"What do you think 'living' is?"

Shinjiro was folding his laundry while Minako laid on her back across the width of his bed, her head hanging gently over the edge. Her latest fever was finally breaking, but he could still see a light flush creeping up as far as her hairline. She wasn't allowed to help with chores in this state.

"I dunno if I'm the right guy to ask that, considering I've never been any good at it," he replied. She stretched her arms over her head, languidly combing her fingers through her freshly washed hair. "That's a damn weird question, by the way."

She frowned. Upside down, the expression looked strange. Like her usual, sunny smile, but lopsided and troubled.

"Sorry, it's been on my mind. I thought it would be easier than this to find an answer."

Shinjiro was beginning to really notice that he seemed to cycle through the same set patterns. When things were bleak for a while - a long while, usually - they'd suddenly and inexplicably get better. He should really know better than to get excited, but he was bad at learning important lessons. That much had been clear basically his whole damn life.

Either way, the circles under her eyes were disappearing. The color was coming back to her cheeks. She looked healthy again, and that was something worth being happy about. Now she even insisted on helping him cook meals every night. He didn't hate it in the slightest and he told her so as often as he could. (Albeit in slightly nicer terms.)

"I'm just relieved you don't have to wait on me all the time anymore," she mused aloud, shooting him a quick glance from over her cutting board. It was hidden behind several bowls of neatly chopped vegetables for the stew they were working on. She might have looked better, but that didn't mean she didn't still need to eat a well-balanced meal. Him too, he supposed.

"I dunno, there were times when I could've sworn you were enjoying it way too much." He didn't fight a smile when their eyes met, and she returned it gladly. It almost felt like they somehow cheated all of the tragedy from high school once again. Life felt normal, and for once he was glad to be living if it meant being with her. "You took the pill I left on the bedside table, right? I don't want you gettin' sick on me again now that you have to help out."

The corner of her mouth twitched. For a second, it looked like she didn't have the answer to that question. Maybe she was swallowing a laugh. That reasoning seemed all the more likely when she finally answered a short beat later.

"I did, just like every other time you ask! Jeez, you worry too much." Minako put down her knife and lightly clapped her hands together, admiring the small, neat piles of potatoes before her. "All done! Mind if I ask you a favor? Don't worry, I can talk and do the dishes at the same time."

He nodded. "Sure, what's up?"

"I feel a little bad leaving my parents in the dark for so long. We didn't have much of a choice, but I'm sure they're worried." She gathered dishware as she spoke, and for the first time in a while, visible lines of concern cut across her face. "It would be nice to drop by, maybe. I could use another few changes of clothes if you're planning on letting me stick around, at least!"

"Makes sense. If you're feelin' good enough to make the trip, go ahead. I'm sure they'd be glad to talk to you." Shinjiro figured that was the end of the conversation. He hadn't looked up, but the affirmative response he expected to hear didn't come. The running sink water suddenly stopped.

When he lifted his head to see what was wrong, Minako was already staring him down with a vague sort of intensity. He realized that he clearly missed some kind of signal she'd sent out.

"Oh, come on… I'm glad you trust me to make the trip on my own, but I was asking you to come with me," she told him, somewhat sternly. If her cheeks were tinted pink from bashfulness, it was nothing compared to the heat he suddenly felt rush to his ears. "It doesn't have to be… weird, or anything. But I thought it would be nice if you met them!"

Shit. Shinjiro forced a cough to hide his discomfort and buy a second to organize his thoughts. Somehow, he'd taken it for granted that Minako wasn't an orphan anymore. They had plenty of reasons not to think about the kind of things long-term couples do when they were in high school (namely because he never imagined them as 'long-term' anything, with the way his life was then), but she didn't even have parents then.

Whenever he dared to forget how strange and fucked up his life was, a reminder was never far behind.

"No, I mean. Yeah, that'd be nice." He paused, surprising himself somewhat. By the looks of it, Minako also didn't expect him to give up without a fight. "As long as your folks don't mind you hangin' around a dropout. Do I tell 'em I'm an ex-delinquent before or after I say hello?"

Minako nearly choked on her laughter, hastily waving both hands in front of her to show her half-hearted disapproval.

"Y-You don't have to mention that at all! It's going to be quick, I promise. I'd much rather wait until we're done fighting shadows again for them to get to know you." Seeming satisfied, she went back to happily scrubbing the dishes. Between the conversation topic and the smell of home cooked food, Shinjiro felt sickeningly domestic at that moment. Yeah, he didn't hate this either. "As far as they're concerned, you're my old senpai and I'm still studying like a good student. That's fine for now!"

