Alrighty, so! This is a companion piece to the very first fic in the Trans!Souji series, 'Second Guess Myself to Death.'
It was actually the original beginning to 'CitG' before I scrapped it and rewrote everything the way it is now. I saved what I had, though, because while I figured it wouldn't make it into the main fic, I still liked it and wanted to use it. So yeah. It's a little plotless; mostly just a look at Souji's depression from his own perspective, whereas before it was a look from Yosuke's, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

[Warning! Heavy themes of depression; vague, suicidal thoughts.]

Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 4, nor any of the characters/locations therein.

The river is grey today.

Grey like the clouds that cover the sky, threatening to spill over and pour themselves out on the sleepy town below them. Grey like the fog that ghosted around his ankles on the way to school that morning but thankfully never manifested beyond that. Grey like the heaviness that sits on his shoulders, settles in his lungs, renders his vision in monochromatic.

Grey like his eyes. Grey like him.

Grey, grey, grey.

The late afternoon sun is hidden behind the clouds right now, its rays dampened to a dull glow that hardly does anything to brighten the grey, grey world. Even the Samegawa is a particular shade of thin, shining silver that looks like pewter when viewed from a shadowy place on the shore. And right now, to him, almost everything is a shadowy place.

He keeps his gaze trained on the water as he walks, only half paying attention to where his feet fall and moving like the river has breached its banks to pull him under. He isn't particularly worried about tripping – there's no one around to see if he does and he doubts he'd really even notice the sting of the ground if he were to hit it. His pace is slow, lethargic; what hurry is there to get home and sit in a quiet, empty house? Instead, he wonders what the river water tastes like. Cold, maybe? Peace?

Probably best not to think about it too much.

He keeps walking. Maybe if he keeps moving he'll be able to outrun the way today – this week – has left a foul burn in the back of his throat like bile. Maybe if he gets home quick enough he can shut and lock the front door and keep the twisting feeling in his gut from following him up the stairs. Maybe…

"Hey!"

He blinks. Pieces of the sky glow bright between cracks in the clouds.

"Partner!"

He breathes. He exhales the tightness in his joints and feels his body take in air like it's the first time today. The crispness of the breeze, the tiny flecks of water from the river, he takes it all in and holds it close to his chest. It feels like waking.

There is more color in the sky now, in the water, the grass.

"Partner! Yo, wait up man!"

The sound of sunshine incarnate calls, cutting through the rush of white noise in his ears and at last Souji can feel himself slide back into place a little bit. He closes his eyes, realigns. Turning on the ball of his foot he comes to a stop and angles himself to face the blurry figure that he can now see is sprinting up the path behind him.

He waits, and the sky grows ever so slightly bluer.

Yosuke slows to a stop in front of him. He is windswept, flushed and radiant, with his copper hair tossled and his skin pinkened from the nippy river air. Copper, pink, bright hazel like a sunset that crinkles at the edges as Yosuke looks at him. He's breathtaking.

Yosuke grins through his panting. "Damn, you must really be out of it; I've been trying to get you to stop for like, five minutes!" There is a laugh in his voice, sparkling on the line of his upturned lips, and it fizzes like soda in Souji veins.

He could drown in it.

But it's also blinding. Too bright but still not enough despite being everything and Souji finds he can't look directly at him. So instead, Souji looks carefully at the space just below those sunset-colored eyes. "Sorry," he murmurs. He feels an answering tug on the corners of his own mouth and lets a small smile out where only Yosuke can see. "I've just got a lot on my mind right now."

Yosuke seems to soften a little as he catches sight of Souji's smile. He always does, Souji's noticed; something serene rises to the surface and dances across Yosuke's features like the gentlest of light reflections underwater. Souji might not understand it, but he appreciates it nonetheless.

Yosuke nods up the path ahead of them, head tilted in a silent "shall we?" and in unison they start to walk. It's quiet at first, with the only sounds being those of nature. With anyone else Souji is certain Yosuke would have begun to pry by now, but with him it's different. He's grateful for it, for his partner's understated ability to observe and respond accordingly. Yosuke doesn't get nearly enough credit for it from the rest of the team. Then again, Yosuke doesn't often exercise this particular skill in social settings, so…

Souji's line of thought trails off as something brushes against his hand. He glances down.

Beside him, Yosuke is strangely pink again – the tips of his ears and the swath of freckles across his nose bright with a shy blush that looks absolutely wonderful. It takes Souji a second to realize that Yoskue's fingers have tentatively hooked into his own.

