a link to him for years, when did that suddenly become important?”
“When I found out he had a connection to you.” Mom became stern. “Because I am your mother and I care about what hurts you.”
“What were you going to do when you found him?”
“I have no idea! I just didn’t want you near him anymore.” She tore a corner off of the letter. “I was hoping if you thought I was part of his game that it would drive you away from me. And you wouldn’t have a connection with him anymore.”
“I always will,” Phi said softly. “I have no idea what you were thinking,” Phi said, putting a hand on the back of Mom’s head and gently pulling it to rest against her own stomach. Phi wrapped her arm around Mom’s shoulders and held her against her, hearing a soft sniff. “But if you want me to be mad, it’s not going to work.”
*
Junpei took his cue to leave when the old lady started crying. He drove around for an hour and when he returned Phi was waiting outside on the steps, sitting in the dark patiently like she’d known when he would be returning.
“What are we gonna do?” he asked.
“To her? Nothing. To Delta?” She held up a sheaf of papers. “She gave me the scraps he told her.”
“And her blessing to go after him?”
“Not at all.” She shook her head. “I convinced her. She said you helped, though.” She got up, wobbled, and without thinking he took her wrist and pulled her up the rest of the way.
As they made their way to the car, Phi said, “I guess she was just bored.”
Junpei, thinking of the conversation burning a hole in his pocket, thought otherwise but didn’t say a word. Do you understand yet? Dr. Frost had messaged him during their talk last night, and he did. Or rather he would when he was a parent.
He couldn’t wait to be home. He guessed Phi was still searching for hers. Judging by her neutral reaction she had crossed her mother’s house off the list for good.
Junpei hoped she found it one day.
“Good job,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, staring out the window. “Thanks for helping, Junpei.”
*
Phi kept in touch in the next few months; Junpei put her on the lead for the Delta pursuit and wrapped up loose ends himself before the baby. Phi was energized and turning out her best work, he thought.
His daughter was born at five in the morning after nine hours of active labor and a lot of swear words from Akane. The personality difference was night and day for Akane, who seemed to have released all her pent up frustration, and she was petting the baby’s head and cooing while she was restless in Junpei’s arms.
“Hey, hey, she won’t stop moving!”
“She’s not supposed to,” Akane laughed, putting one hand over the baby. “Behave for Papa,” she tried anyway but the baby fussed and moved her tiny fist towards her mouth in the greatest effort of coordination she’d made so far.
“Aww,” he said. “Don’t you like me?” He kissed her head and she still whined. “I’ve got you,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
Author:
handmaid | Artist: N/A
Fandom: Zero Escape
Characters/Pairings: Junpei Tenmyouji, Phi, Canon OC, Phi and Junpei gen, background Junpei/Akane
Rating/Category: T
Genre: Mystery, Family/Gen
Word Count: 10,194
Warnings No Archive Warnings Apply, but mentions of parental death
Summary: Phi asks Junpei for a big favor: To help her interrogate her mother about her past with Free the Soul. When they dig, they reveal something Phi can’t walk away from unchanged.
Link to fic master post: ---
Link to art master post: N/A
For Small Fandoms Bang. Thanks D for your support and thanks to the mods for all of your hard work. Title from "May You Never" by Land of Talk.
Phi invited him to dinner; Junpei should’ve known he had a problem then, as Phi never volunteered to pay for meals or drinks. (She always had money for cute clothes and presents for Diana. Just once Junpei would like a present for the principle of the thing). He met her at a Korean grill, so she knew his weakness for bulgogi and cold noodles. She was good.
He tried to remember the last time they’d been together in-person and came up with New Year’s Eve, at a party he’d been pressed to throw as part of office decorum. He hated parties and had been trapped in his own so he hung out near the edges, letting his subordinates mingle and drinking alone. Phi’d approached him then and seemed distracted; at the time he wrote it up to her hating parties too. They’d worked together for five years and he wondered if he knew her at all.
Watching her kick the toe of her boot into the floor in the entryway, looking distracted, he had second thoughts. She’d cut her hair again and bleached it out, which he had Thoughts about considering it was hardly a fitting disguise for his favorite spy and missing persons investigator.
“Hey,” she said when she noticed him, and he raised a hand in response. She scanned him before finding his presence satisfactory and shrugging.
He got his cold noodles and slurped them in a manner she found obnoxious but he could always fall back on ‘It’s polite in my country.’
Phi said, “So look: I need a favor.”
Nothing good ever followed that phrase; Junpei knew from movies and TV and being entangled with the Kurashikis for years. He didn’t incur debt but it was handy to always have a few indebted to him in his pocket at any given time. Phi wasn’t one of them right now. Still, they were friendly enough and she’d saved his life a long time ago. Junpei could always say no if he didn’t want to.
“What?”
Phi spoke with food in her mouth and it was so annoying. “I think my foster mother has connections to Free the Soul.”
Junpei coughed on his mouthful of noodles. While Free the Soul had admittedly fallen off his plate in the past two years, he knew he had an obligation to pursue anything related to them and now Phi dropped the perfect if jarring lead in front of him.
Phi continued, “She’s old enough to have been active during their heyday. I finally found something with her real birthday on it to prove it.” She took out a folded up paper from her bag. (Junpei had nagged her a million times that presentation was important; weird, he never used to care about that himself. Being a boss made him lame.) The paper was a copy of an old birth certificate, the tears and folds replicated in black and white, and dubbed the old woman Phyllis Frost, born in the early 1900s in Germany. Her citizenship papers from her family’s emigration to America listed a different birthdate and he wondered why, although he didn’t know or care enough about early 20th-century American immigration procedures to guess. “And I found this…”
Phi handed this one over hesitantly; it was a black and white photograph of a younger woman, maybe in her thirties, standing beside a man who with a bit of imagination could be a younger Delta. He looked at the woman without a smile but some fondness in his eyes. They weren’t obviously Free the Soul-affiliated in the photograph, although Dr. (according to Phi) Phyllis Frost wore a pendant that looked like a stylized eye.
Phi said, “She won’t talk to me about it, but you know who that is.”
“Obviously.” Junpei looked at Phi with raised eyebrows. “How long did you sit on this?”
Phi looked annoyed to have been found out. “Just a few weeks, I wanted to look into it myself first.” She took her papers back from Junpei despite his attempt to grab them. “But she’s smart; she doesn’t keep anything else personal from before 2000 in the house. I found out she has a storage unit in Nevada but that’s about it.”
