Futaba's just finished up her latest bit of coding and unbent herself from her chair when the card on her table catches her eye. She narrows her eyes and picks it up curiously. Huh. Sojiro must have left it there while she was working.

The paper of the envelope's weirdly luminescent but not too gaudy; the glare it gave off from the light of her monitor was what brought it to her attention in the first place. An aesthetically pleasing choice, she can almost hear Inari crooning in her ears.

Futaba makes a face and turns the envelope over to see her name written in familiar cramped handwriting.

Curiouser and curiouser…

Futaba peels open the envelope and takes out the card inside and it's…a postcard.

"Booooo-ring. I was expecting something more interesting than this."

The picture on the card shows some sort old Japanese-style building, partially covered by early morning fog. Corny, golden cursive letters declare 'Greetings from the Amagi Inn!' on the sky, totally ruining the effect of the picture. On the back of the card though, it's the same cramped handwriting that says 'Wish you were here' which is possibly even cornier.

Futaba stares incredulously at the card. She runs her hands over the card, scrutinizing the words and the picture but any deeper meaning fails to materialize. If there is a code, it's not one that Futaba could recognize which uhh, was almost impossible.

So, she grabs her phone. This calls for further investigation.

Futaba: You sent me a postcard

It takes a while but Futaba knows that despite Morgana's best efforts, Akira's still a night owl at heart.

Akira: it's 2 am （￣ー￣；

Futaba: don't lie you were up

Futaba: you sent me a postcard

Futaba: why

Akira: it reminded me of you i guess

What. That's just even more baffling. She doesn't think she'd ever really associate herself with some Japanese inn.

Futaba: ?

Akira: I mean we went on a class trip there. And I just thought that it would have been good to have you there.

Futaba: but why a postcard though? i'm like a phone call away.

And then, to prove her point, Futaba clicks on the video call button. Akira's face comes into view soon enough, eyes blearily blinking up at the screen with his hair all sleep-mussed and his face lit by the soft glow of a bedside lamp. Oh no, a critical hit. Futaba's not gonna lie, her heart skips a beat. Several, in fact.

"N-No fair!" she complains. "You can't look like that at 2 am! That's like a 3-hit combo! I was in no way prepared!"

"What?" Akira laughs softly and that's like hit number four.

"N-never mind," she huffs. "The point is you could have called me if you, you know, missed me." The last bit comes out as a mumble and she's glad that the room's dark.

"I know that," he says softly. "I guess I just…I don't know. I wanted you to have it. I was just...missing you a whole lot over there…so I wanted you to have a piece of that time that you could keep with you. Proof that I was thinking of you. Does that make sense?" He brushes his hair out of his forehead.

It…doesn't, not really. It's just a regular old postcard and not a well-designed one at that. But Futaba knows that sometimes she doesn't get a lot of things that seem obvious to other people and other people don't always get her. That's fine. She can tell from the furrowed look on Akira's face that he thinks this is important. He wants her to have this. She can play along.

"You could have gotten a nicer one at least, yeesh. But I am glad you were thinking of me," she grumbles with a pout and sees Akira's shoulders relax. Score! She really is getting better at this whole socializing thing.

"It's because he watched The Notebook again!" Futaba hears a yowl in the background. "Your boyfriend's trying to be romantic!"

"Morgana," Akira groans and Futaba can't help but snicker. "I gotta go okay? It's late and Morgana gets cranky if he doesn't get his beauty sleep."

" 'Night," Futaba agrees and then sits up to put the card on her shelf. Her boyfriend really is a dork, she thinks fondly.

What Futaba doesn't realize until later is that apparently, she's given her boyfriend permission to keep sending her random things in the mail. Letter Number 2 comes with a collection of rocks and a note that says 'I forgot how much I loved rivers'. She's not even kidding. It's not like there aren't any rivers in Tokyo. She'd always thought that she's the weird one in the relationship but no, apparently the weirdness is mutual.

There's no discernable pattern to the rocks, except for one that has a neat little hole in the middle that apparently lets you see faeries according to Google. Futaba sets that one aside carefully. Hey, she's a woman of science but she's also gone into a cognitive world and fought the self-proclaimed God of Control so uhh…why take chances?

Then she texts Akira again.