Souji feels his face split wide. The smile from before returns and stretches towards his eyes, not showing teeth but near enough to a grin as he's sure he's ever gotten before. The grey of the sky fizzles. He turns his hand and captures Yosuke's fingers, slots them together with his so that their palms are pressed against each other, and the grey dissolves like paper in a flame.

Yosuke practically beams. His expression flares like the sun, grin so bright it nearly eclipses his eyes entirely, and he swings their hands forward once. Momentum carries them back and they swing a few more times on their own between them like a pendulum. Souji tightens his fingers briefly in response.

Joy is such a refreshing feeling after today.

"Are you doing anything tonight?" Yosuke asks, voice quiet and warm. He looks over with hooded eyes and the flush across his skin deepens by half a shade.

Souji feels the warmth from Yosuke's voice settling into his ribcage like cinnamon tea in winter. He meets his boyfriend's gaze – cautiously, so as not to blind himself again – and shakes his head with another quiet smile.

Yosuke's grin grows impossibly wider. "You wanna hang out? Teddie's been asking for my shifts so he can flirt with a couple of the new girls so I'm free until Monday." Even knowing Souji will say yes – because Souji will always say yes to Yosuke unless he can't – the shy hope and poorly hidden excitement in Yosuke's words is palpable. There is also a subtle question laced within that Souji would have to be comatose not to notice.

"Are you asking if you can spend the night with me?" he asks with a tiny smirk, breaking his own silence with his own real voice for the first time all day. He'd forgotten how much the automatic responses could drain him.

Yosuke winks. "I mean, hey, if you're offering!"

Souji huffs in return. It's a quiet, half formed sound, more like a sharp exhale through his nose, but he knows that Yosuke has known him long enough now to interpret it for the snort of laughter it is. "Smooth."

"Thanks, I try."

Souji just shakes his head and smiles.

They walk along the riverbank for a few minutes more before turning off in the direction of the Dojima household. Souji knows the house still sits empty, its rooms dark and oppressively lifeless, but with his personal solar flare beside him it's easier to make himself go back. He'd been content to wander until the sun had sunk below the horizon to try and squeeze as much daylight out of the world as he could – even if it had been muted and washed out by the cloudy sky. Now, however, he fears the dark a little less, dreads the silence a little less, and no longer thinks of crossing the threshold as plunging into an abyss. At least for a while.

"Don't you need to go grab an overnight bag?" he asks as Yosuke follows him past the breakaway point where they would normally meet up in the mornings to walk to school.

Yosuke shakes his head. "Nope," he chuckles. "I uh, kinda already have everything in my school bag." He holds it up for emphasis, expression turning slightly sheepish.

Souji raises an eyebrow. It gets lost behind the fall of his hair. "What if I'd said no to you coming over?" It's a rhetorical question and they both know it; Souji would probably have asked Yosuke over anyway, even if it was just for dinner. Anything to fill the void.

Yosuke plays along and places a hand over his heart in mock offense. "Geez, Partner! And here I though we were friends." He can't quite keep up the charade, though, and the laughter hiding behind his teeth threatens to slip out by the end.

Souji chuckles – a rumble in the back of his throat that he can feel but isn't really sure is audible – and rolls his eyes fondly. They step up to the front door and he slips his key into the lock. He swings the door open. "Get inside, you goof," he murmurs. Yosuke makes a halfhearted noise of protest behind him but he pointedly ignores it and steps across the threshold.

The house is dark. The sun has already begun to slip low and the cloud cover makes the sky darker than it should be, so what little daylight is left has no chance of breaching the house's windows. Fighting to keep his breath from catching, Souji gropes along the wall for the light switch and focuses hard on Yosuke's voice muttering, "you're lucky you're hot" where he thinks Souji can't hear him. There is a moment just before his hand finally lands on the switch that Souji thinks he sees the color in the edges of his vision greying out and he feels his lungs nearly seize.

But then his fingers find their target and the bulb above them bursts into light, casting a faint yellow hue all throughout the entryway.

Souji takes a shaky breath and leans part of his weight against the doorframe, masking it by pretending to step to the side to let Yosuke in. He lets Yosuke shut the door behind them and watches the other boy slip off his coat and shoes. If he keeps looking at his friend, if he keeps his focus trained on the copper-pink-hazel of his anchor, if he refuses to look further into the house that is blatantly devoid of the sounds of home, then he'll be okay. Breath in, hold it, let it out. There you go.