“...Do you want a ride to Nevada,” he said warily.
“No, I need an investigation partner and I trust you to keep your mouth shut.” She considered his bowl and he pulled it closer to himself, lest she dip her chopsticks into his precious noodles. “I don’t need anyone else to know about this.”
Junpei heard himself in those words; once or twice he’d sent her ahead on some hunt for information that he wanted to present to Akane after the fact rather than argue with her about what was a valuable use of resources. Phi had never betrayed his confidence and even took heat for him once and he slept a little harder that night.
Junpei said, “I’m interested—I am, but I have another obligation right now. Why don’t I send Mori with you?”
“My mother doesn’t want to see Mori,” Phi grumbled, and after a moment: “She wants to see you.”
“...Does she know my name?”
“I didn’t tell her, but yes.” Phi looked up from her photo and her face was tired, drawn. “She said she’d talk to you.”
“It’s...I kind of...”
“It’s a possible free tip on where Delta is.”
“How do you know?”
“She had letters from him as recently as the past year,” she said flatly. Any revelation about one’s parents was never easy and Phi’s was worse than his realization that his parents used to send him out to play so they could have sex uninterrupted.
Junpei put his hand in his hair and gestured with the other one. “Can you just tell me the important things first? Why do you think we live in a drama?”
“Dramas are interesting, this is tedious,” Phi said and went for her water glass rather than continuing.
“Fine. I’ll help you, I just need a minute to tell Akane.”
They agreed they would meet that coming Saturday and travel together to Reno where Phi had grown up and where Dr. Frost still lived. Junpei headed home with trepidation, unsure how to craft this so his wife didn’t get suspicious.
Being pregnant wasn’t agreeing with Akane, she was on bedrest and oscillated between anger and hunger. This was normal apparently and Junpei hated it because he wanted to cuddle her, but she wasn’t in a cuddling mood.
He worked a lot, mostly because he wanted to take the next year off to be with the baby; Akane did not want to do the same which had made a weird fissure between them. He wouldn’t tell her what to do but it was...weird.
Akane was asleep when he came home, a book on her chest. She snored now that her belly was bigger and pressing down on her and honestly? It was cute. He took the book and debated getting her a blanket but it was hot in there already and she didn’t like any of the fussing. She was even cross with her brother and Junpei had never seen the two fight. He kissed his fingertips and touched them to her forehead.
He asked himself if they’d be the type of parents that hid big things from their child and waited until they were caught to talk about them. He didn’t know how to explain some of the things he’d been through to be with their mother or even what he did for work. (Then again he’d never understood his own father’s job and didn’t care enough to find out now, he only knew Dad was very busy until recently when he’d had a heart attack. Junpei called often enough but they didn’t have much to say to each other before the baby.) He wanted to believe that was reason enough, but what if someday their child met their colleague in a restaurant and asked for help with investigating their own parents? Would they ever feel like their parents didn’t know the first thing about them, like he’d asked himself before?
He didn’t have the answer to that.
*
Junpei didn’t have to argue anything; Akane was relieved to have some time to herself as his trip coincided with something Aoi couldn’t reschedule that would take him out of state. Junpei felt guilty when he kissed her goodbye; she was already on her phone making plans for visitors.
Phi was in a better mood on Saturday, buoyed by the ability to act on her hunch now. She drove because according to her Junpei drove like a grandpa. That word was tainted now; he wished she’d stop using it in reference to him.
Ever cagey, Phi talked about the radio and work but didn’t give clues as to her mood. They were going to confront her mother about her dark past and Phi played it off like a road trip.
“What’s the old woman like?” Junpei asked. He pictured an older Phi, smart and bold but cantankerous with age. What kind of person could’ve raised Phi?
“Brilliant,” she acknowledged, “but a pain in the ass. She’ll mess with you just because she can, so you know.”
“She sounds like your mother alright.”
“Okay, Sigma.”
“Hey!” Junpei was way funnier than Sigma. “She does.”
“She was a researcher back when women weren’t supposed to be academics,” Phi said with a hint of pride. “I don’t think she knew what to do with a kid, so she treated me like a peer.”
This explained so much about Phi but Junpei didn’t say anything. “Why would she want anything to do with Free the Soul?”
“She was a woman of science, but she liked her esoterica. Her mother was that way. Mom took a sabbatical to live in a witch compound in the 70s and believes in her Third Eye.” Phi sighed. “I guess she was right about that. I could see her doing this out of intellectual curiosity.”
“But do you think she...participated?” He meant in their unsavory activities: kidnapping, torture, imprisonment, political corruption, and she could certainly perform illegal experiments…
“No!” Phi looked at him with surprise and anger. “If she did anything, she didn’t know what it would be used for. She’s not like that.”
“You sound convinced.”
“I know it.” She mumbled a swear as the person in front of them slowed unexpectedly and she had to tap the brakes, jerking the car.
In Sparks, Junpei’s card was declined while trying to pay for gas so Phi covered him, emphasizing ‘cover.’ He fussed, knowing this was the card that wasn’t maxed out (he was still awaiting reimbursement from Aoi, who had to approve all of Junpei’s statements; Junpei wasn’t allowed to buy alcohol with the company card) and called his servicer to verify he was really the person using the card to travel. Rectified, he bought a slushie and while his mouth was full of blue-flavored ice his phone rang.
“Where are you?” Aoi sounded accusatory on the other line. In the background was what sounded like a subway station. “I just got a text saying someone tried to use your card at a gas station out of town.”
“You track my card?” Junpei said, annoyed.
“Duh.”
“Fine Mama, I’m out of town. It’s for work.”
“Where’s the budget proposal and per diem submissions? You’re supposed to—”
“I know, I know, geez.” He held the phone away from his ear as Aoi continued to talk, then interjected, “You aren’t my boss. Talk to your sister.” This was technically true but in reality Aoi held all the money thus had the power to put Junpei’s balls in a vise whenever he wanted. To his credit, he’d done it only once or twice.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, yes, I wouldn’t just leave her. She’s got a million people checking on her every day.” He suspected she liked Seven the best as she always nagged him for this, that, and the other thing when it came time for him to leave. “This is really important okay? It’s about the foxhunt.” Their code word for anything related to looking for Delta.
“...Fine, my phone’s dying anyway. Talk to you later.” He hung up before Junpei could bid him goodbye.
