"What about this one?"
Minako took her time moving her hand from his shoulder to his forearm, her thumb slowly tracing a bumpy, faded line that she'd never noticed before as it was usually covered by his sleeve. Akihiko craned his neck to get a better look at what she was talking about, taking a moment to reflect before answering. He'd sustained so many injuries during his childhood, it was hard to keep track of how he'd gotten all of them. "I think I was seven. Shinji and I were running in the courtyard, I tripped and fell on some broken glass. The staff at the orphanage just wrapped it up in gauze, so it never really healed properly."
She frowned, the way she often did whenever he revealed something tragic about his past. Not because she didn't want to hear these stories (far from it, she wanted to learn everything about him she possibly could) but it pained her to be reminded of how difficult he'd had it growing up. Even though she'd lost her parents at a young age, she still had plenty of happy memories from her childhood to look back on. That was not the case for Akihiko, who'd been through so much trauma in such a short period of time.
Her fingers continued to trace the scar absentmindedly. As it was an uncharacteristically slow day, she'd decided to take advantage by spending some much-needed alone time with her boyfriend. What had started with her chastising him over a recent injury sustained during a bout of training in Tartarus, to which he'd argued he'd "had a lot worse", had turned into an impromptu inventorying of the various evidence of such altercations visible on his body. Recent scrapes, bruises, and cuts from both boxing matches and battles in Tartarus could be found side-by-side with old injuries from his chaotic childhood and early teenage years that would most likely never heal.
Minako sighed, readjusting her position on the bed where they lay facing each other, their heads propped up on their elbows. It had taken a lot of coaxing to get him to spend time with her like this, and she was being careful not to push him too much despite his small bed leaving little opportunity for space between them (not that she was complaining). Her fingers made their way from his forearm up towards his face, the palm of her hand settling on the crook of his neck as she ran her thumb over his cheek.
"What are you looking at now?" he asked quietly as he resisted the urge to close his eyes at her touch.
"Nothing, just admiring your handsome face," she told him with a cocky smile. She relished the way he seemed taken aback by her directness, the beginning of a blush beginning to form on the apples of his cheeks. She loved how easy it was to fluster him still.
"Why do you always say things like that?" he protested, albeit rather weakly, as he reached for the hand at his face and began to pull it away. She was about to voice her dissent but was cut off by the feeling of his lips pressing against her wrist. It was her turn to blush.
Their hands now intertwined between their two bodies, Akihiko inched just a bit closer to her. "And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"The way you throw yourself at danger when we're fighting shadows, you must have plenty of scars of your own." To accentuate his point, he placed one hand just above her left elbow, where a large purplish bruise had begun to form from a nasty hit three days earlier. Although their healing skills seemed to rid their bodies of the most garish of injuries, it wasn't uncommon for traces of those encounters to remain once the Dark Hour ended and they returned to the real world. They all had their fair share of battle wounds to cover up (or in Junpei's case, show off proudly). The truth was, although Minako had been a pretty rambunctious child, she'd never injured herself severely enough to leave a permanent mark behind. Well, with one exception.
Without saying a word, she grabbed his hand, slowly bringing it to rest along the side of her head until she felt the familiar ridges nestled beneath her hairline. A silence fell between them as she prepared herself. Akihiko watched her expression carefully but didn't push her for an explanation. She took a deep breath before continuing. "Ten years ago, in the car crash that killed my parents. The window next to my head shattered from the impact. Sixteen stitches."
"Minako…" he began with a concerned expression. Like the rest of the SEES, he already knew that her parents were dead. However, she'd never shared any details with anyone about how they'd died or that she'd been there when it happened. Although she wasn't a particularly private person, this significant event from her childhood was still an open wound that she kept buried deep within herself.
Before he could continue, she cut him off by bringing his hand to rest against her hip, sliding it upwards so that it snaked under her shirt and came to rest at her rib cage. "M-minako?" He repeated, his voice rising as his face flushed. Normally she would giggle and tease him about how flustered she'd made him, but at the moment she was sure she looked similar, her entire body feeling like it was on fire from the unprecedented contact.
She pressed his palm against the long, jagged line on her side, trying not to think too hard about how nice it was to feel his touch against her bare skin. "From when I climbed out of the car and cut myself on part of the wreckage. It was cold that night, and I was wearing plenty of layers or else it could have been a lot worse. The doctors were surprised I survived, since Mom and Dad pretty much died on impact."
