and I held you closer
than anyone would ever get

10. we looked like giants
05/03/2010

They had all left without her.

Akihiko waiting at the door, tilting his head back to let Mitsuru adjust his starched collar and smooth her hands over his jacket lapels. Mitsuru barely suppressing a smile as Akihiko straightened the red ribbon at her neck, making sure the ends were of even length. The pair had set off early to prepare for the ceremony, and even though Akihiko had crept into her room just before he'd left, Minako had pretended to be asleep. She'd barely had the energy to smile as he pulled her covers up to her shoulders, brushing back her fringe before leaning in to press his cheek against hers, not even for a kiss - just that, the side of his nose pressed against hers, eyelashes ghosting against her cheekbone when he closed his eyes. She could feel the stretch in his skin when he smiled, the tightness in his jaw relaxing for once, and she had wanted so badly to reach out and touch him but he was already pulling away, the distance too far to cross.

She was running late when Junpei knocked on her door, Yukari's shrill laughter at his heels while Fuuka nagged them about the time from the hallway. Her hands were shaking as she let them in, trying in vain to contain her messy hair with her signature bobby pins. In the end Minako sat on the edge of her bed while Yukari did it for her, with Junpei consulting her class timetable and packing the appropriate books in her bag. Her uniform jacket was still un-ironed and she couldn't for the life of her find a pair of knee-high socks, and eventually she had just told them to go. I'll catch up, she'd said, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. Yukari had given her a hug and Junpei had ruffled Minako's hair, causing Yukari to squawk indignantly as she pushed him out the door.

Alone, she sat on her swivel chair, propping her feet up on the desk as she pulled on her last clean pair of white knee socks. She'd have to get around to doing her laundry after school today. A brief wave of panic washed over her when she couldn't find her MP3 player in her desk drawers, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she found that Junpei had packed it in her bag along with her headphones. Absently, she straightened the things on her desk - an empty glass, a pencil holder, Akihiko's notebook, the final Witch Detective novel, her music box...

Last night she had all but torn her room apart, uncovering all the relics of friendships past. A charred screw and an almost phosphorescent ring, her leather watch and a stuffed rabbit. House keys on an odd pig key-chain. Everything that would fit had found a place in the music box, along with her spare bobby pins and ticket stubs from last year's film festival. Petty things that would outlive her.

And just for a second, she wondered - without her recollection as a reference point to inflect the past with meaning, would history too forget the importance these objects had been imbued with by the people that had given them to her?

The only complete survivor of the Fall sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she grabbed on to the edge of her desk as she tried to fight off the haziness behind her eyes. She let her legs fall to the floor, the unexpected tingle of pins-and-needles working its way up her ankles and into her calves.

"It's me, Aigis." Her voice was muffled through the door, but Minako could hear her clear as day, and for a few moments she forgot to breathe. "May I please come in?"

She stumbled to the door, pulling it open, and the first thing she saw was Aigis's eyes, bright, bright blue, like the spring skies beyond her window pane.

"...I remember everything." She said firmly, and Minako felt her heart constrict even though there was a weight lifting from her chest. She had needed someone else to say it, to know for certain that she wasn't losing her mind, that this was all real. That she was running out of time.

"It's just that, when I remembered, I was afraid you might go somewhere far away, like you did at the last battle..." Aigis let out a breath, and Minako was suddenly aware of her in a strangely biological way, the rhythmic whirring of her inner machinery superimposed over the sound of her own faint breathing, until the two coalesced and could no longer be considered distinct from one another.

"Don't worry," Minako said softly, surprised by just how easy it was to lie, "that won't happen."

And Aigis smiled.

Graduation was today, and the ceremony had already begun. Together and in silence, the pair made their way down the stairs and to the front door. Spring was here and the sun was shining, their shadows going on forever behind them as they made their way to the station. Out of habit, Minako slipped her headphones over her ears and fiddled with her MP3 player, turning up the volume and pressing play.

A chill wind bit at her heels, and it buffeted past her with such force that for a moment all she could hear was static.

"You are tired," Mitsuru chided, running a hand through her hair. "It's graduation day, and you are tired."