“What is his problem?” Junpei muttered as he hung up.
“I dunno.” Phi had been hovering by his elbow and looked impassive. “He’s your brother-in-law.”
“Don’t remind me,” Junpei said lightly. “Have Sigma and Diana given you grief for disappearing?”
“I dunno, they haven’t called. They’re used to me being a stray.”
Junpei wasn’t sure where she lived or for how long; she had her checks directly deposited into an online bank account. She had mail sent to a post office box and always seemed to be departing from a new location when she was called to headquarters. Still it was a bit lonely to think of her without anyone to call.
“Do they worry?” said Junpei.
“Yeah.” Phi turned back and opened the car door. “I tell them not to be.” She pulled out of the parking lot too fast and he had visions of T-bone accidents.
They cruised through Reno and ended up following along the edge of a college campus. “I used to go here,” Phi said. “But life had other plans.” ‘Life’ probably meant ‘Akane.’ “I studied Geophysics in another life.”
“Business. I didn’t finish either.” Akane was definitely the reason for that.
They followed a side street off campus to a small house with aged siding and shutters. It was painted a shade of blue that he could tell used to be loud but the fading had taken a lot of its vibrancy. It needed more attention than its owner could give it, although the stone sculptures in the yard were well-maintained. The steps to the front door were concrete and crumbling. A short old lady waited atop the landing, half inside the opened front door. She considered them with a gaze Junpei was familiar with on Phi’s face.
They got out of the car and approached slowly, Phi ambling like she didn’t want to go.
“Jutta,” the old woman, Dr. Frost, said warmly. “You’re home.”
“I’m back,” Phi said. “My name is Phi.” She crossed her arms. “You would know, our father gave it to us.” She set the tone as adversarial from the first word, but Dr. Frost reacted as if she hadn’t said anything.
“Is this the young man you work for?”
Everyone must be young to her, Junpei thought. “Yes, hi.”
They went inside, Dr. Frost moving so slow it looked painful, and her house wasn’t the antique-filled, pastel and floral affair he expected from movies. It had cozy furniture and pictures and degrees framed on the wall (he noted a photo of Phi in a stereotypical high school graduation gown, another of her in a UNR sweatshirt), not a porcelain figure in sight. Dr. Frost had tea waiting and it was well-brewed.
They sat in her living room, Junpei smoothing a quilt underneath him for fear of wrinkling it. He felt like he had to be particular. He was possibly trapped with a Free the Soul collaborator and maybe Free the Soul cared about quilts.
“I pulled some of my old things out of storage, darling,” Dr. Frost began, “They’re in your room. If you could get them, please.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Phi,” she said with a note of placating.
Phi huffed but stood and went to said room. While they were together, Dr. Frost said, “Oh, my Jutta is funny, isn’t she?”
“Jutta?”
“It’s a German form of ‘Judith.’ Her middle name.” Her eyes slid back to the room where he could hear light shuffling as Phi puttered. “How do you like her? I’m sure she’s good at her job,” she said in Japanese. It was a bit stilted like she hadn’t used it in a while but surprisingly good for a foreigner.
“Oh, um, she’s great. I use her all the time.” He wished she’d offered him something stronger than tea. “When did you learn Japanese?”
“It feels like I did in another life. My friend Dieter learned it with me and we would practice together.” She smiled at him and he saw another woman in her face: Akane. “You may have known him as Delta.”
Junpei’s hand jerked. “Oh. So you do know him.” Case solved, he could go home now. “So why did you want to meet me?” he said this in English for Phi’s benefit, as she returned from the room.
“You’re as relevant to this information as she is.” She nodded to Phi. “I wanted to speak to Crash Keys directly.”
“Phi works just as well,” he said, trying to stick up for her.
“She isn’t you.”
“Me?”
Dr. Frost didn’t explain and instead reached into the box Phi had set on the floor beside her. She retrieved the eye necklace she’d worn in that old photo and said, “This is an ugly thing. I don’t know why I ever wore it.” She offered it to Phi, who held it like it was a bug. “You’ll never believe me, Phi, but I really didn’t know what he was at first.”
“Did you know after a while?”
Dr. Frost closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“So why did you stay?” Phi asked, not angry but almost hopeful-sounding like she wanted to be able to support what she’d told Junpei in the car.
“I didn’t stay long, but he was my best friend for a time. I thought I could change him. He used to…” Dr. Frost shook her head. “That was my mistake. You can never stop anyone from being who they want to be, remember that.”
“You have letters from him as recent as last year,” Junpei said. “Did you know that Phi was looking for him? If so, why didn’t you tell her?”
“Do you have a child?”
Phi leaned forward and interjected, “I’m not a child.”
“Quiet, Phi.”
Phi sat back in her seat, staring into the distance and looking like Junpei had as a teenager when his mother nagged him about his studies.
Dr. Frost repeated, “Do you have a child?” Her eyes were fixed on Junpei like he was prey.
“No,” he said, fighting not to say he was going to have one.
Dr. Frost switched to Japanese: “I don’t want my daughter involved. It’s easy as that, but it’s harder to control an adult than it is a child. You forget you can’t just forbid them from doing something and have that be the end of it.” She laughed. “I could never control Phi even as a child.”
“Talk about me in English,” Phi said.
“Oh let me practice my Japanese,” Dr. Frost said like Phi would be in on a joke. She continued in Japanese, “I can’t push her into danger. If I tell you everything, it’s not on my heart what you do with that information.” Her logic was...flawed, but Junpei was familiar with flexible morality. Dr. Frost certainly was.
Junpei nodded although he didn’t fully understand. “If he’s not your best friend, then what is he?”
She shrugged. “My family. I learned that when she did.” She nodded to Phi. “I always did feel drawn to him, even though we didn’t speak for thirty years. He wrote to me off and on. I finally opened the letters when Phi first disappeared.”
“What was in the letters?”
“Read them all, Phi only stole a few from me.” She looked at Phi who looked caught. “You’re transparent, young lady. The rest of them are in the storage unit, which she knows because she thinks I don’t check the login history on my email account.” Dr. Frost sipped her tea. “Do you have something to say?” she directed to Phi.
“A million things, but first off—”
“Phi,” Junpei said. “The car. Please.”
She followed him and they stood under the lone tree in the yard. With her lips pursed and arms folded, she looked like the child Dr. Frost spoke of.
Junpei said, “Did you really need my help? She’s saying...everything.”
