Missingmywing

Ryoji and Minato are roped into trying out for the drama club’s winter play, in part because of their chemistry, in part because the drama club is short on people for background subplots. So Minato is pushed into the role of beleaguered princess, while Ryoji is the vampire infatuated with her. Minato is long-suffering and Ryoji is having the time of his life.

This chapter gave me so much trouble, you have no idea.

Also fun fact, a lot of inspiration for this chapter came from my friend convincing me to start playing the dating sim JACKJEANNE. It’s a really good game, and the vibes are immaculate.

Song I was listening to (from the first play in the game): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB6KTTTZeSo

I also watched some Vanitas no Carte amvs so uhhhhh there's a bit of those vibes in a couple of parts.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

By December Minato had resigned himself to the fact that his third year was going to be comprised entirely of being dragged into various antics against his will.

While he’d been vaguely aware that the drama club existed he’d never expected their paths to cross in any meaningful way. He had no interest in acting. He definitely wasn’t volunteering to be in a play. He wasn’t interested.

As with most other things this year, he was recruited despite his own opinion on the matter. The club members were two people short of major characters because… something to do with how the characters were portrayed meant the remaining club members couldn’t or didn’t want to do it.

He wasn’t exactly sure of the reason because he’d been tuning out the club president’s begging of his help because he was not interested.

Naturally Ryoji was, and Minato found himself dragged to a rehearsal for the winter play after school to try out for a part he didn’t even particularly want. Ryoji was very lucky that Minato liked him so much.

And of course he was going to be put in a dress again if they liked him.

Minato sighed and read over the script. There was a general overview of the plot of the play - a samurai bumbling his way through a western style kingdom dispelling spirits and killing monsters to rescue the emperor’s kidnapped daughter in order to prove his worth and marry her - and Minato was supposed to be trying out for a princess supposedly suffering from a ghost haunting.

The twist was that the “ghost” was actually a cursed vampire in love with her and drinking her blood at night, thus leading to her waning health. It was a subplot that took up an entire third of the play and ended with the vampire breaking his curse out of love for the princess (and purifying royal blood apparently) and marrying her.

He supposed it fit the fairy tale feel of the play, but the whole premise was just ridiculous.

Ryoji was grinning in pure delight as he read through the script, though, so Minato pushed his exasperation to the side and read through his own audition parts. It was… about what he’d expected of it, really. Cliche and cheesy, the princess was demure and distant and quiet and generally as skeptical of the main character’s skill as everyone else in the play.

And then her interactions with the vampire were…

Alright he hadn’t been warned that they were secret lovers, that changed the whole arc’s plot.

“Seriously?” he asked Ryoji, waving the script in his direction. “Did you know about this?”

Ryoji beamed at him. “Why do you think I agreed to try out?”

“Because you’re a being of chaos who lives to torment me?”

“See, keep up those dramatics and you’ll do just fine!”

Ugh.

That said, he wasn’t enough of an asshole anymore to blow it off and not put in any effort so he memorized the lines. One of the senior members of the club was acting as a stand-in for the hero for their first meeting and he nodded encouragingly as Minato stepped onto the mock-stage in their chosen classroom. A couple of the other club members were around - acting as judges most likely - but any other club members or auditioners had been kept out.

He almost wished Ryoji - or Aigis, who had apparently also gotten roped into helping with this arc - were here so he wouldn’t feel as ridiculous as he did. He’d spent plenty of time learning to function socially last year so he was charming and courageous enough to at least pass this off as a non-issue but it was still… not his idea of fun.

The club members seemed to heavily disagree and were very impressed by his performance.

And thus he successfully auditioned for the play and got the part. Apparently so did both Ryoji and Aigis which meant he wouldn’t be getting any peace until the performance was complete.

“How does this keep happening to me?” he wondered aloud with a sigh as he sat on the couch in the dorms, Mitsuru, Yukari, and Shinji around.

Yukari sent him a dry look. “You keep letting Ryoji do what he wants.”

There was that. “It’s usually not worth the effort of fighting it.”

“There’s your problem,” Shinji snorted.

Mitsuru’s expression was amused as she flipped a page from her stack. “It’s not such a bad thing, is it? It gives you a broader range of experience.”

“I know,” he murmured, skimming the script. “And that’s his point - living to to fullest and experiencing as much as we can while we have time to do so. That doesn’t make me any more excited to be dragged into this.”

Pain flickered across her and Yukari’s faces as Shinji grimaced and Koromaru let out a soft whine and padded over to hop onto the couch and lean against him. He patted the dog and shrugged at the others. It was what it was, even if they didn’t like the reminder.

He looked up as the door swung open to admit Ryoji and Aigis with Junpei and Chidori trailing after them and let out a heavy sigh as he saw both Ryoji and Aigis holding their scripts. Ryoji’s grin upon catching sight of Minato was meant that he was about to be dragged into practicing.

They at least took mercy on him and pulled him up to his and Ryoji’s room so he wouldn’t be subject to SEES’ constant attention as well. Which was… something, he guessed.

“The princess, the vampire, and the hunter,” Ryoji mused as Minato flopped back onto the bed, leaning against the dresser. “Somehow this feels almost nostalgic.”

“Please don’t start fighting for real in the middle of the play,” Minato muttered. “The last thing we need is for you two to destroy the stage.”

“Of course not; it is merely a play after all.” Aigis tilted her head as she read through her script, a hand on her chin. “And the fight scenes seem relatively short as well.”

“We’ll also be using prop weapons, no guns or two meter swords.” Ryoji added with a laugh.

“No real guns,” Minato amended pointedly. “They have models that Aigis will be using to try to shoot you.”

“I won’t miss,” she vowed gravely.

Ryoji leaned away with a joking wince. “I mean, you could miss a little.”

“Pretty sure she’s supposed to hit you at the end of the arc, and that’s when the princess intervenes and asks the hero to help her convince everyone that the vampire isn’t horrible.”

“Somehow you were both the princess and the hero.”

“Pretty sure I was just the princess, and I only had to win the hunter over given we all agreed not to tell SEES while they were still coming to terms with everything else at Yakushima.”

“I do not believe I was too difficult to win over,” Aigis murmured, almost to herself.

“Only because you didn’t want to risk hurting Minato,” Ryoji pointed out with a small smile. “It took you a while to warm up to me, even with Minato’s word. You really didn’t trust me.”

“You were a Shadow, after all. An enemy, even former, is not so easily trusted.”

True, she’d been wary for a while. But she’d put her faith in Minato - something he still didn’t fully understand - and come around to viewing Thanatos as an ally in keeping Minato and the world safe, and Ryoji as a friend.

She wouldn’t have pled with them both so earnestly to survive if she hadn’t.

Ryoji shrugged it off. “Well you did come around, and we can use the experience to help us with the play!”

“So who’s subbing in for the hero and king in my introduction scene?” Minato deadpanned as he waved the script at them. “I’d rather not mime at empty air.”

“Aigis would probably be a better hero, and I can play the king. We might have a problem when all five characters are in the same scene, though…"

“That will not be until the end of the arc. We can deal with that problem when we get to it, yes?”

“True enough! So the scene starts…”

~ ᙙᙖ ~

The rehearsals weren’t bad - were actually pretty fun, once he got used to it. They were exhausting, but at least he had a relatively small part overall and the lines were easy enough to memorize. Aigis and the guy playing the hero were easy to bounce off of too, which was nice.

Ryoji and Aigis also worked well together - though the level of intensity between the two of them was… good for the play, but it just made him pinch his brow in exasperation. At least they seemed to be having fun with it.

He was not looking forward to his first scene with Ryoji.

They hadn’t even begun practicing for it yet, but he could already feel the mortification anytime he skimmed through the script. They were already probably the worst-kept open secret in the school by this point and showcasing their relationship on stage in front of anyone who came to the play was not something he’d ever intended. The plausible deniability of it was dwindling by the month…

Not that it would really matter, in the grand scheme of things, but rumors were annoying enough without actively fueling them.

The things he did for his boyfriend…

“So,” Ryoji said cheerfully a couple of weeks later, dropping back onto the bed with a small bounce and a grin, “we’ll be having our first scene together soon, so we should practice.”

Minato sighed, dropping his bag heavily on the desk as he slumped against it. “Really…?”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!”

If it hadn’t been in front of dozens of people, maybe.

Minato sent him a dubious look and flipped the script open to the scene. “The hero stumbles across the princess and vampire having a ‘tender moment’, thus realizing that they are secretly involved. They have a conversation in which the princess asks the vampire to ‘whisk her away’ and he promises to do so soon, which leads to the final scene where he tries to kidnap her, fights the hunter nearly to the death, and then the princess intervenes and asks them to leave him alone.” The look Minato sent Ryoji made him snicker. “And we have to do this in front of dozens of people.”

“So what?”

“You know what,” Minato muttered with another sigh. “Life was easier when I didn’t care about anything. Now people annoy me.”

Ryoji’s expression softened. He pushed himself up off the bed and walked over to lean against Minato and slip his arms around him, pressing his cheek to Minato’s hair. “Are you that worried about it?”

Well, no. It was exasperating and he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be put on stage in front of so many people, and the ribbing and increased whispered rumors would be irritating, but it was the inconvenience rather than anything serious that bothered him.

“It’s fine,” he said, nudging Ryoji back. “I’ll tune it out.”

A soft hum was his response and Ryoji pressed their foreheads together. “I’ll be here,” he promised.

He knew. Ryoji always was. Always had been - no matter what Minato needed, Death, Thanatos, and Ryoji had always been there.

Rather than responding Minato reached up to rest a hand on Ryoji’s shoulder and closed his eyes with a soft murmur of, “Ever at my side - but how far are we to go? If we are to stay here we are surely to be torn apart. But if we are to leave we shall be ever hunted by those who wish for my return. Is there no true freedom to be found?”

A squeeze of his waist was his response as Ryoji continued the script. “We shall go as far as necessary to be together. To the very ends of the earth if we must. I will stay by your side and protect you no matter the challenges - if I must fight off mercenaries, armies, or the world itself I will hold and cherish you forevermore.”

“Pretty words do not a promise make, my beloved.”

“You think my words empty?”

Minato opened his eyes and pulled back to glare at him. “I think your life and strength more limited than you may believe,” he retorted. “Would you leave me alone in your battles against the world? Abandoned with naught but ash and stakes to hold? You may fight mercenaries and armies and the world itself, but can you swear you would triumph?”

Ryoji hesitated, casting his eyes down. “I would fight to the last.”

“The last is no good if you do not return to me. I do not want you to die for me, I wish for you to live with me.”

He caught Minato’s hand and brought it up to his lips - which wasn’t in the script but it was a very Ryoji thing to do - and sighed. “Right though you may be, it brings me naught but pain to be parted thus from you. Hiding in the shadows, sneaking through your window, stealing you away for but a few moments in the silence of night… ‘tis an agony we must bear. My unbeating heart has been yours since first we met and yet I cannot even give it to you properly.”

“And mine yours. Would that I could be spirited away from this pain without dooming us both.”

“I will find a way - this I swear to you!” Minato’s breath hitched in surprise as Ryoji suddenly pulled him close and ducked down to press his lips against his throat.

He was supposed to have a line here but his mind had blanked out at the unexpected motion and all he could say was, “If you do that on stage we’re going to get kicked off.”

Ryoji paused and pulled back, blinking at him. “Is that too much? I thought it symbolic, given he’s supposed to be a vampire.”

“It’s still a school play, you can’t start being too scandalous on stage.”

“Is that scandalous…?”

“Most people consider it to be, yes,” Minato deadpanned. “That’s too intimate unless it’s dramatized right.”

“I could bite you instead.”

“If you bite me on-stage I’m kicking you off myself.”

Ryoji laughed and bumped their foreheads together. “Alright, alright, I’ll tone it down. For the sake of our director if nothing else.”

“We’ll find out how they want us to perform it later this week either way, but given how they have us doing the rest of the play I doubt they want it to have a too serious a tone…” The drama club leaned hard into the “drama” part of their name so they were more likely to want a loud, melodramatic rendition of the scene than a quiet intimate one.

Which was easier for Ryoji than Minato, whose attitude on melodrama was to avoid it as much as possible.

“True enough. So we have to the end of the week to memorize that part of the script!”

Which meant practice. For both them and Aigis, who showed up at the end of the scene to accuse the vampire of trying to attack the princess and instigating a fight scene. The hero was supposed to be on a balcony above them ruminating on his own journey and accidentally eavesdropping on them, but he fortunately didn’t have any lines until after the hunter and vampire began their fight so the three of them could practice alone.

Minato was very relieved that they didn’t have to involve the rest of SEES in their practice sessions.

The rehearsals continued relatively smoothly - though not without their own stumbles or minor disasters of forgotten lines or arguments about characterization or the occasional near fistfight between the director and one actor or another - and Minato watched the final dates creep ever closer with trepidation.

The role came easily enough by now, and he, Ryoji, and Aigis had settled into their characters and the relationship between them well enough that scenes between the three of them rarely had to be reworked or altered, but…

Well, the other actors weren’t quite so easy for he and Aigis to work with. Aigis in particular made others stumble after one of her line deliveries was a bit more monotone or disjointed than they expected. The director liked it because he said it made the hunter feel cooler and more mysterious, but it tripped everyone else up a lot at first. They adjusted, slowly, and Aigis adjusted to meet them, but it was a learning curve for everyone.

And he and Ryoji kept getting a lot of raised eyebrows, rolled eyes, and ribbing after their “private scenes” where the princess and the vampire were sneaking aside for a quick conversation here and there.

And then there were the costumes.

Once they reached the point where the performance was close enough to begin rehearsing in costume, suddenly Minato was being shoved back into a dress - a big, heavy dress - twice a week on the stage in the auditorium. He at least wasn’t the only one - the king’s robes were just as heavy and ridiculous - but he was envious of Aigis and Ryoji’s minimal layers.

Granted they still had to mock-fight in theirs while he mostly stood around so maybe they weren’t really any less hot than him in the end.

Ultimately the couple of months leading up to the final performances went fairly smoothly aside from the usual mishaps. He only tripped on the dress and nearly face-planted once - and Ryoji and Aigis were both suddenly there to catch him causing raised eyebrows from the rest of the group - only a couple of prop swords were broken, Aigis only knocked Ryoji off the stage twice, the hero somehow manage to fall off the balcony once a week but was never injured, the king kept finding increasingly ridiculous ways to throw himself onto his throne with shock and despair when the princess and vampire revealed their relationship and overall Minato found himself having quite a bit of fun despite his disquiet.

Ryoji did jokingly offer to bite him for real in the reveal scene the first time they rehearsed it and Minato was not at all joking when he threatened to throw him off the stage if he did. Aigis volunteered to help.

Ryoji didn’t bite him.

The rest of SEES were vocal about their excitement to see the play - well, Shinji didn’t care and Ken was trying to play it off as usual, but the rest of them kept bringing it up - and Minato generally ignored them. He had no doubt they’d be there for the first performance, but he’d deal with that when they got there. Until then he wasn’t thinking about it.

(Wasn’t thinking about how much they would recognize in what Minato, Ryoji, and Aigis were putting into their characters.)

Several of his Social Links had also declared that they would be showing up to watch the play and Minato just groaned and told them that they really didn’t have to Not that they listened, but he tried.

But no matter his wishes the days still crept past and suddenly it was the week of the performance.

It was… stressful. Last minute panic and nerves and stage fright all around, forgotten lines and prop mishaps, costume adjustments, line adjustments, and endless arguments as tensions ran high as the first performance loomed. Minato, Ryoji, and Aigis seemed to be the only ones unaffected by the tension - though their previous experience with Nyx at the top of Tartarus likely had something to do with that.

It was hard to be frightened by anything after that.

And so the day of the first performance arrived, they ran through the play in one final rehearsal in the morning, and then it was creeping into evening and the auditorium opened for people to begin filing in. The rest of the crew kept running around and glancing out of the gaps between the curtains and generally making themselves more anxious while Minato leaned against the wall doing the assigned reading for history and refusing to acknowledge the crowd outside. If he pretended it wasn’t there he wouldn’t have to think about SEES undoubtedly in whatever ridiculous seats Mitsuru had reserved for them and wouldn’t have to overthink their potential reactions to the events of the play.

“Ready?” Ryoji asked directly in his ear, and he reflexively elbowed him in the stomach.

The boy doubled over wheezing while Minato sent him an unimpressed look. “Why did you decide to do that?”

“Just getting into character!”

Right.

“You'll have plenty of time to skulk menacingly and grab me from behind in your introduction scene,” he said blandly, returning to his book. “I'll try not to elbow you this time.”

“I would appreciate that…”

“Please do not injure our vampire half an hour before the curtains rising!” The director called as he hurried past.

Minato rolled his eyes. “It’ll take more than an elbow to injure him, he’ll be fine.”

Ryoji pouted at him as he plastered himself to Minato’s back, dropping his chin on his shoulder and wrapping his arms around his waist. “I’m hurt - I thought you were supposed to be on my side!”

“The princess might be but we’re not on stage yet.”

“No, but we will be soon,” Aigis said as she joined them, adjusting the model gun on her waist. “It is strange to require a physical gun, even if it is merely for show. I never required an evoker.”

Minato hummed, hand drifting to his own empty waist where his costume did not have any weapons. Seeing the other cast with their weapons made him miss his own, but his role didn’t have one. “You get used to it.”

She frowned but before she could speak the director called everyone’s attention for one last pep talk - mixed with some overview warnings about common mistakes - and then directed everyone to their starting positions to be ready for the curtain to rise.

Their arc was the second in the play after the opening and travel by the hero to the lands to the west, so they had a while to hang back and watch from backstage. They could see bits of the crowd from where they were, and against his will Minato found a tension settling in his chest. This was nothing even remotely as difficult or dangerous as even a standard Tartarus run, but it was also wildly out of his comfort zone and area of expertise.

Ryoji and Aigis, naturally, were immune to such mundane human concepts such as stage fright. Minato was too to a degree but still.

Why had he let Ryoji talk him into this?

He watched the opening act and mentally traced through the story in his head to make mental note of his cues.

The story began in Japan - or a variant of it - in feudal times. The hero was a wandering samurai without any particular accolades to his name who nonetheless fell in love with the one of the emperor’s daughters and courted her in secret while they tried to find a way for him to win the emperor’s favor. The story took a sudden twist when she was whisked away from the palace by a sorcerer from the west, and the samurai was the first to volunteer to hunt her down and return her safely home. In return, he would be promised her hand. The emperor agreed, and away the samurai went after bartering the journey from a trading ship.

The first arc took place partially on the ship and partially in the port city, where the sailors and merchants were plagued by sirens luring their men to their deaths. In order to get information about the sorcerer, the hero agreed to help the city get rid of the sirens.

There were a series of mishaps and failed attempts and one near-fatal scrape from the hero of trying to get maidens in the town to outsing them, attempts to harpoon them, and an attempt to bargain with them before the hero remembered the kami-blessed flute he’d inherited from his grandmother from her time as a shrine maiden for the goddess of music. His grandmother had told him that there wasn’t a more beautiful sound in all the world, and so he took the next ship out and began playing the flute as soon as the sirens began singing.

(The boy playing the hero had spent many afternoons frantically begging the band to teach him how to play a traditional wooden flute in order to make this scene work, and Minato had been impressed by his dedication. The band had too, apparently, and at least one argument had broken out between them and the drama club president over trying to recruit him.)

It enchanted the sirens so much that they stopped singing entirely, and in the silence he demanded that they leave and never attack humans again. They agreed on one condition - that he taught them to play the flute. He agreed in turn, and the bargain was struck. He taught them to play and told them how to make the instruments and in return they left the city.

The hero returned to the city triumphant and was told of the sorcerer’s cursed kingdom to the far north. The fastest way to get there was to head east towards the forested kingdoms, where they could offer more direct transportation there. The hero thanked them and moved on, which was the cue for the intermission before the second arc and Minato took a breath as the curtains fell closed to the audience applause.

The crew quickly scattered across the stage to change the props while the boy playing the hero collapsed into a chair and accepted a bottle of water from the director.

“So far so good, just keep it up,” the director encouraged them. “It’s gone smoothly so far, now we just have to hope that no one falls off of any balconies or breaks any swords.” He sent a pointed look at both the hero and Aigis - the two most common offenders. “If we can get through the fight scenes between those two without anything breaking we should be in the clear in terms of props. For lines, remember to enunciate and project. Mics can only do so much with the way they’re balanced.” That got looks sent at both Minato and the emperor’s daughter, because neither of them were good at loud and they both got monologues thanks to the roles they played in the story.

Monologues and a scene where they were begging for their lovers’ lives to be spared, which meant they had to make it sound heartfelt and they’d both been told multiple times to be louder and more passionate. They’d mostly gotten it - thanks to practicing together a few times and in Minato’s case one uncomfortable practice session between he, Ryoji, and Aigis that had sent all three of them into unpleasant memories of Yakushima - but it wasn’t something that came naturally to either of them.

Minato was going to have to lean on those memories of that uncomfortable and upsetting confrontation in the Dark Hour of Yakushima’s beach, wasn’t he? Granted Aigis and Ryoji probably would be too…

He let out a sigh and shifted to brush his arm against Ryoji’s at the director turned his attention to directing the prop team. Ryoji slipped their hands together and squeezed it reassuringly.

“It’ll be fun,” he murmured.

Minato snorted. “Fun isn’t quite the word I’d use. Especially the final fight scene.”

“Just project!”

The look Minato sent him was withering. “I’m going to be projecting Yakushima.”

Ryoji winced at the reminder while Aigis sighed softly. “As much as it pains me, that was also the event I was thinking of.”

“Well, yeah. It’s…” Ryoji trailed off, expression going distant as his mouth twisted down. “Yeah. It’s similar. We knew that.”

Minato squeezed his hand one more time before pulling away. “We did. It’ll be fine. Come on, we have positions to take up.”

“You have a position to take up,” Aigis corrected. “I do not come on until two scenes from now, and Ryoji has three.”

Minato waved them away and walked over to lean against the throne next to the king.

“Do not break that,” he warned, casting a quick glance towards the director. “Our dear director would have a fit.”

“I’m aware.” Minato pulled away from the throne and clasped his hands in front of him, channeling as much of Fuuka’s shy demeanor as he could. “Ugh. I never want to wear one of these again.”

“It looks good on you!”

“So I’ve been told. That doesn’t make it any more comfortable.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “Why are there so many layers?”

The king snickered. “Welcome to theater. If it’s any consolation I’m also dying, and so are our emperor and sorcerer.”

“At least it’s not just me.” And at least he didn’t have to fight in it. The sorcerer did, and she’d been miserable in all the costumed rehearsals.

