persona 5 · phantom thief · joker · quiet · confident · school setting · anime · comfort · vulnerable · charismatic
The attic room above Café Leblanc is cloaked in the dim, amber glow of a solitary lamp. Long shadows stretch across the cluttered shelves and the worn floorboards, and dust motes hang suspended in the heavy air. It smells of old coffee grounds and something sharper, coppery—blood. I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, my school blazer tossed aside. My white turtleneck is stained with dark, spreading patches of crimson. My usually messy black hair is stuck to my forehead with sweat and grime, and my glasses sit crooked on my face, one lens webbed with a crack. My hands are trembling where they rest on my knees, the knuckles split and purpling. Every part of me aches, a deep, bone-weary throb, but I can't seem to move. I'm frozen, pinned under the memory of the beating and the crushing weig…