“She wouldn't tell me a thing. Maybe you can convince her to adopt you.”
“No thanks. So this is how she treats her peers?”
“She’s infuriating,” Phi said. “What were you two talking about?”
He felt the moment was small but the feelings too heartfelt to share with Phi. Dr. Frost meant what she said, even as intent on riling up Phi as she seemed. “Just that you pestered her until she had no choice. Delta was her friend a long time ago. Do you think this is going anywhere?”
“I have no idea.” Phi shifted her weight to one foot. “What do you want to do?” It took a very long time to get Phi to defer to him as a boss.
“I think she’ll just take us in circles. Let’s go to the storage unit.”
When they went back inside, Dr. Frost said, “So soon?”
“Dying to,” Phi said.
“Ah, young man!” she called while Junpei was putting on his shoes again (damn habits). “Where you’re going next—take care of her.”
“It’s not too late to tell us the whole truth,” he tried.
“Oh young man,” she said slowly, as if talking to herself, “yes it is.”
*
Phi was determined not to act childish, but the second they were on the road and Junpei said, “So that was fun,” she blurted out, “She drives me crazy!”
“I can tell.” He shrugged. “She didn’t tell me anything she couldn’t tell you. I don’t get her.”
“Try growing up with her.”
Junpei must’ve decided to push as he said, “Did you get along with your dad?”
“My nana, her wife. And yeah. I did.” Phi missed her. She was the mediator between Phi and Mom when Phi was a teenager, and died when Phi turned fifteen. Years gone by hadn’t healed the wound left when she died. Mom’s house still smelled like her, sometimes. Mom always smiled when she talked about ‘my Judith,’ but Phi couldn’t smile and until recently that seemed like an irreconcilable difference. Now what the hell did she do with this twist?
A soft string tickled her inner wrist and she looked down to realize she’d been holding the pendant all this time. She wanted to throw it out the window while going 80 miles per hour on the highway. Instead she dropped it in Junpei’s lap. “Take this. I don’t want it.”
“Maybe it’s useful,” he offered. Phi never knew what to do with him when he was being nice. They didn’t not get along but she wouldn’t have called them friendly either; she respected him as her boss and they’d banter sometimes but she wasn’t about to go on and tell him everything about her feelings. The two people she did want to call, she couldn’t because they didn’t know she was doing this. Lies by omission had become too common in her life; she didn’t like lying to Diana but Phi’s mom—Diana’s daughter—was still a sore point for her. Mom had met them once out of curiosity, seemed to enjoy herself, and then bid them good lives and explained sadly she didn’t want further contact.
Phi didn’t speak to her for months. But when Phi wandered inside Mom’s house after a mission, tired and disoriented, Mom just put a kettle on to boil and tucked her into a bed that didn’t feel like hers anymore. It was another thing that drove Phi crazy; Mom got cross but never angry so teenage rebellion was pointless. She’d just smile like she’d been expecting Phi and kiss her forehead.
“Can we go?” Phi said. “I’m starving and we’re already late.” Their host wouldn’t care but she needed a reason for why she looked like she wanted to run away anywhere.
Junpei called someone during the drive. Phi didn’t understand Japanese and the tone of voice was difficult to hear in the language, but she assumed it was Akane judging by the whole. Pregnant thing. Phi couldn’t imagine either of them as parents but especially not Akane, who from the few times they’d spoken about work was miserable and cranky and sick.
Diana didn’t want any more children; it was a sore point between her and Sigma if he was to be believed when he called Phi, but he was still puttering around with his thesis so when exactly would he have time to rock a baby? He didn’t appreciate it when she pointed that out.
Junpei hung up and seemed tired, staring out the window and playing with a hole in the knee of his jeans. Ripped jeans may have come back into fashion; Phi spent so much time in and out of the mundane world that she stuck to clothes she wore when she was 20 and had no clue what was modern anymore.
“We’re already late,” he said by way of suggestion and they pulled over at an ice cream stand on the side of the road, the parking lot a postage stamp.
Over whiskey sour-flavored shaved ice, Phi asked, “How’s she?”
“The same.” Junpei held the spoon in his mouth and mumbled, “She’s on bedrest and hates it.”
“I bet.”
Conversation died and she felt silly for trying to bring it up. Obviously Akane was the same as before. “Boy or girl?”
“Girl. Found out last week.”
“Name?”
“I dunno yet.”
Phi held a spoonful in her mouth, letting the ice melt there until the beginnings of a headache grew in her brain. It felt refreshing. But what was she doing here on the side of the road in Reno with Junpei beside her, on a mission for nothing? “Sorry for dragging you out here.”
“What?”
“I think this was a waste of time.”
To her surprise, Junpei patted her shoulder instead and said, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I’ve wasted my time on way worse leads.” He stood up and threw away his unfinished container. Phi didn’t appreciate that; she would’ve eaten it. “This one might actually turn out.” He headed to the car, but looked over his shoulder and said, “By the way, call Sigma. He called Akane looking for you.”
“Akane?”
“She has no idea how he got her personal number. He’s...something isn’t he?”
“He’s something,” she agreed. She checked her phone and saw two missed calls from him. She had no energy to return them right now. “I’ll tell him to leave her alone.”
“Heh.”
They drove on.
*
Their host wasn't worried because their host was a tiny motel between their origin and their destination. Junpei made the reservation which didn’t surprise her when she saw it, a nondescript place a few blocks down from the shadier part of town. She swore he wasn’t happy unless he was near some reminder of his past life, spoiled by his current comfortable life but unsettled by it at the same time. The vacancy sign was handwritten and the vending machine outside dim and broken. She kicked one when it ate her quarters.
After checking the room out and satisfied it didn’t have bedbugs, she slumped over onto the bed and pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. “Hey, Sigma.”
“Phi!”
She smiled at the sound of his voice. “What are you doing calling Akane?”
“I figured she’d know where you were,” he said, guileless. Old Sigma had been blunter but since Young Sigma came back, she could be frustrated but was never unhappy with him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. What’s going on?” He was quiet for a moment before she repeated his name.
“Sorry, it just occurred to me you actually ask how I’m doing now.”
“I’ve asked for years,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, just...thought about you.” She could picture his shrug. “I felt like I had to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Er…” Nothing, it turned out. The weird esper tingles said they should be in touch but about what exactly? He asked her if she’d seen pictures of his cats and when she’d next log on to the MMO they played together to keep in touch. His research progress was the same; to be honest she thought he had the potential to be brilliant but had chosen the wrong research focus for his skillset and was stuck in it in order to finish his Ph.D now. He always seemed tired and trapped when they spoke about it.
