title: the february hospital
disclaimer: don't own P3/P3P
a/n: i still cry every time i reach the ending of P3P. jeezus.
February 6, Saturday
"Hi, I'm a representative for class 2-F to congratulate you on recovery."
The sunflowers in the teal ceramic vase come up the girl representative's neck, leaving an odd, floating head above the bold petals. He grunts in her general direction and closes his eyes again. She is merely the seventh in a long line of class representatives who have come to visit the sempai they never knew, recently awoken after a three-month coma. It's too much effort to keep his eyes open.
There's a sound of (what he presumes to be) black, school-regulation loafers scuffing against dirty tile and a hand is placed gently on the crook of his elbow. "Aragaki-sempai, are you awake?"
Oh, perhaps today he can be generous. Shinjiro opens both eyes and stares into two unblinking crimson ones, the head they belong to bowed intently over his sleeping figure in the hospital bed. "Yeah," he rasps out, his voice croaky with disuse.
The girl cocks her head to the side, a strand of brown hair falling into her face. She is blocking his ray of sunlight. "Your lips are chapped," she comments. "Want some chapstick?"
"Tch. No." It's odd; right about now people would be shrinking back in unfamiliarity and awkwardness. "Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" It's the most annoying feeling he's ever had.
He looks at her closer, but all he can distinguish is the redness of her eyeballs and the bags under her eyes. "We've talked a few times, perhaps. If you want, I have some lip gloss with me. That might help." She brandishes the tube (Aohige Pharmacy, it reads in bright blue lettering, Cielo Mist flavour) as if it's a weapon.
A naginata?
Shinjiro can't imagine just "talking" with a girl for the life of him. The closest he ever got to that was…
…was Miki. Right?
She must've noticed the frown lines marring his forehead, because she reaches forward and in an oddly intimate gesture, smoothes unruly hair from his brow. He flinches and she withdraws her hand slowly, as if reluctant to leave his side. "Hey, you're tired, I'm tired." She gives a half-smile. "I'll come back tomorrow, yeah?"
February 7, Sunday
"Sorry I couldn't drop by earlier." The girl ducks her head apologetically, adjusting the lapels of her black uniform jacket. "Today I brought nasturtiums."
She reaches out to replace the sunflowers with a surprisingly deft hand, grabbing the bundle of stems and shoving them in a clear plastic bag before dumping the old water in a handy sink near the foot of his bed. The nasturtiums go in, shedding a few petals at the quick treatment, and new water soon follows with a hint of bleach to keep them alive for longer. She heaves the vase back to his bedside and beams at him.
"What do you think? Too bad I didn't bring a new vase, though. I think green would've gone better with the flowers than teal." She seems to contemplate the reddish-orange of the nasturtiums before shrugging and sitting down at a chair she pulls up to his bedside.
"Kind of a waste," Shinjiro comments.
Her lips quirk, showing off a fresh coat of Aohige Pharmacy Cielo Mist-flavoured lip gloss. "Oh?"
"You could've used them in a stir-fry," he mutters, "maybe in a salad as garnish." He jerks his head up, surprised at his own information dump, and to his chagrin the girl is taking down notes in a little brown booklet. "H-hey, you don't have to do that…"
"Oh, sorry." She tucks it away in a little bag by her hip, right next to a gun holster. "I'm in the cooking club; it's a habit."
Suddenly, the cooking club is irrelevant. "Right. Why do you have a gun?"
Immediately, she's covering it up with a smile and sheepish words. "It's not real. Just self-defence…ha, sorry. Bad memories, huh?"
"Nah," he shakes his head dismissively. And it's true: he has no negative feelings about getting shot and sent into a coma. In fact, he can barely remember the event at all.
"Oh, really?" The girl looks a little on edge. "That's good, I guess."
Shinjiro grunts. Holding a conversation was never in his interest, anyways.
"Hey," the girl waves abruptly, noticing the dialogue fading away, "you want the lip balm? I brought you some." She fishes around in her bag and pulls out a stick, checking it briefly to ensure it is, indeed, the item she promised before handing it over.
It takes all of the effort he has to reach out and take it. His physical therapy starts tomorrow, after all. His muscles quake mockingly as he flexes his fingers and holds the tube in a loose fist. His arm hangs there limply, recovering from the sudden strain, before he withdraws it to his side.
He is disgustingly weak.
"Hey." The girl brings his attention back. "Need some help putting it on?"
"Like fuck I do," Shinjiro snarls back.
She smiles, a real-smile, not a tired-smile like she has been doing. "I meant it as a come-on, not a genuine offer of help. You know, as an excuse to touch your lips." She laughs at his dumbstruck expression. "You have really nice lips, Aragaki-sempai, even if they're a little chapped."
