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Description

NB: This story contains spoilers for Persona 5. If you have not yet played through at least the the in-game dates listed at the top of each chapter, including the fourth Palace, please reconsider reading this story until you have done so.

Saturday, 10 September 20XX, Evening
Sakura household, Yongen-jaya

Futaba Sakura had gone through a lot of trials in her young life.

Two years ago, her mother, Wakaba Isshiki, had died under mysterious circumstances. Based on what Futaba thought was a strained relationship with her mother, Futaba had led herself to believe that she was somehow responsible. Under the care of her adopted father, Sojiro, life was comfortable, but due to his own guilt, he had allowed Futaba to lapse into the shut-in life of a hikikomori. She would seldom leave her bedroom, and never leave her house at all. All this only led to her bottling her negative emotions, allowing them to nearly take over her life.

Indeed, there were many times where Futaba had been tempted by some dark, self-destructive urges. Perhaps, she convinced herself, sacrificing her own life would, in some way, bring her mother back. Of course, this made no logical sense, and so thankfully Futaba was able to push back the waves of despair every time they crashed over her. But there had to be something else in her life to make it worth living, something to work towards in order to keep facing the new day. So, what kept her from going around the bend and succumbing to her darkest impulses?

She had a hobby. A secret hobby which she was too embarrassed to share with anybody, even the people closest to her. And even if they were to found out, it wasn’t something they were likely to believe.

Futaba Sakura practised the art of bellydance.

As odd as this may have seemed for someone like Futaba to practise, this interest didn’t come from nowhere. She had developed a keen interest in ancient Egypt from a young age. This had manifested in her subconscious as well, in the form of her own Palace -- a pyramid, a cool tomb surrounded by the scorching desert of the outside world. Eventually, one thing led to another, and as she explored more and more aspects pertaining to Egypt, past and present, she inevitably came across raqs baladi and raqs sharqi, two dance styles originating from Egypt which, along with the Turkish oryantal dans, were some of the most widespread versions of bellydance.

At first, Futaba was content just to watch videos of performances online. But before long, she caught the bug -- an urge to try it out for herself. There was no shortage of free tutorial videos available, and with her highly-analytical mind, she set to work teaching herself an assortment of basic moves. It hadn’t been an easy road, to be sure. As she quickly discovered, belly dancing made for an intense workout, and with her sub-par stamina, Futaba’s practise sessions could only last so long before she got knackered out. And every so often, she would come across a move which she couldn’t replicate no matter how hard she tried. Belly waves had been one such sticking point before, and hip shimmies were still another hard-mode manoeuvre. Setbacks like these discouraged her from trying again for days, or even weeks, at a time, at which point the anxiety over her mother’s accident wormed its way back into her headspace. But when she was able to focus, she threw her all into this new obsession. With more than a year’s worth of self-taught experience under her belt, Futaba had even put together her own basic dance routine. And in order to keep her skills sharp, she practised it as often as she could.

It was a warm September evening. All her new friends had gone back to school after their Summer holidays, only for them to subsequently head off on a school trip to Hawaii. Futaba, who due to her extenuating circumstances had so far skipped high school, had no such obligations. (Including the Hawaii trip… lucky sods.) Currently, she was hacking away on a personal programming project, a visual-novel game, but felt like she needed a break. Understanding the need for at least some non-screen time during her day, she figured this to be a perfect opportunity to give her routine a try. Saving and closing her work, she spun her rotating chair away from her multi-monitored computer rig and got up. Standing in the scant space beside her bed, she took a moment to mentally prepare herself.

At the moment, Futaba was barefoot and wearing a baggy, grey-coloured pair of cargo pants, and a black-and-green tank-top decorated with a Tetris scene. She pulled off the tank-top and tossed it on the bed, leaving a modest black training bra atop her chest. Gingerly, she caressed her hands over her exposed stomach, and was pleased with what she felt. Futaba had never been considered overweight, but due to her lack of physical activity, she was still the least-fit member of the Phantom Thieves. However, she discovered bellydance to be an intense workout, and the energy she burned had led to her finally shedding her stubborn layer of baby fat. After all, that had been part of the reason for taking this up in the first place. On top of that, her diet wasn’t doing her any favours, either. While she did have a taste for organic food, it was all too easy for her to fall back on convenient junk like potato crisps, instant ramen, and energy drinks during one of her many marathon coding sessions. There wouldn’t be any major changes on that front until she got up the courage to ask Sojiro to cook her up some new things, and she wasn’t quite there yet. But nonetheless, the progress she had made in toning her physique pleased her greatly, and served to psyche herself up for what she was about to start.