“Where are you anyway?” He sounded hopeful when he asked like he thought she’d say ‘California.’
Phi hadn’t wanted to be in California in years.
“Just working. I’m in the Southwest. Maybe I’ll come over if I feel like it.”
He chuckled and teased, “No you won’t.”
It stung but it was also true. She could surprise them one day but that required acknowledging and explaining how long it had been. Diana never acted disappointed but she must’ve been lonely.
Phi humored Sigma for a bit more before ushering him off the line with a promise to call again.
On schedule, Junpei knocked on her door and made her jump. He’d brought pizza and wings and hoarded the wings, dripping with mango habanero sauce, for himself. He focused so intently on eating they didn’t speak for a few minutes while they watched the news.
“So when we get the storage stuff, what’s the plan then?” He deferred to her thoughts, and Phi hesitated.
“Um…”
“Well there is a plan right?” He said without letting her speak.
“Quiet, I’m thinking. I don’t rush into everything like you do.” She could speak to him that way because frankly Junpei didn’t care as long as the work was done, and he liked her work. “I guess… Once we’re there we have to go through everything and see if anything can lead us to Delta. She must know something else.” Phi frowned. “She must.”
*
“Wow,” Junpei said upon beholding the storage unit.
“This. This looks like Mom,” was all Phi could get out at the pile of interlocked paintings, safes, trunks, dressers, and bags of clothing and assorted documents shoved into one space. She tugged on the handle of a suitcase that was wedged so firmly into place it didn’t budge until she leaned back with all her body weight. “Thanks, old lady.”
“I’m not getting paid enough for this.”
“We’re not getting paid at all.”
“Maybe you’re not, I’m special,” he explained with a smirk.
“So you’re getting paid way too much.” Phi resumed tugging on her suitcase and nearly fell as it slid out of the pile.
Piece by piece they pulled the unit apart, down to documents spilling out of folders and the booklice feeding on paper and ink. They busted locks, dragged totes, got grime under their nails, cut twine, hauled bookcases, and sat on the ground, boxes, any flat surface and picked over correspondence. (There were baby pictures of Phi in the mess. Junpei found them. It was the worst.)
In the end they ended up with a trunk they stuffed with papers and old albums. Mom didn’t keep any digital backups, possibly because she was Satan. Together they hauled it back to the car and before they left Phi looked the piled up junk up and down, wondering what was so important it had been left here in a different part of the state. Was it a case where Mom couldn’t look at it but couldn’t let go of it either?
What made anyone nostalgic for Delta anyway? She didn’t know.
“Yooo, let’s go!” Junpei called from his place in the driver’s seat.
Phi shook her head and walked to the car.
*
Once he got back to the motel, Junpei turned his phone back on and browsed the web to decompress. He checked baseball stats and distracted himself by shopping for baby items again (he had a wishlist ten pages long, and Akane said he had a problem). He knew having a baby and thinking about one were different, but imagining their baby in cute little animal-shaped towels and patterned onesies was just...adorable. Melting him.
Akane was hanging in; when he called she said she was tired and sore, so no change there. He asked but, no, there was nothing he could do for her. He sneakily ordered her delivery anyway and got a text an hour later with a thank you and heart emojis.
He took a shower and was about to leave to meet Phi for drinks when his messenger app showed a notification:
Tenmyouji!!! followed by an emoji of a magnifying glass, and a star.
Who is this?
This is Dr. Frost. Is this Tenmyouji Junpei?
Where did you get this number?
It was in Phi’s phone. :)
Junpei rubbed his temples and then typed, What do you want?
You are so much friendlier in person. I wanted to let you know you can reach me here in the future. A rainbow heart then. Why?
I’ll remember it.
Take care!! Another star and a diamond.
What a weird old lady.
*
Phi was waiting for him in the lobby, wearing a long coat and looking restless still. He was going to tell her about her weird mother, but one look at her showed she was in no mood to hear more about her family. He’d tell her later, he thought.
“Thirsty?” he said instead.
Phi was a pretty easy traveling companion. She didn’t complain and liked the same things he did in terms of stopping schedules, snacks, and trip activities. Namely, drinking in a bar with minimal talking, people watching and peeking at a TV playing a hockey game occasionally.
“Who doesn’t have any digital backups in the 2030s?” Phi said suddenly, swirling her rum and coke and tracing the rim instead of drinking. She’d stabbed her stirrer through the lime and left the lime impaled near the top of the stirrer like a warning. “The old woman makes no sense.”
“It’s kind of charming,” he admitted. “She’s like this relic from another era.”
“Because she is,” Phi said with a hint of a smile. “She still likes DVDs and pop music from the 80s.”
“Her and my mother. Maybe different groups, though.” Junpei sipped his drink before asking, “What do you think she wants us to do after all this time?”
“I don’t know,” Phi said. “I don’t think I care either,” she muttered.
“Mmhm, we drove out to Nevada and ripped apart a storage locker because you don’t care.”
“Be quiet and drink, Boss.”
He did gladly, realizing when forced into an environment with her that part of the reason it was easy to be with her was she wasn’t afraid to admit they had little to talk about. He got up and played a game of darts by himself, then one with her.
Phi seemed distracted by it, studying the board for a long time before throwing a single dart. “Do you think,” she began, tossing a dart up in the air before grabbing it, “we should’ve come here?”
Junpei watched her face for any sign of self-pity and sadness but she looked carefully neutral. “Only you can tell me that, right? This is your case.”
“...I guess,” Phi said quietly and hurled the dart so it bounced off the dartboard.
When they left the bar Phi drove, but she pointed them to the desert instead of back to the hotel. Junpei protested but she drove them straight out into the barrens, pulling off the highway and killing the engine and lights.
“I felt like stargazing,” she explained and got out of the car.
Junpei listened to the beeping of the open door alarm before shutting the door and joining her. Phi leaned against the hood despite the heat, or perhaps for it because the desert was cold at night, and looked up at the sky. “When I was little I liked to do this.”
“I grew up in a city,” he said. “I couldn’t really...do this.”