The room suddenly resonates with awkward. "Uh. Right."
Her face is suddenly sympathetic—disquietingly so. How could somebody change faces so suddenly? "Still tired? I know how that feels."
He eyes her. "Looks like it." The dark circles on her eyes and her pale colouring have faded, but her countenance is still dogged, as if something is chasing her.
"Ha-ha." Another grin. "I'm not too good with makeup, so it shows, right?"
"Yeah." He knows from experience that if she doesn't want to talk about it, she won't. No matter how curious he might be about what could possibly be so tiring (living on the street has refined him to know that more information is better than less) he won't ask.
And she doesn't deliver.
"I should probably go." She stands up from the chair she's pulled to his bedside and dusts herself off. "I'll come by next Saturday, okay? The 13th. Don't forget."
"Busy during the week?" He mutters sarcastically.
She looks at him, devoid of any expression before giving him a tired-smile. "Not as much as I used to be."
February 13, Saturday
"Here." A magazine is dropped on his chest before he can even say, "You're back?"
He strains his neck to read it, bending at an impossible angle. "'Family Cooking: February Guide'…" He looks up, indignant. "I don't read shit like this!"
"Akihiko-sempai said you would, though."
"What the fuck?" He's instantly suspicious. "You know Aki?" His eyes narrow. "You aren't one of his fangirls, are you?"
"Me? Nah," she laughs. "I live in the same dorm as him, though."
"No shit? Small world," he grunts, and with some difficulty, lifts the magazine's glossy cover. On the index page is a picture of black-and-white cupcakes for Valentine's Day. "You know him well enough, though, to be on a first-name basis."
She freezes, as if she's been caught. "Ha…well…you know, you run into each other a lot when you live together," she dismisses sheepishly. "Coincidence."
"Mhm?" He's too busy flipping to the page with chicken scaloppini and orange salad to really pay attention. Actually, flipping pages has gotten a lot harder. Since when did bullets to the chest disable the rest of his physical functions?
"Need some help there?"
"No." He deadpans.
"Aw, c'mon. Give me an excuse to touch you, okay?" All of a sudden, she doesn't seem so tired anymore. She feels—alive.
"You—what?"
She's already leaning over him, humming a tune, skimming through the pages. "Which one are you looking for?"
"Page twenty-two." He's too embarrassed to say anything else. This has got to be the first time he's met a girl so freaking forward, except for those punks who hung out in Tatsumi Port Island's alleys.
"Okay."
Her fingers are calloused, he notes, and her nails are worn short. A nailbiter? Somehow, she doesn't seem like that sort of person.
"Here we are! Chicken scaloppini and orange salad—a romantic dinner for two on Valentine's Day!" She grins at him. "That's tomorrow, isn't it?"
"So what?" He shoots back, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
"Hm…" she ponders the room. "It's too bad you don't have a TV, otherwise you could follow along from here."
"What? You going to bring a TV when you come next time?" He snorts.
"I might. Although, that might seem a little sudden, right? I go from flowers, chapstick, and a magazine to a TV. Maybe not." That damn smile spreads across her face again. "But, it is Valentine's Day tomorrow…" Her eyes contemplate him. "You like chocolate, sempai?"
"No thanks." He actually doesn't mind, but somehow, getting chocolate from this particular girl would be beyond mortifying.
"Then it won't be chocolate. I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!" She waves, more cheerful than he's ever seen.
Somehow, he musters up the energy (physical and mental) to wave back.
February 14, Sunday
"I'm here."
Shinjiro looks up from the magazine. She's here a little late; at more mid-afternoon than noon. Not like. He's been noticing. Or anything.
In one hand she carries a large shopping bag with its mystery contents almost overflowing, and in the other a camera. "Happy Valentine's Day, sempai!"
A faint steam rises from the bag. If Shinjiro concentrates, he can spot a faint bump of tinfoil. "Whatever you've got in there, it'll become soggy if you fried it."
"What makes you think it's food?" Her smile is teasing.
Shinjiro looks away, flushing at his now-obvious boldness. "It is," he states firmly.
"For better or worse, you're right!" She exclaims excitedly, and heaves a paper plate out of the bag.
Now that he can see the object fully clearly, it definitely is food, and whatever it is, the paper plate is straining to hold it. She whips off the tinfoil and lo and behold, there it is: chicken scaloppini with orange salad. Thinking about it, the move is endearingly predictable. "Shoulda known," Shinjiro grunts to himself.
"I divided it into two plates so we could each have our own," she chatters, pulling out two plastic forks as well. "Brought some sparkling water, too, since we can't drink champagne yet." She stops with a cheeky smile. "And there's more for dessert, but you've got to finish your food first!"
