Fandom: Persona 4
Wordcount: 1570
Ships: None
Warnings: Canonical but unpleasant themes; read at own risk
Beta: No

Following the Recent Tragedy

The water is halfway down the drain and you're depositing your toothbrush, gripping one side of your sink. A mirror is suspended before you, but you're not focusing on your reflection. You already know you look exhausted.

There is the responsibility of a second crime nestled in your skin, so you have every reason to be. This has been hard on you, too.

Dead teenagers make the best students, as the news broadcast taught you earlier — nobody had a bad word to say about Saki Konishi, and it's in death that she's really come into her own. Life goes on and the community mourns. You will see your superiors spare a sigh tomorrow.

You think you hear her laughing, as you wipe wetness from your mouth like a cat self-grooming, the back of your hand falling still over your lips. It seemed like her, yet you might be wrong — you don't know what her laughter sounded like. You only know she was soft and small, and that isn't a legacy.

It's a fleeting thing, not a noise but a concept, and it's unexpected enough to make you raise your weary head when you hadn't wanted to. You glance over your shoulder to the bathroom doorway. There's nobody there, like you didn't expect anyone to be.

You sleep fast that night, though you're still tired when your alarm enters your forgettable dreams to fetch you.

The parents haunt their house, serving you hot water masquerading as tea. You'll have to forgive them; they are in no right mind to be receiving visitors, but they'll make an exception for the police. They know you're dedicated to finding out why their daughter will never give them any grandchildren.

(Knocking her up is the last thing you would've done, anyhow.)

The mother has aged eight lifetimes in a week, but you can still see where her daughter got those filthy eyes from. Her hair is a knot of metal wool she hasn't bothered to brush, while her limbs judder like wood fit to splinter. The father is a silhouette.

Their questions are grotesque for people inquiring about a dead child — all detailed, really wayward stuff — but you admire how Dojima handles it. He sure knows what he's doing.

This is his town far more than it is yours, in the same way it was Saki's, so they listen to him while you offer your most sombre face in silence. Your brow begins to hurt from furrowing for so long, and your heels itch to bounce where they rest against the carpet: your shoes are sensible. You did not think to straighten your tie.

The deceased kept secrets from you when she should've hacked them up and that irritates you, but it will pass. You learn Saki had a brother, and for some reason that surprises you. The idle glances you spare towards him are liberal enough that they'll all inevitably notice; their eyes expect something from you when they do.

You tell them you are sorry for their loss.

Fog rolls in from the east, while you think it's something more sinister than local forecasters are giving it credit for. It's in the shopping district that you'd find people who agree with you, cursing the implications it has for local fishing, but you have no interest in sparking debate about it.

Let it come; let it cake your skin and shroud you. You had no trouble killing your soul-mate and the only thing making this death worse is the fact people knew her better, or intend to still visit the family's liquor store.

It only confirms what you already knew – people don't care unless it's necessary. Really, you did that girl a favour.

Events like these are what you were trained for: the academy drummed its written guidelines into you so deeply that they thrum with your heartbeat. You have well-rehearsed lines for everything, from breaking bad news to asking someone if they'd kindly identify a body. You can do it all, with class.

Nobody sees anything dishonest in the bloom of your smile, and they have no reason to. You, agent of justice, are supposed to hold a code of honour but no real ambition, and the former is why you couldn't be a politician while the latter is why you couldn't be a magistrate.

So you are a cop. They're the true sons of Japan, and you're from a good family, too. It's inconceivable that you'd ever do something so shocking.

(This is what they don't know: you never agreed under oath the law would mean anything, you made your patriot's pledge but you signed nothing, and even if you had, there's no power alive to make that worth something.)

True power has found you now, between the bones in your hand and the gaps of your teeth. It is a week later; the sky is endless black.

You foil a young vandal's artistic plans for his teacher's car while patrolling near the school. You take a photograph of a holidaying couple when they ask you to outside the temple. You reunite a lost boy with his mother as you're killing time in Junes. You do some good – though it makes you think.

Would they be less grateful if they found out you didn't mean any of it?

Sharing information goes against every instinct you have, but it's a good sign you still feel frustrated when you do your job incorrectly. You know exactly what you're doing.

This is post-war society, weak and deferential, and they'd prefer it if you hadn't noticed you're being screwed over but you did. Punishing you further, rewarding justified frustration with prison time, would be an insult.

(You wonder if she would've done that thing teenage girls around here do, when they're not quite done laughing at something stupid and there's still a wince of it left inside them. Their painted nails swipe at the trembling curve of their throats to coax it out, and for just one satisfying second, they sound like they're choking.)

This is more effective, maybe — the new kid and his gormless companions might become the killer's keepers through sheer inefficiency. They assume you're incompetent, but they haven't considered the drawbacks of taking what a moron says at face value. They're lapping up everything you tell them, playing games on your behalf.

That doesn't change the fact you're playing this by ear, though, taking the role of the investigated for the first time in your life. You'd never done anything wrong before, but that path brought you to nowhere else but Inaba. You have now done something wrong, and that path is lined with people thinking you're harmless and funny, a real traditional local cop.

They will still turn on you, conditional, if they find out what you did.

You expect to feel something. You expect, at least, to feel scared. But you don't feel anything.

Here is what you will regret: the bravado, and the letters you'll pen because you think you're just that clever, and what first gave you that desire to prove how much you hated this, hated it all.

Here is what you won't regret: the act, and her small hands scrabbling for you as she slid through the cracks of unbroken glass, and the giddy rush that settled in your head once her shape became weightless and fell.

It never crossed your mind they'd all pretend to miss her this much.

Saki's funeral was a bittersweet affair, or so you hear. The extended family arrived to cry a bit before going home, and that's meant to represent complex abstractions in human relationships.

Since that first night, you haven't heard her voice again, and you will hear less and less about her in the coming months. It isn't her death that continues to disturb these people, but the threat of death sticking his foot in their own door – that's just human nature. Your mother lied, told you most would be brave and selfless.

Rumours circulate about Saki's relationship status, and they allege she'd been planning to elope with some college kid. It dawns on you one night, while you're taking dinner alone, that she probably acted so cold with you because of whatever guy she was screwing.

(You feel a little sorry for him. Him and his poor taste.)

If there hadn't been some other guy in the picture, maybe she wouldn't have been so quick to anger you. There is no doubt in your mind that her greyscale parents had told her what a catch an officer would be, or a doctor. One of the honourable professions.

Maybe she would've been light in your lap as your hand slid under her skirt, and she would've trembled sweetly when you told her she was pretty – it's not like you wouldn't have been nice to her, the stupid bitch. She could've been here now, your schoolgirl paramour, and even if she hadn't been able to cook for you all that well, you would've been happy with booze smuggled from her family shop.

After all, you're not an unreasonable guy. If you had any now, you might even raise a glass in toast to her, because she's played her part in making things interesting and, in a tedious world like this one, that really is a legacy to be proud of.

You go to bed alone. Your dreams are all forgettable.