"I'm not tired," Akihiko said quickly, then yawned before he could stop himself. Mitsuru raised an eyebrow and he averted his gaze. "I don't need rest. I can sleep when I'm dead."

She scoffed and started to say something else, but caught sight of Ekoda beckoning her further in to the auditorium. She settled for a sigh instead. He walked Mitsuru to the foot of the steps to the stage, and broke the silence before he really knew what he was going to say.

"I wish Shinji was here." Mitsuru turned sharply, studying him for a moment, then laid a hand on his forearm, slow and deliberate, fingers fanned out and tensed. He smiled and clasped her hand in his own, and she turned her head and hid behind her fringe. This was her non-verbal equivalent of 'me too'. She had done the same thing, that night in October, when Shinji had been admitted to the hospital and Aki had disappeared into an empty hallway, away from the eyes of the juniors, to finally let himself fall apart.

Out of everyone, Mitsuru knew the difference between what he wanted and what he needed. He'd never been able to return the favour, not really, not even when her father passed a matter of weeks later. Now there was a discernible distance between them, the cause of which he couldn't quite put his finger on, as though the ties that had bound them together had frayed into nonexistence.

"...His attendance has been dismal. He'll have to repeat senior year." She shook her head and they both kind of laughed, their eyes meeting accidentally, and Akihiko looked away while Mitsuru extricated her fingers from his grasp. The problem with the two of them was that she always knew what he was thinking, and he never knew what to say. A relationship based not on words but gestures, furtive glances and half-formed assumptions. Less than friends but more than the sum of their parts.

"Yeah. But still, I wish..." he trailed off, rubbing his eyes and trying to suppress another yawn. "I wish a lot of things."

Takeba and Yamagishi filed into the auditorium, Iori trailing behind them. Minako's absence carried its own paradoxical weight, a heavy non-presence at Junpei's side. The first twinges of worry began to creep up the back of Akihiko's neck, but for once Mitsuru did not know what to say, and he could not tell what she was thinking.

"Next, a word from the valedictorian..."

Mitsuru pursed her lips and turned to ascend the stairs, but Akihiko grabbed her arm before she could leave.

"Good luck," he said quietly, even though he knew she didn't need it, and let go. She smiled absently, donning her queenly mask and taking her place at the stage as he went to find himself a seat among the other seniors.

Perhaps she was right, and he really was tired. This was it. High school was over. Now what? He frowned. For all his good grades and extracurricular activities, he didn't really have a plan for the future. He didn't particularly want to do anything with his life, nor was he... No, he was passionate, but about what? All he had been thinking about was training. He didn't want to be a professional boxer, did he? Akihiko wrinkled his nose and slipped out of his uniform jacket, rubbing his knuckles through his gloves.

He'd wanted to fight. He knew that much about himself. Each bruise an accusation, every left hook an apology, broken bones a small penance to pay for those he'd failed to protect. His parents, Miki, Shinji. A decade spent in a constant state of collapse. Akihiko surreptitiously glanced around, looking for Minako's copper coloured hair, and tried to push down the sick sort of tension building up in his throat. He had always carried his worry in his chest, had always been the anxious type, controlling and protective and ready to strike, charging ahead with no consideration of the consequences.

Leaning back in his seat, he swallowed, feeling jittery for no good reason. Mitsuru had been talking and he hadn't heard a word of it, lost in his own disjointed monologue, and there would be hell to pay if she found out he hadn't been paying attention. She faltered. Akihiko frowned, looking up at her as the rest of the student body began to buzz, watching her eyes dart over her cue cards in panic. His head felt heavy, and he rested his elbows against his knees and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, rubbing until he saw fireworks.

Minako wasn't here. The last day they'd get to spend at school together, and she was nowhere to be seen. Akihiko couldn't stop the utterly irrational anxiousness building up inside his chest, like he had forgotten something terribly important, and the memory he needed was just out of his reach. His head buried in his hands, he waited for the hint of a spark -

"Can you at least sit up here? ...Here." He'd pulled her up to sit beside him on the horizontal bar, a gloved hand at the small of her back to keep her steady, and she had been so unusually tense and quiet, fingernails cutting into her palms -

- frowning, trying to figure it out. "Oh, I get it... Do you think those girls wanted to have Beef Bowls, too?"