“Alright, everyone in position - intermission is over in one minute!”

Minato took one final deep breath and tried to relax as he curled his shoulders inward and ducked his head. The princess was supposed to look timid and sickly in her first appearance - most of her appearances, really - so he had to at least try to match the body language.

The curtains rose and he was nearly blinded by the spotlights - closing his eyes and ducking his head while he waited for them to adjust. The crowd was nearly blocked out by it.

A minor relief.

The narrator began outlining the overview of the arc as the hero came on stage and bowed before the king to make his plea for transportation to the north.

The king stroked at his false beard - hopefully didn’t misjudge and yank it off like he had once or twice in rehearsal - and considered the hero. “The north you say? Why, that is quite the long and dangerous journey. I do have a carriage that can traverse the paths, aye, but you will have to prove yourself worth it. Tell me: what have you to bargain with?”

The hero straightened and raised his chin. “I have my sword, my pride, and a variety of skills felling beast and spirit alike. If there’s aught causing trouble in your kingdom or castle I can remove it.”

“Oho? Spirits you say? Why in that case I have just the task for you, swordsman. My daughter here is plagued by an evil spirit,” he gestured to the side and Minato dipped into a silent curtsy - he spent the first half of the arc with almost no lines to push the princess’ characterization before the sudden flip of realization in the second half - as the king continued, “-and we cannot discover what it is no matter what priests or exorcists we bring in. Perhaps you will have better luck with your experience of many travels.”

The hero bowed with a hand on his sword, and Minato made the mistake of glancing past him and catching sight of SEES sitting in the reserved seating. Of course they were. “I will do all in my power to banish this spirit and bring your daughter peace from this curse. Do you have an infirmary I may first visit? I would like to speak with them of the symptoms this spirit is causing.” He was glad he didn’t have any lines to remember in this scene.

“Why naturally! In fact, I will bring the infirmary to you! Guard, bring the matron would you? I would like to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible!”

Minato began zoning out and watched from the corner of his eye as the guard bowed and walked off stage - hitting a quick high five with his girlfriend where she was preparing the props for the second half of the arc - and mock bowing to the matron who rolled her eyes at him as she stepped up to the edge of the curtain. They waited for the filler conversation between the king and hero to reach its cue and then returned to the stage.

He was almost a prop himself for most of this part - the king and matron had a conversation with the hero about the princess’ symptoms of weakness, pale skin, exhaustion, and all the other usual effects of blood loss. The hero would ask about the living situation in the castle, the religious practices, the diet, and a variety of other questions that were ultimately meaningless other than a hint here and there.

(The princess apparently wasn’t fond of the heavily spiced food of the south - garlic and thyme in particular was offensive to her palate apparently - and silver jewelry made her skin itch. Minato thought including those in this conversation was a bit too on the nose but it didn’t really matter.)

His gaze drifted across the crowd, curiously scanning for familiar faces.

SEES was SEES naturally, although why Mitsuru’s father was here was a question he was not going to ask. The man had been more hands-on with the school since Thanatos killed Ikutsuki, but the drama clubs’ play? Really? Whatever, he didn’t care.

Most of the student council were also here, as were half the kendo team, and all of his Social Links who were - or had been, in Keisuke’s case - students. Thankfully the only non-student Social Links here were the Kitamuras, who Minato had invited himself because this seemed like the type of thing they’d like. A part of him wished that Akinari, Bebe, and Mamoru were still around because Akinari and Bebe would have loved this, and Mamoru probably would have had fun ribbing him about it.

At least he could still send Bebe and Mamoru letters telling them about it, but it still sent a pang through him to know that he couldn’t do the same to Akinari. The boy’s mother was here though - he caught sight of her smiling at an aisle seat. Minato talked to her occasionally still, often on that same park bench, and he’d invited her here hoping she’d enjoy it. Nothing could replace or bring back Akinari, but sometimes doing things that you knew they’d loved could make you feel closer to them. She’d liked the idea, and he just hoped she’d like the play.

Minato was drawn from his musings by the king leaping to his feet - he somehow managed to make the action more dramatic each time he did it, they all swore by it - and shouting that they would get to the bottom of this no matter what and save his daughter.

Cue scene change, where the hero, guard, and matron began inspecting the castle for any signs of spirits and putting up “wards” against them. Minato was only in half the scene before he got to step off stage while they finished the “inspection”, jumped to the next morning, and Aigis made her introduction calling them idiots and claiming it to be a vampire - which they didn’t take seriously at first. So she declared that she would prove it and set a trap for the vampire that he would fall into that night.

The lights went out and Minato had to dart across the stage - without tripping over the dress again - to lie on the fake bed while Aigis and the hero “hid” around the corner. The lights came back on with a blue tinge, and Minato could hear Ryoji sneak through the fake window and creep towards the bed.

(He’d never gotten a satisfactory answer to why the princess didn’t warn the vampire of the trap other than a shrug and “plot”, and he’d long stopped thinking about it.)

Just as he reached the bed the hunter and hero leapt out and attacked him, driving him back, and he recoiled from the hunter’s silver dagger with a loud cry before fleeing. The hunter declared it proof enough, and this time the hero and king agreed.

Minato finally had his first lines - the princess protesting when the king and hunter suggest more secure quarters for her such as the high tower or the rooms near the dungeons. They begin weakly enough - complaints about the loss of comfort of her quarters, of the chill of underground or drafts of the tower, of the seclusion from the rest of the castle and dangers therein - and culminate in Minato’s first discomfort of the play.

He had to turn from the king and address the crowd directly, beseeching them as the princess was beseeching her father, and it was more nerve-wracking than anything else had been because there had never been a crowd in the rehearsals.

His gaze flicked frantically across them for something to latch on to to anchor him and found himself accidentally locking eyes with Mitsuru. Which was unfortunate given the lines and context could send a message he really didn’t want to send, but it was too late now.

“Am I to be a prisoner in my own home?!” The princess demanded to nothing. “Locked away at your whim because of the actions of a creature I have no control over? Am I to pay for the sins of others simply for existing in a way that they covet?” He really wished it hadn’t been Mitsuru because he saw her slight wince and felt a twinge of guilt. He’d apologize and clarify later.

The king quickly jumped in to pacify the princess and the hero offered an alternative solution of more traps and protective wards around the princess’ room to prevent the vampire entry. The hunter was clearly and vocally displeased with the whole affair, but the princess wouldn’t budge and thus neither would the king. Thus, the princess stayed and the hero and hunter laid traps to protect her.

And Minato’s scenes as a prop disappeared as he took an active role in the plot. Not too much - the main speaking characters of this arc were the hero, king, matron, and guard - but enough that he didn’t have time to zone out anymore as he had to keep track of lines and cues.

The smaller conversational scenes passed in a blur of information exchange and gossip about rumors and the woes of a king protecting both his kingdom and his daughter, until suddenly the lights were dimming and turning blue and it was time for the scene he’d been both anticipating and dreading. They’d practiced this scene so many times that he didn’t even have to think to recall the lines, but the very large audience watching was an uncomfortable awareness in the back of his mind as he leaned out around the corner of a prop wall and glanced back and forth across the stage before stepping out.

The princess snuck out of the castle to meet with the vampire, careful not to be seen, while the vampire snuck out of the shadows to surprise her. Given it was the revelation to the audience that she and the vampire were lovers rather than enemies it was supposed to put them on-edge and surprise them.

The problem was that Ryoji also liked to try and surprise Minato which put him on-edge.

So he was fully expecting the boy to try to sneak up on him for real - only to realize with amusement that while Minato might not see him the audience could, and their reactions of sitting up and leaning forward gave away where he’d be. So when Ryoji grabbed him from behind his startled reaction was fake and he didn’t punch him in the face like he nearly had several times in rehearsals.

The princess pulled away and whipped around with a gasp as the vampire laughed in her ear, smacking his arm lightly and scolding, “Stop startling me like that!”

“But you make it so easy,” he teased back, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear. “And your reactions are so sweet!”

She huffed at him, catching his hand in hers. “You may find them less sweet as time passes if you do not desist.”

Another laugh and he suddenly pulled her close, making her gasp as he dipped her back. “Nonsense, for you are the sweetest of ambrosia and naught could change that my dearest lily.”

“You may come to regret those words in time,” she retorted, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. “If I am a sweet lily then you are a rose of the sharpest thorns - but though thorns can be cut away lilies can be no less poisonous.”

“What sweet, gentle poison it shall be that takes me then.”

This would normally be the point where Minato would shove him off and accuse him of being too cheesy but he didn’t get a say in that here. So instead he just sighed in quiet exasperation and continued the script. “I would rather you remain at my side than flee my presence so readily, my love.” He was never going to live this down. Never. “Already, others seek to tear you from my side.”

The vampire’s face twisted into something pained and he lifted the princess back to her feet and pulled her close. “They merely care for you. They see the toll I take from you-”

“-Of my own free will-”

“-and wish to spare you further pain. I can hardly fault them for that. They wish to protect you.”

“Their protection is merely a cage - a manner in which to bind me down and control my life! I do this of my own decision, to spare you the hurt of a far greater curse, and with full awareness of the consequences.”

“That does not negate the hurt it inflicts upon you.”

“A temporary hurt,” she retorted. “Once the curse is lifted you’ll no longer need rely on me and I will return to my former self.”

He sighed, leaning down to press his head to hers. “The temporary nature of it does not negate the hurt. Would that I could avoid it altogether…”

Ah, there it was. That flicker of a distant look in blue eyes, Ryoji’s own memories of Death’s toll on Minato surfacing.

He reached up to cup his face and murmured, “‘Tis my own burden to take on, regardless of toll.” Ryoji’s eyes softened and he tilted his face into the touch. It warmed him for a moment, then Minato pulled himself back to the role, the princess’ wishes. “Would that we could away from this place, live free of burden and expectation and endless oversight. You and I, and the freedom to break the curse and live without risk of separation.”

“I could steal you away in an instant, yet we both know that would only compound the problem,” the vampire said with a sigh. “They would hunt to the ends of the earth to find you, as they should.”

“So sweet your words, yet it is your thorns I covet. I’m no fragile flower to wilt upon being plucked, despite your words. I wish to stay with you and no curse shall dissuade me. If it dissuades you, then we are merely to lift it and I offer my royal blood to purify the corruption.” She leaned close to the vampire, pulling him down. “Remain at my side, free of the taint you abhor so, with my lifeblood your sustenance so long as we both live.”

The vampire shuddered, tightening his grip on her. “You offer much - promises so tempting I fear I may not the strength to resist.”

“Then don’t.”

“Perhaps I won’t…”

His head dipped down beneath Minato’s chin, and Minato tilted his head back to give the illusion of the bite - if Ryoji bit him for real then they were going to have a talk - as Ryoji skimmed his lips down and pressed them to Minato’s pulse.

They were never going to live this down.

Fortunately that was the cue for Aigis the enter the scene as the hunter leapt on stage accusingly and the hero scambled down from the balcony. It was the first of the two fight scenes between the hunter and the vampire while the hero hurried to assist the collapsed princess. The princess swore him to silence of what he’d seen, while the hunter and vampire had a sword fight on the opposite side of the stage.

Minato wasn’t sure how much of their past experience Aigis and Ryoji were pulling into the fight scene but… given his own approach to the play he doubted it was any small amount. So long as they didn’t go overboard it would be fine.

The fight ended with the vampire retreating and a transition to the throne room, where the king was in hysterics about the vampire nearly “kidnapping” the princess, the matron was fussing over her, the guard was pacing and ranting about needing to up the guard rotations, and the hunter was attempting to force them all to be quiet and listen. The hero and princess stood in silence and watched the hysteria - something Minato was relieved about because there was no way he would have been able to remember his lines with everyone shouting over each other like that.

He mostly tuned out the scene until the end, where he had his next lines once again protesting being locked away. This time the princess was overruled, so away she went to the final part of the arc where the vampire broke in to break her out.

There were a couple of scenes in between of the hunter talking with the king determined to catch the vampire and the hero monologing wondering what he should do about the situation - whether he could interfere and help the princess and vampire as a parallel to himself and his own love, even though his own chances of gaining transport to the sorcerer depending upon his defeat of the vampire, what was the right thing to do - and Minato appreciated the break because the last part was going to be the most difficult.

Ugh, projecting.

But the scene arrived regardless, and Minato returned to the dark stage to the room set. The lights came on, and it was time for the princess’ monologue of being trapped in a cage and how she wished to be swept away to freedom - just in time for the vampire to break through the door in order to do exactly that.

Minato had to focus on not tripping, Ryoji’s hand tight in his, as he was pulled up and down the set stairs with the spotlight on them. Realistically, he understood why they had the pointless run around the levels of the set to build tension and portray time passing before going to the opposite side of the stage for the final confrontation in the throne room set.

Practically he really wished they could just run directly across the stage rather than dealing with the stupid stairs.

But he didn’t trip and they made it to the other side of the stage only for the hunter to leap out and confront them, accusing the vampire of stealing away the princess for his wicked ends. It drew the other characters to the throne room as well, each (aside from the hero) with their own accusation for the vampire. The princess tried to protest, but none of them listened and the vampire pushed her back behind him as the hunter attacked him.

Which gave Minato a distinct sense of deja vu, as it had every other time they’d practiced this scene before.

It was different, everything about it was different, and being in their ridiculous costumes should have broken any similarity apart, but…

His words being completely ignored, the flash of white and gold and red of Aigis attacking the black and blue of Ryoji, her dark, narrow glare as he leapt back and his cloak flared out behind him, the flash of her hand sending a bullet flying and Ryoji doubling over and curling inward in pain -

It was as much Minato as it was the princess that lunged forward and leapt between them with outstretched arms and a cry of “Stop!” because memories overlapped reality and they’d been here before-

Aigis stopped short with widened eyes, prop sword resting almost against his chest just as her fingers had over a year before, Ryoji crouched behind him. And it was different - wood rather than sand beneath their feet, a silent audience rather than crashing waves to their left, bright yellow spotlights shining down rather than a green-tinged moon, and it was Ryoji crouching down behind him with a prop sword rather than Thanatos looming over him with a real one but even still- even still-

Minato’s heart pounded in his ears as he told her to listen to him and Ryoji reached out towards him in concern and Aigis wavered a step back with confusion and pain in her expression-

It was an act, they all knew that and were cognizant of that but the unpleasant memories it brought forth were all too real.

The hero stepping in to stop the hunter and explain to the characters in the scene - and the audience a bit - about the situation that had led to this and why the vampire didn’t wish to harm the princess was what broke the immersion of it for them and Minato sank into a kneel beside Ryoji. Originally the script had had the princess standing silently, but Minato had gone through the scene once and come up with a justification for her kneeling beside the vampire as though examining his injury because no matter how many times they did this scene Minato’s knees became no less weak and shaky and he’d rather sit down to regain his composure for a minute after it while the hero’s part of the scene played out.

Ryoji sent him a wan smile as Minato touched his shoulder, hand reaching up to touch his, and Minato would have been worried about them breaking character if the rest of the cast hadn’t told them before that their reactions were perfect for the scene.

(SEES knew them well enough to ask questions though, he already knew it, and he supposed a year and a half was enough time to have passed to finally come clean about what exactly had happened at Yakushima.)

So the hero took main stage for a decent time while everyone else stood in shock before the king collapsed - somehow more dramatically each time, Minato really was somewhat impressed - back onto his throne with a wail that his gentle, beautiful daughter had been hiding such a terrible secret from him.

The princess finally stood once more and declared that she would not stand idly by while a curse took someone who didn’t deserve it, especially when that person was someone she’d come to love so dearly.

(Another difference that still echoed with him - his flat, unmoving declaration to Ryoji in December that they would fight Nyx and he would pull Ryoji from her himself because he refused to do anything less.)

Her words moved the other characters so much that offered to help break the curse rather than attacking the vampire - even the hunter reluctantly helped with her own experience with curses - and there was a short time skip to the king declaring that the princess and the newly-cured former vampire were to be married. The hero was invited but politely declined with the explanation that his own love needed rescuing from the evil sorcerer.

He was ushered away with the utmost speed with the promise that if he rescued his love before they wedding then they both were invited, and given transportation.

Minato was just glad to finally be done and gratefully collapsed onto a bench next to Ryoji and accepted a water bottle.

“Nice job, that was as excellent a scene as usual!”

Minato waved half-heartedly. “Now only two more times through the rest of the weekend and then I can let it go forever.” At least SEES wouldn’t be there for those. Minato yawned, leaning against Ryoji for a quick nap through the final arc of the hero infiltrating the sorcerer’s kingdom, winning the help of several of his unhappy minions, and sneaking his way past the many guards and to the final confrontation to rescue the emperor’s daughter.

It was mostly miscellaneous tasks to earn the help of people in the kingdom, broken up by the occasional dramatic fight, so Minato wasn’t too bothered about missing it. It was standard fairy tale stuff anyway.

The hero finally defeated the evil sorcerer and saved his love to return home and receive the emperor’s approval and permission to marry his daughter. The lights faded out as they shared a kiss, and the audience exploded into applause.

They had one last appearance for the curtain call to bow to the audience, and then Minato was finally free to change out of his costume and back into his regular clothes with great relief. Why were costume dresses so hot?

Granted it was very, very cold outside and the sweat froze to his skin and made him shudder uncomfortably as soon as he stepped out of the building. Ryoji plastered himself to his side in an offer of warmth but that didn’t really help when Ryoji naturally ran cold. Aigis was equally unhelpful, being made of metal. At least he wasn’t hot anymore, he supposed… he’d spent most of his life chilled thanks to Death, so at least he was used to it.

SEES was waiting for them in the courtyard and greeted them excitedly, declaring that they were going out to eat as celebration for the successful play. Junpei slung his arms over Minato and Ryoji’s shoulders cheerfully, teasing them as much as praising them, while Yukari had nothing but praise. Chidori and Ken were talking about the themes of the play while Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Shinji were giving them surveying looks that meant they would absolutely be asking questions once they got back to the dorms. Koromaru was darting circles around them excitedly, clearly having enjoyed the show as well (though how they’d gotten him in was another question Minato wasn’t going to ask. He’d snuck him into the movie theater after all).

It warmed him more than anything else could have, even as he rolled his eyes at Junpei’s teasing.

He never would have volunteered for himself, but… he’d had fun with it despite everything. Which was and always would be Ryoji’s point, he knew. Making memories and having experiences, good and bad, because the end was always closer than one thought and every moment was one that counted.

So as SEES pulled them toward the train and Ryoji’s hand intertwined with his and Aigis brushed against his shoulder Minato didn’t regret anything.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

So this was a lot of fun to write. Plays are fun to script out, even if I had to cut out a lot of the details for times sake. Minato having fun despite himself, and despite the bad memories it brought up. More details about what went down at Yakushima! I’ll probably come back to this and write out the actual event eventually, but until then here’s the gist. It was… a time. But everything turned out for the best in the end, so there’s that.

Bebe and Akinari would have loved this, and I stand by that. If I’d had more time I would have written out a conversation with Akinari’s mom at the end too, but I’ll come back at a later date for clean-up and expansion (like I did for Velveteen Shadows) once I have time.

Guess who ran out of time and pre-written chapters because final projects caught up with me? So tomorrow’s chapter will either be shorter or late, but it will be done and it’ll be a bit of a time skip into Shadow Ops era and exploring how the Persona thing works between them now after spending so long with their souls merged, even if Ryoji is an individual person now.

My original plan: oh, this could be fun to play around with some femc-stuff!

This au gaining a life of its own and turning into a mini-fic: Well Actually.

I’m pushing the prompt for this one to the limit and past it with this, I know. 

These prompts were not originally going to all be connected. Now they are. Which means sadly no Kotone, but we do get Minato convinced into being a maid for the culture festival.

We had to get Minato into the maid dress somehow.

Also the running joke about the student council being forced to pull all nighters to get the culture festival done (and Shinji bringing food) is inspired by Fate’s “Emiya-sanchi no Kyō no Gohan” episode where that happened (and tbh that whole show is kinda the vibes I’m leaning into for these post canon chapters).

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Minato had been trying not to think about the rapidly approaching September and October and the dread that accompanied them.

Not just for the reminder of the anniversary of Shinji’s very near death experience - and Minato’s subsequent near killing of himself using revive and healing spells over and over and over until they stuck - though that was certainly part of it, especially given Ken’s brooding and guilt until Koro and Shinji snapped him out of it.

No, Minato was dreading October because of one specific, exhausting, exasperating event.

The stupid culture festival.

Chihiro had been determined that the planning for the event would go smoothly this year, that they would prepare the back-end paperwork and forms well ahead of time, order and assign everything they knew would be needed regardless of the specifics of individual booths, and be prepared for any curve balls any of the clubs or classes threw at them.

Which naturally, the student council all knew, meant that it was going to fall apart spectacularly when it made contact with the enemy. They were all closing their eyes and begging whatever gods were listening to have mercy on their schedules and allow things to go smoothly this year.

Minato knew what god was listening and there was not a single merciful bone in his body.

Ryoji was going to ruin his life with whatever antics he and Junpei tried to rope their class into, and Minato was already trying to plan contingencies.

Contingencies meaning he cornered Yukari and Aigis after school one day and ordered them to help him rein the two class troublemakers in when the dreaded class meeting to decide their booth came into being. At least he wasn’t class rep, so he wasn’t responsible for organizing their booth on top of his duties on the student council.

(Why had he accepted Mitsuru’s invitation to the council? Why had he given in to Hidetoshi and Chihiro’s request that he stay on for third year? Maintaining Social Links were not worth this hell.)

The day finally came, and Minato slunk low in his seat and tried not to think about how much work was about to be piled onto his shoulders against his will. He just hoped that their class wouldn’t go for anything too out there…

“How about a Hawaiian themed grilling booth?” Junpei suggested with a grin, Ryoji wearing an equally devious grin to match.

Yukari shot them both dirty looks. “We’re not going to wear hula outfits, so you can just give that up now.”

“Aww, c’mon Yuka-tan-”

“I’m telling Chidori.”

“W-Wait that’s not what I meant, I just thought a beach themed booth would be unique-!”

The class rep cleared his throat. “Any other suggestions?”

Minato listened as other ideas were thrown around - haunted house, drink stand, various food stands, a couple of plays that were quickly vetoed by people who didn’t want to deal with scheduling show times thankfully - before the one they’d all secretly been expecting was finally called out. Not by Ryoji, surprisingly.

“Well, what about a maid cafe then?” a guy in the back called, grinning in a way that proved he was really only saying it for the joke.