She began with a warm-up routine consisting of repetitions of individual moves she had learned up to that point, starting with pairs of hip-lifts and hip-drops on her left side. Each move was done in sets of 16 repetitions, for two reasons. One, that number fit neatly into the 4/4 time signature of most music. And two, Futaba was innately familiar with the hexadecimal numbering system, common in computing, in which each digit could be represented by one of 16 values, the numbers 0 through 9 and the letters A through F. “0… 1… 2… 3…”, she mentally counted after each hip-drop. “C… D… E… F”, she finished, subsequently re-starting the process with her right side. From basic lifts and drops, Futaba moved on to the other building blocks of baladi: mayas, figure-eights, hip circles, belly undulations, and shimmies of the hip and shoulder varieties. Despite their exotic appearances (and names), they were all just sequences or combinations of simple body movements. With Futaba’s highly-analytical mind, she grasped the concepts of these motions near-instantly. Consistently pulling them off was, of course, a different story, but that’s what these practise sessions were for.

Once she felt sufficiently warmed up -- which those energy-intensive shimmies had done much work towards -- she set up the routine she had choreographed herself over the course of her training. In order to keep her hobby hidden from the outside world, she only allowed herself to play videos or music on the subject through headphones. She picked up her favourite pair Bluetooth headphones from the top of her PC tower, which were much easier to find now that Ren and her other friends had cleaned up her room during her change-of-heart-induced coma, and wirelessly connected them with her smartphone, on which she queued up a specific song. Securing the headphones over her ears, she took a deep breath, squared off her stance, and pressed play.

The song came from a video game series which Futaba had long been a fan of, despite so few of its entries being (officially) available in Japan. The games starred a half-genie girl who used bellydance to transform into various animal forms with unique abilities. The music fit its fantasy setting by emulating Arabian instruments and melodies in 8-bit chiptune form. For her custom routine, Futaba had chosen a song featured early in the game, which had a slower, more manageable tempo.

Waiting for the music to start, Futaba paused in position, her arms splayed out low and to the sides. There was no lead-in to help her get used to the tempo, so she initiated motion as soon as she heard the song start. To begin with, she gradually raised her arms as she performed a series of mayas, a manoeuvre in which a hip-lift was followed by sliding the hips outward to the side. When repeated on alternating sides, as she was so doing, it created a simple yet seductive wavy effect. This portion of the song ended in a trio of staccato eighth-notes, which she punctuated with lift-drop-lift motions in one of her hips.

For the next section, she held her arms out to the sides and did hip-lifts as before, but this time, twisting the hip forward and waving it in small circular motions. At the end of this segment, she paused in mid-hip-circle and slid her head side-to-side along with the same musical flourish. Futaba had not yet attained mastery in isolating the motions of one body part from the rest, a key skill in baladi, and so her shoulders dipped and rose slightly as she slid her head about. The same foible was true of her next move, a series of chest and belly undulations with her arms crossed over her head. The abdominal control needed to pull off this move had taken her quite a while to learn, and since she didn’t have a sizeable mirror to perform in front of, she had no way of telling how naturally she was pulling it off. But thanks to the practise she had put in to this particular move, it at least “felt” right. On top of that, this particular move felt very sensual to perform, like she was an RPG heroine casting a “charm” spell on her foes.

This routine had very little ground movement, due to there being precious little floor space in her bedroom, even after her new friends had unilaterally cleaned up all of the clutter. And it was fairly repetitive, due to her as-of-yet limited repertoire of moves and her lack of imagination regarding things like arm placement or other move combinations. Nonetheless, when Futaba was in the midst of performing it, she felt herself transported to a different place and time. No longer was she a shut-in otaku girl trapped in downtown Tokyo; now she was a professional dancer giving a show at some Cairo cafe. Or, she was a harem girl giving a private performance to some anonymous bishonen whom she would one day fall in love with. Or, even, she was the genie girl from that video game she picked the music from. Regardless of whom exactly she was emulating, dancing made her feel the one thing she never thought she could become: happy.

This particular song did not end in a climax, but merely repeated a couple of times before ending in a fadeout, near the start of the third loop. Nonetheless, Futaba had memorised the song sufficiently to recall that the ending bit was approaching. She was wrapping up the second verse with some hip shimmies; as this was a move she had yet to master, due to the intense coordination required to control the rapid-fire motions of the knees and hips, she settled on a series of shorter shimmy-bursts to create the same effect. As soon as the verse ended and the third loop began, she transitioned into her finale, where she would lean backwards at the waist and draw her arms up and across her body in a sexy flourish. Unfortunately, all her exertion had drained her already-limited stamina to its breaking point. On top of that, back flexibility and balance were two more of her weaknesses, so despite putting one of her feet back to steady herself, she managed to topple backwards over that centre of balance, and thumped her head hard on the closet door behind her.

The last thing she saw before blacking out was the door to the hall flying open, revealing Sojiro. “Futaba? Are you okay in there?”, he called. When he saw the figure of Futaba slumped against the door, he muttered, “...Hoo boy…”

Description

NB: This story contains spoilers for Persona 5. If you have not yet played through at least the the in-game dates listed at the top of each chapter, including the fourth Palace, please reconsider reading this story until you have done so.