"...Not in the way you think." She'd smirked and he bit his lip, still didn't quite get it, and she'd started laughing, breathless -

"Is it true you're going out with Junpei?" His hands balled up into fists, grinding his teeth in his jaw, wanting desperately for her to deny it but knowing he wouldn't really believe her if she did.

"What? No! He's just a friend. Please don't get the wrong idea -

- violence, holding the barrel of a gun to his forehead, and Mitsuru had always complimented him on the fact that he never hesitated, never wavered. His knuckles sinking into the flesh of another Shadow, as though that was all he was living for. Whether it was by instinct or design he had always known where to strike, when to shift, took a sick amount of pleasure in those few moments when an enemy would get the better of him and he could feel the chill in his bones, his body colliding against the concrete and his neck snapping back as he hit the ground. Until he had to follow her lead. And watching her in battle, seeing the flicker of... something shift across her face every time she healed his wounds, he started to wonder - what would it take for her... for them to stop, to stop fighting -

"She's dead and gone... I understand that, and I've accepted it. But... I can't do anything about the anger and sadness that I feel. I thought... I wanted you to help me bear that burden. I know that it's terrible of me to ask this of you..."

A shift in his heart when Polydeuces ceased to cry out for his twin, perhaps joining him amongst the stars as Caesar rose to take his place. Because Akihiko was always half of a set, and always the one who got left behind. Always on the losing side...

That day on the roof, staring out into the distance, he'd turned to her and said, "I feel all tense and on edge. It's the weirdest thing."

Her face an inch from his, she had smiled, mischievously enough so that whatever she said next could be considered a joke. "You're in love."

And at first he was kind of surprised, and a little confused, but then he'd thought about it and said to himself, yeah, okay. Because he knew her. He'd known her his whole life, and he had been waiting, waiting all these years for her to make an appearance. Not because she was Miki, not because she was anything like Miki, but because when he looked at her he thought about the future instead of the past, about growing old together, knowing every line that was etched in her skin as if it were his own. A lifetime of Sunday mornings, someone warm to hide away with, to come home to...

"I... We...!" Akihiko stood up unconsciously, scarcely seeing the juniors do the same, for his eyes were locked on Mitsuru's, and when she paused to take a breath he called out to her.

"Mitsuru!" His eyes said I'm not leaving you behind, I remember, I remember everything, but I... She nodded almost imperceptibly, eyes bright as she leapt from the stage, Junpei cheering and Yukari pulling her into a hug.

He ran.

The sunlight felt good against her skin, Aigis's soft voice overlapping with the sound of the breeze, and Minako was content to lie quietly on the floor of the roof, head resting against concrete. The tone of her voice was almost musical, and she knew Aigis just needed her to listen, as they all did, at one point or another, and she did her best to fight off the drowsiness, nodding and smiling when she could.

"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life... Sometimes, all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of."

She wanted to tell Aigis something that someone had once told her, that the meaning of our lives is something that we make but don't see, but she didn't have enough air in her lungs to form the words. Instead, she let Aigis pull her up into a hug, and for a moment she swore she could feel the firm staccato of a heartbeat pulsing through the other girl's body.

"Thank you for everything..." she spoke softly, right in Minako's ear, pulling away with a smile as the door to the roof creaked open.

Minako could barely stand on her own, and she grabbed onto the railing tightly as Aigis headed for the door, murmuring something on the stairwell before breaking into a run to meet the others in the hallway. She turned, hearing footsteps and ragged breathing headed toward her, and she tried her best to smile as she pulled in a deep breath of her own.

"Are you alright?" Akihiko gasped, and it was almost always the first thing Akihiko would ever say to her after being apart for too long, like he was constantly wary of something happening to her while he wasn't there.

"You're already out of breath?" Minako said, shaking her head. "What good's all that training if you can't even clear a few flights of stairs?"

He laughed between breaths. "Thank God. I couldn't find you, and... I thought you might've gone off somewhere..." The words hung heavy between them, but Minako just shook her head, letting him pull her into a tight embrace. The wool of his sweater vest was scratchy against her cheek, but she leaned in closer, circling her arms around his waist.