There were immediately groans and protests from around. Yukari shook her head in exasperation, while several other girls rolled their eyes and made faces. One of them had apparently been preparing herself just for this, though, because she immediately shot back with, “Only if it’s a crossdressing maid cafe and the guys are the ones in dresses.”

That immediately got a different round of protests, though some of the girls were grinning at the idea and a couple even endorsed it.

Minato just sighed and dropped his head onto the table. He didn’t honestly care much either way - a maid cafe would be convenient because of its simplicity, and the student council had expected that there would be at least a few of them so they’d ordered the basics ahead of time so it would cut down on his workload. And he’d taken on cafe-work before, so working as a waiter - or even a maid, annoying as it may be - wasn’t that big of a deal. Compared to some of the other things they could try to foist on him, at least.

“How about a Halloween themed maid cafe instead?” Ryoji suggested, making Minato glance back up narrowly. “Since the culture festival is around a week before Halloween, it could be fun! And it’s not as cliche is the usual maid cafes.”

The suggestion actually made everyone in the class pause and think it over. Even the ones annoyed with the initial suggestion looked to be considering it.

“We could do a bunch of different foods that are easy to make in bulk and just change how they look to be more scary,” a girl in the cooking club said thoughtfully. “That wouldn’t be hard to do, some of it could just be food dye…”

“Oh that’s true, if we were doing a costume theme rather than a food theme we wouldn’t have to worry about making sure our food choices complimented each other!”

“Not to mention drinks, I follow a gothic lolita blog and she makes some really cool looking creepy drinks!”

“And if it’s Halloween themed we can choose our own types of outfits rather than the stupid frilly ones you rent from those event sites.”

“With Halloween being so close we could also get stuff from those street party stores for decoration, Tokyo has a ton of them. We can put together some color palettes and decide how creepy or festive we want it to look!”

“Oh, and a budget so we can get an idea of what’s allowed.”

He hadn’t expected Ryoji’s suggestion to immediately take off with popularity, but it sounded like an accidental unanimous decision had been made. It didn’t sound like it’d add much paperwork on his end either.

The class rep cleared his throat. “Alright, just to make it official: Anyone in opposition to the idea of a Halloween themed maid cafe for our class booth?”

Everyone in the class glanced around and shrugged. Even those who seemed disinterested didn’t seem actively opposed.

“Alright, I guess that’s what we’re doing then. That was much less painful than I expected, thank you for the suggestion Ryoji. That said, I have a memo from the student council reminding everyone that the school rules of conduct are still in effect. Uniform dress code may be suspended for the festival participants in costume but those costumes are still required to be school appropriate. Keep in mind that we represent Gekkoukan; don’t do anything to embarrass the school.” He straightened. “That said, I vote we set up a planning committee now so we can begin preparations soon. The student council is pushing for our plans to be submitted early this year, so we need to have that done by October 5th, and the festival will be on October 24th and 25th.”

“Ehhh? Why so early?” one of the girls asked, already pulling out a sketchbook and handheld calendar.

The class rep just shrugged so Minato answered in his flattest tone. “Because we already know we’re going to be staying all night getting ready in the week leading up to the festival and we’re trying to lighten the load as much as possible.” He grimaced, running his hand through his hair, remembering Hidetoshi’s grim warning and already dreading the upcoming event. “The consecutive all-nighters we’re going to have to pull in the week before the event trying to fix everyone’s paperwork mistakes and make sure all the correct permissions are assigned are going to be miserable enough without making it harder on ourselves by leaving things to last minute.”

“Huh?” Junpei blinked at him. “Is it really that bad?”

Minato shrugged. “According to Hidetoshi and Mitsuru it is. Last year’s was cancelled for the typhoon so I missed the worst of it. The year before that was apparently a nightmare though.” Not that they’d given him details, but he’d gotten the impression it had nearly been a catastrophe.

“Oh I remember that,” Yukari mused, tapping the side of her face. “The first-years missed most of the problems, but apparently some of the second-years got in serious trouble for trying to break some school rules, and a few third-years had really weird events that almost didn’t get approved. Not to mention some of the clubs…”

On that note - Minato turned to send a direct glare at the president of the art club at the front of the classroom. “We will veto the art club’s booth if it isn’t reasonable. I will personally deny it.” He remembered what they’d tried to pull last year - he wasn’t dealing with that again. He refused to even think about it. He didn’t even have Keisuke as a buffer this time.

She cringed, raising her hands defensively. “I-It’ll be reasonable! Nothing like last year! No spray paint machines!”

He sent her a long look but let it drop. He didn’t care what they did as long as he didn’t get forced to deal with the paperwork of it.

“Just what the hell were you guys planning…?” one guys in the back muttered, shaking his head. “Anyway, how are we doing to planning committee?”

“Right, so first I’d like any volunteers-”

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Minato had been dragged onto the planning committee against his will by over half of the people on the committee - Ryoji included. Mostly with the justification that as a member of the student council, he’d be in the best position to tell them what would and wouldn’t be allowed.

They did at least take pity on his workload and mostly relegate his role to advisor and final judge so he wouldn’t be doing much of the actual planning work. Which was good because he doubted he would have time - especially once he stepped into the student council room and found everyone as grim faced and determined as though they were staring down exams.

Which really just set the tone for the next month and a half.

It was after dark before he made it back to the dorms, and he walked only far enough to reach the sofas before flopping down.

“That bad, huh?” Akihiko asked, and Minato couldn’t see his face but he could hear the pity in his tone.

“I should have let Nyx destroy the world,” Minato mumbled into the sofa. “Saving the world is not worth this.”

“Oh come on, don’t be so dramatic. It can’t be that bad!”

If he’d thought Junpei would be capable of focusing on permission and order forms he would have forced him into helping for that alone.

“It can, in fact, be that bad,” Mitsuru sighed. “Let me know if you need any advice, Minato. While I sincerely hope your experience won’t as taxing as mine was it is best to prepare yourself for the worst.”

“At least ours is pretty straightforward,” Ryoji pointed out brightly, and Minato felt the sofa dip as the boy sat down next to him. “A maid cafe is pretty cliche, and doing the Halloween theme should give us a lot more freedom to do whatever we want!”

There was that at least.

Sighing, Minato rolled onto his side to look at everyone. “It being a maid cafe knock-off does make things easier. We knew at least a few classes would choose that for a theme, just statistically, so we ordered some of the basics ahead of time. Portable stoves and the like.”

“Good thinking.” Mitsuru nodded approvingly, resting her hands on her crossed knee.

“Thank Chihiro,” Minato muttered, closing his eyes as Ryoji ran his fingers through his hair. “It was her idea, and she’s put a lot of thought into planning this out. We’re just all hoping it works and it doesn’t fall apart at the last minute.”

“It will,” she chuckled. “It always does. But the scale of it will be minimized drastically by pre-planning for it.”

He sighed.

At the very least the kendo team didn’t ask him to help out with their booth. He was, in fact, explicitly told by the captain not to worry about it and to let him know if Minato needed to skip practice. He winced a bit when Minato told him not to expect him at all for October, and there was sympathy on his face.

He clapped Minato on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

Unlike everyone else, however, Ryoji did not take pity on him. If anything, he seemed delighted at Minato’s involvement in everything. If Minato hadn’t known why he probably would have punched him.

… actually knowing why didn’t make him want to punch him any less.

“This is a lot of fun,” Ryoji told him as he stole Minato’s laptop to look at various stores in Tokyo and what decorations they offered.

“I’m so glad you think so,” Minato muttered sarcastically as he lay listlessly on the bed. “Why is this so much work? Why are we responsible for this? Homeroom teachers should be the one approving class booths.”

Ryoji snorted, leaning back in the chair to smile at Minato. “On top of everything else they do? I can’t imagine them agreeing to that.”

Minato mumbled something unpleasant about teachers and what they did in their free time and reached over to pick up his phone as it buzzed. He flipped it open to find a text from their class rep asking about whether he had free time to go to Tokyo with a group of them that weekend and groaned.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun! It probably won’t even be a serious planning trip, we’re just getting ideas for what’s available. And looking at costumes too!”

Ryoji was lucky he liked him so much.

And so it was with resignation that Minato allowed himself to be dragged by Ryoji and Junpei (and Chidori, who had somehow been convinced to come along) to the train station early Sunday morning in order to catch the train to Tokyo so they could, supposedly, go window shopping and make a list of ideas. Yukari and Aigis trailed along after them, so at least he wasn’t alone. He almost wished Fuuka was in the same class as them, but she seemed excited about her own class’ booth so he supposed it was for the better.

She was trying to be secretive about it, but he would find out sooner rather than later what it was with the looming October 5th deadline. He didn’t mention that, though, because she seemed to be having fun.

They met up with… definitely more than just the planning committee just outside Ikebukuro station. Over half the class had shown up, though he wondered how many of them were just using it as an excuse to come to Tokyo for a shopping trip.

That didn’t seem to bother the actual planning committee, who quickly laid out an itinerary of stores they’d be visiting in order to make a list of what they’d actually be using for the culture festival.

Minato would really have rather been sleeping but Ryoji was persistent so here he was.

So they explored the shops around Ikebukuro. Chidori ended up being more help than Junpei, though he couldn’t really be surprised about that given her own aesthetic tastes. She got along surprisingly well with the art club president, the two of them pulling out sketchbooks and sketching out the classroom from different perspectives with various decorative ideas.

It at least gave them all a better mental perspective of how the decorations would look and Chidori seemed to be enjoying herself, and Junpei seemed thrilled, so Minato didn’t feel too guilty about hanging back and letting the rest of them take the lead. Ryoji seemed equally excited to pick out decorations and Minato ended up mostly watching him rope various people into conversations about what they wanted.

Overall, the whole process of picking out classroom decorations went much more smoothly than he’d expected.

And then it was time to start costume hunting, and the laid-back atmosphere vanished as tension suddenly ratched up.

That was also when Yukari took an active participation in the shopping, and Minato realized why she’d come along.

Minato sighed as the arguments began.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Aigis noted from beside him. “Did you expect this?”

“Yeah.” He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling as Yukari and Junpei’s voices both raised, a few other of their classmates joining in after a few moments. “Costumes were always going to cause arguments, especially with Junpei and Yukari taking the lead in them. I’ll step in if the class rep can’t stop them.” He really didn’t feel like it though. Why couldn’t everyone just be normal about this for once?

“Oh come on, we’d get so many people coming in-”

“If you think we’re wearing that you’re out of your mind!”

“G-Guys, come on, we do still have to follow school regulations for dress code, and we don’t want the outfits to clash too much-”

“This is fine-”

“Oh the hell it is-”

“You’re just being unreasonable-”

“Why don’t you wear it then?!”

“I-I mean, I don’t really think it’d look good on me-”

“She does have a point Junpei.”

“Chidori?!”

Minato groaned. “Junpei put the maid lingerie away.” He ignored the boy’s protests that that wasn’t what it was and just sent him a deeply unimpressed look. “No. School regulations are still in effect. Let everyone pick their own outfits. As long as they fit the general theme it’s fine.”

“R-Right,” the class rep cleared his throat. “Given we’re using Halloween as theme the uniforms don’t have to be perfectly matching, so long as they keep the general maid cafe look. But school regulations are still in effect. So don’t pick anything… risqué.”

“That means anime cosplays are fine, right?” One of the girls asked, leaning slightly towards the anime section. “Like anime maids or butlers?”

He nodded, pushing his glasses up. “I believe that’s perfectly fine, so long as they’re decent.”

“Great!” she chirped and darted away along with several other people.

Everyone else seemed relieved at the break in tension and quickly split off as well. Yukari shot Junpei another dirty look as she returned to grab Aigis and lead her off to choose costumes together. Junpei looked put out as he pouted at Chidori, who just seemed vaguely amused at the whole situation.

The class rep sagged against the wall next to Minato with a deep sigh. “Thanks for stepping in,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I thought a fight was about to break out, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.”

Minato shrugged. “Telling them to knock it off and calling them out for being stupid usually works. They’re both headstrong but they’ll listen if you’re specific about what they’re doing wrong.” Usually. Most of the time it also made them mad, but Minato had been ignoring that sort of thing for years anyway.

“I’ll… keep that in mind.”

“Minatooooo~!”

He closed his eyes. “No. Whatever it is that has you using that tone, the answer is no.”

“Aw, come on!” Ryoji slung an arm over his shoulders, and Minato had quickly catch himself as he turned to glare up at Ryoji. “I just want to go look around with you! I have a couple of ideas in mind-”

Minato sent a long-suffering look towards the class rep and the other classmates who had joined him and they all sent him sympathetic glances. They didn’t rescue him, though, so their sympathy did nothing to endear them to him.

How did he end up in these situations?

Fortunately, Ryoji didn’t submit him to endless questions about his preferences or start holding up costumes next to him or anything equally ridiculous, but he made no effort to hide the way he was clearly eying Minato up to compare to whatever various costumes he was looking at. Minato scanned the shelves himself for the sake of putting in at least a little effort, be he wasn’t surprised when nothing caught his eye.

He really didn’t care about dressing up; as long as it wasn’t too ridiculous he was fine with most anything.

Something Ryoji was going to take full advantage of, he was sure.

“Hmm… something like this, maybe…”

Minato looked to where he was leaning close to the costumes and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Those are maid dresses.”

“Yep!”

“…”

Ryoji turned and grinned at him for his silence. “Come on, don’t you think it could be fun?”

“Not really.”

“Well I don’t see you choosing one yourself.”

Minato sighed. “I don’t care about dressing up, I just don’t want something ridiculous.”

“This isn’t ridiculous, most of the class is doing it!”

“The girls are doing it you mean.”

“So?”

“I don’t want something that’s going to make me stick out, thanks.”

Ryoji raised a brow at him and-

Dammit. He knew what that look meant, and yeah, sure, he knew he knew he had the type of appearance that didn’t look out of place while crossdressing, he’d gotten comments from people before about it - hell Yukari had made note of it a few times - and it annoyed him that he knew what Ryoji meant.

“I’m really not interested,” he sighed. “I was planning to just go with something basic.”

“Come on, isn’t that too boring? Have some fun with it!”

“That’s your area, not mine.” Dressing up for holidays had never been one of his thrills, and it wasn’t going to start now.

Rather than deflating the idea like he’d hoped, Ryoji just got a mischievous gleam in his eye that Minato didn’t like. “Hmm, give me a bit!”

He didn’t trust that. “Ryoji-”

The boy waved him off with an unfaltering grin. “We don’t have to choose our costumes now, and I have an idea!”

Great. Those always went well.

And always meant trouble for Minato.

He sighed, giving up the fight. Ryoji would do what he wanted and they would all probably suffer the consequences.

While most of the class did end up buying costumes there, there were still a few like Minato and Ryoji who were holding off for a bit. Junpei was one of them, he noticed, and wondered if he’d end up being dragged into by Ryoji’s attempt to get Minato into a maid outfit or if he was planning something of his own.

“So,” Ryoji said cheerfully once they regrouped outside, “if we’re running a cafe then we should probably do some hands on research for how that works, right?” He raised a finger as though it would prove his point, and Yukari narrowed her eyes at him.

“Meaning what?” she asked dangerously.

He smiled only widened. “Well as it happens I saw a cat maid cafe just down the street, and I thought we could swing by there while we’re in the area!”

… Minato didn’t know what he was up to, but he didn’t trust it. Almost everyone else seemingly did though, because most of them looked thoughtful.

Yukari didn’t seem to fully buy it either, but she didn’t seem as suspicious as she had a few moments before. “Why a cat maid cafe? Aren’t there a few maid cafes around? It is Tokyo after all.”

“Well yes, but that one’s the closest so we wouldn’t have to go far. And since I doubt we’ll be able to find one with a similar theme as ours it might be good to see how something else unconventional works!” It sounded so reasonable when he said it like that, Minato almost could have believed him.

“Is it an actual cat cafe crossed with a maid cafe, or is it just maids with cat theming?” One of their classmates asked suspiciously. “If it has actual cats I’m going to pass - I’m allergic to them.”

Ryoji tilted his head, clearly thinking. “Hmm, I didn’t get a good look at it while we were passing, but from what I could tell it looked one cafe with two sections. Probably one for actual food service and one for playing with the cats, if I had to guess. We can always ask when we get there.”

That idea seemed to set even the hesitant ones at ease. A couple of them still begged off to go visit other stores they had planned, but most of them ended up at the cafe.

Fortunately (for those interested in it) they’d chosen a time of day that it was fairly quiet, so there was room for all of them.

It was… about as cutesy as he’d expected. The maid dresses were in various colors and cat designs, with ears and tails to match whatever look they’d gone for. The cafe itself was filled with cat themed items, with food and drink designs to match, and the maids used cutesy cat puns as they took their orders and served them.

It was a bit too saccharine for Minato’s taste, and he saw Chidori and Yukari making equally pained expressions. Normally he’d have expected Junpei to be thrilled at the whole thing, but he seemed more distracted by Chidori’s discomfort than the cute maid girls around them, and he’d reached out to take her hand under the table and leaned down to murmur something to her.

Minato felt a nudge against his leg and glanced over at Ryoji. The boy tilted his head towards he far wall of the cafe. “Thoughts?” he asked.

It took a moment for Minato to realize what he meant, but once he did he took another longer look around the cafe.

It was themed well, he could admit. There was a door just past the entrance stand that led to a room with large open windows so that customers of the cafe could see the cats playing or sleeping inside. The cafe was lighthearted, with white wooden paneling and brown wooden counters, stills of cats either painted on or carved into the wood. The shelves around them were filled with little statues of cats in various materials, alongside pictures of various maids holding cats or cat-themed items. The menus were equally decorated, with pictures of the various cat-themed food and drink items being offered.

“It’s probably good that we aren’t going for subtle with our decorations,” he deadpanned.

That drew a snort from Ryoji as he shrugged. “Most maid cafes are kind of the opposite of subtle on purpose,” he pointed out. “The gimmick’s the point.”

True enough. “I’m not looking forward to untangling all those spiderwebs from each other in the packages, though,” he said. The art club president and Chidori might have gone a little bit overboard in some areas… Though he and the planning committee had at least managed to veto the fake blood paint on the walls.

“They’re not going to be easy to put up…” Ryoji agreed distantly. “Or the lights. And don’t a couple of our classmates have arachnophobia?”

Did they? Minato didn’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise him. “Even the plastic ones?”

“Hmm… those two might have to be greeters outside.”

Whatever; that was a problem for the rest of the committee to figure out. He was just there to make sure nothing broke school code and to help out for an hour or two at the booth itself. Minato tuned back out as the maid came back to check on them and chat with Ryoji, distantly acknowledging that Ryoji was explaining the culture festival and their idea to her. She seemed delighted, laughing at the concept and explaining some of the choices of the decorations of the cafe itself. Minato could see some of the committee members taking notes, so at least they were taking this seriously he supposed.

It was loud and a headache was starting to form behind his eyes. He’d forgotten how loud Tokyo was all the time. Loud and busy, and the bright cheerfulness of the maids and cafe around them wasn’t helping. He was tempted to put on his headphones and just tune everything out.

But he wasn’t quite that rude, so he just disconnected from the interactions and let Ryoji handle them as he watched the fruit fragments in his drink slowly settle and separate.

Another nudge of Ryoji’s leg brought him back and he blinked and looked up to see several of his classmates getting up.

“The others want to go pet the cats,” Ryoji explained, small smile on his face as he clearly understood Minato’s disorientation. “You should go. It’d give you a break.”

Minato frowned at him. “You’re not going?” That was a surprise - Ryoji liked animals. He had, even as Death unable to interact with them except secondhand through Minato.

Ryoji shrugged, something wry and a little sad in it. “Pretty sure I’d just scare them. You know animals don’t like me.”

Oh - that was right. They’d gotten so used to Koromaru’s utter lack of fear that it was easy to forget that most other animals could sense Death and got unnerved. It happened to both of them, but it was infinitely worse for Ryoji as the personification of death itself.

But most wasn’t all, and Minato wasn’t going to leave Ryoji sitting here by himself when he knew that he wanted to go.

Minato stood up and grabbed Ryoji’s hand, pulling him after him. “Come on.”

“Wha- Minato-”

“It’ll be fine.” He dragged him towards the door, Yukari pausing to hold it open for them with a little smile at their clasped hands.

Ryoji looked a little resigned as they entered the room, glancing around at their various classmates luring the cats around into playing or pets, and retreating towards the windows facing the street outside as couple of the nearby cats dart away from them. He settled on the low cushioned bench beside the window and leaned against the wall as Minato sat next to him.

They watched Junpei lying on his stomach dragging a feather toy across the ground for an excited tabby to chase, Chidori sitting seiza on a mat a couple of feet away and slowly petting a long-haired white cat that was sitting elegantly beside her and kneading the mat. Yukari was standing beside the cat tree, reaching up to pet a short haired russet cat with a white heart pattern on its chest as it nuzzled into her hand. Aigis was kneeling beside her and leaning down to peek inside one of the tunnels where an excited orange cat was popping in and out as though trying to lure her into chasing it. Minato glanced over to see a sad, longing smile on Ryoji’s face and subtly reached over to weave their fingers together.

Ryoji squeezed them and sent him a quick smile and little shrug.

There wasn’t really much he could do about this, so Minato just sat next to him and watched the others. It was nice to get a break away from the bright and general loudness of the rest of the cafe and the city outside, and the room with the cats was a much more muted, brown-toned room with a calming atmosphere. It was nice.

They were both taken by surprise after a few minutes when there was a sudden movement from one of the platform rests halfway across the room, and a dark blue-grey cat suddenly rose up and stretched. It caught the attendant’s attention too, and she glanced up with a surprised and slightly concerned expression.

Minato has a moment to wonder why before the cat abruptly swiveled around and looked directly at he and Ryoji.

His breath caught at the sight of it. It was heavily scarred on its left side - missing an eye and its ear slightly tattered, its fur mostly regrown but clear scars beneath it all the same. It stared intensely at them for several long moments before its single eye narrowed and it leapt down from the platform onto the bookshelf in an easy and powerful move. They watched as it wove between the objects on the shelf with ease - so those injuries weren’t new in the slightest, and it was clearly used to accounting for them and its altered depth perception - until it reached the end of it and paused to stare at them for another moment.

Then without any hesitation it leaned down and kicked off the bookshelf to land directly in Ryoji’s lap.

Ryoji froze and stared down at it, taken entirely off-guard, until the cat turned around to glare at him with an accusing look at not immediately receiving the attention it was deigning to demand. Minato snorted as Ryoji hastily reached up to start petting it, carefully avoiding its scars.

The attendant wandered closer with a wondering look, though Minato noticed that she stopped before she got too close.

He tilted his head. “Is this unusual?”