Saturday, 10 September 20XX, Evening
Sakura household, Yongen-jaya

Futaba Sakura had gone through a lot of trials in her young life.

Two years ago, her mother, Wakaba Isshiki, had died under mysterious circumstances. Based on what Futaba thought was a strained relationship with her mother, Futaba had led herself to believe that she was somehow responsible. Under the care of her adopted father, Sojiro, life was comfortable, but due to his own guilt, he had allowed Futaba to lapse into the shut-in life of a hikikomori. She would seldom leave her bedroom, and never leave her house at all. All this only led to her bottling her negative emotions, allowing them to nearly take over her life.

Indeed, there were many times where Futaba had been tempted by some dark, self-destructive urges. Perhaps, she convinced herself, sacrificing her own life would, in some way, bring her mother back. Of course, this made no logical sense, and so thankfully Futaba was able to push back the waves of despair every time they crashed over her. But there had to be something else in her life to make it worth living, something to work towards in order to keep facing the new day. So, what kept her from going around the bend and succumbing to her darkest impulses?

She had a hobby. A secret hobby which she was too embarrassed to share with anybody, even the people closest to her. And even if they were to found out, it wasn’t something they were likely to believe.

Futaba Sakura practised the art of bellydance.

As odd as this may have seemed for someone like Futaba to practise, this interest didn’t come from nowhere. She had developed a keen interest in ancient Egypt from a young age. This had manifested in her subconscious as well, in the form of her own Palace -- a pyramid, a cool tomb surrounded by the scorching desert of the outside world. Eventually, one thing led to another, and as she explored more and more aspects pertaining to Egypt, past and present, she inevitably came across raqs baladi and raqs sharqi, two dance styles originating from Egypt which, along with the Turkish oryantal dans, were some of the most widespread versions of bellydance.

At first, Futaba was content just to watch videos of performances online. But before long, she caught the bug -- an urge to try it out for herself. There was no shortage of free tutorial videos available, and with her highly-analytical mind, she set to work teaching herself an assortment of basic moves. It hadn’t been an easy road, to be sure. As she quickly discovered, belly dancing made for an intense workout, and with her sub-par stamina, Futaba’s practise sessions could only last so long before she got knackered out. And every so often, she would come across a move which she couldn’t replicate no matter how hard she tried. Belly waves had been one such sticking point before, and hip shimmies were still another hard-mode manoeuvre. Setbacks like these discouraged her from trying again for days, or even weeks, at a time, at which point the anxiety over her mother’s accident wormed its way back into her headspace. But when she was able to focus, she threw her all into this new obsession. With more than a year’s worth of self-taught experience under her belt, Futaba had even put together her own basic dance routine. And in order to keep her skills sharp, she practised it as often as she could.

It was a warm September evening. All her new friends had gone back to school after their Summer holidays, only for them to subsequently head off on a school trip to Hawaii. Futaba, who due to her extenuating circumstances had so far skipped high school, had no such obligations. (Including the Hawaii trip… lucky sods.) Currently, she was hacking away on a personal programming project, a visual-novel game, but felt like she needed a break. Understanding the need for at least some non-screen time during her day, she figured this to be a perfect opportunity to give her routine a try. Saving and closing her work, she spun her rotating chair away from her multi-monitored computer rig and got up. Standing in the scant space beside her bed, she took a moment to mentally prepare herself.

At the moment, Futaba was barefoot and wearing a baggy, grey-coloured pair of cargo pants, and a black-and-green tank-top decorated with a Tetris scene. She pulled off the tank-top and tossed it on the bed, leaving a modest black training bra atop her chest. Gingerly, she caressed her hands over her exposed stomach, and was pleased with what she felt. Futaba had never been considered overweight, but due to her lack of physical activity, she was still the least-fit member of the Phantom Thieves. However, she discovered bellydance to be an intense workout, and the energy she burned had led to her finally shedding her stubborn layer of baby fat. After all, that had been part of the reason for taking this up in the first place. On top of that, her diet wasn’t doing her any favours, either. While she did have a taste for organic food, it was all too easy for her to fall back on convenient junk like potato crisps, instant ramen, and energy drinks during one of her many marathon coding sessions. There wouldn’t be any major changes on that front until she got up the courage to ask Sojiro to cook her up some new things, and she wasn’t quite there yet. But nonetheless, the progress she had made in toning her physique pleased her greatly, and served to psyche herself up for what she was about to start.

