It had taken me ten minutes to find Junpei. True to his word, he'd been snacking on some burger he had bought from some forgettable fast food joint on the third floor of the mall. Once our eyes had met, the carefree glint in his pupils had turned sour.

We silently walked out of the mall after I'd told him I'd bought us new weapons for the following day. It was evening, 6:00 PM. Junpei and I had begun a bit of a long walk to the monorails, ready to head back to the dorm. Mitsuru had given us a curfew—we weren't allowed outside after seven. Akihiko had made it very clear not to agitate Mitsuru or else she'd execute us or something like that.

But neither Junpei nor I cared much about that. There was a gigantic elephant in the room, one neither of us were all that willing to bring up for fear it would further fracture this already-fragile "friendship" of ours. But in the end, I would have to break this silence. In the end, I would need to begin socializing with other people for the purposes of...gaining power. To carry that burden for as long as I would need to and take it to my grave.

Because I needed to. Because I had no choice. Because other people were on the line. Because, because, because. Because I needed to get stronger and I needed to believe any and all rationalizations and justifications handed to me in order to do this without feeling like the most horrible person in the world.

"Junpei, I—"

"I'm sorry."

"—huh?"

Magus

I turned to him, and he looked like it had taken him all his strength to say those two words. Seeing my surprise, he decided to repeat himself with a clearer, more serious tone of voice. "I'm sorry. About earlier," he added. "For leavin' you there at the police station. For taking off so suddenly...making you buy our weapons alone." Tiredly, almost ashamed to say it, he finally said those words again for the third time: "I'm sorry."

And at that, I lost the will to despise him. "I get it," I said to him, to which he looked at me quizzically. "I know that Tartarus was...an experience we all want to forget, and I get how the prospect of us going back there tomorrow can be stressful, to say the least."

Junpei raised an eyebrow and folded his arms, "Then why have us go back there so soon in the first place?"

"Because I thought it was necessary," I said to him. "After what happened to us, we needed to get stronger. Tartarus is the only place we can hone our skills against the Shadows. If another one attacks the city, we need to be prepared."

Junpei just frowned, but then looked towards the sky for about two seconds before turning back to me, "You fought one on the roof, right? It was that bad?"

"The senpai intervened, but even then we'd survived by the skin of our teeth," I told him. "Its body was arms. Just a big mass of arms that was larger than an SUV. Could've killed us had I not summoned the right Persona at the right time. And the same thing happened back in Tartarus. We all could've died had I not been lucky enough. Luck won't win us these battles, not forever. That's why I want us to train. That's why I want us to go back there tomorrow. I want us to survive. And keep on surviving."

"But all the while, we're hanging on the edge," countered Junpei.

"It's unavoidable," I said. "Whether we go back there in a day or a month, we'll have to go back there. And if the Shadows get stronger, we'll have to keep up with them. Better to train hard nowthan get tossed like ragdolls later. Right?"

"Is it 'cause of Yuka-tan?" I turned to him, my eyes narrow. He smirked at me sardonically, shoving his hands in his pockets before stating, "Right on the nose, huh?"

"You know what happened to her, back in that tower," I grunted. "Happened because I wasn't quick enough, smart enough. Good enough. Not gonna let that happen again. Lucky. Too lucky. If we'd not gotten her over to Kirijo she'd have died. Why are you smiling?"

He treaded back, his smile disappearing as quickly as it had come, "Thought you and her had something going on, honestly."

I took in a deep breath. "That girl saved my life, when I and she had fought that mass of arms back at the dormitory." I then told him, my voice grave and my eyes like daggers, "I'm not going to let the Shadows take her. Not after my family."

"So...you're not after her?" he asked, his brow raised.

"What does that have to do with anything?" I growled at him, making him flinch. "It doesn't matter if I like her or not. She's the first person in a long time who came to me and spoke to me like I was an actual human being. That's more than enough reason." I then turned away from him, sighing, "Sorry about that."

Junpei stammered, "A-about what?"

I exhaled again, "Getting mad at you...I'm trying to get better at controlling myself."