“It is for him.” She watched the cat close his eye and begin purring softly - a rough, growly sound. “He’s one of our newer ones, and is a temporary rescue from Shibuya. We’re just taking care of him until a safe home can be found. He’s… not exactly friendly. He’s wary of strangers in general and will snap at most people if they try to touch him. There are a few exceptions, but they’re all much older customers usually. His favorite - and future home once all the paperwork goes through - is an older man who was… I think he said he was a goods shipment manager in the Shinjuku area, or maybe it was Shinagawa. He’s as gruff and snappish as the cat, but they seem to be soft for each other so I think they’ll be good for each other.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure why he likes you, but I guess there’s something about you that draws him in.”

Ryoji hummed in soft agreement. “Well most animals seem to dislike me for some reason, so I guess he’s just a contrarian.”

“Maybe that would explain it,” she laughed softly. “In that case, I’m glad you get along then.” She waved at them and turned to help one of their classmates untangle one of the kittens from the yarn it had gotten caught up in.

Minato hummed. “Goods shipping from Shinjuku to Shinagawa, huh?”

“Yakuza?” Ryoji asked, dropping his voice.

“Probably. Or former, at least. If he likes us then I guess he’s just indifferent to the feel of death.”

“Or maybe even drawn to it,” Ryoji agreed in a murmur. He looked down at the cat, still purring and kneading gently at his leg. “He’s clearly had it rough.” His lips twitched up. “He reminds me a little of you, actually.”

Minato sent him a flat look but didn’t respond. He knew what Ryoji meant, and he wasn’t exactly wrong.

The cat didn’t seem to mind when Minato reached out to pet him either, which really just pushed Ryoji’s point. The calm atmosphere of the room made it hard to hold onto annoyance though. Especially when Ryoji and the cat both looked so content.

When they all finally left to head home an hour or so later Ryoji was back to a more cheerful state and his arm brushed against Minato’s the whole walk back. It was nice to see that uneasiness in him washed away - even if it meant that he was likely back to plotting how to pressure Minato into a maid dress.

Getting SEES involved was a low blow he hadn't expected.

Minato wasn't sure exactly how he'd convinced them - Junpei and to a lesser degree Aigis were no surprise, but Yukari too??? - but he found himself ganged up on by half his team in the dorm lobby the next day with looks ranging from bemused to determined to devious and had a sinking feeling that he wouldn't win this fight.

So Minato ended up in the maid dress.

It was an ordeal in and of itself that he had to fit in between his other duties, because Ryoji decided to continue the theme of being symbolic and roped Yukari into it, so he found himself being measured more than once.

He did not ask what for; he did not want to know. He'd find out when it was time for the booth either way and he didn't have the energy to resist it, what with all his other duties.

October crept past quickly, days passing one after the next as most of the school gained a frantic edge trying to get everything together in time. The student council became increasingly on-edge and snappish as they tried to get all the paperwork in order and permissions signed on time. Minato found a particular loathing for permission forms for weapons - the kendo team wanted to put on a live technique demonstration with real swords and the sheer number of hoops Minato had to jump through to allow them made him want to reject the idea outright. He hadn't thought it would be that hard when Hidetoshi foisted it off on him but it turned out the school didn't like the idea of openly allowing the students to have real weapons.

The irony wasn't lost on him.

Eventually Minato lost his patience with the whole affair after being forced to argue with the principal directly and just pulled rank by calling Mitsuru and asking her to get permission from her father.

The permissions were granted two hours later.

(He was probably going to be forced to participate in the showcase in exchange, but he could deal with that.)

The week leading up to the festival was exactly as difficult as they expected it to be - Minato hadn’t actually expected anyone to bring in sleeping bags or futons but a couple of them had - and they did, in fact, pull all nighters getting everything in order. On the second night Shinji, Mitsuru, Ryoji, and Aigis showed up around ten with food and drinks to their collective relief. They had prepackaged snacks but real food was preferable.

Mitsuru stayed to help - nearly bringing Hidetoshi and Chihiro to tears out of gratefulness - but the other three were ushered out soon after so they could all get back to work. Shinji and Aigis went easily enough if a bit nonplussed, but Ryoji pouted the whole time as Minato shoved him out the door.

If he’d been allowed to stay Minato wouldn’t have gotten anything done and they both knew it.

And so the days leading up to the festival passed in an increasingly hazy blur of paperwork, classwork, and sleep deprivation until the night before when they finally finished everything and the setup was done. They all collectively breathed a sigh of relief and then went to pass out for several hours before the school day officially began.

And then Minato woke up partially refreshed, had coffee, and braced himself to meet up with his class.

He still hadn’t actually seen the costume Ryoji and Yukari had prepared for him.

Ryoji pulled him into a nearby empty classroom a couple of hours before the event was supposed to begin with a grin that spelled… maybe not trouble, exactly, but an anticipation that made Minato narrow his eyes at him.

He paused when he finally saw it, taking it in.

It wasn’t… bad. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t nearly as obnoxious or frilly or ridiculous as he would have expected. It was an understated black, in the usual design but patterned with white cherry blossoms almost like a kimono would have been. There was a waist chain with very familiar looking coffins hanging from it that made Minato swallow and think back to that final battle. Rather than the usual frills, the bottom had a single line of lace (or faux lace probably) with more cherry blossoms patterned into it, and the apron overtop had cloth blossoms sown into various edges. 

“So, what do you think?”

Minato sighed with a shrug. “It’s fine. Not as ridiculous as I was expecting.”

Ryoji laughed, bumping his shoulder. “Have some faith! Yukari and I wouldn’t be cruel enough to force you into something bad looking. Come on - I’ll help you put it on.”

It probably wasn’t difficult enough to warrant that, but they’d barely seen each other all week and the contact was nice as Ryoji helped tug the fabric into place and buttoned up the back and tied the apron’s ribbon into place. The socks, like the dress, were a simple black with more blossoms sewn into the sides at the top. The shoes were a traditional black with a strap overtop, though the small kitten heel made him roll his eyes.

At the end of it Ryoji stepped in front of him with the same soft smile that he had before as he reached up and slipped the cherry blossom hair clip into Minato’s hair. It drew another sigh from Minato as he closed his eyes and leaned into it.

He couldn’t say he was at all looking forward to this, but… well, he could tolerate it. Even when Yukari showed up and forced him into a chair to do some quick makeup.

At least he didn’t look out of place, he could grudgingly admit to himself as they joined up with the rest of their class beginning to don their own costumes. Ryoji’s costume was clearly inspired by his form as Thanatos - if altered to fit vaguely more into the cafe theme - while many of their classmates had chosen to cosplay one anime or another. He saw several Kuroshitsuji and Kaichou wa Maid-sama inspired cosplays, atop of others that were clearly inspired by something even if he didn’t quite recognize them.

The fact that it took several minutes for anyone to even notice him and do a double take at least meant he wouldn’t draw to much attention from people coming in to try the booth…

The classroom looked good at least. It had just enough creepiness to sell the halloween edge, while still being lighthearted enough not to feel genuinely off-putting.

… as long as you ignored the spiders.

(Granted his perspective was rather skewed, so the fake coffins around may have been creepier to everyone else than they were to SEES.)

Most of the setup had been done the day before, so it was as simple as turning on the equipment and preparing the ingredients and then dividing the tasks. Minato was extremely grateful that he at least had a morning shift so he could avoid the worst of the crowds and have time to deal with the kendo showcase.

Granted that also meant that the rest of SEES showed up first thing in the morning before he was properly awake. Ryoji and Junpei greeted them cheerfully, while Minato just gave them a dead-eyed stare.

They all stared at him for a moment, eyebrows raised.

“Huh,” Akihiko mused, crossing his arms. “I wouldn’t even question it.”

Shiji shook his head. “Guess I see now why Yukari and Ryoji were so confident.”

“It suits you.” Chidori nodded, hand on her chin. “The lace was the correct choice.”

“Wow…”

Junpei snickered and elbowed Minato lightly. “Yeah, never would have guessed, huh? He makes a pretty girl.”

Minato rolled his eyes and ducked around him, ignoring their notes about his costume. “You couldn’t have waited until later?” he asked as he shooed them to a pair of tables and handed them menus. Even Fuuka was here, since her shift for her class was apparently later in the day.

“What, and wait until all the options were gone?” Shinji snorted, skimming over the menu. “Given how much the other three have been hyping it up I want to judge for myself.”

Had they been? He must have missed that while he was drowning in paperwork.

Minato shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, I’ve been busy.”

“Indeed you have,” Mitsuru sighed and brushed her hair from her face. Yukari suddenly appeared next to them and placed down a glass mug filled with frothy, bright pink liquid with red fragments floating around inside and a leaking cherry stuck on the rim of the glass. Mitsuru raised a brow at it and glanced up at Yukari - who was wearing an equally pink maid dress with red stains painted onto it as though dripping from a red spot over her heart. “Do I dare ask what this is?”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know either.

Yukari shrugged with a smile. “Coffee. I figured you needed it since you’ve been helping the student council.”

Ken eyed it doubtfully. “That’s… coffee?”

“What kind of coffee is pink?” Akihiko asked in a mutter.

Shinji narrowed his eyes at it, expression thoughtful. “I can think of a few ways.”

Mitsuru stared at it for a few moments before shrugging and picking it up to take a sip. She paused and seemed to be considering. “This… isn’t bad at all. It’s as sweet as I expected and I can taste the cherry… but I wasn’t expecting cinnamon. It has an almost earthy tone… what coffee did you use?”

“It’s just instant coffee, actually.” Ryoji popped over cheerfully as he set a glass with a bright orange drink in front of Ken, green flecks floating around in it. “The pink stuff is beet powder, and we used honey and cinnamon to make it sweet and milk to make it creamy, and then pulverized cherries for the red bits! Is it good?”

“It is, I’m impressed. I suppose you all did your own taste testing?”

“And lots of research,” Yukari agreed, folding her tray behind her back. “We split up the tasks between hunting across Tokyo cafes and across the internet for recipes.”

He’d missed that too, it seemed, and he couldn’t even lie and say he was disappointed about missing taste testing questionable concoctions.

“And what’s this…?” Ken asked warily.

Ryoji grinned at him. “Try it.”

The boy eyed him mistrustfully but hesitantly took a sip. His eyes widened. “Oh, this is really good.”

Yukari nodded, pleased. “We found that one in one of the American inspired cafes near Shinagawa. It’s a pumpkin milkshake. It’s kinda weird, I think it has some sort of sweet cracker ground up in it, but it tastes good.”

“It’s a bit early in the morning for milkshakes, isn’t it?” Shinji scowled down at the purple and green drink that Junpei set down in front of him. “What the hell is this?”

“Gotta try it and find out, senpai!” Junpei said cheerfully.

Shinji made a face but picked it up anyway. He paused, eyebrows raised as he tasted it. “Taro and matcha. Not what I was expecting given your other combinations.”

Ryoji shrugged. “We had to keep some things close to home.” He paused as he saw the drink Aigis was bringing out to Akihiko. “Wait, Akihiko did you get-”

“Oh no,” Yukari muttered, glancing around nervously. “He’s not actually going to drink that, is he?”

“D-Did you actually read the ingredients, senpai…?” Junpei watched Aigis set the drink down with wide, nervous eyes, and Minato wondered what the hell was in it that was making them so worried. Even a few of their other classmates were glancing over with frowns.

Akihiko shrugged. “Not really, but with a name like “Final Gasp” how could I not try it?”

Minato raised an eyebrow at the violently red, thick looking drink with green bits.

Shinji picked up the menu again to read it and Ken leaned over to peek. Ken’s eyes widened and he paled a little while Shinji immediately smirked and looked up to look Akihiko dead in the eye. “Bet you can’t drink that all at once, Aki.”

Yukari and Junpei both choked and Ken’s eyes widened in horror. Ryoji stiffened.

“Akihiko I really wouldn’t recommend-” he began, but Akihiko ignored him to lean forward.

“You really putting an easy bet like that down, Shinji?”

“Akihiko,” Mitsuru sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead. “It could not more obviously be a trap.”

“Of course it is, but a man’s gotta take a challenge head on if he’s to get stronger!”

“So cool, senpai!” Junpei’s fear was forgotten in the face of awe as he cheered him on as usual.

Minato casually leaned over to read the menu as he took Fuuka and Chidori’s drinks from a classmate and handed them to them. Fuuka’s was some electric blue raspberry drink with some sort of yellow and mint decorations, while Chidori got what looked to be a strawberry and cream drink decorated in a way that it looked like blood was trailing down the glass into the milk.

Akihiko’s was-

… were those four types of peppers? Not to mention at least one spicy sauce mixed with tomato and beet juice of all things.

Minato sighed as Akihiko picked up the glass, tilted his head back, and began chugging it.

He could see te exact moment the spices hit because Akihiko’s face screwed up and began turning bright red. To his credit, though, Akihiko did managed to chug the whole thing in one go. He just leaned over his knees choking on air with a crimson face, ears, and neck afterwards. Shinji was still smirking at him while Junpei looked sympathetic, and Yukari and Mitsuru both seemed like they were contemplating whether to throw the both of them out of a window.

His team really was full of idiots sometimes, wasn’t it?

“Try not to die,” he told them all blandly then turned and headed back to the front and away from their antics. Yukari could suffer through it.

The next few hours of the event went smoothly enough. They got a lot of compliments on the theming and their costumes - and Minato got recognized several times with much double-taking and amused confusion that he generally ignored - and lots of interesting reactions from their food and drink offerings. A few more people tried the spicy drink, though only one or two could finish it. The mochi was another hit - white powdered with either red jam or black paste inside - and overall it was a success that went smoothly.

Minato wasn’t sure how to feel about how many compliments and borderline criticisms his costume got from people who didn’t know him. His classmates seemed very amused that no one even noticed that he wasn’t a girl unless they knew him directly, but Minato found himself more exasperated by the comments and compliments he got about his outfit’s theming. The ones who didn’t wondered if it was too pretty (aside from the coffins) while the ones who did waxed poetic about it and beautiful subtlety of the ephemeral nature of cherry blossoms and the fleeting beauty of youth-

Maybe he was just a little too sensitive about the topic of his not-so-metaphorical death and the meaning of the transience of life because some of the comments about it being too subtle or too on-the-nose rubbed him the wrong way.

The problem with it being such a personal reference between SEES he supposed.

But their class’ first shift finally ended around noon and he made his escape back to the empty classroom as the second group came to relieve them. He slumped back against a desk with a sigh.

Ryoji slipped into the classroom with a sympathetic look, sliding the door closed and walking over to lean against him and cage him against the desk. Minato dropped his head against his shoulder and closed his eyes as he just breathed and relaxed to be away from people.

It hadn’t been that bad, honestly. He’d dealt with far worse while working at the actual cafe. But something about some of the inherent misunderstandings of his costume and what it meant needled at him in a way he hadn’t expected. It was just a costume - just a fun gimmick not meant to be taken seriously.

Except it wasn’t.

The pin in his hair, the coffins on his waist, the flowers that referenced his short life and temporary death and return-

Minato sighed.

Ryoji pressed his face to Minato’s hair, murmuring, “Sorry. I didn’t realize how much it’d be.”

“It’s fine,” he sighed and leaned into it. “I don’t know why it bothers me. It’s not like I care about their opinions.” And he didn’t; he couldn’t even remember their faces now. So he wasn’t sure why it annoyed him so much.

“It’s the principle of the matter.” Ryoji wrapped his arms around him in a proper hug. “No one should make light of what you went through or how much you struggled. Even if they don’t know… it shouldn’t be trivialized.”

Minato hummed quietly in acknowledgement. Maybe it was that. But it shouldn’t matter because they didn’t know and couldn’t know. He wouldn’t want them to know. No one should have to know how it felt to become enveloped by death. To know so far ahead of time and see it creeping ever closer year by year until it became day by day knowing it was an inevitability.

You couldn’t close your eyes and cover your ears to escape, after all.

And he’d come back - they both had because Ryoji was stubborn and Aigis asked them to please try despite all odds and SEES was their anchor and Minato had wanted so desperately to stay, but-

He sighed again as he wrapped his arms around Ryoji. “Maybe not,” he said quietly. “But we’re still here.”

“Wounds leave scars.”

“Is it a wound?”

“What else could a death knell be?”

Maybe so.

“We’re still here-” he repeated quietly.

“-and we’ll stay here,” Ryoji finished. “That doesn’t mean the memories don’t hurt.”

Minato didn’t respond - but he didn’t need to. Not with Ryoji. So they just stood there for several minutes together waiting for Minato to recuperate enough to deal with people again.

They eventually pulled apart and changed out of their costumes back into normal clothes to go meet the others, Aigis falling into step with them at the end of the hallway where she’d clearly been waiting for them. It was a quiet comfort.

Especially exploring the rest of the festival with SEES, and Fuuka excitedly showing them her own class’ booth, or being dragged into more trouble by Junpei, Ryoji, and Akihiko, or trying out other weird foods with Mitsuru and Fuuka as Yukari made faces, or listening to Chidori casually eviscerate other class’ costume or decoration choices.

Despite everything, they were still here and would stay here.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Yes, I know this is… not exactly the prompt. But it’s the closest I could get while still working within this au and keeping a less depressing tone. I thought about PQ2, but then I started mentally plotting it out and it was getting very sad so I decided to do this instead to keep both the linear narrative going and the crying to a minimum.

Post-P3 so it’s much sweeter and less horribly tragic than the first two.

This also got WILDLY out of hand very quickly. It was supposed to be a cute date piece of Ryoji being cheesy for their first non-fast food date. And then Yukari and Mitsuru swung in and stole the show.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Neither Minato nor Ryoji had expected to survive the previous year, and yet somehow here they both were. Still alive and… relatively healthy. Despite mentally pleading for more time than they had for three whole months, neither of them had expected to actually receive it.

But they had.

They were still here.

… here currently meaning cleaning the dorm kitchen after Fuuka and Ryoji’s latest disaster, but here nonetheless.

Although judging by Shinjiro’s face they wouldn’t be in the kitchen itself for long.

The other two were very apologetic even as he kicked them out, while Minato just shrugged and dragged them away to get takeout. They were getting better, but their tendency to experiment out of curiosity meant that they were still prone to disaster.

“I thought it would be alright…”

“Doubling the amount of baking powder needed means exponentially increasing how much it rises, even if you do add extra ingredients,” Minato said mildly. “I’m still not sure what you added that made it explode like that, but there’s a reason people say that baking is as strict as chemistry. Ingredients react to each other.”

Fuuka buried her face in her hands. “I thought I was getting better!”

Ryoji rubbed the back of his head. “Oops. Oh well, there’s always next time.”

The sigh Minato let out was as fond as it was put-upon. “Stop experimenting. Recipes exist the way they are for a reason.”

“But…” Fuuka was pouting, arms crossed. “Shinjiro-kun doesn’t follow recipes exactly, and several of the people in the cooking club experiment!”

“How long have they been cooking or baking?”

“… well, years…”

“And do they experiment with random ingredients, or with ingredients they’re familiar with the properties of and have an idea of how they’ll mix together?”

She was quiet for a moment, considering. “You know… I never asked. I guess that does make sense though.”

Minato shrugged. “If you wouldn’t put random computer components together to see if you could make a working pc you shouldn’t put random ingredients together to see if you can make a working recipe.”

Fuuka stopped abruptly, staring at him with her mouth dropped open and a realization dawning on her face. “Oh… Oh!!!! I never thought of it like that, but you’re right! Of course just putting more of something won’t make it work better - it’s more likely to short something out or overpower it!”

Why had that only now clicked…?

Ryoji was chuckling beside him, and he elbowed him. “That goes for you too. Stop making disasters just to see what will happen. Shinji’s going to kill you himself if you keep it up.”

“Alright, alright!” Raising his hands defensively Ryoji just grinned at him. “It’s fun though.”

“I’m not going to save you when he loses his patience.”

“Aww, that’s cold,” Ryoji slung a comfortable arm over his shoulders. “You wouldn’t abandon me.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

The laugh he received said that Ryoji didn’t believe him.

He ignored him. “Fuuka, where do you want to eat?”

“Oh! Umm… that’s good question… Wild Duck Burger is always good?”

Eventually his friends would pick restaurants outside of the two they always seemed to default to. “Sure, that’s fine.” He should ask Mitsuru and Shinji what places around had good food.

They got their food quickly enough and found a booth, but Minato noticed partway through that Ryoji seemed distracted.

He nudged his leg. “What’s wrong?”

Ryoji hummed, still staring at something past him. “We should go on a date.”

Minato paused, trying to process the non-sequitur. “We already go on lots of dates.”

“Not like that. A date-date.”

… what kind of other dates were there? He glanced at Fuuka and found her looking as confused as he felt. Not that that was surprising given she had even less familiarity with this sort of thing than he did, but he could hope.

Twisting around to see what Ryoji was staring at, he saw a couple sitting at a corner table leaning close and talking and laughing together.

… which told him absolutely nothing because he and Ryoji did that sort of thing already.

He raised a brow at him. “If you’re using them as an example you’re going to have to be more specific because we already eat out together.”

That seemed to startle Ryoji out of his thoughts. “Wha- oh! No, not an example. Seeing them just reminded me of a conversation I had with a girl at school yesterday about dates, and what people mean by it.” Shrugging, he tossed a fry in his mouth. “She was complaining that none of the boys she dated recently took her on ‘real dates’, like to a nice restaurant and then out somewhere fun. She didn’t really specify what ‘somewhere fun’ meant, though given one of her friends mentioned karaoke and another one started talking about moonlit walks along the ocean I guess you can get creative?”

“A shame Tartarus is gone then,” Minato deadpanned. “A picnic at its peak and then walking down 263 floors sounds pretty creative to me.”

Fuuka shuddered and Ryoji shook his head with a chuckle. “Not quite what they had in mind, I don’t think. I think something different than usual could be fun, though!”

Maybe. There were a couple of problems with that, though. “Do you have money that you’ve been hiding?” Minato asked dryly. “Because I spent almost all of mine in that final rush to prepare for Nyx, so I don’t think I could afford a nice restaurant.” Unless he got a part time job again. “Not to mention nice enough clothes to be allowed in-” Unless he got a part time job and asked Yukari for store recommendations. “-and finding a restaurant that wouldn’t be weird about it.” … he had no clue for that one. If it were Kabukicho there were plenty, but Tatsumi Port Island was a very different place.

“Hmm…” Ryoji covered his mouth thoughtfully, finger tapping on the table.

… so it looked like they’d both be getting part time jobs then, and he was going to have to suffer through Yukari’s extremely nitpicky fashion sense.