"That's me, you know. I'm always fine." She mumbled against him, feeling a sigh escape his chest.

"Until you're not." He replied, stroking the back of her neck, and Minako had to fight to keep her eyes open.

"Yeah," she laughed shakily, "until I'm not." She smiled, a smile that was meant to be reassuring and strong and nearly was.

"I remember now," he said quietly, rubbing her arms and stepping back so he could look at her. "Everything that happened. The fighting, Tartarus, all of it... And how I fell in love with you... I'm sorry I forgot it all..." He trailed off, looking at the ground, and Minako just leaned in against him so her back was pressed to his chest, his arms wrapped around her shoulders. She pulled him down to the ground with her.

'Love' felt like the wrong word, it carried an overly typical connotation for what was between them. Because the night Orpheus had whispered in her ear, explaining the true cost of the Great Seal, she had known, despite everything, that she would be coming back home. That no matter what happened, she would have just a little more time here, with him. And perhaps they had not truly recognised each other throughout her short second life, but that was okay. This was enough.

"Akihiko," she said quietly, testing out his name on her tongue. It felt odd, after all these months. "...Maybe we can get it right this time."

He laughed, and when she turned her head up to look at him he looked like exactly the person he was meant to be. "It's right, Minako. It's always been right," he said earnestly, and her eyes felt hot and wet and were starting to sting.

He rested his head atop hers, wrapping his arms around her tightly. With her back against his chest, she could feel the steady rhythm of their hearts beating, out of synch but in tune.

The faint sound of footsteps and cheering drew near, and within the rabble Minako could hear Junpei's voice, the loudest of all, greeting Aigis in the corridor.

"At least we'll have a goodbye this time," she said, mostly to herself, wishing more than anything that she could preserve this moment, press it flat like dried flowers between a phone book, to frame and keep and love forever.

"But everyone remembers now," Akihiko said lightly, as if she'd said something silly. Minako just smiled, and nodded, and did her best not to let the tears fall, knowing for certain that something vital and alive and irreplaceable was escaping the confines of her ribcage with every breath she took.

Spring was here and today really was a beautiful day, the bite of the breeze dulled by the sunlight and Akihiko's warm, too-tight embrace. Minako closed her eyes, letting her head fall against his chest, resting on the spot where his heart was supposed to be. The curve of her spine sent her eyes to the sky, filtered daylight and bright, bright blue registering as nothing more than vague red behind her eyelids. He made to speak, she could tell by the way the air in his lungs gathered and shifted to form words, but she was already sinking, or floating, or maybe it was a bit of both...

Drowning.

The weight of the world held within her lungs, each breath felt smaller and more strained than the last, the sea of her soul reaching out to engulf her as the sunlight relinquished its embrace. And there was a voice, from somewhere just at the edge of her consciousness, a lone figure calling out to her from the shore, though she was too far adrift to really make out the words. She strained to listen over the swell of the tide, and it was the sweetest, saddest sound she'd ever heard, one last perfect note breaking through the silence as water pooled in her lungs and the darkness behind her eyelids flickered bright white.

"And starting now, we'll never be

x

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Sorry about the wait! 'We Looked Like Giants' is my favourite song on Transatlanticism, and it is worth a listen.
(( www[.]youtube[.]com[/]watch?v=mwAUca79c4o ))

Sorry I keep glossing over the Aigis scenes, but it's like... I don't really have anything to add to her game script, and come on, we've all played the game like fiftymillion times, amirite? (fun fact: I still haven't finished my second playthrough of P3P. laaame.) Also I can't let anyone else use the 'Aki' nickname except for Shinjiro because I'm weird like that so my apologies for that as well.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. Watch it if you haven't already. If you have then you probs knew that that's where this monstrosity of a fic came from.

Thank you to each and every one of you who subscribed and favourited and reviewed (ESPECIALLY those of you who reviewed, I always have my :D-face on when I read them), you are all too lovely. My general method of writingz is starting with a ridiculous idea and staying the course no matter how terrible/plodding/pointless it ends up. I'm so glad you rode along with me on this one.

The last track is 'a lack of colour' and it will be up as soon as it's done. Brace for imminent angst.