they're at a rest stop, finally. there's a starbucks tucked in the corner with a longer line than he'd expected for what still feels like the middle of nowhere, and a convenience store to his right next to the bathrooms currently occupied by the majority of his party, and that's about it. it's so mundane, so unremarkable in comparison to the last nine hours that it's almost dizzying. junpei finds himself wondering if there's somehow a trick behind it all.
it's only when he catches himself searching the walls for a puzzle to solve, for some sort of clue, that he comes back to reality, and he shakes his head forcefully as though to physically clear his mind. there's no locked doors here. no bracelets. they can leave. they have left. they've escaped, and they're all alive, despite the hazy not - memories that could convince him otherwise. but they all made it. even if the person he needs to see isn't ... okay, fuck, he's gotta think of something else, and quick.
like a saviour in green and jangling jewelry, lotus — hazuki — steps through the bathroom door, and junpei immediately straightens up from the wall he'd been waiting against. ❛ we should go to the store. it'd be good to grab some snacks for everyone, right? ❜ he says, a little too quickly, and hopefully she can hear the silent plea in his voice : please, i gotta do something. ❛ before we got out of the car, seven gave me, uh, his wallet. so it's on him. ❜ or it's on hongou, whose wallet seven had found seemingly left for them in the glove compartment, but it's not like either of them can say that out loud.
@heldgirl / starter call.
