Heya! I'm back! A few days early cuz exam is coming!

Enjoy!

IV: Stability of The Emperor

Emperor: Stability, Authority, Control, Focus, Discipline, Practicality

Reversed Emperor: Tyrant, Rigidity, Lack of Discipline

She wakes up with her head leaning against Yuuki's on the same couch she led him to the night before, their fingers still intertwined.

It's a good thing that it's Sunday, because it's already 9 am, when she looks at the clock.

His soft, rhythmic breathing tells her that he at least had a peaceful evening. She smiles and pulls a stray strand of hair out of his eyes and tugs it behind his ear. He looks so peaceful, a stark contrast from his breakdown yesterday, where he looked absolutely broken, frightened, and lost.

She really hates seeing him like that.

"Good morning," She hears a small voice from the kitchen, and turns to see Fuuka standing at the entrance with a small smile. She then gestures at the other side, as if asking for permission. Yukari thinks that's a bit weird, but she doesn't question it and just nods.

The girl carefully makes her ways towards the sofa and sits on it, a contemplative and slightly mischievous look on her face. Yukari doesn't quite understand that until her teal eyes land on their still jointed hands, and she immediately growls (quietly) at her. "Fuuka, you know I'm doing this to calm him down!"

"Oh, I know, I just think you two look cute together," She comments with a giggle. Yukari could feel her face heating up, but she couldn't find it in her to untangle her hand from his.

"Fuuka!"

"I don't think even I can go that far for him," She comments, her smile a bit sad. "You're very patient and kind towards him, Yukari-chan."

"…It's cuz he needs it," She murmurs.

"Do you like him?"

"I—what?" She gapes, thinking for a second that she might've misheard it.

"Do you like him, Yukari-chan?" Fuuka repeats herself.

She's about to deny it, but then backtracks. She… when she thinks about it, at first it's just guilt for pushing him over the edge the first time. But he's a really kind, really caring soul who's just been brought up and pushed into hell for almost a decade. She likes his company. When he's not breaking into pieces, he's caring in his own way, maybe a bit awkward, but infinitely patient.

…Still, that doesn't really mean she's thinking of him that way… right? "I… don't know?"

"Oh come on," Fuuka pouts. "At least admit it to me. It's pretty clear you're head over heels."

"Fuuka, you really are an unrelenting tease, aren't you?" She mutters, her face uncomfortably hot. She's very embarrassed, and it's surprising that out of all people, it'd be Fuuka who's teasing her. She'd expect something like this out of Junpei, not the navigator.

"Maybe. Anyways, shouldn't you wake him up?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea," She says, glancing at Yuuki again. He looks so serene like this, and she doesn't think waking someone who's just had a panic attack of that scale now is the best way to go about this. She sighs and tugs a bit of his hair back again. "I'll get him to his room when he's up."

"If you say so," She says. "What about breakfast?"

"Eh, I'll find something. The dinner Aragaki-senpai made yesterday's keeping me full, even now," She says with a smile. He looks scary, but he's the epitome of a moe inside. His food is super tasty, too. "And thanks to his food, Yuuki-kun at least got to eat something. I don't think I've seen him eat anything much for a while now, so that's a good thing, I think."

"Then, see you later," Fuuka says, waving her hand slightly. "If you need anything, call me, okay?"

"'Kay," She mumbles. "Thanks."

Once Fuuka's gone, she returns her attention to the boy on her shoulder. He's relaxed, his breathing is steady. There are no more frowns on his face, and his shoulders are not squared like a caged animal. She only wishes that this would persist throughout the day.

Yesterday was… a disaster. When she went to check out the commotion, she didn't think she'd see Yuuki backed into a corner like that. And she soon found out why when she had a chat with the psychiatrist; that guy just didn't give a shit about his traumas at all, and was trying to force him to do what he's told. Of course, that went so well that it brought him over the edge, and he had a breakdown right then and there.

It's a miracle that he listened to her like he did. And she's glad that she could help; seeing him like that – their fearless, calculating, calm, and even cool leader in that state is heartbreaking. She could still feel the uneasiness when she had to witness him screaming and crying and curling into himself, as if to shut away all the pain in the world.

Her train of thoughts stops for a moment when he stirs, his hand squeezing over hers a little. He groans and shifts his head off of her shoulder before opening his eyes, a bit confused, but clearer than the night prior. She gives him a moment to adjust to the light, and when he turns to face her, she smiles. "Hey."

"…Morning," He mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. He still doesn't let go, and she really doesn't mind it (she pushes Fuuka's comment away, for now) so she lets him hogs her hand for a while longer. He blinks a few times before looking down. The way his face reddens is almost hilarious, and he stammers. "Uh, I'm sor—"

"It's alright," She stops him. "I don't mind."