It is only once Yosuke is finished and staring at him with a look of curious concern that Souji manages to pull himself back into his own body.

Yosuke watches him, teeth worrying at his lower lip unconsciously. "Hey," he says, and the sudden sound of it in the void of quiet nearly makes Souji jump. Yosuke takes a small step towards him and searches Souji with his eyes. "Are you alright?"

Souji opens his mouth to answer, draws a breath, but Yosuke cuts him off with a minute shake of his head. "It's okay if you're not, you know. You don't have to pretend you are." He takes another step forward, until he and Souji are eye to eye.

Souji lets out the breath he had taken before. He flicks his gaze towards the silent living room and then down, letting it land on Yosuke's collarbone. It's a very pretty collarbone, he thinks absently. He wants to rest his cheek there.

"Souji?"

He blinks. Shakes his head. "It's too quiet," he whispers. He hears Yosuke exhale, sees the way his chest falls with the action. He doesn't look up to meet his eyes. "I'm…" He pauses to think, running his tongue across his lips to help unstick them. "I'm really glad you're here."

Yosuke's chest rises but doesn't fall again right away. Souji hears the inhale, watches until it seems Yosuke is holding his breath, but doesn't look up. He keeps starting at the shadows beneath Yosuke's clavicle until the exhale finally comes in a long, heavy sigh and suddenly his vision is obscured by Yosuke's shirt as the other boy steps closer. He feels arms wrapping around him, warm and solid, and his forehead comes to rest on the slope of Yosuke's shoulder. He buries his face in Yosuke's uniform and with his next shaky breath he can smell soap and spice and home. Without even thinking – finally not thinking – his arms come to curl around Yosuke's waist and he holds on for dear life.

An age passes.

Eyes closed against the world, Souji keeps himself leant against his anchor, his friend, his grounding force, until Yosuke pulls just far enough away to look at him. Souji sluggishly rights himself, keeping his head bowed but slitting his eyes open and taking in the blurry red trim of Yosuke's undershirt. He doesn't look any higher.

Yosuke's hands move to his shoulders; Souji keeps his own on Yosuke's waist.

"Partner."

The word is whispered, breathed, and Souji feels the brush of air against his ear.

"Can you look at me?"

Slowly, he does. His eyes lift from Yosuke's collar and it feels like the core of the world is chained to his neck as he tilts his head upward to match the hazel with river-water-grey.

Yosuke looks worried. It's not a look that should ever cross his features, Souji thinks; the lack of brightness, of light, is wrong somehow. Souji's mouth tips downward. He hates that it's him putting the crease between the other boy's brows.

Yosuke leans in once more and touches his forehead to Souji's. His eyes fall to half-lidded – a mournful sunset where a summer afternoon should be. "I'm not going anywhere," he whispers. The tip of his nose brushes against Souji's, nuzzling carefully, shyly, and Souji nearly lets his eyes slip closed again.

"I'm not going anywhere," Yosuke says again, "I promise."

Souji's eyes burn with heat and salt as Yosuke tentatively touches their lips together; he feels it sliding down his face like rain on a foggy window as he presses deeper into the kiss.

)()()()()()(

The school rooftop is mercifully quiet today. The sky has cleared but the chill from the weekend drizzle still remains, so most sane individuals had elected to stay inside for lunch. Souji doesn't feel the cold.

He leans back against the wall and peers up at the soft wisps of white against their blue background. It's nice, he thinks. He'd enjoyed the rain for the excuse it had given him to curl against his boyfriend and soak up Yosuke's warmth and nearness like a cat. It had soothed an ache – not healed it, but driven out the arthritic throb somewhere in his heart and made Sunday bearable without school to act as a distraction.

Now, though, with the color of the world back to something resembling normal and still half a day of classes left to keep his thought occupied, Souji takes as much comfort as he can from the sight of the sun before it wanes.

"You're smiling."

He looks towards the sound of brightness, of warmth and golden sunlight. Yosuke gives him a soft, contented look through his eyelashes, a smile spreading across his features as Souji meets his eyes.

"You okay?" Yosuke asks, tilting his head slightly as he watches Souji from his place at his side. He shifts, brushes their shoulders together; a gentle, questioning nudge.

Souji feels his smile stretch wider. "Yeah," he says, and finds he means it. "I'm okay."

Title is taken from 'Hope of Morning' by Icon For Hire.