Miracle at Naganaki
Chapter 1
TitaniumBlossom
(A/N: So here's my first Persona story, and just fyi, there's a bit of retcon involving certain events after maxing the social link, including the spoiler thing, as well as dates, etc. being sometimes off the mark, but I hope that I get most of it right, and that which I don't is probably changed for the purposes of the story.)
It was August 9th, when she first saw him. School was going to start up sooner or later, and her advanced classes that Mitsuruand there was no way that she would let go of an opportunity to come to the shrine. She was intelligent enough, but there wasn't any reason not to perhaps become a genius.
The offertory box seemed to help before. At the beginning of the year, she was remarkably average. Now, though, she felt as if something had changed. She had studied her way up to the higher end of her class, as if some force compelled her to. In addition to that, she seemed to have become braver, if she still was a bit unpolished in terms of charm.
Really, the only correlation she could draw from her recent hyper-development in intelligence was from either the offertory box money she shilled out on a regular basis, or some strange third party that had possessed her subconscious and was directing her around her life, ceaselessly.
But that couldn't be true. What mattered, anyway, was the fact that she spent all of her time on the weekends either attending the shrine or the various friends and contacts she held outside of her dorm. Even during school, there were various Student Council, with Hidetoshi and Saori.
As she walked a few more blocks, she realized she was leaving Tartarus out of the equation. Her nightly excursions with S.E.E.S were very important, but put into perspective of all the socializing and normal, everyday life that went around her, it was too easy for herself to tune real life out.
The blare of a car horn snapped her out of the trance she was in. She stepped back quickly, noticing the crosswalk was still shining red. As she waited on the corner, she realized that it was all getting to her. The long nights in Tartarus, the long nights studying. She was sleep-deprived. In fact, she had realized a few weeks ago that some of her muscles would randomly tremble and shake. It was difficult to stay awake in school, so she used her mechanical pencil to provide the pain to keep herself awake. Her upper arms were pockmarked with little scabs from where she had drawn blood.
It was too late to start relaxing, anyway. The visit to the shrine wasn't just for herself. A young man at the shrine that she had seen with Maiko at the playground had claimed that a red-eyed beast had taken his pen. Last night, when she actually got a chance to interact with Koromaru, she received the pen from him.
She cursed herself silently as the crosswalk sign turned green and she walked across. Being such a helpful person really had put a strain on her. Sometimes, she wished that she had the temerity to rest a bit more, but something about the city, and her return to it, awakened some new well of productivity, that unfortunately, resulted in her current state.
Because of that, she found herself nearly exhausted by the time she had reached the shrine, which was truly not that far for a normal person to walk. She smirked to herself as she closed the distance, at the fact that so much of what she had in the Dark Hour didn't persist past, like her strength.
Naganaki was not the neatest place, but it was relatively well-kept. It had the playground that she had taken Elizabeth to just a few days ago, and where she played with Maiko. Benches also lined the edges, and it was no surprise to her that the thin young man was still there.
As she approached him on the stone paving, she analyzed him as she found that she was doing more and more often. The man was older than her, but not by too much. He was thin, wearing black semi-casual pants and a striped blue and white collared shirt, unbuttoned near the top. Somehow, she felt it wasn't an attempt to flaunt his attractiveness. It looked as if it was all made to help him enjoy the air outside, and judging by the way that one hand was resting protectively on his body, in a pointless gesture of vulnerability, she could tell that he needed all the enjoyment he could get. In short, he was dying.
She didn't want to jump to conclusions, so as she drew his fancy red pen, and advanced, she decided to wait for him to talk. He had noticed her for sure, and recognized her from before, so when his pen appeared in her hands, he seemed to get a sudden burst of energy.
She couldn't help but smile as the young man's expression contorted into one of delight at the sight of what must have been one of his most prized possessions.
"Oh... The pen in your possession... Is that my missing fountain pen?", He asked.
She wasn't good at talking with people, but she acknowledged that he was being cautious. Most people would have exclaimed "My pen!". She immediately felt like she could relate to him in some way. She already felt half dead, but maybe he was just as intelligent as her, if not more.
Without speaking, she held the pen out in her hand, for him to take. He nodded and took it, relief clear on his face.
"Ahh... Welcome home, dear friend. … Thank you for finding it for me.", the young man gratefully enthused. "My name is Akinari Kamiki."
She was taken aback at his sudden warmth. It was surprising to find someone who would call a newfound acquaintance a friend within moments of actually interacting with them. She never warmed up to people this fast. Even now, she still couldn't feel a real bond forming between her and some her dorm-mates. She felt she was getting closer to them all as a group, but there were many holes to be filled.