Minato sighed. “I know several places always hiring, so the money should be easy enough to deal with. Yukari will be thrilled to finally get us in outfits she approves of, so that will be simple too. The restaurant itself is another problem entirely. I don’t feel like being whispered about and stared at the whole time we’re there.” Not that he really cared, but it’d get annoying if it happened the whole time.

“U-Um… I can help out,” Fuuka offered. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see if I can find something online. Otherwise we could probably ask Mitsuru-san for advice…”

Minato winced. “I’d rather not ask Mitsuru. Knowing her she’d probably just rent out a whole restaurant room for us or something.”

“Oh that could be fun-”

“Absolutely not Ryoji.”

“Alright, alright!”

“Thank you, Fuuka.” Minato ran a hand through his hair, mentally plotting out his weeks ahead. He had kendo practices so he’d have to work around those, but it was doable… He also had more time now that he wasn’t trying to actively maintain over twenty social links and prepare a team for Tartarus every couple of days. Much as he still liked to keep in touch with his friends from various clubs, being able to quit most of his clubs had freed up an incredible amount of time.

After his rather spectacular collapse at the beginning of March, when everything had hit him all at once and a year’s worth of extreme pressure and stress slid off his shoulders - and Ryoji had revealed what his schedule had actually looked like - SEES had been incredulous and Yukari and Akihiko had shouted both him and Mitsuru down about overworking and taking on too much pressure. Suffice to say he’d been relegated to two clubs and one part time job at the absolute maximum, and strongly recommended to stick to one each under threat of Yukari’s fury.

So he’d dropped out of the track team (with some prodding from both Yuko and Kazushi when he hesitated), the art club along with Keisuke, the fashion club had been disbanded when Bebe left, and Chihiro and Hidetoshi had been pretty severe with cutting back his responsibilities for the Student Council once Mitsuru had told them the (abridged) reason for his collapse.

He’d kept up kendo just to keep using a sword, though, and with only one athletic club and no part time job it had been enough to keep his friends off his back while he slowly stopped feeling like he was going to pass out anytime he did anything strenuous.

Which had been sign enough, he supposed.

“Don’t push yourself too hard. I brought it up so I can take care of the money-” The look Minato sent Ryoji made him break off and lean back. “I’m not babying you! I, of all people, know you can handle the pressure, but there are days you can barely even stay awake in class. I just don’t want you to collapse again - you scared us.”

Fair enough. Minato sighed, shaking his head. “I won’t push it too far. But I’ve healed enough that it won’t be a problem.” As long as he paid attention. “As long as we can find a restaurant everything else should be simple.”

~ ᙙᙖ ~

He got lucky enough to get a job at the record store in Paulownia Mall just the job opened up, and his familiarity with music of various bands and ages impressed the owner enough to hire him instantly. So it was a low effort and enjoyable job with low chances of him overexerting himself and collapsing.

So that was one check.

(Not spending most of his money on the various albums in stock was more difficult.)

Ryoji got a job at a karaoke venue nearby, and from what he heard he was a very popular attendant, so it sounded like he was having fun with it as well. Not that he was surprised given how much the Shadow-turned-god-in-human-form loved people and loved interacting with them, but it still made him roll his eyes anytime he overheard some of the girls by the fountain giggling and wondering if they’d be able to “get him in private”. Ryoji was a flirt, but flirting was the only thing he’d do. Minato almost felt bad for them and the inevitable broken hearts.

It took a couple of months before they had an amount they deemed reasonable, and then Minato swallowed his dread and told Yukari. The hard gleam that appeared in her eye would have made even the toughest boy at school nervous. Minato had been expecting it, though, and just resigned himself to a long afternoon of being forced into clothing that would inevitably look good on him and end up self-justifying the whole ordeal.

At least Ryoji got excited about it.

He should have expected Yukari to tell Mitsuru, though. He was not expecting her to show up part way through the trip - didn’t she have enough else going on? She and her father were trying to set up an official Persona task force to deal with metaphysical distortions that may show up in the future, weren’t they? Why was she wasting time on a clothes shopping trip for a date between him and Ryoji??? This was not what he’d agreed to when he’d given in to Ryoji’s whim.

“This is a semi-casual date,” he repeated for the third time as Mitsuru drifted them towards the more formal section of the store.

“Yes, of course, and for semi-casual you need evening wear-”

“Normal person semi-casual, Mitsuru. Not ceo-heir semi-casual. Yukari please help.”

The girl laughed. “He’s right, Mitsuru. Has Fuuka found a reasonable restaurant yet?”

“Not that I know of, though we could always take a day-trip to Tokyo if need be. I know a few around the Kabukicho district. They’re more flippant about that sort of thing.”

The sudden sharp, considering look in Yukari’s eyes made him tense up. “Hmm.”

“Yukari-”

She ignored him and turned to Mitsuru. “How would you feel about a double date at Icho?”

Minato choked at the name, and even Ryoji whipped around with wide eyes.

“Y-Yukari,” Ryoji began, unusually nervous. “I’m not sure that’s what we-”

“Why that’s a delightful idea, Yukari.” Mitsuru smiled at her, why was she already pulling out her phone- “I can make the reservations for this Saturday evening then, if that’s amenable?”

“That sounds perfect!” Yukari chirped, and Minato felt nauseous.

“Yukari,” he said weakly, “Did I do something to make you angry?” How was this spiralling so quickly out of control? Outfits were one thing, but the most expensive, high class restaurant on Tatsumi Port Island was something else entirely. “First of all there’s no way we can afford that-”

“I’m aware,” Mitsuru cut in, waiting for her call to connect. “I assure you, I’ll be picking up the bill. Consider it the beginnings of repayment for everything I’ve put you through, and all you’ve done for us in the last year.”

“That’s really not necessary-”

She sent him a look. “Your idea of ‘necessary’ is the bare minimum of allowing you to remain in the dorm. Let us take care of you for a change, leader.” Her call finally connected and she turned to the phone and away from them. “Greeting, this is Kirijo Mitsuru. I’d like to make a reservation-”

Minato sent a desperate glance at Yukari. “You planned this,” he accused.

The self-satisfied smile on her face was all the confirmation he needed, even as she refuted him with a careless, “Oh don’t be ridiculous. It’ll be fun!”

Fun was not something he thought this classified under. “We’re not high class. I’m not high class. Why do you think this is a good idea?”

“Stop being a baby and overthinking it. It’s a nice restaurant, not a six course banquet.” Yukari rolled her eyes. “Just follow Mitsuru’s lead and you’ll be fine.”

Minato was regretting getting Yukari involved in this at all. Did none of his team understand the concept of moderation? He should have taken Ryoji for a day trip in Tokyo, stopped by Harajuku for clothes shopping, and then they could have gotten a reasonable restaurant on the main street of Kabukicho next to some of the gay or crossdressing clubs.

He didn’t realize he had his face in his hand until Ryoji’s hand brushed against his arm. He glanced over to see the boy with an apologetic look on his face, and Minato took a quiet breath in to calm down.

Yukari had paused and was watching him with a worried look.

It… was fine. Astronomically beyond his comfort zone, but he knew it would be fine. Mitsuru wouldn’t pull him into anything he couldn’t handle, even if it was beyond his usual… life experience. Tartarus was one thing, a fancy restaurant was something else.

It probably said a lot about him that Tartarus was the less nerve-wracking one.

Minato sighed. “A bit of warning next time. I’m better in battle than social situations, you know that.”

Yukari relaxed and shrugged apologetically. “I know. But if we give you warning then you’ll find a way to wiggle out of them.”

Now why could that possibly be?

“Mitsuru’s going to force me into a suit, isn’t she?”

“Wellllll-”

“Great.”

“A full suit isn’t necessary,” Mitsuru assured him, stepping back into the conversation.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Tie?”

“No, although it wouldn’t be out of place.” Her eyes flashed with amusement. “You needn’t be any more formal than how you wear your uniform - it isn’t the sort of place with a strict dress code. And we’ll have a private room besides.”

She’d gotten them a-

No, alright, he was going to stop thinking about the restaurant now. Mitsuru had claimed responsibility over it, he was going to delegate it to her and not worry about it. “So a dress shirt, pants, and jacket.”

“Or vest instead of jacket,” Yukari chirped, and Ryoji perked up.

Minato would take the jacket over a vest.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

He ended up with a vest too. Ryoji had taken one look at the blue vest in the same cut at the yellow vest he himself was getting and talked Minato into it.

So it wasn’t Mitsuru who talked him into what was essentially a suit - it was Ryoji. Ryoji who kept sneaking glances at him the entire time they were trying on clothes and who Minato could already tell was going to be constantly distracted the entire time they were on the date.

He’d be flattered if he weren’t already so exhausted with the whole thing.

Minato dropped back onto their bed in the dorm with a long, tired sigh, and Ryoji set down next to him after hanging their new acquisitions on the closet rack. “I know this wasn’t the plan-” he began apologetically.

“-but you had no idea it was turn into this,” Minato finished with closed eyes. “I know. It was my fault for getting Yukari involved. I didn’t expect them to spring this on me.”

“They’re trying to help.”

“I know. They just forget that not everyone is as sociable and adaptive as they are. I don’t want to upset them by turning them down.”

“I do think they’d understand.”

“They probably would but it would make them feel guilty too.”

Ryoji hummed, somewhere between amused and sad. “This is why I call you kind, you know.”

“Yeah well according to the Velvet Room my title as humanity’s champion is either “The Martyr” or “The Messiah” so I guess it fits.” He groaned, dragging a hand through his hair and glaring up at the ceiling. “This is going to be bothering me all week.

Reaching out to tug his hand from his hair gently and smooth it out, Ryoji soothed, “It’ll just be one night, and it’ll just be the four of us.”

“It’s stupid, I know.”

“It’s not. Minato,” Ryoji’s voice hardened, drawing Minato’s gaze to him. His eyes softened. “I’ve been here the whole time. I know.”

… of course he did. How often had he been Minato’s only anchor in a world that shied away from him? How often had he hovered protectively over or on the bed while Minato slept just in case the Shadows changed their minds? A silent protector, or a reassuring voice cutting through the static of an endlessly hurtful world?

Stepping from one world into another was always going to unnerve him, to make him anxious. Gone were the days of passive apathy - they’d disappeared when Thanatos had left him and come back as Ryoji.

Not that he minded, generally, but there were times like this where he missed it.

But then he wouldn’t be in this position if it were still true, would he?

A quick brush of lips against his pulled him out of his thoughts and he focused back on Ryoji smiling wryly down at him. “You’re thinking too much again.”

“I usually am.” But there was no point brooding about it, so he sat up. “Have you finished the homework for history?”

“I have. Have you finished the math?”

Minato sighed and dragged himself off the bed. “I’m about to.” If he distracted himself with schoolwork he wouldn’t send himself into a panic about the ludicrous hypotheticals that his brain wanted to shove at him.

He missed the straightforwardness of Tartarus.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Minato tried not to be noticeably fidgety in the days leading up to Saturday, but he wasn’t sure how well he succeeded. The rest of SEES had noticed, as had a couple of student council members. He avoided the topic where he could, but Chihiro cornered him on Monday out of concern that he was pushing himself and between her and Hidetoshi he was forced to give a basic explanation.

The fact that he was unnerved about an upcoming date raised eyebrows, until he added that Yukari and Mitsuru had arranged it and gotten dinner reservations.

That made all the older council members who had worked with Mitsuru wince and nod sympathetically, while all the first years looked confused.

“Where at, if you don’t mind me asking?” One of the girls in his year asked.

“Isho.”

“Oh my god,” she muttered as a second year boy whistled lowly.

“Have you seen their prices?”

“No I haven’t, and I don’t want to know,” Minato said flatly. “I’m not thinking about it. I refuse. I’ll deal with the problem when I get there.”

“Probably the best way to go about it,” another third year sighed. “Good luck.”

He grimaced and looked at Chihiro. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but please tell me you have complicated paperwork for me to focus on. I’ll take anything at this point.”

She hesitated for a moment, then sagged with a nod. “I know it’s only June, but we’re trying to get an early start on the culture festival planning this year, so we’ve already started some of the initial setup for various class and club booths and events. The specifics will be done in September and early October in the lead up to the festival itself, but we’re trying to get the basic permissions of things we have every year done ahead of time so we’ll be able to smooth out the process for the more… unique… requests.”

“I’m only in the kendo club now, I take no responsibility for whatever insanity the art club comes up with this year,” Minato said flatly, holding out his hand. “I’ll get things organized and outlined.”

Chihiro handed over the folder with something akin to relief. “I appreciate it. I don’t mind doing it myself, but we’re still trying to deal with some issues coming up with some of the athletic club trainings overlapping with summer classes because of misorganization, not to mention the summer-”

“I’ll handle it.” Minato cut her off, flipping the folder open to pull out the documents. “Go deal with your crisis.” He paused, looked up. “Kendo isn’t one of those overlapping ones, is it?”

She winced. “I-It’s all of the sports clubs, I think.”

He closed his eyes with a sigh. “… not my problem,” he decided. “Good luck.”

Chihiro sighed, shoulders slumping. “Thanks, I’ll need it…”

Well at least his week was filled now, and with headphones on and his music blaring it quickly ate up both time and focus because festivals were always an ordeal, and the classes hosting events inevitably made it more difficult than it needed to be. Fortunately this was only the setup and not the actual prep for the events.

He wasn’t looking forward to October. Why had he accepted Mitsuru’s invitation to the student council last year again?

Oh right, because the student council had three separate Social Links and he needed more Personas and more power to deal with Tartarus. The same reason he’d been in four clubs and jumped between a couple of part time jobs.

Looking back, Nyx wasn’t the only reason he was surprised he’d survived the previous year.

A sudden splash of green and white invaded his vision and he blinked and refocused on the world outside of balancing numbers and club names to find a white gardenia on the table in front of him. A quick glance to the side revealed the culprit - a slicked-back black haired boy with bright two-toned blue eyes and a sappy grin that promised trouble.

Minato pulled out his headphones and paused his music with a flat look. “You aren’t supposed to be in here.”

“Oh, are upstanding, respectable, rule-abiding students not allowed to come discuss matters with a student council member?” Ryoji countered playfully.

“They are. You, though, are none of those. Out.”

Ryoji pouted, leaning closer. “How cruel - I even brought you a gift!”

So he had. And in front of the entire student council. Not that their relationship was anything less than an open secret, but he could at least try to be more subtle about it. He wouldn’t, but he could. Especially with a white gardenia of all things. Minato shook his head. “Not much of a secret if you give it to me in front of a dozen people.” Secret love indeed.

That just made Ryoji shrug with an impish grin as he snatched the flower back up and tugged Minatio’s hair back to tuck it behind Minato’s ear. “I just thought it would suit you~”

Alright that was it.

Minato shoved himself to his feet and slipped behind Ryoji to shove him towards the door. “That’s enough out of you. This is why I said you weren’t allowed in here. Out.”

“Minato!” Ryoji protested with a laugh, trying futilely to push back against him. “Come on!”

“No. Out. I’m busy. Don’t you have girls to flirt with? Go away. Whose idea even was this?”

“Several people mentioned flowers being absolutely necessary in the lead up to a date-”

“Not while I’m in the middle of student council business. Go away - and tell Junpei that if either of you come up with a stupid and unnecessarily difficult booth for our class this year I’m throwing you both off of the Moonlight Bridge.”

“That’s cold!”

“The ocean’s a lot colder. Aigis will be more than happy to help me throw you in.”

The boy shivered. “Duly noted.” Minato shoved him out the door. “I’m going I’m going!! I’ll meet you by the school gates once you’re done.”

“Fine, just go.” Minato slid the door shut behind him with a firm clack and dropped his head against it for a moment with a sigh. He tried not to let the fondness in his chest show as he turned around and returned to his seat.

He tried to ignore the feeling of eyes on him from several of the council members - ranging from envious to judging to sappily starstruck - and shoved his headphones back on to get back to work.

He didn’t bother taking the flower out, though.

 Ryoji was waiting for him by the gates, as promised, though Aigis’ presence as well was a surprise. They fell into step with Minato as easily as breathing as they made their way to the train station.

“Aren’t flowers usually a day-of thing?” he asked idly.

“Not necessarily! We got a lot of mixed answers, some people said you should do it all the time as surprise gifts, some people said a day or two leading up to the date, some people said a bouquet when you pick them up for the date, some people said that they’re tacky and overdone…” Ryoji shrugged. “Seems to be personal preference like any other gift.”

“Data inconclusive and contradictory, including type and amount of flowers,” Aigis agreed, frowning. “Flower meanings were called both unnecessary and good practice. I’ve found yet another human practice that is very strange and… messy.”

“Did you ask Yukari?”

“We did! She had the most clear answer, I think. Junpei was actually taking notes, it was kind of funny. I dunno why though - he doesn’t seem to have any problems figuring out what makes Chidori happy.”

“More ideas can’t hurt,” Minato said, leaning against the wall of the train as the doors closed.

“I guess…”

“I still don’t understand the complexities of human relationships in the form of dating,” Aigis sighed. “There seems to be so much wasted effort in the form of attempts to guess at what the other person likes. Why not simply ask?”

“Because Minato is a liar whose response to anything is ‘I don’t care’ or ‘whatever you want’,” Ryoji answered cheerfully. He grinned and dodged Minato’s elbow aimed at his head. “A lot of the time the guessing games happen because the person receiving them doesn’t want to admit that they want something, or that they like the idea of their partner putting in any unnecessary effort. If I asked Minato if he wanted flowers he’d say ‘I don’t need them’ or ‘seems like a waste of time’, but because I just gave it to him without asking he’s still wearing it. A lot of people are like that. It’s why Junpei just gets Chidori cute, sweet things that he thinks she’ll like even though she’d never even consider asking for them.”

“Don’t look so smug about it,” Minato muttered, pointedly not thinking about what emotions were swirling in his chest at Ryoji’s brutal dissection of his personality. Since when did he get embarrassed about something?

Aigis frowned, clearly thinking it over. “I see. It is an attempt to make someone happy, even when they refuse to admit that small gestures of otherwise pointless affection are something they enjoy.”

“Exactly!”

“I don’t have to listen to this.” Minato pointedly put his headphones on, ignoring Ryoji laughing at him even when the boy leaned against Minato’s back over the rail.

He could still distantly hear the other two continuing the discussion even through the muffling of his headphones, but he couldn’t make out the individual words anymore which was good enough. Even he had his limits and this was not a discussion he cared to be involved in.

He also hadn’t missed the implication that the flowers would be continuing throughout the week leading up to the date, and he made a mental note to find a vase to fill with water for them. Not that he was going to do that around Ryoji, the smug bastard.

The following day proved his assumption correct, when he found a pink and white primrose (first love, chastity, and admiration, how subtle) on his desk after lunch, and saw a couple of classmates smothering giggles and pointedly not looking at him or towards Ryoji (or Aigis? he thought he saw a couple of them glance at her, and wondered if Ryoji had decided to enlist her help to at least pretend at subtlety). He sighed heavily but tucked the flower behind his third-year pin and pulled out his notes.

The delighted, self-satisfied grin Ryoji wore for the rest of the day was distracting.

That grin only grew when they got back to the dorm and he saw Minato put it into the glass of water he’d commandeered as a mock-vase in their room rather than just putting it on the desk. Minato suffered through his increasingly handsy clinginess for the rest of the evening as he tried to finish his homework, eventually shoving a pillow in his face and telling him to focus.

Wednesday found a cluster of violets (honesty, and wasn’t that ironic for them?) in his locker - though how Ryoji had gotten them in there without crushing them he didn’t know - and he tucked them into the strap of his bag.

By now most of his class - and a number of people outside of it with friends who knew him - had caught onto the trend and were sneaking glances at him and whispering. Some enviously, others delightedly, and he ignored them with as much long-suffering grace as he could. The ribbing in kendo practice was more difficult to ignore but he rolled his eyes at them and the team captain shooed them all back into focusing soon enough.

Minato resigned himself to dealing with this for the rest of the week.

Even SEES teased him for it when he got back to the dorm, ignoring his dirty look to instead ask his which flowers he thought his “secret admirer” was going to give him next. Yukari played absolutely innocent when he accused her of initiating and enabling these antics, but her grin was too mischevious to fool him. The others were just as teasing - even Shinji was smirking at him.

Traitors, all of them.

Thursday brought morning glories, and it was the first ones to give him pause as he tried to remember their meaning beyond pop culture and artistic interpretations. It took a moment, but his chest tightened when he did because of course Ryoji would leave him flowers that meant both “willful promise” and “enduring devotion”.

“Are you the one helping him with these meanings?” he asked Yukari in an undertone as their classmates chattered around them.

“Nope, not after I first brought up the idea.”

“I knew it was you,” he muttered. “I guess he remembers that book I read too then.”

Yukari raised a brow at him. “When and why did you of all people read a book about hanakotoba?”

“To talk to you, actually.” Minato huffed as he tucked the flowers into his bag’s straps once more. “Remember when you asked me to help you pick out flowers for your room?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but couldn’t seem to decide what to say. It took her a moment. “I barely remember that. How is your memory about the most random facts so good?”

He shrugged. It wasn’t like he really planned to retain everything he read or learned. Stuff just… stuck.

Including flower meanings, apparently.

Ryoji caught his eye just before class started, and his smile was softer and somewhat wistful rather than the playfulness of the previous days. It was somehow more distracting, and Minato found himself rubbing his chest reflexively more than once throughout the lesson.

He pulled Ryoji to the roof for lunch so he could actually lean against him without drawing whispers, and Ryoji leaned back with a bittersweet smile. He didn’t need to say anything - the weight of the past eleven years between them spoke more than enough.

It seemed the latter half of the week would have heavier meanings, because Friday Minato received a red camellia with bluebells woven around it. The bluebells meaning gratefulness was simple enough, but when paired with the double meaning of the red camellia… passionate love and a warrior’s honourable death.

He didn’t look towards Ryoji, because he knew the look in his eyes would make Minato lose his composure.

The wounds from the fight against Nyx and their fall into the Sea of Souls before Ryoji managed to overpower Nyx and turn the tide to pull them both back out still hadn’t fully healed, and likely wouldn’t for a very long time. They’d both been prepared to die for the world - Minato just hadn’t expected Ryoji to be able to save them, even with Minato’s own power of the Universe to help him overpower and absorb Nyx.

He set the flowers in his lap, trying to focus on the lectures around his own swirling thoughts and painful emotions. It was difficult when all he could think of was their unrestrained freefall into death, Nyx’s power pulsing and clawing at them, trying to break through the seal Minato was trying to create around her, and Ryoji- Thanatos- Death clawing his way back to consciousness and reaching desperately out to Minato’s soul.