"Dude...," Junpei walked over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder, "Look. You're not gonna lose her. You're doing all this stuff just to make sure she'd stay alive. You even bought her an extra bow. And I've seen you fight. Trust me, you'll do just fine as the leader."

"What do you mean, you've seen me fight?"

Junpei widened his eyes, raising his hands as he said in astonishment, "You're joking."

"No. I'm not."

"You don't remember!?" Junpei exclaimed, suddenly grabbing me by the shoulders.

"N-no! What—!?"

"You don't remember," Junpei repeated, removing his hands and pacing away from me, muttering something under his breath as he held his head like he was having a headache. He turned back to me, "You're telling me you don't remember cutting down and killing those Shadows with your own sword? That you just forgot all that in your little mad dash to save Yuka-tan?"

"I remember," I told him, "what's that got to do with anything?"

"You don't remember how you fought? How you cut 'em down, how you swung your sword and fought and bled and killed 'em like—it was like you weren't even afraid to—!"

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad," I noted, but he maintained his stunned gaze upon me. "Was it?" I asked him, suddenly doubtful due to the intent of his gaze. "Was I...?"

"You were like a monster," Junpei said bluntly. "I ain't even gonna sugarcoat it. That's what you looked and acted like. It was like you weren't even afraid," he repeated.

I sighed, "I guess that's where you're wrong, Junpei," I sighed, sitting down on a nearby bench. He and I were near a playground, you see. "I was afraid. Afraid that Takeba would..." I lifted my head up to him, "I don't want her to die. I don't want either of you to die." And then I hung my head low again. "So I become angry, to stop myself from being afraid. Because being angry gives my sword power. Gives me power. Fear just...freezes me."

Junpei looked at me like he was looking at something that wasn't human, and found that all he could say to me was, "What did you mean, when you said Yuka-tan was the first to speak to you like a normal person?"

I looked up at him and gave him a smirk of my own, "After what happened to my family, people stopped looking at me normally. Always the cold, brooding sort. Always the quiet one. Always the guy who sat at the back of the class and only spoke when spoken to. Even my uncle and aunt...my caretakers before all this, we were never close. I was just...there. And so were they. Half the time, I barely even knew if they cared about me or not. I came back to this city having stopped caring about all that. Because..."

Junpei repeated, "Because...?"

I took in a deep breath, "I came back here, trying to find out about that car accident. Something. Anything. For some sense of closure, I guess. I wasn't concerned with being anybody's friend. Didn't matter to me. But after we fought the arms, Takeba spoke to me as I lay in a hospital bed. We talked about things you'd never tell anybody when you'd first meet them. And for once, somebody thought I mattered more than my past did." I cleared my throat and leaned back in the seat of the bench. "My relatives couldn't have cared less about me. But she cared. Cared enough to talk to me, to tell me about her own issues. Her own problems. Her own troubles."

And so I stared at Junpei, my gaze even again. "I don't want to lose that. To lose her."

Junpei found himself at a loss for words. He and I maintained this pregnant silence for about five seconds before he mustered up the strength to walk over to the same bench I was on. Sitting down next to me, he laid his elbows on his knees and tented his fingers, closing his eyes rather tightly.

He then simply said, "My dad's a booze hound." as he stared ahead. Stared at the playground sets before us; the swings, the monkey bars, the seesaws. "Ever since he got scammed by some telemarketer, that's all he's ever been. He used to be the raging kind, but last I saw of him he just...drinks." And then he turned to me, somber eyes and all. "Mom left us, 'cause she had better things to do than stick around with some loser and his kid." And then he chuckled morosely, "Y'know, half the time I don't even know what I'm doing anymore."

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"It's messed up, really." He leaned back in his seat and placed his hands behind his head as he reclined. "You think you're special because someone tells you you are and then stuff happens. Then, you find out you're not as special as you'd like to be. Then more and more stuff happens to you, and you just begin to stop thinking you're special altogether. Then you wonder what the point of being special was anymore, so you decide to be yourself. And then you find out that nobody cares about you anyway, so you wonder what all the worrying was about in the first place. You know?"

I blinked at him and replied, "Yeah. I think I do."