Instead, with Akinari, there was immediate linking. After a short period of awkwardness, of them looking at each other with some unreadable emotion in their eyes, and not a word coming from her lips, Akinari immediately understood that he would be the one leading the conversation.
"Have a seat if you'd like. I'll write something for the two of us.", He offered, gesturing to the open space on the bench to his left.
With little hesitation, she sat next to him on the bench. The view they shared wasn't anything grand, just the slide, the seesaws, and the jungle gym, laid out like little toys, strewn around the playground.
However, while she was busy looking out at the playground, he was looking at her. When she turned her head to look at him, she was surprised by the distant ferocity of his gaze. It embarrased her a bit, his gray eyes addressing her from afar, yet somehow more intimate than any other gaze she had seen before.
"... I remember you.", He finally announced. "You're the girl who was playing with that elementary school girl."
He paused for a second, as if gathering his thoughts and taking breath.
"She was very... ...Bright. Her face shone with the warm light of new life.", He spoke, he voice soft, and somehow sad. The way he talked about Maiko seemed like that of an old man, admiring youth and health. Quickly, the thoughts came together in her head. She was almost expecting his next line.
"...And then there's me, cooped up in the hospital, struggling to breathe.", He finished, looking less sad than she expected for someone who had just admitted what she expected was a terminal illness.
He sighed, "Compared to her light, I'm but a shadow. Misery is a harsh mistress."
The young man in front of her definitely had a knack with words. Almost every sentence he spoke was like poetry, thoroughly evocative of his condition.
The expression on his face was thoroughly flat as he announced, "I feel as though I'm lying in an unyielding darkness." He turned back to his newfound listening companion. Asking, "Can you understand how I feel?"
Realizing that she was expected to answer at least this question, she considered the options. To avoid appearing as a a blatant liar, she could either say she kind of did, or that she couldn't. Sure, in her pursuit for knowledge, things seemed a bit severe, but she could hardly say she was dying, or even that she was depressed. Things were better than they had been before. And so, she answered,
"No, I can't.", she answered succinctly. She felt that she had no right to compare her dilemma with that of a dying man's, and thus, she couldn't say that she understood.
Akinari nodded, not disappointed at all. The question was not so much a test as an exploration of her psyche and worldview.
" I didn't think so...", He revealed. There was another pause in which it seemed that the man was considering how he would treat the next part of the conversation.
His intense gaze once again alighted upon her eyes. "... Any day now, I'm going to die. I have a genetic disease without any known cure. Unless you're in my situation, you can't understand what its like.", Akinari stated, matter-of-factly, as if he had accepted his fate, or was so detached from himself that he no longer cared.
He continued, "...But I prefer it that way. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. There isn't anything you can do to slow this down or make things better."
Akinari fell silent, as if embarrassed, looking away from her and towards the playground again. As she watched him look away, she herself wondered how she thought about the whole thing. Looking at Akinari, she felt like it would be a terrible thing to see a mind like his leave the world. But, there was a certain feeling she had for him from first sight that she was attempting to disregard, to stave off some wave of negative emotion.
"Sorry about that.", Akinari apologized. "I didn't mean to depress you or anything."
Akinari sighed again.
"I haven't spoken to someone my own age in a long time... It's natural for those in darkness to yearn for the world of light.", He remarked, looking back once again at his benchmate.
She herself thought that it was a funny concept, that someone as dysfunctional as she was right now could be someone in the world of light.
"I'm glad that we could meet, though. If there's a god, I'll be able to thank him soon enough...", Akinari continued, speech growing weaker near the end.
Almost immediately, she felt the surge of energy, the feeling of motion within her head that accompanied all of her new social links. Who would have known that random acts of kindness could lead to the generation of more power for her Personas?
As if sensing her energy, Akinari turned stern. "I would rather you not come here ever again." He continued with his speech, as if every word dealt him a mortal blow, "You only live once, right? So why waste your life among the dying? Goodbye.", Akinari finished, looking away.
She realized the conversation was over, and it was getting colder, now that the sun was setting. She decided to head back to the dorm for the night.
On her way back, she found herself a bit more alert. Thankfully, she had no close calls on the way back. It was summer vacation, too, so she felt like some rest was in order. No Dark Hour, no studying. Just Sleep.
She gave a positive-sounding grunt to Akihiko's greeting, and stumbled up the stairs, her proximity to her room increasing her fatigue. She collapsed on the bed, shedding her clothes and wrapping herself up in her blanket, wondering when she could talk to her new friend.