It went a lot faster than he expected, somehow. Traveling outside the city was a little bit of a hassle, but it really had been over a month since Minako started staying with him. The weather was getting warmer rapidly, and she couldn't keep wearing his old t-shirts or buying new outfits forever.

Shinjiro had to admit, he was a little nervous. She might say this was a quick, informal thing, but he really wasn't the kind of person parents like. He considered springing for a gift - something small and inexpensive - but that wouldn't change his bad attitude or off-putting appearance. Better to not try at all. He'd rather focus on trying to keep his palms from getting so goddamn sweaty.

They crossed from a main road into an area with a small batch of aggressively normal-looking houses, and he was about to ask if they were close when Minako made a sharp turn. Her hand outstretched to open a gate that led directly to the door of the nearest home. She looked over his shoulder at him, and gave a reassuring wave with the hand holding her jingly keychain.

"That was pretty quick, right? Let's go! No time to be nervous."

Was she talking about him or her? Considering she'd suddenly stopped showing up to her college classes, he wasn't the only one that had a good reason to be anxious.

The Kirijo Group was kind enough to tell the school that she was having family issues in order to explain her absences, but they didn't exactly have anything to say to her parents. It'd probably be difficult to keep up the charade when she was so active in sports and popular with her classmates. Anyone's folks would want to hear about what their star student has been up to.

He found a lot of parts of his girlfriend's personality impossible to relate to, despite how much he cared for her. Being so damn good at the whole 'school' thing had always been one of the big ones. To him, it was mind-numbing at best and flat-out pointless at worst. How she managed all of it, he'd never understand.

They passed through to the front door. Minako took a quick breath, handled the lock, and let herself in. He was close behind her. Hopefully, close enough to be of some comfort.

"I'm home," she called, shuffling to get both shoes off at the entranceway. He did the same, and watched her crane her neck to get a look down the unlit hallway. "Jeez, it's so dark… Mom? Dad?" In the front room, there was a medium-sized picture hanging on the wall that Minako didn't pay any mind. She'd probably seen it a hundred times before, but Shinjiro found himself eager to take a look.

It was framed oddly, in his opinion. Not that he knew anything about photography, but a beaming, younger Minako stood front-and-center on what must have been the day she graduated from Gekkoukan High. She stood low in the frame, looking just the way he'd remembered her until fairly recently. Her hair was only slightly longer. It made sense; this would have been exactly one year after she died on the roof.

Weird, though. Didn't those kind of pictures usually have the whole family in them?

There was enough daylight coming in through the windows that he saw her reach for a switch on wall. There was a click and a pause. Nothing happened. He heard it click a few more times. Was the electricity out?

"Maybe they're not home?" He added, well aware that this observation wasn't exactly helpful. Something felt wrong. You don't turn off the utilities for a trip to the store.

Minako's mouth was set in a hard, bewildered line. They stepped further into the house, and she tried calling out to her parents again. When they moved into what looked like the living room, however, they stopped in their tracks. He could only guess that it might have been a living room at some point, at least, because there wasn't a piece of furniture in sight.

The entire room was empty. So empty, if fact, that he got the distinct feeling all of the other rooms in the house would be empty too.

Minako stumbled backward, landing square against his front as her wide eyes took in the absolute nothingness in front of them. She was momentarily stunned, and he felt his chest tightening in painful sympathy. He gripped her shoulders, unable to come up with any words of encouragement.

"I don't understand…" Her other hand was still holding the keys. She looked down to consider them, as if genuinely wondering if they were in the correct house. Whatever this place was supposed to look like, but this clearly wasn't it. Even he could tell that much. "This is it. It is. Why is my house empty? Where are my mom and dad?"

Before he even said anything (what would he even say?), Minako turned and ran back through the hall. He started to go after her, but stopped when something else caught his eye. There was a wallet-sized photograph on the floor near the far wall of the room. As he bent to pick it up, he had to pause. Somehow, he was starting to notice a pattern.

He could hear Minako searching the rooms on the second floor, still occasionally calling out for people who wouldn't be there. Grimacing, he willed himself to pick up the picture and take a closer look.

It was yet another photograph of Minako, though more recent than the one in the hall. She was standing in front of a door, wearing a professional-looking outfit that made her look like any other college student. It was the same home they were inside now, and once again, there was enough room in the photograph for more people.

Instead of her parents standing behind her, there was only empty space.