He grinned, "You sure?"

I raised both my eyebrows at him and leaned forward, gesturing as I made my statements, "After all that, you just begin to really stop caring about anything and everything. Caring about what people say, what they think, how they feel. You decide to just be yourself without any concern for what people say about you. You decide to do whatever you want because it's easy and because that's what life kind of expects you to do at this point. And then it gets easier for you, ironically. To wear people's perceptions of you on your sleeve and become gradually what they want you to be, what they think you are."

"And then in the end, you realize how little that matters, too," he finished. "And then you're free."

"Not free," I said to him. "Just...illuminated."

"You think so?" he asked me.

"I don't think anybody's really free," I said to him. "We make choices we think are our own, but each one is influenced by thousands of other factors we face every day. So no. We're not free. We're just...prisoners that can see the bars, I suppose."

"I guess I can live with that." Junpei scoffed. "You know, it's funny. I've never really spoken with anybody about this kinda stuff. Least of all somebody I just met."

"Funny how things like this can occur from thoughts of monsters that can eat you alive if you're not careful enough," I snorted.

He narrowed his eyes at me again, spryness in his smile, "You sure you don't got a thing for Yuka-tan?"

I stumbled a bit in forming the words, but my statement ultimately came out as, "What, this again?"

"Well, just a little curious," he said. "The way you talk about her...it's like you revere her or something."

I scratched my chin, putting at least a little thought into what he was saying. I recalled our little talk back in the hospital. Her smile, her earnestness, her honesty. Forthright about speaking of her parents, her father and her mother; because it was unfair that she knew my past but I knew nothing of hers. How she'd told me that I'd saved her, how she was grateful that I'd saved her, her and everybody else. How she had stayed with me for a whole week, waiting for me to wake up.

How, even after I had failed her in Tartarus, how I had failed in my duties so spectacularly and had only gotten her to safety out of pure luck, she had smiled at me with that strange yet wonderful smile of hers and remained thankful, remained grateful, remained my friend.

I hummed before admitting both to myself and to him, "Okay, maybe. But it's not definite. Might as well be nothing at all..."

"You're not even intimidated by all the attention she gets?" he asked.

"Attention?" I repeated.

"You lack so much awareness of your surroundings it's amazing, man," Junpei laughed. "Let's get back to the dorm," he suddenly said, patting my back. "Tomorrow," he continued, "I'll treat you somewhere with my buddy, Kenji."

"But tomorrow we've got to prepare for Tartarus," I said to him.

"If you want, you can ask the senpai if it's okay for us to dine out. And I'm sure it is. C'mon, man. Live a little. How're you gonna be a good boyfriend to Takeba-san if you're gonna be so serious all the time?"

I frowned at him uneasily, "I don't know about that..."

"We'll be fine," said Junpei as he placed a hand on my shoulder. "We'll survive. The Shadows won't get us. Remember what senpai said. All we can do is do our best and trust each other. Even when the situation goes real bad. You chose to have us return after today. And...I guess I can see your reasoning behind it. Trust me. We'll all survive. We'll push on through thick and thin and make it home with our heads held high and ain't no Shadow gonna stop us from that. After all," his tone of voice suddenly reverted to one of exaggerated smugness, "you guys got me on the team, right?"

And at that, I smiled. "That's actually cause for worry, you know."

"HA!" he roared, slapping me a bit harder on the back. "You're pretty cool, man."

*SMASH!*

Okay, ow...

"Thou hast established a new bond…"

"What's up?" Junpei asked me as I clutched at my head, my hand shaking.

"Thou shalt be blessed when thou chooseth to imbue thyself with the power of the Magus Arcana…"

"Dude, you okay?" he asked, to which I shook my hand at him.

"Nothing, it's just..." I need to talk to Igor I need to talk to Igor I need to talk to Igor I need to talk to Igor "Headache, that's all."

"Just a headache?" he asked. "So suddenly? You get these all the time?"

I gave another smirk at him as I shook my head, placing my own hand on his shoulder once more, "Friend, I've got the feeling I'll get a lot more of this as time goes on..."