"Yo, Rise-chan! You got a sec?"
Rise turned from her open shoe locker to find Yosuke standing in front of her. "Oh, sure, Senpai. What's up?"
"Well, it's kinda embarrassing. Think would could talk in private?"
"Sure. How about on the roof?"
The quick journey up to the roof got the two of them thinking about how they almost seemed to go unnoticed by the rest of the student body. If Rise had been seen walking alone with a boy back when she'd first transferred to Yasogami, there would certainly have been rumours flying around about her having a boyfriend, like one of those manga where the nerdy protagonist earns the ire of the entire male student body by being seen walking with the school idol. It really did go to show how knowledge of their friendship group had become too normalised for anybody to take note of them.
Once on the roof, Rise walked over to the fence to look at the sunset. It was like a climactic scene from some romance series. She turned back to face her senpai with a cheeky grin. "I bet you would've had a heart attack if you'd seen me do this last June, huh?"
Blushing, Yosuke replied, "That's... kinda what I wanna talk to you about."
"Huh!?" It was now Rise's turn to blush at the thought that Yosuke might actually be about to confess to her. "W-Wait, I'm not re-"
"I need to apologise," Yosuke said, bowing at a perfect ninety degrees.
"Huh? A-Apologise for what?"
Yosuke remained bowed to hide his constantly reddening face. "Well... You know how I had, like, the biggest crush on you when we first met."
"Well, yeah. Most guys at Yasogami did."
"Right. Well, I've been thinking about how much has changed since Yu first moved out here."
"Yeah. You almost forget what it was like before he entered out lives, huh?"
"Yeah. But, I'm thinking more about how I've changed since then." Yosuke finally stood tall in spite of the burning in his cheeks.
"Oh?"
"See, I was thinking about how my crush wasn't really on you. It was on Risette. The Risette I saw on TV. But I didn't really know anything about the real you. It was the shallow fantasy of the idol Risette that I loved, not the real person, Rise Kujikawa. I guess I didn't really respect you as a person, didn't really even see you as a person."
"I... see..."
"B-But, that all changed after I actually met you! I admit, I was a little disappointed when you weren't exactly like you are on TV, but after a while, I started to realise that even if you weren't the perfect idol you were on TV, that was fine, because you were real. I mean, I had to face my Shadow before anyone else, so I'm really in no position to judge anyone for not being perfect..."
Rise giggled at this show of humility.
"And since then, you've become one of my best friends and we never could've solved the case without you helping us. And then you really showed the kind of person you were when you evolved your Persona and helped us fight during Golden Week, and then led the second team to save those other idols after that. A real person like you is way better than a fantasy like Risette any day." Yosuke bowed once again. "I'm really sorry it took so long for me to realise that!"
Rise smiled warmly, but Yosuke didn't see that. She stepped closer to her senpai and pulled him back into a standing position before giving him a quick peck on the cheek. Yosuke's face turned redder than ever as his hand rushed to confirm that his cheek had indeed been kissed.
"W-Wha... What was-?"
Rise giggled. "You've really matured, Senpai. You're a lot more like Yu-senpai than I gave you credit for."
"Huh? What do you mean by that?"
Rise began walking towards to door back into the school in a manner both nonchalant and teasing. "Hey, did you see Naoto-kun wearing Kanji-kun's necklace the other day? What's that about, huh?"
"Hey, Rise! Hold on! What did you mean by that!?"
Just a short piece I was inspired to write while playing through P4G on Steam and reading through the manga for the first time. These two have potential, be it as a couple or with a friendship that makes Yosuke develop into a less shallow person.