It wasn't much later that the foot falls from upstairs came to a halt. As the muted sound of panicked sobbing barely broke through the quiet, Shinjiro understood what 'deathly quiet' meant outside of the Dark Hour. He sped out of the living room and upstairs, looking into two other empty rooms before finally spotting Minako.

She sat on her knees in the center of what must have been her bedroom, half of her face lit by the natural light coming in from outside. The dissonance made bile burn at the back of his throat.

For whatever reason, this was the only room that was still fully furnished. A plush pink carpet was bunched up in places from the way she'd collapsed onto it. There was a small, neatly made bed and a desk that still had manga and notebooks covered in stickers on its small attached shelf.

Outside the only window in the room, there was a clear view of the Moonlight Bridge, leading right into Port Island. The sight made his skin crawl.

"What the hell…" Shinjiro stepped inside cautiously, paralyzed with momentary inaction. This situation was disturbing enough to begin with, but this was something completely different. He had no idea how to even begin comforting her.

"Shinji… They're gone…"

He snapped back to reality, and moved to sit on the carpet beside Minako. She hadn't looked up yet. Her head shook in disbelief even as he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. The best he could do is try and be positive.

But even he was shaking now.

"Listen, your stuff's still here, right? Maybe, y'know, somethin' happened suddenly." As the words came out, he wasn't convinced by them. She wouldn't be either. "They're... in the middle of packing 'cuz they had to leave. Let's calm down until we can figure this out."

Her head shook more violently, this time daring to meet his gaze. Her tear-stained cheeks were pale with horror, though he'd already seen that heartbroken look on her face before. An expression of deep, profound loss.

Every new emotion clattered unpleasantly against the others already swimming in his chest, creating a uniquely unpleasant feeling that he wasn't able to name. His the scars of his gunshot wound ached and screamed at him to do better, to do something.

He couldn't think of anything.

"No, they're gone," she choked. "I just know it…! Something happened, it… it must have been the car crash."

Her hair whipped angrily around her face as she once again shook her head. He watched the battle between emotion and logic raging on her face. In her heart, she knew what happened. He knew it before she even spoke again.

"They're dead. They're dead again."

"I'm no philosophy expert, but maybe you're thinkin' too hard."

Shinjiro stopped what he was doing, circling around to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. Maybe the fever was making her head swim? This kind of maudlin thought exercise wasn't the kind of thing he expected to be on her mind. Getting comfy with the idea of dying wasn't so easy for everyone, he supposed.

"This is living, right? Us, together." As if taken aback by his honestly, Minako tore her gaze from the cracked plaster ceiling, and over to him. He mentally fumbled to find his point again. Those big red eyes made it feel like he was under a white hot spotlight. "I thought I'd manage gettin' by on my own, but I'm not so sure anymore. You comin' back is the only reason I feel alive at all."

They were both quiet, sitting in that previously unspoken truth. It was a lot to put on someone else, but yeah. No point in pretending. She was the only thing he thought about more than dying.

Minako slowly sat up. Her loose hair fell around her tilted head, obscuring her expression as she crawled over the other side of the bed and stepped out of the room.

"I know. Sorry."

"That's… not good at all."

Akihiko was politely quiet the entire time Shinjiro relayed the events of the previous day to him. Maybe it was because the story was so hard to believe. Even if someone heard them over the chatter at the beef bowl place, they'd probably assume it was the plot of a tv show or movie.

"No shit," he replied, leaning back from his empty bowl to stuff both hands in his jacket pockets. "Mitsuru basically said the same. She got the Kirijo Group lookin' for her folks first thing, and everything says they died in the car accident."

"But we know for a fact that both Minako and Mitsuru were able to talk to them or track them down at least a few weeks ago, if not sooner." Akihiko stared at the table, as if it would somehow give him a logical answer to this impossible question. "I understand the concept of parallel universes well enough, but this isn't even that. It's… colliding universes. They can't be alive and dead at the same time. This isn't quantum physics, it's impossible."

Shinjiro could only snort derisively. He didn't understand even a little bit, and preferred it that way. Anything he wasn't able to determine for himself was useless information. The only tricky part of this situation was that he couldn't verify a goddamn thing with his own eyes.

What he was sure of was that Minako was still there, and he'd keep it that way. Yukari and Mitsuru were with her now, which was the only reason he'd left her side at all.

"I'm a slow learner and even I know the word 'impossible' barely means a thing anymore, Aki."