Akihiko said nothing, frowning as he continued to stare at her. He made no effort to remove his hand from her side, the warmth of it immensely comforting. She could tell that he was deep in thought and let whatever was going through his mind run its course.
Then he pulled away from her, shifting onto his back. Minako sat up cross-legged with her back flat against the wall, so she could continue to look at his face as he seemed to struggle with what to say next. He didn't quite make eye contact with her as he reached over and grabbed both of her hands, steadying himself as he intertwined their fingers together.
"When the fire broke out at the orphanage..." he began, and her eyes widened as she realized the direction in which the conversation was headed. "Shinji and I were a few blocks away, playing at a park. We noticed the smoke and went running. When we got there, a bunch of the kids were already outside...and then I noticed Miki wasn't with them…"
He paused and she squeezed his hands encouragingly. Her breath had hitched in her throat at the sound of his sister's name - like with her parents, she knew that Miki had died in an accident, but he'd never broached the details with her. Whenever he spoke of her, it was usually laden with nostalgia as he reminisced about their time together, or with guilt as he lamented not having been able to save her. But now he was opening up to her in the most meaningful way possible, and she was terrified if she moved or breathed the wrong way that he'd get spooked and change his mind.
"I tried to run inside," he continued, "but when I made it to the front door, Shinji grabbed me and began to pull me back. I held onto the handle and wouldn't let go. Even back then, he was bigger than me...still, it took a while before he overpowered me and dragged me back to the street. By the time the fire department showed up, it was too late for everyone still inside…" He hesitated, his grip on her tightening. "Miki was alive when they pulled her out...b-but the smoke was too much for her tiny lungs to handle."
His voice wavered as he spoke, and Minako could feel tears prickling at the corner of her eyes at the raw emotion on his face. She'd always considered herself a great listener, part of the reason being that she was a highly empathetic person and tended to feel things too deeply. She shook her head to keep it together. This wasn't her tragedy to cry over; she needed to stay focused on Akihiko.
Luckily, he didn't seem to notice her conflict as he hadn't quite been able to look her in the eye since he'd begun to tell his story. "It wasn't until a paramedic was looking me over that I realized I had burns all over my hands from trying to get into the building. It took months for them to heal. They've mostly faded, but there are still traces of them if you look closely enough."
To demonstrate, he let go of her and ran the thumb of one hand over the palm of the other. Minako cautiously reached over and placed a finger over his skin, where she could feel roughness that she had previously attributed to his vigorous training and the fact that he used his fists to fight shadows. She herself had plenty of calluses from wielding her naginata.
They sat in silence for a while, Akihiko still avoiding her gaze as he stared at a spot just behind her. Minako continued to run her fingers over the surface of both his hands, memorizing every stretch of skin and considering the weight and history that they held. As much as she wanted to comfort him, she couldn't imagine what she could say to convince him that he needed to stop blaming himself for the loss of those closest to him. That was something he would never be able to shake off. It was an intricate part of his personality, part of what made him the person he was.
"Thank you for sharing that with me," she said softly.
He finally looked at her, giving her a slight smile that didn't quite reach his eyes but which was reassuring nonetheless. "Thank you for telling me about your parents."
Minako shifted to lie down next to him, wrapping one around and his middle. He stiffened momentarily at the sudden closeness before reciprocating by placing his arm around her shoulder to hug her closer. "I know it's too much to ask considering what we do," he began, "and I know that you can take care of yourself, but I still hate seeing you get hurt. If it was up to me, you'd never get another bruise, or cut, or scrape. Nothing would ever harm you again."
"I know," she murmured, lifting her head just enough to kiss him gently. He returned her affection eagerly, reaching up to cradle her face as he deepened the kiss.
When they finally separated, he placed his lips against her temple, and Minako let out a contented sigh as she nestled her head into the crook of his shoulder. "You know, when I snuck in here earlier this wasn't exactly how I was planning for the evening to go."
The corner of his lips twitched slightly. "Oh yeah? What did you have in mind?"
With a mischievous smirk, she ran her hand up and down his side, enjoying the way he shivered in response. The memory of his palm pressed up against her side emboldened her. Her hand dipped under the hem of his shirt and she heard his breath hitch as her fingers made contact with the skin of his abdomen. The sound of it made her slightly woozy.
"I'm sure you have plenty more scars to show me, if I look hard enough," she teased, anything else she had to add cut off as he yanked her down for another kiss, this one much hungrier than the one before.