Disclaimer: If I owned Persona 3 . . . December 31st would have gotten much more attention after the Fortune Social Link.

A/N: I will NEVER stop writing alternative versions of December 31st scenes. Especially since I'm not all-together pleased with this one, but I loved some parts of it enough to post. It's choppy, but choppiness gives it personality (oh, don't mind me, I'm justifying it to myself).


II. Everything

It is December 31st, and she says no.

And they are both so tired, so drowned by tears. Ragged and broken. But she is mending, will mend. Will squeeze the pieces of her heart together and find a way to forge a happy ending. Will find, down a long and winding road, a way back to him.

And he is Thanatos, then, a fanged representation of Death floating in the very same room where they held hands, talked quietly to each other about forever. And somewhere behind the featureless mask of his Shadow, she knows that he is in pain. More pain than he has ever felt. More pain than dying would inflict.

"Look at me, Minako. Don't sacrifice your happiness, what small peace I can give you, for this."

And oh, how he hates himself. How many hours has he stood on the railing at the top of Gekkoukan High School and wished he could tip forward and disappear forever.

Please. Because if you don't kill me, I'll-

"I'm sorry," she says, tucking her chin down, closing her eyes and trying to bundle together all the fear and heartache and transform them into words. "I just . . . You're not – you're not a monster, Ryoji. There's nothing you could do to convince me."

She looks at him. Knows that this sight, so inhuman, abominate, could strike a person dead. And it is not just the sight, but the feeling. He radiates it. A wrongness.

The boy with the yellow scarf – what was his name? – he emerges from a sea of school girls and asks if she knows a place that serves good coffee.

He has such a kind smile.

Despite everything, Minako grins. It's a nervous thing – as flustered as bird feathers. It quivers at the edges. "Besides, I'm just too selfish to kill you, you know? I couldn't bear that."

"I don't want to hurt you," he says. She finds the softness of his voice, hidden deep in its distortion.

She tells him, "You won't."

We'll fix this. The two of us are stronger than fate.

"But I can't promise you forever," he tells her numbly, and it sounds like something that has passed through his mind far too many times. He collapses back into Ryoji again, looking away from her, face buried is his scarf. She loves that scarf. "I can't even promise you a month. In half an hour, this, who I am right now, will all be a memory. And when the Fall happens . . . Minako."

She has ghosted over to his side, and laid her head very gently against his collarbone. It feels safe there.

"You told me I was perfect, once," she says quietly. "That I was everything. And I really doubt that that's the case. But if you thought I was – for even just a second – then maybe it's true enough. Maybe I can be just enough to save you. That's what I want, Ryoji. I don't want to kill you to save myself. And killing you won't save the world. But maybe saving you would."

He presses his lips to the top her head, briefly. "You are everything."

He chuckles.

"It's ridiculous. I can almost feel it. Hope. And me, the most hopeless of causes."

But he knows they're destined for tragedy. He knew that the first time she took his hand.

But he couldn't crush her now. Not when he can still stop himself.

"I'll tell you how to fight her," he says. Because it's all he can say.


*Sighs* I'm replaying P3 right now, and whenever I see Pharos I just go "RYOOOOJIIIII *SOBS*" - it's a bad habit.