summary: Post-game/ending. Life had been perfect. It had been perfect until they retraced their steps. Loss didn't come with a warning, but what if it did? What if they just never noticed? AU-ish. Akihiko/FeMC Shinjiro/FeMC
A series of ficlets from a post-game perspective, with(out) the Dark Hour. Alternate Universe-ish.
pairing/s: Akihiko/Female Protagonist/Shinjiro, one-sided Mitsuru/Akihiko, Junpei/Yukari
warning/s: dark themes, character death, unbeta-d, my crap grammar.
rating: T (borderline M for dark themes).
disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to a person, whether alive or otherwise, is unintentional. I (un)fortunately do not own any Persona characters mentioned in this story, Atlus does.
five
Junpei is already awake even before he hears a door being slammed. It's only one of the many kinds of noises his father made, one of the many reasons why he's sensitive to noise, and he's being re-acquainted to it. He hates the images of broken glass in his mind, hates the guilt and shame that's like a well in his chest. He hates it. He utterly hates it.
A glance at his clock shows him a big, digital 5AM in red, but what Junpei sees is four hours until he has to break into Akihiko's room. Four hours to pretend that it's not like how it used to be back at home, with him taking care of his father the way his father should've taken care of him.
He closes his eyes, and it's the moment that his mind decides that it's okay to start thinking. Thinks, thinks, and thinks, and somewhere in-between he has become an incoherent mess that's doubling over on his bedroom floor. He admits to being an idiot, but nobody calls him an idiot anymore. He'd give anything to hear Yukari call him that.
"My fingers hurt… really, really hurt," Junpei mutters as he stops, because the adrenaline has gone and the throbbing of his hands starts to sink in. He wonders how many times his ceiling has thought him pitiful. "Everything hurts, I guess."
He rolls to his side and reaches for the edge of his bed but hits his head on the edge of his table instead.
"Goddamn tree vengeance!"
He curses his table for being there before he notices his school bag across from him and resting against his wall. He doesn't want to acknowledge anything that reminds him of school, but it's still a distraction.
Pushing himself one elbow a time, he crawls towards his bag. His things are scattered. His pens are in complete disarray, like bits and pieces. It reminds him a lot of things. It reminds him of the rooftop and the sunny sky of March 5th. It reminds him of looking down on dampened campus soil. He'd never be able to forget even if he tried.
Beneath the rubble he finds something else—Band-Aids in different patterns and colors.
He's… seen them before.
"Why is—" Junpei wheezes as he lay on the bedroom floor. He's slowly becoming numb, steadily falling asleep, but he keeps his hand around what he knows isn't his.
He remembers the sewing room last December. He remembers how the scarf in Akihiko's room came to be and oh, how everyone, everyone could tell his senpai was happy.
"You shouldn't—"
He should've known the moment he had seen her in that room.
His hands are trembling before realization finally hits him, and it hits him with all it has.
"No. No."
He should've realized that she wasn't.
six
Yukari finds Ken already sitting in front of the television when she reaches the lobby. It makes her frown because she knows it's only 6AM.
"Hey." She quietly says as she pats his shoulder.
Ken is surprised but isn't startled. He greets her shortly with a polite nod.
She doesn't need to ask why he's up so early, because if she managed to hear the door slamming all the way up from the third floor then everyone else must have heard it too.
"I'm going to make some hot chocolate, do you want some?" She tries to sound as normal as she can, because talking to Ken is different from talking to Junpei.
With Junpei, she doesn't need to pretend she's okay.
"No, thank you," is Ken's reply. If it had been 'her' he probably would have accepted.
He has always made it a point to be strong, to be mature, but she knows just how much he adored 'her'. He looked at 'her' as if there had been nothing else in the world, so today Yukari pretends to not notice his puffy eyes, only nodding before heading towards the kitchen.
She takes out two mugs with an excuse already in her mind. She opens one of the bottom cabinets for the marshmallows and finds a few post-its stuck inside. The first note is a list with everyone's names and food preferences save for one.
Fuu-chan, don't forget to switch off the… Always listen to Shinji.
There's the second note, but its words are faded. The same goes for the third and the fourth. The cabinet is far from the sink, but the words have melted the way ink blurs when it becomes wet and is then dried.
Yukari sticks the notes back inside and hurries towards the sink to wash her eyes.
Shinji, please don't forget to eat.
There is absolutely no other way to describe the kitchen aside from it had been theirs. Once they started to cook, there was no way to enter their world. It was the only place where she was his and he was hers, wherein everyone acknowledged it without a word.
Shinji, please take care of Aki.
Now Aragaki purposely avoids it. He doesn't even want to come back to the dorm anymore. How much did Ken notice? When? When did he notice the things Yukari and Junpei are only starting to?
"Yukari-san? I... I heard something fall."
Yukari doesn't look at Ken when he peers into the kitchen, she cannot meet the gaze of the boy she has unknowingly abandoned to mature. The boy whose options they've taken away.
Strong and mature all the time, she has nobody else to blame for Ken's haste to grow up. There is absolutely nobody else.
"Yukari-san! Yukari-san, what's wrong?"
Had Yukari abandoned her too?
Did she ever blame Yukari for not knowing?
seven
The school's rooftop is as empty as Aigis remembers it to be. The white tiles and the white ledge are clean, pristine. They've cleaned up everything, scrubbed and painted over every inch of memory from that one summer day.
Aigis almost wishes that Mitsuru has not done such a great job.
The others wouldn't notice that she's missing. They wouldn't notice until they check on Sanada and Aragaki first. It's difficult to see them in grief when they've always been so strong. She understands why though. She understands why it's taking much longer for them to get back up.
Yukari hates her because she didn't cry. Because Aigis has always been heartless, because Aigis never saw 'her' as a friend. Because Aigis lied, because Aigis could have stopped it but didn't.
It weren't Yukari's words that hit Aigis the most, but the face that Sanada made during that heated moment.
Betrayal, heartbreak.
Hurt in its purest form, and it's been on her mind ever since.
Oh, but Aigis hadn't lied. She never did. 'She' was her friend, 'she' was her everything, and that was the truth. She had been trying to tell them, that something was wrong, she had laid the answers in front of them.
"He's dangerous!"
If only she had been more forceful, if only she had stood her ground even if it had meant standing alone. If only she didn't accept smiles as being okay.
"Please, don't trust him!"
Then perhaps they would have listened.
They should have listened.
tbc.
note: This will be updated, just not regularly. One year more in college and I'll have more time to focus on this and finish rewind too. Until then, do drop a message if you want to talk. If this is going anywhere, feel free to leave a review. Thank you!