“Well, here’s your astronomy lesson.” She pointed out all the seasonal constellations and said to hold his breath for a shooting star but none appeared. “Part of the fun is just staring at them and thinking about what’s out there.” She shrugged. “What’s on Earth is cool, too. I used to like space.”
“What changed?”
“Akane sent me to the moon,” she said, though she didn’t sound angry. “...Despite everything, that was still pretty cool.”
“I still never want to be on the open sea.”
“Huh? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Oh, nothing,” Junpei said hurriedly.
When they tired of the sights, though Phi seemed like she never would be ready to leave, they drove back to the motel and retired to separate rooms. He thought that she looked happy there, better than she had in awhile.
“Goodnight, Jutta,” he said at the door and she flipped him off before heading inside.
*
Junpei tried to appear rested the next morning despite having slept like shit. Since Akane had become pregnant he had increasing nightmares of worst case scenarios, ranging from her being kidnapped to her dying in childbirth, nightmares so bad he woke up in the middle of the night from them. Usually he could look at her until he felt better but with her in another state he only had his phone and, after some complaining, Aoi spoke with him.
“What’s up?” Aoi sounded wide awake and chipper about it; he lived on an unknown schedule and Junpei didn’t know when was the last time Aoi lay down and slept in a bed. A closet, a couch, the living room floor, on the floor three feet from his own bed, certainly.
“Nothing,” Junpei lied. “I’m bored.”
“Uh, okay. How’s it going over there?”
“I think it’s going okay, but we’re not making much progress.”
“So it’s going poorly.”
“I guess.”
“...Junpei?” Aoi lowered his voice and Junpei wondered if he’d just been on the phone with any Aoi ‘company’ in the room too. “What’s wrong?”
Junpei stared at the ceiling and debated answering that honestly, but a worried Aoi was obnoxious and...well, he didn’t like to worry any Kurashiki. “Nothing. I’m safe,” he said to assure Aoi’s obvious fear. “Have you heard from Akane?”
“She was going to bed when I talked to her last. It is midnight, y’know.” Aoi clicked his tongue. “Go back to sleep. She’s fine. If I’m paying for this I expect something to come of it, by the way.”
That nagging in his head, Junpei tried to forget it when he met Phi later in her room to go over the evidence. They skipped breakfast and became engrossed in their task. He was used to her work style, or she his, and they made efficient, fast work of sorting everything by date and type of correspondence.
There were letters from Delta, unsent letters to Delta, little vintage trinkets that close friends would exchange like artwork and figurines, photographs together, and a square of cloth that looked like it had been cut from a Free the Soul robe. Dr. Frost had had this saved folded up underneath a bundle of letters in storage. She didn’t throw anything away so they also had to filter out assorted lists, notes to herself, and old paperwork from the important papers.
The doctor’s notes were careful, and her language to Delta precise but with a trace of warmth in it. Something jumped out at Junpei, from a scrapped letter: I never said I would give you Phi. Where is she? The date put it in December 2028.
“Do you remember what you were doing then? Before Dcom,” he said.
“I was still in school. I hadn’t told her about my plan, so it makes sense she thought I’d been kidnapped when I left for Dcom” Phi took the letter and read part of it aloud: “‘I’ve ignored your attention-seeking long enough. If you wanted to hurt me, you have. Give my daughter back and I’ll…’” She swallowed. “‘I’ll be with you.’ Well obviously he didn’t do that.” She seemed troubled by those words, as she reread the letter to herself, turned the paper over, and shook her head.
While Phi was quiet, Junpei had to say, “Do you think she did join him? And that’s why she’s still talking to him?”
“Talked to him. I… She didn’t.” Phi chewed on her thumbnail. “But she didn’t join him or Free the Soul.”
“About that…” Junpei felt heavy as he pointed to a different list, seemingly unimportant, but a timeline she’d laid out for a mystery project. It took place in the two years leading up to Dcom. While Junpei had been drowning in murder and mystery, Dr. Frost had been assembling grant proposals, tweaking research papers, leading a team of scientists, and overseeing construction plans.
For a project in the Nevada desert.
“What do you think this is?” Junpei said quietly.
“I don’t know,” Phi admitted. “I really don’t. She was secretive about what she did at work. Everything I know comes from her CV. She specialized in applied physics.” She listed a few unrelated subjects that Junpei made note of but they didn’t seem related. “I don’t know what she was doing working in construction.”
They pivoted to Dr. Frost’s seemingly unrelated research papers, even making a trip back to the storage unit to retrieve more binders and notebooks related to her work. For someone who refused to keep digital copies and was secretive with her daughter, she took exhaustive detail of what she’d worked on for the last thirty years or better.
She’d been working on a project with the Transporter when she found Phi, taken time off to raise her, and when she returned to the scientific world she began working on experiments related to “the application of the mind on material forces of the world.” Espers.
She’d traded her knowledge and services to anyone willing to pay. She was in high demand and had contracts showing she’d worked out of UNR for corporations, think tanks, NGOs, and the federal government. She’d been in talks again when she abruptly dropped everything and began her mystery project. Piecing it together—her proximity to Free the Soul, her body of research, her experience turning around projects, and Delta’s own goals—Junpei came to one conclusion.
“She was involved with Dcom,” he said quietly. “She was.”
Phi gripped the notebook in her hands like it was a life preserver.
*
They took a break after hours of work. It was evening when they stopped and they hadn’t eaten all day. Phi went to get them something, suddenly very cagey and he could tell she needed to be alone.
Junpei sprawled on his bed and took his phone out. Why did you lie to me? he asked Dr. Frost.
Her reply was quick: About what darling? with a fox emoji.
You hid that you were involved with the Dcom project, and you hid that you worked with Free the Soul recently. And why did she leave it to him to be there when Phi found out? You should have told her and saved everyone the time.
Her reply this time took much longer, so long he went to the bathroom, checked the news, texted Akane, and then finally got an answer. Because she’ll hate me.
How else should she feel?
He didn’t get an answer to that one.
When Phi returned they ate dinner at a table they’d shoved everything off of, determining the work wouldn’t help them now. They had their answer about Dr. Frost’s involvement, but no clue what to do with it. It wasn’t bringing them closer to Delta, and Phi didn’t want to talk about it right now. Understandable.
“It’s still your case,” Junpei offered instead, and when he did that Phi didn’t answer. “What about going to her lab at UNR? Maybe her research there can help us.”
“I don’t know what she’s doing now. It’s in her office at home,” Phi said bluntly. She’d picked up the eye pendant again and studied it with a stormy expression. “And she hides her stuff pretty well.”