A more or less comfortable silence descended upon them as Akihiko continued struggling with his impressions of the situation. Hell, even the surface level was a lot to swallow. If the dead can go on living, it'd change a lot for all of them. The members of SEES were far too young to carry as many corpses on their backs as they did. Maybe Shinjiro didn't particularly care if he ever saw his parents again, for instance, but the mere possibility might be torturous for others.

"How's Minako doing?" Akihiko emerged from whatever train of thought had caught his attention. "She was just getting better, right? I'm sure this can't be helping." The genuine concern he was showing made it tougher to meet his eye. It was a difficult question to answer honestly, but he didn't have much of a choice.

"She seems… alright, weirdly enough. I dunno how to describe it, exactly." Maybe it was the natural result of having your parents die twice within your lifetime, as far as you remember. The first loss was so hard, that the second one was easier. He couldn't think of how else to explain it. "But she's always been like that. The worse stuff's the pain she buries the deepest."

Akihiko has to visibly hide the short laugh trying to break through his lips.

"Sound familiar?"

They parted ways without managing to figure out a game plan for their leader's predicament, but that was alright. The next full moon was coming fast, and the Kirijo Group was making good headway with the data they'd collected from their previous fights.

The strange amalgamations definitely seemed related to the shadows they encountered on their previous Full Moon Missions, which at least gave them an idea of how much longer this would go on.

Did he even dare to wonder what would happen after that?

When he returned to his apartment, Yukari and Mitsuru seemed reluctant to leave. They weren't willing to get into the specifics of what happened while he was gone, but Yukari kept shooting worried glances back toward his bedroom. She made him promise upward of a dozen times to call them if Minako seemed like she needed a distraction. He did promise.

After girls said their second or third goodbyes, the apartment returned to it's usual, almost-too-quiet state. Almost, besides some frequent, vaguely distant shuffling around. When he went into his bedroom, it was obvious that Minako had been busy these past two or three hours.

"You're back! Sorry, I got a little carried away…"

Almost the entire contents of his closet had been gouged out, spread into orderly piles around the floor and the top of the bed. The bag of clothes they managed to pick up from her parents house was also out, but none of it had been touched yet. Apparently she got distracted looking for a neat place to put them away.

"Ah, no worries. I can help finish cleanin' up. You shouldn't have to deal with my messes anyway." He walked past, giving her a quick, affectionate pat on the head. It was amazing to see her with so much energy, but not quite in the way that he was used to. This was a little more… manic. It probably felt good to keep busy. "I gotta get rid of this shit…"

He looked over the piles of books and old clothing, at a loss about where to start. A box on the top of a nearby stack caught his attention, however. The one he stored all of his old high school and SEES stuff in, where he found the suppressors several weeks ago.

It was as good a time as any to have a heartfelt conversation, he supposed.

"Actually, how 'bout you take a break? There's somethin' I wanna show you."

Minako paused her work, walking over to join him with a curious expression on her face. She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. He wished that she didn't feel the need to work so hard, but if she was feeling better, he'd take it.

"I'm not so much the sentimental type, but I had most of this shit on me when I finally left the hospital. Couldn't bring myself to throw any of it away." He took the top off of the box, letting Minako peek inside. She let out a small 'oh', eyes sweeping over the contents.

"Your SEES armband… You kept it?"

Shinjiro looked over at her, trying and failing somewhat to mask his confusion. Well, yeah, the armband was in there, but that wasn't what he thought she'd focus on. When he looked back into the box, he immediately realized what the issue was.

After taking out the suppressors and his evoker, the only things left should have been his armband and the disfigured remnants of his pocket watch.

Should have been. But the watch was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's…?" He trailed off, having difficulty even verbalizing his bewilderment. If he hadn't looked in the box in years, he might have been able to believe that he simply misplaced the keepsake. But it was just there. He saw it so recently that he remembered exactly how the sight of it formed a mixed up, sickening ball of emotions right in the pit of his stomach.

He looked over at Minako, making an effort to keep his voice calm and even.

"You didn't open this, right? Or take anything out of it?"

From the way she looked at him, he could tell the questions came out sounding like an accusation. Regardless, she confidently shook her head.

"Of course not! I wouldn't go through your things, Shinji." She was frowning, understandably unable to follow his logic. If she'd never opened it before, after all, she had no way of knowing if anything was missing. "If I found anything loose, I tried to put it in a pile that made sense, or on your desk. Your books are all over there, and I found a few-"

"No, it's… It's not that." He only realized he cut her off after he'd already done it. Shinjiro reached into the box, fruitlessly fishing around for any sign of metal hidden beneath the fabric. But it was as empty as it looked at first glance. "My watch. It was here, but… You know, the watch you found for me."