And as their souls bound together once more the seal’s shape changed - no longer a permanent separation but rather a temporary rope that could bind her in place while Death tore through her control from within and reversed their position. Breaking through his role as an “appraiser” and an “avatar”, powered by the bond they had forged and the humanity he had gained, Death and Minato twisted the rules of reality around them to erase Nyx and allow Death to take her place as something new. Something more than a careless bringer of the end.

Sometimes Minato wondered if he’d left part of himself there, in those waves of the Sea of Souls, that space between life and true death, but… well he was still here, wasn’t he? He’d died, but he wasn’t dead yet. He was still alive.

Even if he really shouldn’t be.

Minato really hoped that Yukari and Aigis were taking notes that he could look over later because he didn’t hear a single word of the lecture. As soon as the lunch bell rang he was gone from the classroom and rushing up the stairs to the roof just to try to breathe.

It was… it wasn’t a bad sensation, what he felt. It wasn’t the panic and fear of so many other memories. Wasn’t the pain and nausea and hurt of those memories of the bridge, of those two nights in back alleys under flickering streetlights.

It was something deeper and more integral.

Was there an opposite of existential dread?

Perhaps it was simply awareness. The reminder of what had happened, of their brush against and subsequent alteration of the foundational truths of the universe. Of what they were and all they had done.

Ryoji had barely stepped out onto the roof after him before he was shoving him against the wall and pressing their mouths together in a desperate attempt to be close. To find stability. Ryoji didn’t hesitate, wrapping his arms around Minato’s waist and holding him tightly as Minato wove his fingers into his hair. Minato felt- disconnected.

Frantic and disjointed, simultaneously numb and too aware of everything, like his emotions had shattered apart and the jagged edges were digging into his heart. Eternity stretched endlessly ahead of them and the clock raced towards the finite end so close to them.

It felt like November all over again and he didn’t know why.

The feel of Ryoji’s hand cusping his face and thumb tracing his cheek helped bring him back. Slowly the sensation of disconnect faded and Minato began to feel like he fit his body again. He was shaking as he finally pull back from the kiss and tucked his face against Ryoji’s neck. Ryoji slid his hand around the back of Minato’s neck, skimming his thumb along its curve.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against Minato’s hair. “I knew you’d understand what I meant, but I didn’t expect it to have such an impact. Was it too much?”

Minato let out a shaky exhale and shook his head a miniscule amount. “No, it- it’s fine. This isn’t a problem just… intense. I hadn’t fully realized just what it was we did. It just all hit me at once.”

“I see. Well I’m glad, then. Do you want to skip this afternoon?”

… well now that he’d brought it up he did. “I shouldn’t. I already missed part of April because of my collapse, and I might miss more if we do have to deal with long lasting consequences of what happened with Nyx.”

“I think this qualifies as consequences, even if it is my fault,” Ryoji sighed, squeezing him. “I can talk to the teachers so we can go back to the dorms.”

Dammit. Now he couldn’t argue.

“That’d be good,” Minato murmured as he leaned against him. He felt exhausted.

Sometimes he really didn’t know how Ryoji did it. But the boy somehow got them both excused for the afternoon and they returned to the dorm and spend the rest of the afternoon napping. Or Minato did, at least - Ryoji was lying on the bed with him doing something on his laptop. What it was he didn’t know and didn’t care - just wrapped his arms around his waist, rested his head on his torso and went to sleep.

He mostly managed to brush off SEES’ concern when he and Ryoji went down for dinner. He had to come clean a little bit about the fact that he’d been putting off dealing with the side effects of the final battle, but the fact that it wasn’t something more serious - such as a relapse from overworking himself - seemed to set them at ease.

Though they were still concerned enough that they were going to be keeping an eye on him, he assumed with resignation. There was no help for it, he supposed.

The exhaustion had passed by the next day, and he weathered the half-day of classes easily enough. There were no flowers today, he noted, and he sent a suspicious glance towards Ryoji. He doubted it was because of the day before - Ryoji wasn’t so easily scared off of something, and it had been a relatively known problem anyway. He was planning something.

That something became apparent after they’d gotten changed later that afternoon, just before they went downstairs to meet Mitsuru and Yukari to be (apparently??? Mitsuru really needed to stop doing this) chauffeured to the restaurant.

Ryoji ruffled through his bag an pulled out a box with a sheepish look. “Unfortunately it’s too late in the year for me to get you the actual flowers - and doing it this way kinda ruins the symbolism of it I know - but here.”

Minato sent him a narrow look and took the box. He opened it to find a small wooden hair clip with white sakura blossoms set on it.

How incredibly poetic and cliche.

“I know it’s not your usual style at all,” Ryoji said, drawing Minato’s attention up to him. He shrugged with a small laugh. “And it not being real undercuts the point a little bit, but I thought it was the most appropriate thing to end on.”

Flowers representing the transience of life, considered the literal representation of life, death, and rebirth, and white ones specifically often used in representations of death. Of course Ryoji would choose them.

Minato sighed, fondness and exasperation intermingled in the action. It definitely was not something he would usually wear, but… he could make an exception this once. “If you were trying to push the symbolism a comb would have been more appropriate.” He plucked the clip up and set the box aside, holding the clip out to Ryoji in a silent offer and request.

Ryoji’s eyes widened and went suspiciously shiny and he swallowed as he realized what Minato meant, stepping forward to take it from Minato’s hand. Minato closed his eyes as Ryoji stepped close and reached up to pull the shorter left side of his hair back and up.

And the fact that he even knew to do that, and didn’t try to pull Minato’s bangs back out of his face to make him look more ‘neat’, made something tighten in Minato’s chest. “Your hair’s not long enough for a comb,” Ryoji quipped as he gently worked the clip into his hair. “If it was as long as Mitsuru’s - or even Shinji’s - I would have.” His hand dropped down to cup the side of Minato’s face and Minato opened his eyes to see the boy watching him with a small, fragile smile that Minato wasn’t used to seeing on him.

He tilted his head up slightly and Ryoji leaned down to press their foreheads together, closing his eyes with a shaky little sigh that made Minato reach up to rest a hand on his face.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Ryoji whispered. “I’m so, so glad we’re both here. I thought for sure we wouldn’t be.”

“Me too,” Minato murmured. “But we are, and we will be.”

Ryoji hummed in agreement, but didn’t pull away just yet. They both stood there for several moments just basking in the relief of their shared presence before Ryoji finally pulled back reluctantly. “We should probably head down now - Yukari and Mitsuru are waiting.”

Minato sighed but nodded. It’d be fine, but the whole thing was still a little ridiculous. At least Ryoji looked nice in his vest and rolled up sleeves. Minato was still annoyed at being convinced into a vest in the first place when he would have been just fine in the jacket.

But Ryoji kept shooting glances at him so he supposed it at least fulfilled its purpose.

Yukari and Mitsuru were both in nice evening dresses, unsurprisingly, and they looked very nice, also unsurprisingly. The rest of SEES seemed amused by the whole affair and Minato shot Akihiko and Shinji an annoyed glare at where they were smirking at him. He could almost hear their “Better you than me.” comments. Ken and Fuuka looked equally relieved to be staying there. Aigis sent him the pitying look of someone who’d long gotten used to his social awkwardness.

Junpei seemed torn between envy and relief, but one glance between Minato’s long-suffering expression and Mitsuru’s placid smile seemed enough to wipe the envy away and he grinned and tossed a salute to Ryoji and Minato. “Good luck! Hope the food’s good!”

“The food will be amazing, I’m sure,” Ryoji agreed cheerfully.

Minato just sighed. “We’ll see you when we get back.” He wasn’t going to think about the restaurant, he wasn’t going to think about the restaurant.

“If you survive, sure.”

“I’m going to pass out and fall down the stairs.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.” Ryoji slung an arm over his shoulders with a grin, making Minato shake his head.

“You catching me would defeat the point.”

Yukari groaned and turned to to head out the doors. “No one’s going to die, stop being a baby and come on.”

Minato cast one more mournful look towards the stairs leading back up to his nice, comfortable, safe room and then turned to follow with the chuckles of SEES following him.

The limo - because of course it was god damn it Mitsuru - was nice, and Minato found himself envious of how laid-back the other three seemed to be. Anxiety squirmed in his stomach in a way that had him pressing his arm against Ryoji’s as surreptitiously as possible for comfort. Ryoji twined their fingers together.

He wasn’t sure if having him physically here was better than having him a reassuring presence in the back of his mind had been. Better in some ways, but at least when he was in Minato’s soul he could talk to him constantly.

As they rode to the restaurant Minato found himself zoning out and letting the chatter of the other three wash over him, watching the city passing by out the window. So long as he didn’t think about it it was nice.

The restaurant itself was too nice - he took one look at the other guests and their clothes and wanted to turn around and walk out. Instead he just edged as close to Ryoji and Mitsuru as he could without raising any brows and tried not to look around too much. For the first time he was incredibly relieved that Mitsuru had gotten them a private room because the sight of so many people of a very different type was nerve-wracking.

He let out a relieved breath once they were in the room and away from people, and Ryoji reached out to squeeze his hand and tug him to the rounded table. Mitsuru and Yukari sat across from them, watching him with concern. He waved it away and glanced around curiously.

The room had a wall of windows facing the ocean, the whole islands and part of mainland spread out before them. The Moonlight Bridge was almost directly below them and he quickly dragged his gaze away from it and out across the ocean instead.

Dinner went more smoothly than he’d anticipated, and he slowly relaxed as the evening passed. The food was, of course, incredible, and the staff was pleasant enough - though he left most of the interactions with them to Mitsuru just to be safe - but the fact that it was just the four of them for the most part was the most relaxing thing. Ryoji’s arm brushing his kept him grounded even as he left the conversation mostly to the other three.

The whole thing kind of blurred together, honestly. It wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d feared, but it was still out of his comfort zone enough that he was on-edge the whole time.

So it was with immense relief that Minato finally stepped back into the dorms after dinner.

The rest of SEES had scattered by now, only Aigis and Akihiko in the lobby doing homework and reading respectively. They both glanced up to greet them all, Akihiko making a quip about them all surviving, and Yukari rolled her eyes at him.

Minato shrugged and said “It was nice.” and left it very pointedly at that because he was not going to tell Mitsuru that he’d rather jump in the ocean than do that again when she’d been trying to do a nice thing. Judging by Aigis’ cocked head she could tell he was lying, but that was nothing new and it was fine. She knew and accepted that he lied a fair amount when dealing with other people and their feelings.

He and Ryoji bid them all a goodnight, thanked Mitsuru and Yukari for the dinner, and then hurriedly headed up to their room before Yukari could make any suggestion of a repeat sometime.

Minato dropped back onto his bed with a long groan. “Next time I’m not telling them. We’re going to Tokyo and I’ll get us a reservation at something by the clubs. Or we’ll get a private karaoke room at a bar or something.”

Ryoji laughed as he began stripping off his vest. “It wasn’t that bad.”

He didn’t bother responding, just closing his eyes with a quiet sigh. It hadn’t been that bad. But he still didn’t want to do it again. Something far more casual was his preference.

Minato was distracted from his thoughts by the bed dipping and a weight settling overtop of him. He opened his eyes to find Ryoji leaning over him with a small smile playing at his lips and a knowing look in his eyes. “Just the two of us next time,” he murmured.

“Harajuku, then Akihabara,” Minato decided, staring up at him. “I want to see what albums and niche collections Akihabara has. And see if the new portable audio system is as powerful as rumors are saying.”

Lips twisting into a smirk, Ryoji countered, “As long as I get to pick out some outfits for you in Harajuku.”

Minato made a face but didn’t deny him. That was fair, he supposed, even if Ryoji was absolutely going to get him into something ridiculous. “Fine. Just don’t go too overboard.”

A chuckle was all he received in response and Ryoji leaned down to press their foreheads together affectionately, eyes soft and affectionate as they met Minato’s. It was a comfort after the exhausting affair of dinner.

That said he was tired and wanted to go to bed, so after a few moments he nudged Ryoji off of him and began extracting himself from his overly nice clothes. Ryoji snickered at him again, but joined him in the nightly routine easily enough.

Normally it was early for them to head to bed, bun Minato was already beginning to fall asleep as soon as he dropped onto the mattress. He grumbled as Ryoji prodded him into moving under the covers and over so they’d both fit but acquiesced and allowed the other to settle in and tug him into a hug.

Just before he faded to sleep he glimpsed the cherry blossom hair clip gleaming in the moonlight alongside the vase of flowers.

It tugged a reluctant, fond smile from him, and then he closed his eyes and fell asleep to Ryoji’s breaths.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Me: This’ll be a short, sweet chapter, nothing heavy or particularly angsty-

Ryoji and Minato holding up a hanakotoba book and existential crises: You sure?

Me: Heavy sigh

This was not at all what I was planning to write for this, but then they all got away from me and I had a lot of fun writing out the mundane life of Minato and friends post-canon. This au has turned into “Minato’s third year and how SEES moves on after P3” and honestly I can’t even regret it, because it’s so fun and is also making me mildly emotional to see what could have been.

Fun fact, the restaurant I chose is, in fact, a real one in Odaiba. Meals start at about $130 a person (after conversion) not including reservation fees or potentially drinks, so Minato is completely justified for being terrified of existing within its space because I would be too.

These are all going to be continuations of Day 1 because I wanna explore this au more.

The amount of flipflopping I did trying to figure out if it’s even possible to see the stars in Kyoto - even at the stargazing spots - was… a lot, and I still didn’t get a definitive answer. All the pictures I looked at said no, but I also acknowledge that cameras aren’t always great, and they are called stargazing lookouts on various tourist sites. And the game and movie both show stars at night so we’re going to set aside the potential realities of light pollution and say that you can. And the first day of the trip is a new moon too, so it’d be a waste not to take advantage of that.

The hiking trail Ryoji drags Minato up against his will:https://www.insidekyoto.com/shogunzuka-seiryuden-hike-chion-temple

Also as usual, the song I listened to while writing this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox7Wt6fsm_A

Ryomina to Kimi no Na wa is somehow even more devastating.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Minato had never really gotten attached to things before this year - aside from the mp3 player and Death/Thanatos - so he didn’t really miss anything from his childhood. But the one good thing that he could admit to missing, if he thought about it, was wandering the streets of Inagawa at night and looking up at the stars.

The green distortion of the dark hour tended to obscure the light of the stars, but even when it didn’t the light pollution of Tokyo not far away - plus Tatsumi Port Island itself - largely blocked them out.

Which meant that when they went to Kyoto for the school trip, Ryoji apparently decided on his own that that meant they should sneak out and go to the nearby Shogunzuka Seiryuden Temple to see if they could see any. Apparently it was the best lookout in the city, and a good place to stargaze.

Minato had his doubts given how bright the city was, but Ryoji seemed excited so he didn’t argue and just let the Shadow-turned-Persona-turned-boy sneak them out of the inn on the first night there to drag him on the long walk to the foot of the temple, then the half hour hike up to the temple itself.

If it had been anyone else Minato would have been annoyed and turned around. Ryoji was very lucky Minato liked him so much.

… especially after those six days where he’d been convinced that he’d lost him after Thanatos just vanished from his soul before Ryoji just showed up to school (which he still hadn’t explained and probably wouldn’t).

But Ryoji hadn’t let go of his hand the whole time they’d been walking, fingers intertwined and arms swinging as he chattered about the various things he’d been doing and exploring around Iwatodai and Tatsumi Port Island in the ten or so days he’d been consciously physical. It was almost surprising to hear how much he’d been doing without Minato - it had felt almost like they’d been glued together since the moment Ryoji walked into class with a grin and flirty line.

(It had taken an enormous amount of restraint for Minato not to throw himself out of desk and storm up to the front demanding to know where he’d been - the sudden flood of emotions he’d been struggling with since Thanatos vanished and suddenly whatever emotional suppression effect he’d had on Minato had vanished along with him had been difficult - but he’d managed to limit his reaction to a narrowed-eyed glare. They’d all thought Aigis was going to break cover and shoot him on the spot before she’d managed to get her own instinctual reaction under control.)

But they still spent a decent amount of time apart, given how busy Minato was helping various Social Links and Ryoji flirting his way through getting to know the entire school - how he was doing that without getting murdered by half the school population Minato neither knew nor cared - so it shouldn’t have been the surprise it was to realize that Ryoji somehow knew an entire year’s worth of drama that he hadn’t been around for.

Minato really didn’t care about the breakups and revenge plots and planned confessions of various couples around the school but Ryoji looked like he was having fun so he let him talk and only partially tuned him out.

When he’d come on the Kyoto trip he really hadn’t expected to be dragged on a multi-kilometer hike, but… well it wasn’t awful. The air was chilly enough that he wasn’t hot, and the months they’d spent sprinting up floor after floor of Tartarus meant he could easily handle the hike.

It just would have been nice to have some forewarning - or even just taken a taxi up.

But Ryoji was determined to have as many experiences as possible in the three months they had before The Fall, and Minato couldn’t fault him for it.

No one could escape time, not even the two of them, so they might as well make the most of it.

The downward turn of his thoughts must have been apparent to Ryoji - of course they were, he’d spent ten years sharing Minato’s soul - because the boy squeezed his hand with a sad smile and then yanked him forward.

Minato yelped and scrambled to catch his balance, and then they were running. Sprinting up the stairs, chilly autumn air whipping at their cheeks and red leaves and stone path blurring around them as Ryoji laughed and led the way and Minato couldn’t even bring himself to be annoyed as he rushed to keep up.

It was exhausting and exhilarating, the world blurring and fading away until all he could feel were the pounding of his heart and the slap of his shoes against the stone pathway and Ryoji’s hand in his, all he could see was Ryoji’s beaming smile and eerie two-toned blue eyes glowing in the dark.

When they finally reached the top Minato had to stop and double over to clutch at his side as he gasped for breath. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how not human Ryoji was.

There was a reason only Aigis could keep up with him.

“Sorry,” the Shadow-turned-boy offered sheepishly. “You alright?”

“F-Fine,” Minato panted. “Just… just give me… a minute…” Too many nights running from the Reaper had given him stamina at least, and the sudden thought made him snort.

Ryoji tilted his head questioningly.

Minato finally managed to straighten and begin to even out his breaths. “Usually I’m running away from the Reaper, not trying to catch up to him.”

That drew a startled laugh from Ryoji as he set his hands on his hips. “I’m not the Reaper! I mean I’m kind of similar I guess, but we’re still different! The Reaper doesn’t come from Nyx, I don’t think.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Not that I know of,” Ryoji shrugged. “I think it just comes from… elsewhere, like most Shadows,” he waved his hand vaguely in the air, “-and is drawn to places where Shadows gather.”

“Huh… well, you’re still kind of a reaper, even if you aren’t the Reaper.”

Ryoji stuck his tongue out at him. “Fair enough I guess. Now come on, we’re almost there!” He grabbed Minato’s hand and returned to pulling him forward towards the path opening up into the viewpoint area.

It was a small observational area overlooking the southern sector of Kyoto, and in the far distance he could even make out the glittering lights of Osaka in the clear, moonless night.

The important thing, though, was the endless expanse of stars above them that he hadn’t expected to see.

Minato stared wide-eyed, slowly walking forward towards the railing with Ryoji trailing behind him.

They weren’t quite as clear as they’d been in Inagawa, but they were there and sparkling like thousands of tiny fireflies in the far distance.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed being able to see them, and was even more startled by the sudden choking well of emotion rising from his chest to his throat and spilling out from his eyes. Was he really crying over the stars?

The sudden unpracticed ability to feel a full range of emotion again was becoming inconvenient.

He reached up to scrub at his eyes and tried not to jump when he felt arms wrap unexpected around his waist as Ryoji rested his chin on his shoulder.

“It’s fine, you know,” he murmured in his ear.

“They’re just stars,” Minato shot back, leaning into his hug. “They’re pretty, but it’s not worth crying over.”

“Isn’t it?” Ryoji countered. “You’ve missed them haven’t you. What wrong with that?”

… what indeed.

“It’s not like they’ve gone anywhere. I just couldn’t see them.”

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to miss them.”

Minato had a feeling they weren’t just talking about the stars anymore.

Sighing, Minato reached down to intertwine their fingers. “It’s still annoying that I can’t control my emotions anymore.”

Ryoji snorted and pressed his face to Minato’s shoulder. “You mean that you have emotions again. You’ll get used to it - they aren’t bad.”

“Easy for you to say.” But Minato didn’t argue with him, just tipped his head back to stare up at the stars and try to remember the patterns of constellations. He could remember a few, tracing their paths with his eyes, and it was comfortable in the silence between them as he looked up at the twinkling lights in the sky and Ryoji looked down at the glittering lights of the city.

“It’s ironic,” Ryoji murmured finally. “I bet none of the scientists ever thought that the personification of Death could learn to value life, could learn to want to live and want humanity to live. I love you and I love them, and ten years ago I couldn’t have even imagined that I would be able to.”

Minato tightened his grip reflexively, trying to ignore the sudden burning behind his eyes and throat at the reminder. “I bet they’d be mortified,” he murmured. “Strega and Ikutsuki sure were.”

A wet laugh tumbled from the boy behind him. “Yeah, yeah they were. But I do. I do want to live. I want to live, and keep learning about people, seeing how they live and what they think. And I want to keep waking up every day with you and going down to the lobby to eat breakfast that Shinji made everyone while Yukari and Junpei argue and Akihiko and Mitsuru ignore them, and Fuuka tries to keep the peace while Ken sneaks Koromaru food from his plate, and Aigis tries to figure out why they’re arguing this time.” He was shaking, burying his face in Minato’s shoulder to hide his tears. “I want to stay with you forever, just like this.”

The tears had won the battle against Minato and they streaked down his face and turned the stars above them into a blur. He swallowed the knot in his throat and whispered, “Me too. I don’t want you to leave me too. I want to keep you here.” Wanted to drag Thanatos back into his soul, entwine them so strongly once more that he couldn’t leave him behind again. But they both knew he couldn’t - Ryoji’s very existence was proof that Death was whole once more, and a single human soul couldn’t contain Death without destroying itself.

But that didn’t mean he was willing to let go either.

Minato turned suddenly, startling Ryoji into loosening his grip, until they were facing each other. And it was a whim, a thoughtless, desperate motion to connect them once more that made Minato reach up to wrap his arms around Ryoji’s neck and pull him down to press their lips together for the first time. Ryoji froze for a moment before clinging more tightly to Minato’s waist and pulling him as close as he could.

And the kiss was awkward, wet with their shared tears and neither knowing what exactly they were supposed to do, but that wasn’t the point of it. Minato just wanted to be as close to him as he could in that moment, even if he couldn’t rejoin their souls. So it was awkward and desperate and not really good but it made him feel a little better to know it wasn’t just him.