"…Okay," He says, looking down at their hands again before giving hers a light squeeze. "And, uh… I'm sorry, about yesterday."

"It isn't your fault," She says, anger at that damn doctor bubbling up in her throat. She breathes and forces the feeling away. "I talked with Kirijou-senpai yesterday, and she's finding you a new one. Are you okay with trying again?"

"…Yeah," He murmurs weakly. His fingers are trembling, so she gives him a reassuring grasp. He smiles ever so slightly. "If you think I should, then I guess I will."

"I think you should," She confirms again. "Aragaki-senpai said he knows a few, so you'll be starting from there. I guess it's better than finding a new one from nothing."

"I guess."

She pauses a little. "Do you wanna do anything today?"

"No," His answer is almost immediate as he lets out a sigh. "I don't know what I want. Thinking still hurts a bit."

"I see," She murmurs. Then, "Want to go back to your room or something?"

"Maybe," He mutters. "I dunno. Staying like this is nice, but—"

"I don't mind," She quickly says before he has the chance to think otherwise.

He gives it a few more moments of thoughts before he hums, content. He squeezes her hand again, and smiles to himself. "Then… if you would."

"Sure," She says with a smile. "I'll stay here."

After a while, they move to his room.

And somehow, she's following him in there.

She doesn't really mind, though; unlike Junpei, he's a straight gentleman. He wouldn't have so much as look at her wrong if she'd asked him not to. And since her touch calms him down, she thinks it's a good idea to help him some more…

…Well, maybe it's also to stay close to him a bit longer (curse you, Fuuka), but at this point, she just doesn't care anymore.

They're sitting on his bed, their fingers still intertwined. The silence is not awkward in the least; it's actually very comforting, if Yukari has to say. His hand is surprisingly soft, even though his left is his main sword-hand during major fights. There are, however, multitude of nearly unnoticeable scars scattering across it, and before long, she finds herself tracing her fingers along them, mapping out his hand oh-so-carefully.

He only hums as she keeps his hand to herself, playing with his fingers, tracing the lines on his palm, even massaging it. His face is slightly red, but she feels like hers is heating up slightly, too, so she refrains from making a comment about it. They settle in his room just like that; with her absentmindedly kneading his hand, and he allowing her free reign of it.

After a while, she puts it down and looks up at him. He's watching her, his eyes a bit curious, but always so kind. She then mumbles. "So… are you feeling better?"

"Yes," He replies, beaming at her slightly. "Thanks to you."

"Mhm," She hums, scooting over so that their knees would touch. He doesn't shy away nor flinch, so she thinks she did a pretty fine job at it.

"Can I ask you a question?" He says quietly, eyes looking away.

"Sure."

"Not many people, if at all, would go that far…" He trails off. She could easily complete the phrase, however; Nobody would go that far for someone like me. She nudges him, urging him to continue. He exhales shakily. "So… why?"

"I've told you this before, but do I need a reason to save someone?" She whispers, putting a careful hand on his cheek. He winces slightly, but doesn't pull away. His reactions to physical touch hurt her a lot. "You were in pain. You were scared and lonely. Do I really need more motives to save a soul than that?"

"…I dunno," He murmurs after a moment. "…You're incomprehensible, sometimes."

"You are incomprehensible most of the time," She quickly shoots back, pulling her hand away, giggling slightly. Her smiles falters as she continues. "You're worse, you know. Saving people while you yourself are breaking into pieces."

"It's not that I'm a good person," He says, looking at her briefly before glancing out the window, at the rustling leaves that's dancing to the tune of the afternoon breeze. "Saving people is just… it makes me feel like I'm not a mistake. Like I actually am important to someone."

"Hey," She interrupts him, this time cupping both of his cheeks in her hands and forcing him to look at her. He only blinks as she presses her hands against his skin a little harder. "Don't say something like that. You're important to us, the SEES… you're important to me, okay? You're not alone anymore."

They stare at each other like that for what feels like an eon to her, but then he breaks into a warm, gentle smile that makes her heart beats just a little faster. He puts one of his hands over hers and inhales before whispering only for her to hear. "…Thank you, Takeba."

"Yukari."

"…Excuse me?"

"Yukari," She repeats. "I don't think referring to each other with our last names is appropriate, at this point, with how much hand-holdings we're doing… Makoto."

He hums. "I guess. Well then… Yukari."

His voice is impossibly soothing, and it sends a shiver down her spine. She ignores it and pulls her hands away. She could feel it—she's really red to the ears, isn't she?