Futaba: you sent me rocks

Akira: not just any rocks

Akira: rocks i skipped all the way across a river! to the other side!

Akira: (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

Attached is a picture of a riverside. Futaba can see Akira's legs dangling from the corner into the water. The whole thing is…very peaceful. Much more than Tokyo ever seems to be. Abruptly Futaba wishes she were there with Akira instead of here in her room.

Futaba: what am I supposed to do with them

Akira: cherish them obviously (＾▽＾)

Akira: one day, when i'm the international rock-skipping champion, you can show them off to the paparazzi

Futaba: you're such a weirdo. you're lucky I love you

Akira: i know i am

And that's the end of that. Futaba sets aside the rocks too; she can't just throw them away after all. Besides, Sojiro's always telling her that her room's full of too much junk anyway ('Collectibles,' Futaba insists). Now some of that junk happened to belong to Akira.

Letter Number 3 comes with three whole actual pouches full of tea. Not even tea bags. Tea pouches. And actually, even calling it a letter is a bit of a stretch, it's a shop brochure stuffed into an envelope with the pouches. Futaba calls him immediately.

"You traitor," she tells him.

"The flavors are very unique!"

"This is a coffee and curry only household."

"Honestly!" he laughs. "Just give them a try? For me?"

"You're awful," she replies. "Just awful."

Then she hangs up to call Sojiro and ask him how to steep tea leaves.

Tea Pouch #1 is sweet and lemony, Tea Pouch #2 tastes like ginger and mint and Tea Pouch #3 is awful. Just awful.

And it keeps going on, a new one each week. Letter 4 comes with buttons, Letter 5 with a series of bizarrely-flavored bubble gums. Letter 6 presents a pendrive full of jazzy tunes that Akira could have e-mailed her but didn't. She almost doesn't forgive that. Letter 7 is by far her her favorite: it's a thick envelope bursting with cute phone charms. This one gets a place of honor amongst the others in her shelf. Letter Number 8 has pressed flowers. Which is, you know, that's cool too.

Letter Number 9 comes only a day before she's set to rejoin school. Futaba saves it until the apprehension clawing at her becomes just too much to handle and her breath is coming in fast pants. Then she opens it to take out the card and a gift. It's a necklace, a braided cord with little clay beads hanging from it. A little rustic looking but elegant. The card says simply 'Good luck on the first day of high school! Here's a key item from your key item for luck!'

Futaba takes the necklace in her hand and then starts counting the beads. 12 in all. Then she starts again. Four green. Four yellow. Four in a dull orange. Exactly her color scheme. Then she starts counting again. The four green beads are separated two each in one end, then the oranges and the the yellow ones are all clustered together in the centre.

She keeps counting and recounting until her breathing finally evens out and she doesn't feel like she's drowning anymore. She'd called Akira in the morning but right now, she doesn't want to call him again. The last thing on her promise list had been 'Being okay without Akira around.' And as much as she'd wanted to skip that part, reality had pretty much made sure it happened anyway.

She thinks she's still doing fine though. Leblanc's still the go-to spot for her team of ex-thieves. She heads out into the wilds of Tokyo and if she needs help, she doesn't feel too bad about calling up Ann or Makoto or Haru. And Akira really is just a phone call away.

Actually...she glances towards her shelf full of Akira-Things™ stashed among her merch. She gets up from her bed and starts picking them all up one by one. What was it that Akira had said? Proof that he was thinking of her? She looks over the buttons, the rocks, the flowers, the carefully chosen envelopes. Always, always thinking of her.

Maybe...this is Akira's way of trying to be a whole lot closer than she'd ever realized.

Futaba shakes her head, suddenly elated. It's fine, she realizes. It'll all be fine. So what if tomorrow is the first day of school? She's fought shitty adults and outright demons and come out alright. She's got friends and family and -her hand tightens on the necklace- she's got her key item right here! Social anxiety could kiss her butt!

But first, but first. She vaults over to her desk. It's 1 am on a school night, her first school night in years even, but she doesn't care. She tears off a page from her rough notebook and picks up a pen.

Dear Boyfriend, she writes, Guess who I was thinking of?

Tomorrow after school, she's going to figure out something to send in with the envelope. After all, she's always thinking of him too.