"Starting now, we'll never be apart."
She smiled up at him gently, with a sadness that stopped his heart, and closed her eyes.
He gently touched their foreheads together, and as the rest of SEES burst through the doorway, he felt his shoulders begin to shake and the burning start in his eyes.
Akihiko started to cry for the first time in years.
When they were all still together in the orphanage, Miki had loved listening to fairytales.
("Well, Onii-chan, fairytales always end happily, and the bad guy gets in trouble, and magic helps fix everything, and the hero always gets the princess to wake up!"she once said as she cheerfully waved an imaginary wand, chasing away evil and death and enchanted sleep.)
Now, as he watched Minako (the princess in her bower of flowers, only this princess was surrounded not by roses but pallid lilies and no amount of magic was going to wake her up), he couldn't help but to think that Miki was right.
In fairytales, the bad guy got what he deserved, the magic helped to spirit away all difficulties, and with the hero's kiss, the princess woke up.
(Unfortunately, the world was not a fairytale.)
("Right, Onii-chan?")
After the funeral, all Akihiko could see for days were shadows. Memories. Ashes.
The world was filled with flashes of memories. Once, a red-haired girl with a cheerful smile had walked these grounds, and in his mind's eye, she walked them still. The images of her were somehow burned into every single corner of his thoughts, so no matter where he went Akihiko could see that figure walking out of his sight just around the corner.
He doesn't bother chasing that shadow. Why hound after an unattainable dream when he knew that the real thing was already reduced to ashes?
("Ashes, ashes, we all fall down." He wondered briefly where Miki heard that song.)
Ashes can't replicate that shade of red.
The punching bag sung on its chain as he hit it. The vinyl surface was cracked, allowing the off-white insides to leak out. He stared at it blankly.
There was a determined knock at his door.
"Oi, Aki. You haven't eaten anything for the day. Drag your ass down there and get fed, or I'll drag it for you." Shinji's gruff voice pulled him from his disjointed thoughts. "Don't make me come in there!"
Shinji wasn't going to leave, so with a small sigh, Akihiko opened the door and walked down to the kitchen with Shinji at his side.
Before long, there was a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of him and a slightly grumpy chef staring at him intently. The half-brandished ladle in Shinji's hands practically screamed, "Eat my food or else!"
Without another word, Akihiko began eating. He was a bit surprised to find that he actually was pretty hungry. Shinji didn't say a single word as he worked his way through the bowl of soup. The only sound in the kitchen was the clinking of cutlery on ceramic.
Soon, the bowl was empty, and Akihiko stood up to leave. Shinji stopped him by grabbing onto his forearm and dragging him back down into his chair. "Hold it, Aki. We need to talk."
"What is there to talk about?" His voice came out flat, and he internally winced.
Shinji just gave him a look, and Akihiko fully settled back into the chair.
"I'm going to be blunt. Do you think she would want to see you like this?"
"..."
"'Cause damn it, Aki, you're not living. You're just going through the motions, and I won't let you waste Minako's gift like this. She gave us our lives."
Something in Shinji's voice and eyes clicked with something inside him, and suddenly Akihiko knew. "You too, huh?"
Shinji made a noise, a huffed exhale through his nose. "...It's her. You know how she...was."
Oh, Akihiko knew, he knew so very well. Her hair, her smile, her tilt of the head while doing math homework, her determination, her voice, all still lingering in the cracks of his heart.
She was captivating, and Akihiko couldn't find it in himself to be jealous. Who could help falling in love, and with someone like Minako? The whole world was in love with her, it seemed, himself included.
"Just...take care of yourself, Aki? Please."
"I...alright. It's just...I'm tired. I'm just so damn tired...I thought that we had a chance. I..."
There's no one else in the kitchen except two boys and the unspoken ghost of a dead girl in between them. And in the silence, the gap grew wider and more frightening with each moment that slipped away from Akihiko's fingers.
"I...I just want to see her again!" Yukari shouted as tears flowed down her face, her posture stiff and tense. "I don't care, I don't care anymore! I want to see her again!"
The situation was taking a toll on all of them. All of the members of SEES looked ragged around the edges, after battling against shadows and seeing one life-changing flashback after another.
Now the business with Minako's door and taking them back into the past, before any of this ever happened, before her death, before the Fall and Nyx, before everything...
...Damn it.
Yukari turned to him, her eyes pleading. "Akihiko-senpai, don't you want to see her again, too?"
He did, more than anything. More than anything in the world.
But she was worth more than the world to him, and he couldn't bear to undo everything he went through with her.
"She...wouldn't have wanted it. I can't do that. Not to her. If we just turned back the clock, it would make her suffering worthless. That's why..."
He looked up and stared into Yukari's eyes, determined. "...I'll stop you from trying to open that door. Even if I have to fight you."
A rough statue, crucified to a giant golden gate.
Akihiko stared up at the soul of the girl he loved, and the tight knot deep within his chest, the one that's been tightened with every passing day, was cut away in a single moment of clarity.
This was why she died. This was why she left us.
And in that moment, he found closure.
He made a promise, to that bright soul on the gate.
The years passed, and life goes on.
The music box he gave her for Christmas all those years ago sat on his mantel, the stuffed rabbit beside it, looking for all the world like some brave guardian, protecting the memories that slept within the box beside it.
Every Christmas, he always got her something, and yearly the music box got fuller.
"Merry Christmas." He said again this year. "Have you been doing well?"
The rabbit doesn't answer him, but it's alright. He knew that somewhere out there, at the End of the World, there was a red-haired girl with a beautiful smile and determination in her eyes, waiting .
He'll see her again.
("The best kind of promise is a pinky promise!" Miki said, as her pinky finger curled around his. "Pinky promise!")
("I promise.")
AN:Sooooo, I got back to this fandom because I couldn't cook up anything new for Rose Red. Anyways, I started revisiting all of my favorite P3 and P4 fics and then I remembered why that is a bad, bad idea.
P3 fics take my heart and excruciatingly rip it to tiny little bits.
I don't know why I do this to myself, but here it is.
Drop a review for the starving author?