He took a step back, running a hand through his hair. It was just a stupid hunk of metal. Why did the fact that it was missing matter so much to him? His heart was pounding in his ears, making it harder to hear. The noise made it harder to see. He couldn't even remember the last time he felt so hopelessly furious.

"It saved my life, even though I didn't care if I died. I should've died, but I wasn't able to 'cuz of you." Shinjiro didn't know what to do with his body. He looked hard into the box's interior, as if expecting it to just reappear if he explained himself. "It's the reason I got to meet you again. It's important. Why's it gone…?"

It was quiet for a moment. Minako didn't move from where she was standing, still well within reaching distance of him. Was he scary when he said things like that? He had no idea. The dull pain in his chest hadn't gone since yesterday, but now it was ripping apart his insides.

"Why do you say things like that?"

For a split second, he didn't recognize her voice. When he tore his eyes away from the box and over to Minako, he was met with a furious fire in her eyes that he'd never really seen before. Her fists were balled at her sides. Her voice didn't waver. She didn't look like she was going to cry.

"...What d'you mean? Things like…?"

She shook her head once again, taking a step forward with such intensity that he had to take an equal step back.

"Why do you talk about dying like that? We came so close to dying… I have died!" Even if there was room for him to speak, he didn't know what to say. The words came out so quickly, woven together with such venom that he was sure it wasn't the first time she'd entertained these questions. "So why? Why would you rather hurt, or be dead than live?"

He stuttered uselessly. Shinjiro needed a moment to recover from the sudden outburst, willing himself to lean closer to her. His anger was fading fast, only to be replaced with a desperate need to mend her anger. He couldn't think of a good way to answer.

Before now, she only asked him these kinds of questions in his nightmares.

"That's… I don't mean it like that." He swallowed. That was a lie no matter which way you spun it. "All I wanna do is be with you. I mean that, Minako. I'll quit talkin' about that stuff if you want, I swear."

She bit her lip, looking entirely unmoved by his protests.

"Living shouldn't be this hard. Sometimes… I wonder if you liked me better when I was dead."

They were both quiet again after that. Shinjiro didn't have it in him to dig deep inside for a way to continue this argument, and even Minako seemed troubled by the gravity of her own statement. He began to reach out to take her hand, but she turned away sharply. She zipped up the bag of her clothing on his bed, and swung it over her shoulder.

"I'm really sorry, Shinji. I can't do this right now." She was looking directly at him, but he wasn't able to meet her gaze again. Not after how it has just burned through him with such cold honesty. "I'll… go see if I can stay with Fuuka for a bit. I'm not helping you by being here."

Shinjiro wondered if he could say anything to make her stay, but it didn't really matter. His voice wasn't working, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he had to think about what she said.

When someone was dead, there was no way to for you to disappoint them. You could remember them as perfect, and tell yourself that you owe everything you are to their intervention in your life. When he tried to do good things for other people, was it only for the sake of her memory? Was he a worse, more selfish person since she came back into his life?

He wasn't sure how much longer Minako stayed with him, because when he looked up again, she was already gone. Alone, surrounded by the clutter of his past, it was hard not to feel like he was getting something he deeply deserved. He let out a slightly shaky sigh, and went back to work cleaning up the mess.

It was like being on autopilot. Shinjiro wasn't even sure how much time had passed, but he thinned the piles of old memories, and even allowed himself to throw a few things away. He finally knew he was making progress when some of Minako's things began to appear at the bottoms of the piles. It would probably be best to keep those all in one place, just in case she asked for any of them while she was gone.

He neatened up a small pile of her cosmetics. A cute little hand mirror, a few lip colors, mascara, hair pins, and colorful elastic bands. Lastly, he picked up a compact, shaped like a rounded clamshell. When it tilted to the side in his palm, it made a strange rattling sound. It was strange enough that he did it again, once or twice more.

Even he knew makeup didn't make a noise like that.

Shinjiro opened the plastic clasp, seeing only a hollowed out inside at first. This sort of thing usually had a mirror, a makeup pot, or some kind of puffy white thing in it, but a jagged piece of plastic at the inside of the hinge showed that something had been ripped out to make more room.

Inside, sitting in the curved base, was a large pile of pills. Enough to cover Minako's daily dose of suppressors for the past few weeks.