She began with a warm-up routine consisting of repetitions of individual moves she had learned up to that point, starting with pairs of hip-lifts and hip-drops on her left side. Each move was done in sets of 16 repetitions, for two reasons. One, that number fit neatly into the 4/4 time signature of most music. And two, Futaba was innately familiar with the hexadecimal numbering system, common in computing, in which each digit could be represented by one of 16 values, the numbers 0 through 9 and the letters A through F. “0… 1… 2… 3…”, she mentally counted after each hip-drop. “C… D… E… F”, she finished, subsequently re-starting the process with her right side. From basic lifts and drops, Futaba moved on to the other building blocks of baladi: mayas, figure-eights, hip circles, belly undulations, and shimmies of the hip and shoulder varieties. Despite their exotic appearances (and names), they were all just sequences or combinations of simple body movements. With Futaba’s highly-analytical mind, she grasped the concepts of these motions near-instantly. Consistently pulling them off was, of course, a different story, but that’s what these practise sessions were for.

Once she felt sufficiently warmed up -- which those energy-intensive shimmies had done much work towards -- she set up the routine she had choreographed herself over the course of her training. In order to keep her hobby hidden from the outside world, she only allowed herself to play videos or music on the subject through headphones. She picked up her favourite pair Bluetooth headphones from the top of her PC tower, which were much easier to find now that Ren and her other friends had cleaned up her room during her change-of-heart-induced coma, and wirelessly connected them with her smartphone, on which she queued up a specific song. Securing the headphones over her ears, she took a deep breath, squared off her stance, and pressed play.

The song came from a video game series which Futaba had long been a fan of, despite so few of its entries being (officially) available in Japan. The games starred a half-genie girl who used bellydance to transform into various animal forms with unique abilities. The music fit its fantasy setting by emulating Arabian instruments and melodies in 8-bit chiptune form. For her custom routine, Futaba had chosen a song featured early in the game, which had a slower, more manageable tempo.

Waiting for the music to start, Futaba paused in position, her arms splayed out low and to the sides. There was no lead-in to help her get used to the tempo, so she initiated motion as soon as she heard the song start. To begin with, she gradually raised her arms as she performed a series of mayas, a manoeuvre in which a hip-lift was followed by sliding the hips outward to the side. When repeated on alternating sides, as she was so doing, it created a simple yet seductive wavy effect. This portion of the song ended in a trio of staccato eighth-notes, which she punctuated with lift-drop-lift motions in one of her hips.

For the next section, she held her arms out to the sides and did hip-lifts as before, but this time, twisting the hip forward and waving it in small circular motions. At the end of this segment, she paused in mid-hip-circle and slid her head side-to-side along with the same musical flourish. Futaba had not yet attained mastery in isolating the motions of one body part from the rest, a key skill in baladi, and so her shoulders dipped and rose slightly as she slid her head about. The same foible was true of her next move, a series of chest and belly undulations with her arms crossed over her head. The abdominal control needed to pull off this move had taken her quite a while to learn, and since she didn’t have a sizeable mirror to perform in front of, she had no way of telling how naturally she was pulling it off. But thanks to the practise she had put in to this particular move, it at least “felt” right. On top of that, this particular move felt very sensual to perform, like she was an RPG heroine casting a “charm” spell on her foes.

This routine had very little ground movement, due to there being precious little floor space in her bedroom, even after her new friends had unilaterally cleaned up all of the clutter. And it was fairly repetitive, due to her as-of-yet limited repertoire of moves and her lack of imagination regarding things like arm placement or other move combinations. Nonetheless, when Futaba was in the midst of performing it, she felt herself transported to a different place and time. No longer was she a shut-in otaku girl trapped in downtown Tokyo; now she was a professional dancer giving a show at some Cairo cafe. Or, she was a harem girl giving a private performance to some anonymous bishonen whom she would one day fall in love with. Or, even, she was the genie girl from that video game she picked the music from. Regardless of whom exactly she was emulating, dancing made her feel the one thing she never thought she could become: happy.

This particular song did not end in a climax, but merely repeated a couple of times before ending in a fadeout, near the start of the third loop. Nonetheless, Futaba had memorised the song sufficiently to recall that the ending bit was approaching. She was wrapping up the second verse with some hip shimmies; as this was a move she had yet to master, due to the intense coordination required to control the rapid-fire motions of the knees and hips, she settled on a series of shorter shimmy-bursts to create the same effect. As soon as the verse ended and the third loop began, she transitioned into her finale, where she would lean backwards at the waist and draw her arms up and across her body in a sexy flourish. Unfortunately, all her exertion had drained her already-limited stamina to its breaking point. On top of that, back flexibility and balance were two more of her weaknesses, so despite putting one of her feet back to steady herself, she managed to topple backwards over that centre of balance, and thumped her head hard on the closet door behind her.

The last thing she saw before blacking out was the door to the hall flying open, revealing Sojiro. “Futaba? Are you okay in there?”, he called. When he saw the figure of Futaba slumped against the door, he muttered, “...Hoo boy…”