Boilerplate Disclaimer: Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, and all related characters and properties are owned by Atlus Co., Ltd. I own a pile of unrelated C++ code, and no one owns words.

A minor note on words: "harem" implies a root node with many children.

"Polygamy" is similar in connotation, with additional gendering.

"Polyamory" is a very deliberate choice.

14 March 2012

One week.

One week until his last day in Inaba.

But that impending departure was the last thing on Seta Souji's mind at the moment as he approached the refrigerator, opening it apprehensively—almost fearfully. There was no stench of decay, no assault of alien noise, no fallow light cast by the incomprehensible, writhing forms of an eldritch monstrosity beyond all mortal ken. Instead, a gentle, sweet scent wafted from the white maw.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

But there still lay yet another task before him—packing all of this away. All that time he'd spent making origami was finally about to pay off.

Souji flexed his fingers, getting the feeling back into them, and wiped at his forehead with a sleeve. He was finally done wrapping everything up.

Behind him, there was an awed gasp.

"Woooow! That's a lot of presents, Onii-chan!"

He turned to regard his young cousin, Dojima Nanako. Her eyes were as wide as the dishes he'd just finished laying out, mouth slightly agape.

"Who are they all for?"

He gave her a gentle smile. "You know what day it is, right?"

The young girl held a finger to her mouth as she thought carefully. "Umm... it's Wednesday?"

Souji nodded. She was right, but that wasn't the asnwer he was looking for.

"Umm... it's the fourteenth..."

Again, he nodded. Maybe a clue will help.

"What day was it last month?"

"Last month was February, so it was February the fourteenth... oh! Valentine's Day! That means today is White Day, right?"

"Right."

White Day.

One month after the fourteenth of February.

The male counterpart to Valentine's Day - when boys and men were expected to return the favor shown to them by girls and women one month prior. But, of course, it wasn't enough to hand back the same things received one month ago:

Sanbai gaeshi – "triple the return." That was what Souji's father had taught him. (Souji cherished the lessons he'd learn from both his father and mother, despite—or perhaps because of—how distant they'd always been.)

Which meant, in this particular case, Souji had nearly enough chocolate, cookies, cake, and other assorted goods—not all White Day gifts had to be sweets—prepared to sustain a small nation for a day or three (if the nation were particularly small).

Which makes sense, considering Yasogami High alone probably has, despite its rurality, a larger population than most micronations.

"But that's sooo much chocolate! Is it all for one person?"

Souji shook his head. "No. It's not all chocolate, and I have a lot of classmates." True, strictly speaking, even if I don't intend on giving gifts to literally everyone.

"And they all gave you chocolates last month? You sure are popular, Onii-chan!"

He chuckled quietly. "Some of these are courtesy chocolates. You know, for friends."

Souji turned away from Nanako and regarded the literal mountain of wrapped gifts he'd produced, the gears silently grinding away in his head. I wonder if Dojima-ojisan would let me get away with using Namatame-san's truck.

...He probably wouldn't.

Would anyone notice if it went missing for a few hours?

...They probably would. Inaba isn't that big of a town.

Is Namatame-san's truck even still impounded?

...Does Inaba even have a vehicle impound?

This wasn't going to work. He had no way of moving this titanic pile of hand-wrapped gifts, at least not all in a single trip, and certainly no way of keeping all of it inconspicuous. (It wasn't that he was concerned about secrecy—he simply did not want to disrupt the daily flow of classes by driving a literal moving truck full of White Day gifts up to campus.)

This is going to require... scheduling.

Souji took a quick glance at the clock on his smartphone. Good. I can cook breakfast and then I can sit down for a few minutes to figure out who gets what when...

"Uh, um..."

He looked away from the device in the palm of his hand, his attention caught by Nanako's quiet fidgeting. No longer captivated by the colosssal chocolate cache behind her dear Onii-chan, Nanako avoided Souji's gaze, embarrassed. Or ashamed?

In an instant, he knew what was on her mind. "Don't worry. I haven't forgotten yours. But you gave me such a great gift last month-" he said with an entirely straight face, masking the trauma "-that your present is going to take a little bit longer, okay?"

Nanako visibily brightened up: all was right in her world once more. She smiled and nodded. "Okay, Onii-chan!"

Author's Note: It rankles me that the game treats you like a scumbag for going with the polyamorist route, while also making you feel like a scumbag every time you turned someone down because you were trying to be a monogamist.

Plus, it's my personal canon that Souji is a good enough person to make a poly graph work out for the betterment of everyone involved.

I'm looking for beta readers, mostly with an eye for continuity and canonicity. If you happen to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Persona 4: Golden, or are incredibly circumspect and anal in your reading (e.g. you have a very good eye for plot holes or detail and minutiae), and are willing to share your knowledge and time, shoot me a PM.

Next time: Goddamnit, Yosuke.