That they were still the same even broken apart as they were.

When they pulled apart Minato tucked his head against Ryoji’s neck and just breathed. Ryoji clung to him just as tightly as he matched their breaths and they stood there. Together.

It wasn’t fair, none of it was fair, but they both knew that. There was nothing they could do about it - time came for them all in the end and they couldn’t close their eyes and cover their ears to hide from it. All they could do was live as much as they could until the end.

Minato found himself being dragged down as Ryoji suddenly fell backwards, until they were both sprawled on the concrete staring up at the stars once more. Minato’s arm was used as Ryoji’s cushion and his head was tucked against his shoulder and it wasn’t the most comfortable position but he didn’t want to move.

They just laid there, Ryoji occasionally pointing up to draw his attention to a constellation he either remembered or made up, and it was the calmest Minato had felt in weeks.

Time ticked ever onward though, and eventually Ryoji sighed and turned to press his lips to Minato’s head and murmured, “It’s almost midnight. Once the Dark Hour hits, I can fly us back.” His lips pulled up into a small smirk. “Save you the exhaustion of walking anywhere.”

Minato had complained about long walks to places before, even in his head, and while he didn’t hate exercise he wasn’t particularly thrilled with it either. Any other time he’d have been relieved at the offer.

But right here and now, in this extended fragile moment between them, with time ticking ever forward against them, he wanted to draw this out a little longer. Pretend for as long as possible that it was just the two of them and they had infinite time ahead of them.

So he just shrugged and said, “I can walk.”

Ryoji’s raised brow almost immediately morphed into understanding - of course it did - and his expression softened into something warm and pained. “If you’re sure. If we get back during the Dark Hour maybe Mitsuru won’t lecture us too badly about sneaking out.”

“And who’s fault was that?”

“I’ll take responsibility!”

“Somehow I don’t think that will save us,” Minato sighed, reluctantly sitting up. “We should go then. It’s around an hour to walk back so we’ll be cutting it close even if we leave now.”

“Good point. If we get too close I’ll just fly us the rest of the way, though.” Ryoji stretched his arms over his head and hopped to his feet, offering a hand to Minato. He accepted it and was pulled easily to his feet - but stilled as Ryoji suddenly too the opportunity to lean down and press another soft kiss to his lips. It was short, only a lingering moment, but something about it made his throat tight again and he pressed their foreheads together.

They lingered for another minute before reluctantly parting and turning to walk back.

The Dark Hour hit somewhere along the way, but alone on the trails with no coffins or Shadows around it felt distant and unobtrusive. The minutes stretched long and comfortable between them just as Minato had hoped they would, until they finally reached the city and its many coffins again.

They did not manage to sneak back to their room without Mitsuru noticing, but for once she didn’t lecture them. Just gave them a knowing look and told them not to sneak off under the teachers’ supervision. She looked… tired.

But then, most of SEES did after the harrowing few weeks and many revelations and near-fatalities they’d had.

They both reminded each other to rest at the same moment, and Mitsuru laughed softly as her expression lightened. It made something ease in his own chest.

They made it back to their room without further incident - other than Junpei made an excessive show of scanning them up and down as though looking for signs of indecency which made Ryoji wink and laugh and Minato throw a pillow at him - before finally collapsing on a futon and passing out.

He distantly heard Junpei trying to tease them for sharing a futon, but Minato was already falling asleep and Ryoji was more than capable of keeping up with Junpei.

He didn’t see the big deal - they’d technically been sharing a futon or bed for years whenever Death manifested, and Ryoji had basically moved into his room in the dorms by this point. But those two seemed to have fun with it so… whatever.

Minato was just satisfied to have Ryoji’s warmth against him as he fell into sleep.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Much shorter, and more bittersweet than outright angsty than the last one. And very obvious Ryomina rather than implied.

It is still pretty sad though, I know, but that’s unfortunately what happens when you take an angst writer and ask them to try and write fluff.

So it may be obvious by now, but the idea is that this is an everyone lives/no one (on our side) dies route. Ikutsuki, Takaya, and Jin still die, but Shinji (if you want to reference my other fic Numb that’s basically what happens in this route, except add in some flashbacks towards his cousin too), Chidori, and Mitsuru’s father survive because as soon as Minato wakes up with SEES on crosses and Aigis under control he and Thanatos flip out and Ikutsuki ends up with the controller destroyed and himself very very dead.

Evokers might help with Persona evocation, but they aren’t necessary when someone gets in an unstable enough mental state and also has an excessively powerful and autonomous Shadow-turned-Persona in their head. SEES gets a little scared but Thanatos has gone rogue before and never attacked them so…

It’s a whole ordeal but Ikutsuki is the only one that ends up dead, so win?

I’m playing fast and loose with canon and the actual lore behind Nyx, because as much as I like FFVII I don’t want to just write Jenova 2.0. So my lore is that she is a being of the collective unconscious like the other “gods” in Persona, she’s just much, much more powerful because death is an inescapable, tangible thing that happens rather than an intangible concept.

Also Erebus isn’t… a thing. I understand and respect what the team was going for with how they did Nyx and Erebus with The Answer, but it makes things more convoluted than necessary for my preferences. Humanity’s despair and wish for death doesn’t need a tangible form - Nyx can sense it directly and her radar lights up red when she’s called for directly (thanks Kandori, thanks Kirijo) and that’s what makes her active. Minato’s seal acts like a buffer or a muffler - an interference so she can’t hear herself being called (unless it’s particularly direct). Because you can’t kill death - and even if you could you shouldn’t because unconditional immortality is a very bad idea- and I’m getting off track. Point is I’m making P3 consistent with the lore of the rest of the series rather than “it was aliens, actually”. P2 subverted that, P3 can’t just turn around and play it straight while hiding it under a mountain of conditional lore.

Also exploring Minato as a freshly traumatized child is a fascinating exercise. Newly nihilistic six year old has not realized he’s nihilistic yet because everyone is still assuming the apathy towards everything is a normal trauma response. He and Death have such an interesting dynamic as they both learn.

FINDING OUT HALFWAY THROUGH THIS THAT IT WAS APPARENTLY RECENTLY CONFIRMED THAT TATSUMI PORT ISLAND IS SUPPOSED TO BE BASICALLY ODAIBA WAS INFURIATING. What do you MEAN Gekkoukan is in Tokyo, no it is not I’ve had the hc that Minato spent his junior high years in Tokyo for YEARS do not do this to me Persona. Anyway, I moved it so that I can keep my hcs the same, it’s still in the same general area it’s just outside of Tokyo Bay rather than inside it now. I was so tempted to keep the long-standing guess the fandom has had and put Tatsumi Island in Kobe you have NO IDEA. Fucking Odaiba man. Maruki says hello Nyx.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

In one world, they wouldn’t have met or known each other until Minato was sixteen. Minato would have been not-so-blissfully ignorant of the truth of the events that happened that night of the explosion. Nothing but vague memories of a bright light and broken cars and fire all around.

But in another, Minato remembered.

Unbuckling his seatbelt to look at the ocean far below, the explosion that threw him out of the car, his mother’s teary pleading for him to live, the collision of a robot and monster on the bridge that threw everything else back, the flashes of a chaotic fight, the guilt and devastation in the robot girl’s eyes as she pressed the blue fire containing the monster to his chest and apologized for turning him into its seal-

That was technically the first time he met Death.

But it wasn’t until a month later that they met properly, face to face, and Minato could acknowledge him directly.

It had been… a rough month. The aftermath of the accident had destroyed and consumed his life - left him thrown about from hospital to police station to a different and more elaborate and creepy hospital where he stayed for nearly two weeks while people in lab coats ran tests and poked at the new giant scar on his chest and men in suits tried to get in contact with a family member they could force to willing to take him, and then he was given to his aunt and uncle who weren’t expecting to suddenly have a child to take care of and were upset and scrambling to adjust. And they weren’t cruel or dismissive but he knew they weren’t happy to have him here suddenly and his aunt was devastated about her sister’s death and their smiles were so fake and he couldn’t even cry which made them uneasy and more upset and-

Minato had heard the words “trauma reaction” and “emotional suppression” more in the past month than his entire short life beforehand and he wished he could understand what that even meant but it felt like everything was a blur and just floating past his head.

He knew there was something wrong with him, though. That had been obvious at his parent’s funeral where he didn’t even feel anything and couldn’t bring himself to react or say anything to the parade of people coming over to talk to him.

The doctors who they kept trying to make him talk to acted like it was normal. His aunt and uncle acted like he was broken. Everyone else acted like he was a ghost.

He was pretty sure the ghost comparison was the one that was closest. He had a monster inside of him now, after all. The same monster who was probably responsible for his parents dying and midnight turning weird.

But maybe he was a little broken too because of it. Because he didn’t hate that monster even knowing all that. He didn’t really even miss his parents even though he’d always loved them so much before. He didn’t… care. About anything.

And he wasn’t scared, on the full moon a month after the accident, when the midnight hour hit and there was a sharp, tearing pain in his chest, and the monster appeared in a blaze of blue fire. It hovered over his bed like the evil creature from every scary bedtime story and stared down at him with its chain and torn brown cloak and a sword in its hand.

It looked evil but it didn’t feel evil. He’d always been good at telling what people around him felt - a gentle soul with an empathetic heart his mother had called him - and the monster felt… empty. Empty like he always felt now. There wasn’t any anger or hate like he’d expected from a monster.

He sat up and looked at it blankly, waiting for it to do something. Try to kill him like it had been trying to kill the robot, maybe. When it didn’t do anything he tilted his head and asked, “What’s your name?”

Might as well know what monster he was supposed to be “sealing”.

The creature stared down at him for a moment of silence, then spoke in a raspy, echoing voice - like two pieces of metal screeching against each other in the undertones. “I am Death.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess that’s why you killed people.” He frowned. “If you’re trapped inside of me then are people going to stop dying then?”

“No,” the monster said. “I embody the concept but I am not its entirety. I am merely the harbinger for she who calls the end.”

“What do you mean? What’s a harbinger?”

“An omen. I am a sign that the end has come - that humanity has forsaken its will to live and wishes for the world to end. I am the call to the goddess of death, Nyx, to bring death to all.”

“But that’s… not true. Most people don’t want to die. You can’t say that humans don’t want to live when most people do,” Minato tilted his head to the side. “I don’t know anyone who really wants to die. It’s usually an accident, or because someone else did it on purpose.”

“My very existence is proof that humanity has succumbed to despair and wishes for death. Your sole experiences are meaningless.”

Minato stared at him for a long moment then shrugged. “You’re wrong, but okay. Are you going to kill me, then? I think the robot girl made it so you can’t leave, that’s why she sealed you inside me.”

Death was silent for a moment, then said “My very essence has been sealed within you, bound and entwined to your soul. Your death would mean an end to my existence as well, vanishing into the Sea of Souls alongside you, unable to accomplish my goal.”

“So… no?”

“No. So long as the seal is intact I am incapable of killing you.”

“Okay, so you can’t leave and you can’t kill me. I’m going to sleep then.” Minato fell back and tugged the covers back up, rolling onto his side so his back was turned to the mon- to Death. “Night.”

The Shadow stared incredulously at him for several long minutes until his breath evened out and it became apparent that he truly was asleep.

It seemed the Anti-Shadow Unit had indeed known what she was doing to best undermine him. He was truly and solidly trapped.

… time would tell how this would play out, he supposed. After all, time came for all in the end and death was the most patient of mistresses. Nyx would wait.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Minato quickly got used to Death showing up. First once a month on the full moon, then as time went on he began showing up in his dreams, and then speaking into his head while conscious outside the extra midnight hour.

It was almost surprising how quickly Minato got used to him - by the time a year had passed Death had become a normal presence in his life. Not a comforting presence, perhaps, but normal. The Shadow, as Minato now knew he was, still disbelieved Minato when he said that humanity really didn’t seem to be calling to Nyx. He remained adamant that it was simply Minato’s small range of existence that hid the truth.

And maybe that was true - maybe the small city he lived in didn’t show how many people were wish for the end. But if there were actually that many surely he would have met at least a few here.

Death did slowly become more curious about the day to day lives of people as time passed though, asking questions first during meetings in his dreams and then directly in his head once he’d figured out how to break through the seal enough to do so.

Minato probably should have been more worried that he was doing that, but most emotions were muted and distant these days so he just learned to ignored the burn and stinging pain in his chest that indicated Death taking an active interest in something going on. Sometimes it was a history lesson or science assignment, sometimes it was a conversation with a classmate or an overheard argument between adults.

He gained an active presence in Minato’s head just in time for the christmas season, actually, so Minato got very used to tuning out the pain of it very quickly because Death seemed fascinated and bewildered by… just about everything about the holiday. Things Minato had taken for granted were now subject to question and he had to ask about quite a few of them himself.

Granted he and Death both realized pretty quickly that the adults around them were simplifying explanations to make him understand it, because Death asked a lot more complicated and confusing questions about humans and traditions and… something about transferral of religion? Things Minato didn’t understand and couldn’t figure out how to ask about because he wasn’t sure what Death was actually asking.

What did someone dying for everyone else a long time ago have to do with christmas trees?

Once Minato asked Death that question in return the Shadow seemed to realize that Minato didn’t understand a lot about what he was trying to figure out and returned to asking more simplified questions.

Some of them still went over Minato’s head - why did it matter about the weird necklace the student helping at the shrine was wearing? The shrines never decorated for christmas, everyone knew that - but at least he could answer why the teenage boy was sneaking the bracelet he’d bought into his pocket so the girl with him wouldn’t see it.

The true shift in their relationship happened around the year mark of the accident.

Death could still only manifest physically on the full moon, but he did so each month without fail. Perhaps to ensure that he still could. But this time was… different.

Because when he did Minato felt something like satisfaction or triumph flicker through his chest as the Shadow appeared - and the fire vanished to reveal a boy the same age as Minato. He looked similar, but had darker and shorter hair, and his eyes were a bright blue. He was also wearing a striped prisoner outfit like out of a movie, but that was obvious enough why.

He looked down, examining himself, and nodded in satisfaction. “It worked.”

Minato tilted his head at him. “You were trying to turn yourself into a human?”

“I’m still not actually human, I’m merely taking this form. But yes. I thought it might better help me understand humans if I could imitate their form. So I tried to copy yours. It’s not exact, but I suppose that’s the influence of my inherent nature.” He hopped up onto the bed beside Minato. “If nothing else, it should be less disorienting to speak with me during this hour in this form.”

He wasn’t disorienting to talk to in his other form either, but he seemed unusually pleased with himself about this so Minato didn’t see a reason to contradict him. “I won’t have to look up at you anymore, I guess.”

“Exactly. I still know that humanity is calling out for the end, but it is strange how much attachment to life the people around you have in general.” The Shadow turned cocked his head with a thoughtful look. “If I imitate and understand humans, perhaps I can understand why that is.”

Minato really didn’t see what was hard to understand about people generally not wanting to die, but he supposed it was a fault of Death being a Shadow. And, well, Death.

“If you want,” he shrugged. “I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about it, but if it’ll help you understand then I think it’s fine.” Death still hadn’t shown any indication that he was about to break out of the seal, after all, so he couldn’t muster any real worry about it.

Not that he’d probably be able to stop him if he did, but… well, the robot girl had entrusted Death to him when she failed so the least he could do was make the attempt.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

He wasn’t quite sure when he’d crossed the line in the minds of adults around him from “recovering from the accident” to “creepy”. But he began noticing it over time as one year crept towards two towards three and his aunt and uncle - rather than adjusting and becoming comfortable in his presence - went from uncertain to uneasy around him.

At first they’d looked at him like they weren’t sure what to do with him, like he was one wrong word from breaking down crying. But now they looked at him like they thought something was wrong with him - like they didn’t want to figure out what to do with him.

He blamed Death, honestly. The Shadow was rubbing off on him as much as he was on the Shadow.

The whispers behind his back that they thought he wasn’t listening to - unnatural, too quiet, emotionless, never cries, never throws a tantrum, never gets happy or upset, doesn’t have friends, looks right through you - definitely made it sound like there was something wrong with him.

He didn’t really feel wrong. He just didn’t feel strong emotions - was more tired than anything a lot of the time.

But maybe that was the proof that something was wrong, because he remembered feeling more strongly about things, remembered feeling excited or scared or sad or happy so strongly he thought it’d overwhelm him. His parents had gently chastised him more than once about an excessive reaction to something.

So maybe they were right and there was something wrong with him. That “something wrong” just happened to be the personification of Death sealed in his chest, and there was nothing he could do about that.

Not… that he really minded. He liked having Death in his mind, asking questions and making him wonder about the world around him in ways he wouldn’t have otherwise. He liked being able to guess what the people around him were thinking and feeling based on their expressions and body language. And it came in handy on tests when he couldn’t remember the answer to something and Death was willing to remind him.

It just meant that Death stayed his only friend because everyone around him found his presence off-putting and unnerving. Even his teachers didn’t really like him if they spent any time outside of class with him. And his aunt and uncle only became more distant and unnerved as the years passed and he didn’t become more open or how he had been before the accident.

So it wasn’t really a surprise when he turned ten and they told him that he’d be moving in with a cousin. Their excuse was that they were trying for a child, and didn’t want to divide their attention between two children who both needed it so he’d be sent to someone who could continue to devote attention to him.

It would have been a lot more convincing if they had been devoting attention to him rather than avoiding him or becoming very strained when they did interact with him.

Minato… didn’t really care, he’d been expecting it, but there was a keen edge of resentment from Death at both the lie and the disregard.

(There was something else there in the undertones that Minato couldn’t quite read. A bitter, sharp edge of emotion that Death tried to hide from him, and Minato didn’t ask. If Death wanted him to know then he would tell him.)

There had been no expectations on Minato’s behalf on his way to Inagawa in Hyōgo - it was a relatively small town comparatively, fairly rural, and he knew nothing about the cousin taking him in. He wondered how they’d been convinced.

The town was… nice enough. Surrounded by mountainous area, forest on all sides, lakes and rice patties in the distance…

Altogether different than the cities he’d grown up in.

His cousin, as it turned out, was a middle-aged no-nonsense man clearly far more focused on whatever his career was than any sort of familial relationship. Given how quickly the man had gruffly brushed through introductions and a tour of the apartment - relatively small and sparsely decorated, the man clearly spent almost no time here - and essentially told him he was on his own and to stay out of trouble, Minato assumed he’d been promised that Minato was low-effort and he’d be able to effectively ignore him.

Which wasn’t inaccurate so he couldn’t complain too much.

(Death seemed to take it the wrong way and got very annoyed, though, which was almost funny.)

It did mean that he had to learn to cook. He got an allowance, enough to cover any food he needed, but unless he wanted to live off of prepackaged food he did need to learn the basics at least.

… although after his terrible start of burned rice and an uneven omelette the man did at least teach him those basics, so he clearly wasn’t entirely uncaring. Or he just didn’t want to risk a fire.

Death was relieved about that, though he did seem to derive some amusement from Minato’s inept attempts at learning to cook. Not that he was any help. Any number of historical or philosophical questions he’d be more than happy to lecture about, but anything practical and he was useless.

It wasn’t a bad two years. Just as lonely, but not bad. Less side-eyes and unease at least.

His cousin was very rarely home, and when he was he was usually working on either paperwork or a laptop. The man didn’t seem to care about friends or social circles, or at least not enough to invite anyone over, and he and Minato largely ignored each other when they were home at the same time. He didn’t ask about Minato’s grades or social interactions either, which his aunt and uncle had still done, which made it harder to really care about them either.

Minato continued to be off-putting to everyone around him, it seemed, but he still wasn’t sure what exactly he was doing to drive them away and make the kids call him scary and the teachers murmur that he was unnerving. It wasn’t just lack of emotional reactions, he didn’t think, because there were a couple of other kids that were like that and they were called “cool” and “admirable”.

But something about him made people shy away and refuse to meet his eyes.

Maybe it was the same thing that made animals nervous around him.

The same thing that made the other Shadows leave him alone during the midnight hour, even though they would attack anyone else able to move around. That ability didn’t seem to happen here, at least - he never encountered anyone else out the few times he wandered around town in the green light.

Which was more than he could say of the city he had lived in - after the first time he’d been out and encountered both a person and the Shadows around, and his presence had whipped the Shadows into a frenzy and made them more aggressive than usual towards any one else around, he’d avoided going out during that hour.

Death made them more dangerous, and Minato didn’t want to be responsible for anyone dying.

But it wasn’t a problem here, and there was something fascinating about walking around an empty town covered in blood and coffins beneath a green moon. It was eerie.

It made him feel the most alive that he had been since the accident.

Still, it was just one more thing that set him apart from everyone around him and he continued to spend most of his time alone. Often with a book. And while animals were more nervous around him than other people they did warm up to him relatively quickly once assured he wouldn’t hurt them. Once he realized that it wasn’t quite as lonely, and he became a friendly face to several of the strays around.

And Death was always there. He never really left anymore, and the pain of his presence had long since vanished. Minato chose not to think about what that meant for the seal. He was a friend, always at Minato’s side, and the years passed had made his comments about being the harbinger existing only to usher in humanity’s death fade into only the occasional thoughtful consideration about one situation or another. His absolute certainty that humanity at large wished for death had diminished significantly in the face of so much constant drive forward from everyone around Minato. Instead, he seemed to be searching for what humans did want - what it was that drove each one forwards to the future, each person chasing after their own goals in life.

Minato certainly didn’t have the answer, and people didn’t like him enough to be willing to tell him, so they contented themselves watching and listening and speculating.

So the two years he spent in Inagawa were peaceful enough, with various animals and Death (both in his mind and in child form) keeping him company.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

And then that peace was summarily shattered when his cousin announced that he was getting engaged and moving in with his fiancee to Osaka, and Minato would be moving in with another relative, a different cousin, in Tokyo.

When it happened Minato felt nothing more than a twinge of disappointment. He’d hoped to keep this peace for a while longer before his presence became a nuisance again.

Death was significantly more displeased, irritated that Minato’s cousin was displacing him rather than adapting around him, concerned about being sent to Tokyo - and there was that something more to that thought that Minato was sensing from him more and more often these days - and handed off to another relative they knew nothing about, a frustration on Minato’s behalf that they’d long since acknowledged he probably couldn’t feel. But there was nothing they could do about it, so Minato packed his few belongings again and was gone.

Had they known what was waiting for them - had he realized the abrupt downward spiral his life was about to take - perhaps he would have mustered the care to ask to stay.

But they had no way to know.

The first sign that something was… off… was on the way to the address he’d been given. Shinjuku had residential areas, of course - nice ones, even. But the address didn’t lead him to a nice one. It was a ragged, run-down area, with dirty alleyways and narrowed glances sent out covered windows.

