Disclaimer: I don't own P3P. The poem is by Mary Elizabeth Frye.
Author's Note: Whew, I don't even know what I'm doing here. I haven't played P3P in ages (and FES is going very badly aka I'm not playing it at all) but I suddenly wanted to write something exploring a friendship between Akihiko and Minako a little bit. Forgive me if there are any inconsistencies with the game. (Such as I know Akihiko met Ryoji at the school trip but for the sake of this, Akihiko remained careless and didn't really bother learning his name.)
All That Remains Afterwards
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
.
Akihiko wants to find out all her secrets. He doesn't know when it starts, but one day it's just there and he sweeps out into the autumn morning after her, squinting at the sudden light and searching for her figure. He spots her coat down the sidewalk, walking at a slow pace towards the mall.
This is the first time that he finds himself following after her.
He does so for several days – not in a row, because they have school and clubs and studying to do – but eventually, he begins to understand her routine. He stays at a safe distance, outside of stores as she browses and shops for all sorts of trinkets. He enjoys a nice cup of coffee at the café with her and the brisk walks to the shrine, where a little girl's face lights up at the sight of her and they goof around at the playground. When the first signs of dusk come, they wave to each other as the girl leaves and then a dying man is there on a bench, enjoying the falling twilight. She sits with him and Akihiko imagines them having philosophical discussions about life. He finds himself amazed at her changes in personality, and fancies that he can see the Personae shifting inside of her skull.
They head to dark alleyways at the station where she feeds cats with cans of tuna she has stuffed away in a bag, rubbing their heads as they push against her legs with loud purrs. The groups of students who lean against the walls there with cigarettes and bottles of beer watch her, but never approach, perhaps sensing the guardians cocooning her with their power. They sneak into a club occasionally, something that initially brings him great surprise – but then he catches sight of her in the lounge upstairs, sitting at the side of a drunken monk old enough to be her father. He watches her nod, reply to the man's questions, and the monk just chuckling and staring deeper into his bottles of alcohol.
The last place he ever visits with her is the graveyard situated some ways off from the shrine, in an area far from the traffic of the city and the bustle of the crowds. There is nowhere to hide here and he stands awkwardly at the premises, uncertain about imposing on her in her time of grieving. Somehow – perhaps thanks to all those instincts built up from the frequent visits to Tartatus – he knows that she's aware of his presence. He briefly wonders how long she has known, allowing him to trail her like a second shadow.
She is kneeling at a small grave, her skirt folded neatly over her knees. Moments of silence pass between them, the clock ticking closer to the Midnight Hour by the second. "I had a brother," she suddenly says, easily, as if they have been conversing together all this time. And perhaps they have, him listening avidly as she took him through the moments of her daily life, letting him inside her world of places to visit and people to see. He shifts where he stands, uncertain. Her voice floats loud and clear to where he is, and he decides to take the steps necessary to stand some distance behind her.
"I had a sister," is what he says in reply, glancing around him. Miki's grave stands somewhere on the other side from where they are. "Are you lonely?" He asks, thinking back to all those lonely people she visits – the girl, the visibly dying man, the monk. Even the cats. All of them so very lonely.
She smiles at the palpable innocence of his question – the desire to help that she can hear in his voice. "I am never lonely," she says, tapping one slender finger against her temple. Her gaze hasn't left the grave.
"What about before?"
She tilts her head now, brown hair escaping her ponytail and falling onto her cheeks. "Before? …Death and I were well acquainted by that time." He thinks she means the unfortunate accident which took the lives of her family so many years ago on the Moonlight Bridge. The conversation trails off into more silence, until the puddles on the ground turn into blood and the sky bathes them with its sickly green glow.
He sees her with the boy with the yellow scarf sometimes, in the halls of the school. The boy visits the dorms, too, though not as frequently as Akihiko thinks she would like him to. He has long stopped following her, but when he catches himself watching them, he observes the easy sense of familiarity that settles over the pair.
"Childhood friend?" He asks her one day, lounging in one of the chairs and gazing curiously at the door that had just shut behind the boy in question.
"What do you mean?" She replies back, slightly puzzled – her eyes have a slight far off look in them, as if she is just now beginning to return to reality from the time she spends talking with the yellow scarfed student. He has begun to associate that particular look with him.
"Well – didn't you live here… Before everything?" Before the accident, he doesn't quite say. But she gets the hint and something inside of that brain of hers seems to make her pause – she freezes for a split second, her brows twitching in thought.
"I wonder…" He thinks he catches her whisper to herself before a smile settles on her lips, her gaze focused on his face. She clasps her hands behind her back and rocks backwards on her heels.
"Nah," there's a twinkle in her eyes as she says this. "I didn't really have any friends back then. Minato was… He was all I needed." Her stark honesty surprises him and suddenly he remembers his own sister, how even with Shinji around as his best friend, he always gravitated around Miki. As if he was the constant planet to her radiant sun.
And then the fierce light flickered and disappeared.
He wonders if his companion somehow managed to read all that from some twitch in his face, or something in his eyes, what with the way her smile is looking now. As if she is the one who knows all of his secrets.
"The Star," she murmurs out of nowhere, red eyes boring into his. "It is the time of healing. The Universe has chosen to bless you."