"Welp… then," She mumbles, not sure of what to do next. She just sighs. "Damnit, my brain isn't working."

"Uh… sorry?"

"It's okay, it's not your fault," It actually is, but not intentionally, she adds mutely. Really, when he smiles like that, he's stupidly cute. She slaps her cheeks hard to get rid of that thought, and she catches Yuu—no, she catches Makoto jumping from the corner of her eyes. "I really hate having brain farts."

He raises an eyebrow. She doesn't elaborate on it.

"Anyways," She says as her stomach growls, protesting her abuses of it. She grumbles. "I'm really hungry, and I'm thinking about a takeout, maybe… what do you want? And don't say whatever, because that's going to tick me off and I'm going to punch you."

He winces a little, but ultimately nods. After a while, he says, "Pizza?"

"Sounds good."

He's smiling at her again, warm and gentle and so, so soft.

She wishes she's just a tiny bit braver, and maybe, just maybe, she'd be able to acknowledge that her feeling's going beyond to being just friends.

She thinks Amada joining the SEES really rubs him the wrong way.

But Makoto's not voicing his concern aloud to anyone, only through his eyes. He looks wholly furious, but that fury's not pointing at the boy. It's pointing somewhere else, at someone else, and whenever she catches his eyes, he would quickly look away with a scowl permanently planted on his face.

The August Full Moon Operation is approaching, and she's… concerned about him. While his leadership is still top-notch, he's really not acting much like himself during the down time, and she just doesn't like it.

So, when they finished their Tartarus excursion for the night, she quickly grabs him by the wrist and nudges him towards his room.

"Yukari, what the—"

"Shush and go in there first," She says, pushing him inside and closing the door behind them.

"What—"

"Makoto, I also have a problem with Amada-kun joining, but it looks like this is more personal to you than the rest of us, isn't it?" She says, crossing her arms over her chest.

He flinches. Bullseye.

"Well?"

"…Jackpot," He says with a deep sigh, his hand rubbing the back of his head. "He's still a kid. He's as young as I am when I—"

At this, he cuts himself off, working at his jaws and repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists. She puts her arms down and steps forward, placing a hand on his arm. He tenses up slightly, but doesn't do anything else. She doesn't know if this is a good idea or not, but she feels like she has to nudge a little. "You can tell me however much you want. But I think you need to."

He takes in a few deep breaths before nodding. "I guess you're right. Let's just… sit down, first. It's going to be a long explanation."

His expression is a mix between deep-seated guilt and self-loathing as he sits down on the bed, his legs shaking slightly. He's jittery, and he's restless. He looks at her expectantly, and she joins him, sitting just close enough that they would have some sort of physical contact, with their knees pressed lightly together.

After a while, he murmurs, "Do you remember, when I told you that I've killed people before?"

Her breath hitches. He didn't elaborate during the trip, but she knew that the direction that conversation would've taken them towards would not be a good one. But if he's opening up, then she had to listen – there's no two ways about it. She steels herself before nodding. "Yeah."

"One of those happened when I was around his age," He says, his eyes looking at no particular spot. "It was a time just like this one; summer, where people are usually in high spirits and happy and carefree."

She reaches out to grab his hand, and he recuperates, holding onto hers just tight enough, but not so much as to make it painful.

"I was with a foster family, like always," He says, a frown appearing on his face. "I don't remember much of what happened, but I guess… it's a psychological amnesia, to reduce the trauma as much as I could. But I do remember parts of it."

"You don't have to say everything, if it hurts," She says, squeezing his hand lightly.

"I need to," He whispers then inhales deeply. His voice is broken as he says. "We—no, they were playing, and I got picked on. It started simple; a bit of unkind words, and it slowly escalated throughout the month, starting from insults, then bodily harms, until…"

He stops, frowning. His fingers are trembling, so she gives him another reassuring squeeze.

He smiles slightly, but it's clear that it's forced and empty. "One of the boys decided that he wanted to play a bit rougher than usual that day. He figured he's never seen someone drowned before, so he took me by the scruff of my neck, and pushed my head underwater."

She gasps; that explains a lot, why he kept saying he's drowning and dying. He was reliving those moments, with no way out. She bites down on her lip hard to stop herself from doing or saying anything. She settles down by rubbing at the back of his hand as he seems to have trouble keeping it still.

"I just grabbed at something I could reach and clenched around it hard until I was pulled back out," He murmurs, pulling his hand away from hers and grabs it, digging his own nails hard enough into it until he's bleeding. "When I came to my senses, I was straddling that boy, my hands around his throat. He's stopped moving for a while already."

