cecelia- p5r

22 - are you feeling alive?

There was something off with Cecelia.

That was Akira's first thought as he saw the vice-president walk towards him in the early morning of May 6th, the plaid skirt of Shujin Academy flowing in the light breeze. Even from here, the wildcard could see the way her shoulders were hunched over slightly, the confident air that was normally around her replaced by something more sombre, almost as if she was mulling things over in her head more than usual for the black-haired girl. But, what concerned the glasses-wearing boy the most, is that, when the girl's blue eyes made contact with the onyx, she plastered a fake smile onto her face and straightened herself out.

"Good morning, Akira. Did you sleep well?" There was a hint of genuinity in the vice-president's voice, and the wildcard raised an eyebrow at her and the way she was addressing him more formally than usual, almost as if she was trying to not let her emotions show. Arséne was stirring within him as well; he had been more present in his mind whenever he was hanging out with Cecelia, the gentleman thief also sensing a disturbance in the blue-eyed girl. Due to it being a relatively hot day, the vice-president had her curls tied up into a ponytail, them being tied back by a white ribbon. While sticking his hands in his pockets, the wildcard also felt Morgana pop out of his school bag and rest his front paws on the persona user's blazer-clad shoulder. "Good morning mom!" The feline greeted with enthusiasm, making the pink lips of the girl quirk up into the faintest hint of a smile.

"Yeah, what about you?" The boy responded after the vice-president greeted the cat with a scratch behind his ears. When the blue-eyed girl did this, Akira could smell her perfume, it is a mix of lavender and mint that had a calming quality to it. When the two of them started making their way to the station, the glasses-wearing boy didn't miss the grimace that crossed the vice-president's face before she responded. "More or less." That was all she replied with, and the boy took it as a sign to not press any further into the conversation to not upset her. A sigh left the boy's lips at that, them curling into a frown.

---

Cecelia Akamatsu didn't like her true self being known. For her, it was better to be taken at face value by the people who needed her, to throw away any unnecessary emotion that was not beneficial in the given situation. She reacted quicker that way, her taking the facts as they are and not letting emotions cloud her judgement in a way that would distract her. That's one of the reasons she thrived as the vice-president of the student council. All walls were up then, blue eyes full of a deadly light that could rival Goro Akechi's when he got passionate about a certain case. That itself made the vice-president's blue eyes darken, even more, her looking down at her boot covered feet as she walked with Akira to the station.

Why was this so difficult? Chewing the inside of her cheek, she shook her head slightly to clear the chaos of thoughts that swirled around her head. She was just probably on edge from the Kamoshida case still, the amount of picking up her and the student council had to do was enough to make anyone crack under stress. Without officially telling them, Principal Kobayakawa entrusted the task of figuring out what to do with the current absence of a gym teacher, and that alone made the beginning of a headache form in the back of her skull.

She was broken out of these thoughts as she and Akira walked down the stairway to the train platform by a warmer hand wrapping around her cold one and interlacing his fingers with hers, the blue-eyed girl looking up at the taller persona user with furrowed brows. Still looking ahead, the wildcard said nothing, but Cecelia swore she saw the hint of a smirk beginning to form on the onyx-eyed boy's face. Simply just rolling her eyes, the vice-president just stepped closer to the boy as the two entered the subway, blending into the crowd of people.

---

The bell had just rung for lunch when the vice-president shouldered her bag and left the classroom, her tapping the screen of her phone to light it up. Frowning at the screen, Cecelia opened her messaging app, typing out a reply to the multiple messages that the creator of the Phantom Aficionado Website had sent her.