"Since when did you turn into a mother?" Shinjiro grunts, but spears some rocket into his mouth anyways, with less difficulty than before—the physical therapy helps. Overdressed a little, heavy on the vinegar—but tastes fine all the same.
Shinjiro looks up from under his shaggy fringe (he wasn't allowed to wear his beanie in the hospital) and instantly realizes this was the wrong thing to say. Her cheery expression falters; the fork she lifted to her mouth, still carrying a piece of chicken, awkwardly dangles mid-air. "A—a person once told me to eat everything on my plate," she murmurs, and quietly chews her food.
It disquiets him, just how much he relies on her smiles and her sunny mood.
To her credit, though, she instantly recovers. "Well? How's it taste? I bet to a master chef like yourself it doesn't taste that special, but I put all my heart into it, so eat up!"
"Master chef?" His voice drips with sarcasm.
She ignores him. "C'mon, eat your food!" The chair she sits on creaks under the weight of her rocking back and forth, apparently unable to control her eager anticipation for what comes next. "I really want to show you what I made!"
He eats extra slowly for the next five minutes just to aggravate her, and with a dramatic gulp (he notes, uneasily, that her eyes fasten on his adam's apple with an intensity that could scorch) finishes the last of it. "What do you want to show me?"
She heaves another paper plate out of the paper bag and with a flourish, rips off the tinfoil covering a Linzer torte. "What do you think?"
The lattice topping is crumbling a bit, probably the pressure of two plates sitting on it. Nevertheless, it is impressive, and he tells her so. He doesn't regret it, because a smile blooms on her face as if it's meant to look that way.
"Let's have some." She slices them pieces quietly, and for a moment, everything is perfect.
And then: "I guess I'll have to make you something for White Day, huh?" he asks perfunctorily.
"White Day…that's March 14th, right?"
"Yeah."
"I guess so!" He can't see her face, because she's turned away. For some reason, he thinks she might be crying, even if her voice sounds strong. "Just to let you know, I really like white chocolate."
"I'll remember that." He means it.
February 20, Saturday
She comes just after his physical therapy session, when the nurse is done cooing and babying him in-between the doctor's sombre remarks that he might never be able to run for extended periods of time again, due to some strange chemicals in his body. It's not the fact that he'll be a semi-cripple that shoves his mood from "sullen" to "pissed-off," it's just the idea that he'll never be able to live without others worrying about him. Although, if it's that girl doing the worrying, then—he cuts his train of thought off right there.
"What do you want?" he snaps, his bad mood thoroughly cemented in his mind.
She recoils, and even if he knows that he shouldn't take out his frustration at being able to do diddly-squat-shit with his body, shouldn't get angry at somebody that has nothing to do with his coma, he can't help it. Lashing out is easier, always.
"I came to say hi—"
"Well, say it. Then leave." He turns his head away, wishing the words would just disappear the moment he speaks them.
He doesn't want her to see him like this.
"…hi." She whispers, and Shinjiro hears the door firmly slide shut.
Shit. Regret tastes bitter.
February 21, Sunday
She's back. Shinjiro didn't expect it, but she's here. Goddamnit, what does he say?
She starts first. "I'm sorry." Don't apologize. "I didn't mean to offend you." Why won't the words come unstuck? "It's because I'm selfish." It's just two words. She's said them already. I can do this. "I don't want you to leave me." Come-fucking-on—
"Izmfaul," he mumbles.
She stops, mid-apology. "Sorry?"
He's getting tired of that word. "It's my fault," he swallows. "Don't—don't apologize."
He hears her take a deep breath. "I won't, then," she states, and pulls up a chair like nothing happened. And thankfully, she does not pry as to what exactly was the nature of his fury yesterday.
"…" He doesn't know what to say. Is there anything to say? Why was she here?
"I don't want to argue any more," she breaks the silence. "I…we don't have time for that." She looks him in the eyes, and bores straight into his soul. "There's never enough time."
He manages to keep his gaze steady. "You know a lot about that?"
The moment passes and she leans back in her plastic yellow chair, reclining lazily. It lets out a mournful creak. "Ha, it's just something somebody said to me." She grins, and Shinjiro can feel the topic shifting. "Sooo, sempai, when you get back to school you'll be repeating a year, right? Since you missed so much and all."
"Yeah, and?" He scowls.
"Well, that means you'll be in my year!" She cheers, and beams. "I guess we'll have a lot of time, then, right?"
Somehow, the idea of spending more time with her seems really appealing. Shinjiro attempts to hit himself without her noticing—how could he think that? He's spent, what, six days with her in total? In a move to partially redeem himself, he asks, "You said that we might've talked a few times. When was that?"