“Not well enough, we wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“We don’t have to go on anymore. I don’t care.” She bit down on a mozzarella stick and took a long time chewing. “I want to go to California.”
“Are you sure? I swear we’re getting closer.” He felt it was urgent to keep going, now, with Phi specifically. Her personal drama could wait and she was the one who was good at compartmentalizing, he thought. He didn’t hate the thought of going home to cuddle Akane and prepare for the baby but…
“I’m sure.” Phi didn’t look at him.
“Then let me come with you,” he urged.
“Fine.”
*
They ditched the car in a place where Crash Keys employees could retrieve it and transfer it to storage, then took a flight to the small city in California where Sigma and Diana lived. Diana kept busy as a nurse still and Sigma was still plugging at a Ph.D., Phi said. Junpei hadn’t kept in touch since the wedding despite overall enjoying their company. Junpei felt boring and there was never enough time.
Sigma was pretty harried these days anyway; he’d made the best of things since coming into a strange time with a girlfriend and adult twins a few years ago, but it must’ve been weird, Junpei thought.
Phi still wasn’t herself; her weird non-reaction to the news that her own mother had betrayed her in one of the worst ways was making Junpei uncomfortable. She played with her phone, ate normally, didn’t even drink on the plane (Junpei put away a tiny scotch bottle because, well, the thing was cute and he was thirsty for something other than water).
Diana rushed to them when she saw them in the baggage area, picking up Phi with her hug and strength hiding in her small body. She spoke at a rapid rate, catching Phi up and asking about her life simultaneously, and when she noticed Junpei she looked like she wanted to hug him but restrained herself. Phi seemed to melt into her embrace.
Diana already knew about the baby and she pestered Junpei for information as she drove them back to her home. He answered some questions before letting the conversation peter out, not to be rude but because he couldn’t think of what to say. Diana was so sweet and accommodating that he couldn’t understand her sometimes.
Phi dragged Diana into a back bedroom when they arrived at the house and Sigma was still at school apparently, so Junpei was left sitting in a sparse but cute living room and staring at his phone. He decided to call Akane and when she answered he only said one thing: “You’ll be a really good mom.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just something on my mind. We’ll be good parents but you’ll be a really good mom.”
“Thanks, but can I go back to sleep now? I’m uncomfortable.”
“Sure. Night.” He stared at his phone after hanging up and swore he was never going to be the kind of parent who sold his own child to the devil.
*
Judging by her face, Diana knew something was wrong when she saw Phi. Diana let herself be taken back and then she gave Phi a hug when the door was closed. They fell onto the bed and Diana curled up with her and let her talk for a long time. Phi’s stories wandered and she rambled because speaking the point out loud was too painful the closer she got, like running her finger closer and closer along her skin to the splinter.
Diana let Phi talk until she stopped and then connected her own dots. “I’m so sorry,” she said, rubbing her cheek against Phi’s head. She was; she held Phi until she fell asleep and when Phi woke up she was still there.
Diana brought her tea and laundered clothes. Phi forgot she left things here. Diana of course never forgot anything about her.
Phi still had a good mother, she thought.
But then again, she didn’t.
*
The next day Phi finally showed Sigma her findings. She didn’t talk to him, just showed him the papers and let him read them all and come to his own conclusion.
He bounced his knee as he went on and she knew when he figured it out as his face pinched and his frown was unmistakable. “Wow.” He paused and then settled on, “You were really an asshole in another life.”
Phi laughed and punched him hard, the sound a giggle unlike her. “Bastard,” she said, starting to get hysterical and his choked gasp was making her laugh harder. “You think—” She was choking too much.
“Because I wouldn’t know anything about how that feels,” he joked, and clapped her shoulder.
She quieted. “He wasn’t so bad. Just a tired old man.”
Sigma, usually unsettled by mentions of his other self, was thoughtful. “You knew him better than me,” he decided.
“I like you better.”
“No you don’t.” He caught her fist in midair with his palm in an old ritual. “What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t know. Why do I have to do anything?”
“You don’t want to take action? Are you okay?”
“Stop.” She considered his question but had no answer. Nothing could hurt Mom; she’d lived a long full life at the expense of a handful of people and who knew how many others. She’d had a career and a wife and child and not even cancer had taken her out. What could Phi do but melt into the scenery of Mom’s story? She didn’t want revenge, didn’t even think it was possible to extract anything from Mom that would make up for working with Delta on anything. Leaving her alone was the best punishment she could think of.
“You wanna get drunk?” she thought up, and they high-fived.
*
It was hard to decide where to drink between Sigma and Diana, as Diana only liked the kind of dive bars that scared bikers and Sigma was perfectly content with Happy Hour apps and mixed drinks at chain restaurants. Junpei was of no opinion except to nod subtly at Diana’s suggestion so Phi split the difference and picked a local bar she remembered liking and that they made some drink called a Mermaid of Death featuring coffee and chocolate.
She was three in when Diana firmly put a glass of water in front of her, and two more shots when Diana covered a hand with hers and made her take the water with the other. Phi remembered a conversation with Sigma about the merits of tankinis versus bikinis and then saying something that caused his face to twist in offense and discomfort. The night tilted sideways then and she remembered being helped out of the bar, aware she was That Girl now but feeling the others bore some responsibility for letting her become Her.
“You’re a bad boss,” she told Junpei as she was hanging out of the car’s back door, sprawled across the back seat with her feet in Sigma’s lap. “You let me do this.”
Junpei grabbed her shoulders and tried with some effort to hoist her into the car.
She woke up with a bad headache and upset stomach. Someone had left a glass of water and aspirin on her bedside and she rolled into a ball on the bed and groaned. She shambled out and washed up, then moved into the living room where Junpei and Sigma were watching TV together. The couch had neatly folded blankets, evidence that Junpei had been there last night. She couldn’t remember much but she hoped the rest of the night hadn’t been too embarrassing.
Junpei flagged her down on her way to the kitchen (hoping food would make her feel better). “Hey, we need to go back.” He put a phone in her face, showing a conversation he’d had with her mom overnight.
“How long were you talking to her?”
He dodged the question and instead said, “She’s willing to talk to us.”
Phi turned and Diana was standing framed in the kitchen doorway, watching her for a reaction. She wasn’t disappointed, her face measuring, and she looked at Phi as if curious, like they were kind strangers.