…That's why what happened in that love hotel shook him up so much.

He's reliving every last details of that memory.

"Makoto…"

"I killed a person," He says with a broken laughter. "And somehow, that worsened my PTSD. It's kind of funny, when you think about it – a murderer like me, who just easily choked the life out of someone, is having trouble living while the other person ended up dead and buried."

"Stop that," She murmurs, pulling both of his hands to hers and gripping at them hard, refusing to let go. "You were just trying not to die. It's not—"

"—my fault?" He finishes, his voice no more than a whisper. "How is it not my fault when he's dead, and I'm still here?"

She couldn't answer as the silence stretches more, and more, and more.

"I don't want Amada to experience that many traumatic situations like I was," He finally says after an eternity, his eyes casting downwards, shadowed by his hair. "I've been through something like that a lot. And the only time I actually did something, it resulted in someone's demise. Amada's not going to end up killing someone, of course, but… having these kinds of experiences when you're a kid will desensitize you; it'll make you numb."

He pulls his hands away again.

"And before you know it, you'd already have done something horrible that you could never take back."

"I… I'm sorry."

"Don't be," He says with a sardonic smile. "I don't deserve it."

All she could do is pull him into a hug, despite his protest. Words die in her throat, no matter how much she tries to think of things to say.

She couldn't say anything to him.

She just couldn't.

Strega is insane, there are no other words for them.

Makoto is keeping his cool, but she could see that he's seriously thinking about what they said; that deep down, they might not've been happy if they had eliminated the Dark Hour from the world.

She… despite the thoughts angering her so, Yukari thinks she'd understand if he'd begin to agree to that line of thought. The Dark Hour, Personas and Shadows, the SEES… they're all what's giving him his raison d'être. Without those things, he might be just another soul, wandering with no real meaning in life, empty, and alone. She could see it from his point of view, and just thinking about it hurts.

When she manages to catch him alone after school, she quickly matches her pace with his, and he only acknowledges her with a small, almost inaudible hum, with the music blasting into his ears as if it would let him drown out the world around him.

He doesn't have any appointments today, she knows that much. So she just silently follows him until he stops at the steps leading towards the station. After a brief moment of stillness, he murmurs. "You think I'm agreeing with Strega."

It isn't a question. It's a statement.

She gulps. "Yes."

"You're right," He murmurs quietly, not looking at her. He pulls his earphones off and tilts his head up towards the sky. "But you're also wrong."

She blinks. "What?"

"Eliminating the Dark Hour is my reason of being, and it's the one thing I can do to stop people from breaking and dying," He whispers, mostly to the wind. Something is breaking behind his tone, but he suppresses it as he continues. "If I allow it to continue, then what kind of sick bastard would I be? I'll not allow another soul to die because of me, ever again."

"Makoto—"

"I don't mind returning to whatever hell I've crawled out of," He says as he begins to walk again. "As long as I get to actually live, and actually save someone, rather than taking their lives, then I don't care."

She jogs a little to catch up to him. He's keeping himself a few steps ahead of her, but she could still hear some strains behind his breathing.

"Makoto," She calls again, finally matching her steps with his. He doesn't slow down, but neither is he speeding up. "I would care if you disappear."

He actually slows down a little at that before turning to look at her, eyes slightly widened. "What?"

"I'm glad that you'll still fight, even after… what they said, what you've gone through, what you're going through," She says. "But even when all of those is said and done, when there's nothing but schools left, just know that we'd still be friends. I'd still be there, right beside you."

"…Why?" His voice shatters, and the word comes out in hushed, broken whisper. He's trying to keep it together, she could tell; his eyes are scared, and pleading.

She smiles, and takes his hand into hers, giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

"I don't need a reason to care, you idiot."

"You're indecipherable."

"So are you."

He smiles and turns away, wiping something away from his eyes with the back of his hand (tears, probably). After a few deep breaths, he murmurs. "You're like an anchor that's keeping my feet on the ground, Yukari."

"Well, I had hoped I'd be the wings," She jests, still not letting his hand go. He doesn't seem to mind it. "But I'll take that compliment any day."

"Really," He murmurs, his voice a bit rough. "I could never understand you, but… thank you."

"You're always welcome."

He looks like he wants to say something more, but in the end, he doesn't, only taking one of her hand in his and interlacing their fingers, like they did before. After a brief squeeze, he hums with a content smile. "So, Paulownia Mall? Or the Dorm?"

"The Dorm," She answers without missing a beat.

She'll be there, whenever he needs her to.

She'll never let him be abandoned ever again.

A bit of a slice of life, I guess? Lol?

Anyways, hope you enjoy that. See you next week, folks!