It's decently warm inside, the radiator on the other side of the room puffing out air, but a chill settles down his spine. "What do you mean?" He says, but it's useless – the girl he sometimes glimpses hidden behind all the masks is nowhere to be seen. Her smile is still there, but for the first time, he notices the rigidity in it, the tiredness.
Her hand on his shoulder startles him out of his musings – he blinks his eyes and she's (always) still smiling at him. Comforting.
"Everything will be okay, Akihiko-senpai." The warm weight of her palm on his clothed skin leaves and she tilts her head. "Now – want to get the last cups of ramen before Junpei scarfs them all down again?"
Her voice is lightly teasing as she says this – despite the barb at their hat wearing roommate, he is well aware of the close friendship between the two. Perhaps her closest friend, even.
Akihiko allows himself a small grin. "Sure," he agrees and lets her pull him from the couch. Her small hand lingers in his for a few moments and unexpected memories suddenly flash by – Miki holding on to him as they run from the fire. Her sharp cry from behind him and then falling, and the sounds of wood splintering; a body lifting him up, carrying him out of the wrecked building, away from his sister.
His hold had tightened without him realizing. He glances down, embarrassed, but she doesn't let him go.
"As long as you don't break it," she winks, swinging their clasped hands together as she starts for the kitchen – he lets himself be dragged behind her before falling into step to her side.
"I'll try not to," he comments, smirking.
I'll protect you, he thinks. I promise.
He hadn't really understood the amount of friends she had made since her arrival until he sees the pile of Christmas presents by the door, her name written somewhere on each one of them.
Mitsuru, shaking off snow from the hood of her coat, follows his line of sight. "Arisato-san is rather popular, isn't she," she observes, smiling.
"I didn't think she had so many friends," Akihiko admits. "What with her grades and Tartatus taking up so much time." The red haired senior raises one perfectly groomed eyebrow at him.
"We can't have her all to ourselves." A hint of teasing slips into her voice, something she only does when it's just the two of them. "As much as you might want us to, perhaps."
His cheeks barely darken as he shakes his head. "It's not like that."
The expression on his friend's face softens. "I know."
The moment is broken by Junpei's loud exclamation as he slips on the icy steps outside of their building; irritation flashes in the girl's eyes as she returns to putting away her coat.
"Honestly," she mutters. "What unnecessary language."
He laughs.
("I'm never lonely," her words echo back to him. "Before? …Death and I were well acquainted by that time."
He thought he had understood.)
He hadn't.
Looking back on it, he remembers staring down at the corpse of the yellow scarfed boy first. He had finally learned his name a month ago, when Minako stood dripping wet and shivering on their front step whispering it under her breath like a prayer.
"Ryoji," her voice broke halfway through. "I can't find him. He left. I don't know where he is." Then – "Ryoji, Ryoji, no, please, don't leave me, Ryoji…"
He drew her into his arms and held her small body as she violently shook with the sobs of a broken heart, her mouth loudly gasping for air that just didn't seem to be there. And all the while, in between her grieving, his name –
(As if it was her only spark of light in a never ending abyss of darkness, the only drop of water in a desert, the blazing sun pulling her in)
Ryoji.
Thanatos.
Looking back on it, he remembers staring down at the corpse of the yellow scarfed boy (monster) first, because once Nyx was gone, she was cruel enough to leave her son's human shell behind. It remained motionless on the floor of Tartarus for what had seemed like an eternity – then Minako's small step forward, her naginata hitting the marble at their feet loudly
It's still all blurry from there on out, even years later. Perhaps in his grief he had repressed the time spent living oblivious to her gradual descent into decay and acceptance of the fate she had chosen. But he remembers the school auditorium and Mitsuru up on that wooden stage, caught halfway through her speech, and then the frantic beating of his heart and the thudding of his feet on the stairs, praying – don't let us be too late. Not after all of this.
He remembers her still body, still warm with the breath of the living, lying on Aigis' lap second.
He visits all of his far-too-many graves at least once a month. He spends far too much of his time there in the beginning of what comes after, but as time relentlessly moves on, so does he. An old wristwatch reminds him of this, sitting under the heavy sleeve of his jacket – he hasn't completely moved on yet, and sometimes he wonders if he ever will. He counts the amount of graves in his life periodically as he falls asleep.
At some point in time, a brunette girl sat at the very spot he is currently kneeling in, staring at a gravestone. Perhaps she had sat before it many times, or only a few – he'll never know now, because it was only once that he stood there with her, trying to understand the person who he feared would one day end up like his sister. He hadn't been able to explain that feeling, of wanting to protect her from some certain doom – not until later, when he finally understood that she chose her fate regardless of the consequences she would leave behind. He had called her selfish for it, initially – sometimes he thinks he still believes it.
The quiet roar of Mitsuru's motorbike comes from the gates and he hefts himself up, staring at the two graves side by side that sit where once there was only one. Names are written on the stones, and so are the dates and a few choice words. Eventually, he closes his eyes and tries to relax the tenseness in his jaw.
They hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye, he thinks as he turns away and begins the walk back to where Mitsuru is waiting. They're both leaving for university today. A breeze sweeps over his head and in-between the graves, and he imagines her laughter bidding him goodbye.
"The Sun," she told him once. He looked it up eventually – the tarot card for moving on and healing.
In the end of it, he hopes that Death is treating her better than life ever did.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I did not die.