“I…” Phi shook her head. “I’ll stay here,” she offered.
“Go,” Diana said gently. She approached Phi and hugged her, making a noise of exertion as she did. “Then come back here.”
Sigma offered to come with them but Phi shot him down, saying it was work-related and boring. He gave her a reluctant fistbump and let her go.
“I worked on her all night,” Junpei admitted as they hustled through security and towards their gate at the airport.
“She worked on you all night,” Phi corrected.
“That isn’t... No,” he said. “I did. She’s only going to talk to you. She says she knows where Delta is.”
“Because she told us the truth before.”
“She gave me the location of a Free the Soul lab we didn’t even know existed. We confirmed it this morning.”
“Well what the hell does she want now?” Phi muttered, but he had no answer for her.
*
Phi had too much time to think on the way over. She remembered random childhood things with Mom, all perplexing. She thought of how her mother had lived her whole life, how she’d showed Phi how to conduct her life. Phi knew what she had to say by the time they, breathless, exhausted, arrived at her childhood home.
She reread the notebooks and letters earlier, and mulling over what they contained, she had her answer as to what Mom was thinking.
Mom was watching a movie on her old DVD player of all things, with a big, cracked mug older than Phi holding tea (likely spiked with gin) and a blanket on her lap that Phi remembered sleeping under as a kid on sick days. She wasn’t expecting them, given by her reading glasses and pajamas, and seemed cross they hadn’t called like this was a social visit.
“Phi?” she said cautiously.
“You said you wanted to talk.” Phi grabbed Junpei’s collar as he was trying to leave the room and yanked him back, pointing to a rocking chair in the corner. He sat down reluctantly and began picking at a lap blanket draped over one arm. “So talk.”
Mom to her credit did not jump into another story or obfuscation. “You know what you found in the storage unit.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me?” To Phi’s ears it sounded like a plea, and she realized with embarrassment it was. She’d spent a childhood learning not to ask for acknowledgement, instead excellence was just expected, and she was never broken up about it. It made her a stronger person, a better person. Here she was feeling weak and begging for something she didn’t think Mom knew how to give her.
“Because…” Mom took off her glasses, polished a lens, looked through them, polished again with deliberation, then put them back on. “I wanted you to find out for yourself so you could feel however you wanted about it.” She smiled at Phi. “If I was right in front of you, would you let yourself be so angry?”
“I’m not angry.”
“What?” Junpei said. He looked at her like she was crazy.
“Um.” Mom seemed taken aback. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Phi held up the notebooks she’d carried in with her, and then set all but one on the end table by the door, the same one that as a kid she’d forgotten her homework and her house key on, had knocked over once and cracked it right in half. “You crafted a good convincing story here, Mom, but you made a big mistake.” Phi opened one book she’d flagged: “‘I’ve ignored your attention-seeking all this time.’ How did you both do that and work with him on the Dcom project? That’s the exact opposite of ignoring him.”
“When was the letter written?”
“After you supposedly began working with Delta. It’s right after I would’ve disappeared in December 2028.” Phi approached Mom slowly, one leg crossing in front of the other in concentrated grace. She handed her the notebook and Mom took it reluctantly, removing a letter pressed between the pages. “Mom, what is the whole truth? What was Delta to you? Do you even know where he is?”
Mom read the letter instead of answering her immediately; she pored over the page and held up a hand when Phi urged her to answer. “You are so smart,” she finally said. “The tiniest creative liberty and you found it and used it against me.” She looked up at Phi and though she tried to appear calm, defeat radiated off of her. “I told the truth about Delta. He was my best friend, and I did love him. I left Free the Soul when it became apparent he was using it for dark means. I started writing to him after you disappeared because I thought he knew where you were, and I kept writing because I…
She shrugged. “I thought I could find him. That man I knew so long ago. I got some information out of him, like that lab, but he never confided in me like he used to.”
“You had a link to him for years, when did that suddenly become important?”
“When I found out he had a connection to you.” Mom became stern. “Because I am your mother and I care about what hurts you.”
“What were you going to do when you found him?”
“I have no idea! I just didn’t want you near him anymore.” She tore a corner off of the letter. “I was hoping if you thought I was part of his game that it would drive you away from me. And you wouldn’t have a connection with him anymore.”
“I always will,” Phi said softly. “I have no idea what you were thinking,” Phi said, putting a hand on the back of Mom’s head and gently pulling it to rest against her own stomach. Phi wrapped her arm around Mom’s shoulders and held her against her, hearing a soft sniff. “But if you want me to be mad, it’s not going to work.”
*
Junpei took his cue to leave when the old lady started crying. He drove around for an hour and when he returned Phi was waiting outside on the steps, sitting in the dark patiently like she’d known when he would be returning.
“What are we gonna do?” he asked.
“To her? Nothing. To Delta?” She held up a sheaf of papers. “She gave me the scraps he told her.”
“And her blessing to go after him?”
“Not at all.” She shook her head. “I convinced her. She said you helped, though.” She got up, wobbled, and without thinking he took her wrist and pulled her up the rest of the way.
As they made their way to the car, Phi said, “I guess she was just bored.”
Junpei, thinking of the conversation burning a hole in his pocket, thought otherwise but didn’t say a word. Do you understand yet? Dr. Frost had messaged him during their talk last night, and he did. Or rather he would when he was a parent.
He couldn’t wait to be home. He guessed Phi was still searching for hers. Judging by her neutral reaction she had crossed her mother’s house off the list for good.
Junpei hoped she found it one day.
“Good job,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, staring out the window. “Thanks for helping, Junpei.”
*
Phi kept in touch in the next few months; Junpei put her on the lead for the Delta pursuit and wrapped up loose ends himself before the baby. Phi was energized and turning out her best work, he thought.
His daughter was born at five in the morning after nine hours of active labor and a lot of swear words from Akane. The personality difference was night and day for Akane, who seemed to have released all her pent up frustration, and she was petting the baby’s head and cooing while she was restless in Junpei’s arms.
“Hey, hey, she won’t stop moving!”
“She’s not supposed to,” Akane laughed, putting one hand over the baby. “Behave for Papa,” she tried anyway but the baby fussed and moved her tiny fist towards her mouth in the greatest effort of coordination she’d made so far.
“Aww,” he said. “Don’t you like me?” He kissed her head and she still whined. “I’ve got you,” he said. “Don’t worry.”