She goes silent, contemplating. The clock on the wall suddenly seems loud with its ticks. "Once," she begins, lips pursed, "two of my friends and I went to the back alley of Tatsumi Port Island." At his raised eyebrow, she hurries on, "Yeah, it was really stupid. But we went, and we got surrounded by these guys—I seriously thought we were going to get our asses kicked."
"And?" He prompts.
She smiles at him fondly. "And you stepped out like my Prince Charming." She laughs at his dumbstruck expression.
"I don't remember that."
"I do." Her eyes twinkle, and he can see that she's really enjoying this. "You scared them off."
"Are you serious?" He mumbles, and makes a futile attempt to stop his cheeks from warming. "Why the hell would I do that?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. But I'm glad you did."
He is, too.
February 27, Saturday
"I forgot to give you stuff those last two times," Shinjiro flinches at the memory of him snapping at her, "so I brought something a little nicer this time."
It's a hand-knit scarf wrapped around a bag of Pheromone Coffee Beans. "Er…thanks," he manages, not quite knowing what to say.
"Don't be like that!" She laughs, and with relief in his heart, he knows she's not offended. "I know it's a little late for scarf season, but I did make it. And the coffee is something I thought you'd like."
"I do." He fingers the soft material of the scarf absentmindedly. "Did Aki tell you that?"
"Uh. Yes."
He smirks. He's got her. "That's funny, since I never mentioned it to him."
With amusement, he can see the cogs turning in her head as her mouth falls open with a pop. "Oh. Well—er, I—" She scratches the back of her head sheepishly. "Just take it, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah." He leaves the matter alone.
"I'm glad you like it, though," she's almost heartbreakingly sincere. "I felt like I had exhausted all my other knowledge of what you might like. And Rafflesia wasn't open today."
"It's fine," he says. "What's with all the gifts, anyways?"
She attempts a smile, but all she manages to do is look mournful. "So when you get out of the hospital, you'll remember me. You know, the girl who gave you a ton of stuff."
Shinjiro scoffs. "Like I could forget you." And then, something strikes him: "What's your name?"
"What?"
"Your name," he says impatiently. "I never found out."
"Oh! Ha, that's a little embarrassing…I must have forgotten to mention it…" She fumbles a bit with the edge of her skirt, refusing to look him in the eye. "I guess I thought you knew it already. Arisato Minako at your service! But," she gives him a coy wink, "you can just call me Minako."
"Right." The shock of her forwardness finally wore off the last time she made a comment like that. "Minako," he tests it out, and the expression she makes when he says it—
-he wants to bottle and savour it forever.
"Minako." He repeats dumbly. God, that name is familiar.
February 28, Sunday
"It's a full moon today."
"Yeah?" He tries to look interested. "You into that stuff?"
"Nah," Minako puts on an air of disinterest that almost throws him, "just force of habit."
"Habit?" He asks but she's already moving on.
"And it's the last weekend before the 5th. You know, Graduation Day."
"Right."
She gives him a mock glare. "Aren't you coming? Even if you don't want to, you should come to see Akihiko-sempai graduate. Aren't you two friends?"
He rolls his eyes. "He's not even going to make a speech or anything. He's just getting his diploma."
"All the same, you should come." As an afterthought, she adds, "You'll be getting out of the hospital in a few days, right? You have no excuse!"
"It's not worth it."
"'It's not worth it'?" She repeats incredulously, and gets uncomfortably close. "Look, you have to come! Okay?"
Is it just him, or does he detect a hint of desperation in her voice? "I'll come. Happy?" He tries to placate her.
"Yes," she breathes out, and withdraws into her seat, looking as if she's been relieved of a great burden. "Thank you. You have no idea what this means—"
"You're right, I don't." At her teary expression, he tacks on, "But I'll come. I promise."
"Thank you thank you thank you!" She tackles him and Shinjiro worries for his ribs. "Hey, you don't even have to go to the ceremony," she adds, "just meet me on the rooftop, okay? Don't forget." She rises to leave, satisfied with the words she extracted from him.
"Why's it matter, anyways?"
Minako looks at him with something like desperation and frustration and sadness and love—
"You'll remember," she says quietly, "I'm sure you will."
"Remember what?"
But she leaves, and Shinjiro is left staring at the space where she used to be.
...
…
…
…
March 5, Friday
Minako has a nasty habit of being right, Shinjiro thinks desperately as he takes the stairs to the rooftop two at a time. Almost there…almost there…
Goddamn, his physical therapy did not prepare him for stair sprints. But then again, nobody ever prepared him for anything. For the personas…for getting shot…for remembering—
How could he have been so stupid?
Shinjiro puts one hand on the door and it swings outward silently. "Minako!" He calls, and feels something like peace settle into him.
He's here.
She's here. (So is Aigis, but he'll ignore that.)
It'll be all right.