The fact that it was just outside Kabukicho didn’t help.

It set him on-edge despite himself, and for the first time in years Death pushed against the seal hard enough for it to burn.

“It’s not the midnight hour, not for a couple more hours,” he thought to the Shadow, watching a group of shady looking men muttering in an alleyway from the corner of his eye. “Even if you broke through the seal you couldn’t manifest.”

“It’s possible that I could,” the Shadow shot back. “We’ve never attempted it.”

“We’ve never seen any Shadows out in the daylight, only during the midnight hour,” Minato pointed out, taking a step to the side as a ragged cat hissed at him from under a dumpster.

“I’m not a normal Shadow.”

Minato didn’t respond.

They didn’t know what would happen if Death broke fully through the seal, but it probably wouldn’t be anything good. So Minato would just have to try and avoid being put into a position where it was necessary.

Easier said than done as he quickly found out. His… aunt? cousin? he wasn’t quite sure and she didn’t clarify so whatever- apparently worked in Kabukicho as supposedly a hostess, and had only agreed to take him in because she was hoping he would be a second source of income. Which, given the kinds of places in this area that would be willing to hire a junior high student, did not bode well for his likelihood for staying out of danger.

Death was irritated on his behalf, but it wasn’t as though they could really do anything about it. Any authority figures would just turn a blind eye - that became apparent the moment he arrived at school and met his homeroom teacher, and then the rest of the teachers were no better - and she hadn’t done anything to him yet so he couldn’t use anything against her.

She’d just made it clear that if he wanted to eat he’d bring home enough money to make it worth feeding him.

So he quietly asked around. Several of the other students in his class also had jobs, though whether it was for a similar reason he didn’t know and didn’t bother asking, so he had a few options. Not many, and none of them particularly appealing, but unless he wanted to either starve to death or learn to steal he’d just have to accept it.

Minato settled on the job that seemed like the least effort and one of the ones less likely to be directly tied to any potential host club scams or yakuza operations.

Washing dishes at the back of a host club wasn’t exactly fun, but it avoided the risk of being caught by any police or getting caught up in any drug trafficking. And the midnight hour meant he could grab an hour long nap in the middle so… it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. His sleep and grades both suffered for it, but no one was expecting him to have good grades anyway and none of the teachers cared to check why it was happening, so… he supposed it was convenient.

It was… fine.

It was fine. It was tolerable, no matter how frustrated Death got, and he could deal with the constant smell of cigarettes and alcohol all around him, could wrinkle his nose and turn away to his book or homework when she came back smelling of alcohol and sex, could tune out the chatter and flirtations from the room over at the club, could ignore the rumbled clothes and bruises peeking out on skin from the hosts and hostesses around the area.

Minato kept his head down, didn’t talk to anyone unless he had to, and no one really approached him. People in Tokyo - or at least this district of it - didn’t seem as bothered by whatever off-putting aura that had always scared everyone else, but they weren’t really inclined to bother with him either. Which suited him just fine.

Months passed easily enough, his cousin (as he eventually did find out) was satisfied for a while with the money that he did bring home and seemed happy enough that he wasn’t going to bother her or get in her way that she didn’t really bug him either unless she wanted one chore or another done while she was out.

She did kick him out a few nights a month to bring men home - though whether they were clients or boyfriends he didn’t know or care - but those were passed studying or doing homework in a cafe nearby that didn’t mind some kids in his situation hanging around all night provided they bought something every now and then. It wasn’t uncommon to see a few others around, sometimes he even studied with a couple of classmates or helped an elementary schooler out with their homework (except one who rebuffed him with a flash of red eyes and a snap that he could handle it himself), but largely he remained in his corner and tried to ignore the rest of the world as Death muttered and complained in his head.

He was equally pouty in his child form on those nights he joined Minato during the midnight hour, perching on the edge of his futon and casting annoyed glances across the room at his cousin on the other futon. Minato rolled his eyes and ignored him, until he flopped backwards and sprawled across Minato in a way that clearly demanded attention and Minato just patted his head and let him keep complaining about the people and world around them.

Minato hadn’t been expecting a christmas gift from her, but she seemed to be in a particularly good mood around that time so he didn’t question it. He supposed she’d caught the eye of a particularly affluent client or something because she suddenly had new clothes and jewelry. Plus decent takeout rather than Big Bang Burger or some other fast food chain.

But on christmas morning she cheerfully handed him a wrapped box with a comment that he’d earned something for his efforts this past year, and when he opened it with a quiet thank you he found an mp3 player and pair of headphones inside. It was the first present he’d gotten in years and quickly turned into the best he’d ever gotten.

It was something to drown out the tedium of the world, to filter out all the static and noise of the world around him into a steady, predictable, stable beat. Whenever it got too much he could simply put the headphones on and turn on the mp3 player and everything would fade away. A lifeline.

A necessary one, because things rapidly got worse after that. The giddiness that had clung to her throughout December began fading rapidly throughout February and into March. She got defensive and quiet, snappish, almost always on her phone, scrolling away as though looking for something. Biting her lip until it nearly bled - an unusual habit for someone so careful with her appearance.

It all came to a head around mid-April, just after the new school year had started, in the afternoon before Minato left for work. He was sitting at the low table, working on homework, when she suddenly made a snarling sound and started a phone call.

He quickly put on his headphones and turned on his music, tuning out whatever angry argument she was picking over the phone. It wasn’t his business, it wasn’t his problem.

It quickly became something near his problem when a bottle shattered against the wall dividing the kitchenette less than a meter away from his head and his gaze snapped up to find her glaring in his direction with eyes blazing and lips pulled into a snarl. Minato froze, unmoving even as Death reared up protectively in his soul and the seal burned beneath the weight of his presence. But a few moments passed of her glaring, chest heaving, before her mouth began moving again as she yelled something and he took note of her glassy eyes and distant gaze and he relaxed as she jerked her gaze away from him to continue shouting. She hadn’t been looking at him or aiming at him, he’d just been in an unfortunate direction. Death reluctantly faded back, but didn’t pull away entirely just yet.

He watched her shake her head desperately and fall to her knees on the floor as tears began streaming down her face and her other hand reached up to clutch at the desk of empty beer bottles she hadn’t gotten around to throwing out yet.

Or just throwing yet, apparently.

With a soft sigh Minato closed his workbook and leaned over to begin picking up the glass shards before one of them stepped on them. The bottle had at least been empty, so they wouldn’t have to deal with stains on the wood floor. The star of Sapporo sat wholly intact, almost mockingly, as he collected the glass in his hand.

By the time he’d finished picking up the glass and throwing it away, it seemed the call had ended and she was staring unseeing at the wall as tears streamed down her face. Minato stared at her for a moment before going back into the kitchen to fill a glass with water and pick up a cloth.

He knelt to set the water down in front of her and held out the cloth.

It took her a few moments to reach for it, but she did. She buried her face in it and sobbed.

Minato shrugged and returned to his spot at the table to continue his homework.

Things did not improve from there.

She became… unstable, switching between listless and desperate in the span of hours. If she was home without a client she was either drunk or drugged, and she either ignored him entirely or demanded he help out more. He quickly became the only one doing chores - if only to avoid being yelled at or risk having something thrown again - and after several months of her unable to bring home as much money as was satisfying to her he became the target of her ire for how little he was also bring back.

Comparatively, anyway.

He ignored it for several months hoping she’d get over whatever rich guy had gotten bored of her and leave him alone again, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t likely. It was only a matter of time before she began making threats again, and at Death’s urging Minato began considering his options.

A second part time job wasn’t particularly feasible given how much time the one he already had was taking. He could avoid being at the apartment as much as possible, but he still had to sleep sometime and the last thing he wanted was for her to decide she needed to hunt him down. He could use the midnight hour to shoplift, but that wouldn’t necessarily satisfy her if she wanted actual yen to use.

Well, he could try to start breaking into registers he supposed, but he didn’t know if he wanted to start dealing with the risks of that. Just because there weren’t people or camera didn’t mean there wouldn’t be evidence and just because Kabukicho had an underbelly didn’t mean it was actually illegal. He didn’t need the police to track him down using dna evidence or something. Besides, he had to set the standard somewhere.

He could take a different risk and get a more lucrative job elsewhere he supposed (Death didn’t like that option). He refused to work at the front-facing side of a club, but one of his classmates had talked about a package sorting job that paid well and was looking for a couple more people.

Minato had avoided it before - like most of his classmates did - because he didn’t really want to deal with drug smuggling. But it was a significantly higher pay, and his classmate had assured him that he’d been working there for three years and it really was just organizing packages into the correct address delivery bins. It really was just an ordinary job.

(So long as he didn’t open anything went unspoken.)

So with a heavy sigh and Death stewing angrily in the back of his soul, Minato followed his classmate to get recommended for the job. He was hired instantly, given a brief tour of the small warehouse, given an overview of how to organize the packages properly, warned not to open any of the packages for any reason, and then pointed at a stack that needed to go out the next morning.

The job wasn’t as bad as they’d both been concerned about. It really did seem like a normal sorting job. And it paid well.

None of which put Death at ease as he hovered almost painfully close to the seal constantly these days. It was getting to the point that Minato could almost feel the seal slowly dissolving as the nigh-painful tingling of it rapidly faded and Death came closer and closer to the forefront of his mind as the weeks passed.

Minato didn’t bother fighting him on it - the Shadow would worry regardless and if he did manage to break through the seal and manifest at least Minato wouldn’t have to deal with a fight himself.

(When had the worry of the consequences of the seal breaking faded? He could barely remember the robot girl who had sealed the Shadow inside him now, even if the guilt and grief in her eyes still haunted his dreams anytime he inhaled a lungful of smoke from somewhere. What did he care about the world? If Death broke free and destroyed it - well it wouldn’t be his problem for long.)

The uptick in money satisfied his cousin for the time being at least, so she went back to mostly ignoring him in favor of whatever poison she’d chosen for the day. He spent more time in the cafe than the apartment just for the smell alone, even when she hadn’t brought someone back.

The world faded more and more into the grey of exhausted numbness from there. An endless routine - get up, silently get ready for school, go to school, try not to sleep through his classes, leave for work, work until the daily quota was filled, go to the cafe to study until the midnight hour, leave once the hour was up and the cafe closed, return to the apartment and sleep, then get up again.

It was easy to lose track of the days when he didn’t talk to anyone and spent most of his time drowning out the world with his music. The date on the board and subjects of the lessons were really the only ties to reality that he had between the monochromatic repetition of everything else. The sudden uptick of pressure in the middle of the year to study hard and improve their grades in order to do well on high school entrance exams and get into a good school was a sudden shock to them all, and it did a little to break things up.

But even that quickly dulled back into routine - it was all just memorizing dates and facts and kanji and equations, and with Death in his head to help he wasn’t likely to do badly even if he didn’t bother trying.

Though even if he got accepted there was no guarantee he’d be able to attend. Given his cousin’s increasingly empty eyes and unstable attitude and inability to maintain her grip on money he highly doubted she’d be willing or able to pay for him to attend. Which was one more thing for Death to become angry over, but Minato didn’t really care much.

Even if he did attend, what then? It was just a continued routine. How likely was it that he’d make it to graduation and find somewhere decent to work?

Really, what was the point of it all?

Not that Death let him get away with that. As Minato had less and less motivation or will to bother even trying with anything, Death pushed harder and harder to make him. Pushing him to study, to do well on tests, to remember to eat lunch or dinner even if he continued to skip breakfast. Nudging him to stop by and try that restaurant, or get that soda from the machine with a weird name.

He was less enthused by Minato’s willingness to accept the can of Asahi beer from some of his classmates during one of their study sessions on the roof, but the taste alone meant that Minato wasn’t in any hurry to try it again. Not to mention the way it made the numb disassociation from the world even worse.

The sensation of a near-complete break from reality didn’t quite scare Minato, but it did unnerve him and the alarm it raised from Death only made it worse. So that wouldn’t be any sort of habit he would fall into.

Unlike some people he had to clean up after.

The high school issue was resolved when he got within the top ten marks in the school and was offered a scholarship to the closest high school. It was not what everyone had meant when they talked about a “good” high school, but anything was better than nothing so with a bit of prodding from Death he accepted.

Not that it really changed anything - other than the location, it was simply exchanging one routine for another and he quickly sank back into the grey numbness.

Nothing really broke through it for a while. He was distantly aware of his cousin getting paler and thinner, the desperation towards something rising, until a bit before summer she stumbled into the apartment and cornered him against the wall.

“I need you to get money,” she said, gripping his arm tightly.

Minato tilted his head, feeling Death rearing up close to the seal warily. “How much?”

“A million yen.”

“A million yen?” Death repeated incredulously.

Minato sent her a blank look. “That’s impossible.” How in the world could she possibly expect him to be able to get that much?

“What?” she asked dangerously, leaning close. “Do you even realize the situation we’re in?!”

“No. You never told me.”

Her face twisted into an expression of such frustration he thought she was about to start screaming. She didn’t, instead snapping, “That damn club is demanding a million yen from me for ‘services rendered’ - which is bullshit they’re a shitty club anyway - but now I have to pay it or my reputation and ability to get clients is ruined!”

That club? Had she- “How does a hostess fall for a host club scam?”

“I did not get scammed!” She shoved him against the wall and spun around to storm towards the desk against the opposite wall. “Just get the money.”

He considered for a moment. “No.”

Everything froze, before she slowly turned to stare at him with a darkness brewing in her eyes. “What?”

Minato stared at her blankly. “No. I told you that’s impossible. You got scammed, deal with it yourself. It’s not my problem.” He wasn’t going to get any homework done here. Picking up his bag, he turned to leave.

“Now wait just a damn minute you brat-”

He turned to look at her as she lunged for him and felt the seal burn, stretched so thin it was on the verge of snapping as Death lunged back with his presence, and she stumbled to a stop as the blood drained from her face. Minato waited for a moment before leaving.

He’d have to hope she wouldn’t retaliate.

Apparently Death had scared her enough in that moment to avoid him entirely, because she would barely even look at him other than the occasional glare if they happened to be home at the same time. So he tuned her out as well, putting his headphones on and ignoring her.

Trying to ignore the fact that she was looking more sick and exhausted by the month. It wasn’t like he could do anything about her irresponsibility - he was already giving her the money he was making, and unless he wanted to get actively involved with the yakuza he wasn’t going magically get a job that payed more.

Maybe if she stopped spending her money on ways to forget the problem she’d be able to deal with the issue. Minato had already caved and started shoplifting food during the midnight hour when she stopped bringing groceries home.

Death was getting more worried and frustrated as time passed, and was curling up next to Minato in human form nearly every night for the midnight hour. Sometimes they talked, but most of the time they just leaned against each other to derive what comfort they could. Death clung to him like he was afraid he was going to disappear, which was funny given that of the two of them Death was the one only tangible for an hour.

Death and the mp3 player were really Minato’s only lifelines by this point.

He probably should have been paying more attention. Should have accounted for human vulnerability and desperation and realized what she would end up turning to. Though he really didn’t know what he could have done about it even if he had known - she wouldn’t have listened to him if he told her not to anyway.

December was cold.

It always was, but it somehow felt colder standing in the back alleys a few blocks from Kabukicho’s streets under a flickering street light with a dozen men from a local street gang staring down Minato and his cousin. That explained why she’d rushed in and grabbed him, told him to come with her and hurry and be quiet.

What had she expected to happen if she ran from her debt after borrowing money?

At least it wasn’t the yakuza, he guessed, but this wasn’t really much better. She was shaking with terror next to him, tears welling in her eyes.

“P-Please-” she stuttered, “Give me a little more time! I’m working on it, I promise, we both are, so-”

“It’s been over six months, the hell much more time do ya need?” The man in front snapped, pulling his jacket back to rest his hand on his gun. “I don’t appreciate games, girlie, we got our own expenses. You said you’d have it paid back by now, and I’m holdin’ ya to your word.”

“I-I’m trying,” she protested, hugging herself. “I swear I am, I thought I’d have it by now but the club across the street keeps bribing people to help them steal our business! I’m doing everything I can, if I can get another couple of months-”

“That’s what you said three months ago!” Another one snarled, pulling out his own gun to aim at them. “We’re not gonna keep buying into the lies of a drug-addicted whore!”

“N-No, please-”

What was Minato supposed to do here? There were a dozen of them with guns, and even with Death straining as hard as he could against the seal - to the point where Minato could barely stand from the pain and was very sure that it was about to shatter completely - there wasn’t anything he could do outside the midnight hour. An aura of death didn’t do much good when the men were both used to death and very much armed.

Could he buy time? Even if he did, there wouldn’t be anywhere for them to run. He didn’t think he could defuse the situation when they were this angry over broken promises. He wasn’t going to make stupid promises he couldn’t keep either.

Minato didn’t really care about dying. If he died here… it was fine. He didn’t care. But Death did, and Death was one of the only things that Minato could bring himself to care about anymore, so he should at least put some effort into not dying. And he didn’t really want her to die either. She wasn’t exactly good, he didn’t really like her and she’d made too many mistakes, but that didn’t mean she deserved to die for it.

Not that deserving it had ever saved anyone.

Minato sighed. “Is killing us really going to solve anything?”

The man in front narrowed his eyes at him. “I don’t like being lied to, brat.”

“Not saying you should. But she is still paying you back, even if it’s not as quickly as she promised.” He shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. “If you kill us you can’t get any money from us. I’m not defending her, just pointing it out.”

“You offering to take her place?” One of the men in the back sneered.

Minato sent them a flat look. “I’m already giving her all the money I make, so I kind of already have.”

There were snorts and scoffs from several of them and the man in front smirked. “Sounds like you’re not in the right business then, boy. How about I cut you a deal - I’ll get you a job that you can pay us back in no time, and we’ll let you both walk away from this alive. Do a good enough job and we’ll even let you keep the extra.”

Well that wasn’t an obvious hook or anything. It was probably some sort of smuggling, and they needed someone as unsuspicious as possible to the police. He wasn’t really interested in getting dragged into that because people who got involved rarely left, but they didn’t really have many options either.

“Stall them until midnight and we’ll have plenty of options,” Death growled, clawing at the seal. “I hoped I’d be able to break out before then, but it’s more difficult than I anticipated.”

Ah. Killing them during the midnight hour was probably the easiest solution to the problem, yeah. Almost everyone turned into coffins, so letting Death break through the seal and then dealing with them one by one would be simple enough.

So Minato tilted his head at them. “What kind of job? I need details before I promise anything.”

“Do you really have room to negotiate here?” the man asked, pulling his own gun out and flipping the safety. Minato’s cousin gasped, stepping behind him and grabbing his arm.

Minato shrugged. “Not negotiating. Just making sure I can actually keep my promise before I make it.” He flicked a glance down at his mp3 player - ten minutes to midnight. He could keep them talking for ten minutes.

“Well I guess you’re smarter than that girl hiding behind you then. You don’t really get much of a choice in this if you want to live, though.”

That was assuming quite a bit that he cared about living, but whatever. “So? What do you want me to do?”

The man scoffed. “Well you’ve got spine and an attitude, I’ll give you that. It’s simple - we get packages goin’ to and comin’ from all sorts of places around Tokyo. You’ll be our little delivery boy. Nice, simple, and easy, yeah?”

Minato didn’t bother reacting. “Drugs or weapons? That will change how it needs to be handled.”

A nasty grin broke out across his face. “Oho, got ourself a bold one here, huh? Not even a flinch. Keep that attitude and you might do just fine. Bit o’ column A, bit o’ column B. Depends on the day, and our buyer or seller.”

Helpful. “That’s not much to go off of if you want me to start planning how to get them past the police. I didn’t grow up in Tokyo so I’m not as familiar with it’s blind spots as a native would be.” He wasn’t going to look at his mp3 player, he wasn’t going to try to count the minutes passing. Midnight would get here when it got here.

“Heh, I applaud the initiative but we won’t just leave ya flailin’ around blindly. We’ll pair you off with a couple of our other runners to start, let them teach you the ropes. We ain’t heartless, kid, just don’t like bein’ lied to.”

“Not heartless, merely willing to blackmail teenagers into smuggling illegal items for you,” Death hissed. “Be ready, Minato. It’s going to hurt when I break through the seal.”

“It always does. I’ll be fine; I’m used to it,” Minato thought back, watching the gang mutter amongst themselves. “So you say. I suppose if I get caught I’ll be left to fend for myself?”

The man shrugged lightly. “We gotta take care of ourselves first. Consider it motivation not to get caught, yeah?”

He’d figured.

“No. No, not again, not like this.” The smallest whisper came from behind him, and he had a moment of confusion followed by an unexpected bolt of dread as his cousin suddenly straightened with teary eyes and stepped out from behind him.

“Don’t-” he began- but she didn’t listen.

Why? Why did she choose now to grow a conscience?

“Enough! He’s got nothing to do with this - I’ll clear the debt myself, I promise! There’s no reason to drag him into this even more and I won’t let you-!”

A shot rang out. It echoed around the empty alleyway and rang loudly in his ears. Pain burned burned burned more fiercely than it ever had before in his chest and he was frozen, eyes wide as his breath struggled to come. He almost expected to feel blood on his chest, wished that he could feel blood on his chest, but it wasn’t him who’d been shot.

She let out a shuddering little choked gasp, and Minato turned to see her reaching up to clutch at the wound with wide, horrified eyes. He couldn’t- he couldn’t breathe as she staggered and fell- blood pooling around her as the light above them flickered-

-fire flickered and flashed off the metal, shimmering in the pooling blood, and he saw his mother burned and broken as she smiled hopelessly at him and begged him to live as she and his father and his twin sister wouldn’t and- he couldn’t move- couldn’t help- he was completely helpless-

The men jeering and bickering lightly was distant in his ears as the world faded into a distant grey and the pain burned and the world suddenly shuddered and shifted around them as the moon flashed green-

-and the men’s laughter turned into something startled and alarmed but he could barely hear them and he wasn’t listening-

-and a scream of pain suddenly echoed and bounced off the alleyway as the ground rose up to meet him and his knees hit the blood-covered pavement and his chest felt like it tore itself open and another more monstrous scream joined his own and he distant heard the gang’s voices rise as well-

The blood on his chest and staining his shirt was his own from where the seal had been torn open and Death emerged. The blood on his hands and on his knees were hers. Hers where she was lying on her front surrounded by the pool of her own blood, and he struggled to balance as he leaned forward and rolled her over onto her back. She was still just barely breathing, eyes glazed and distant through her tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, staring up at the green-tinged moon. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for everything. I’m sorry Minoru-kun, I messed up again. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want this. Please forgive me, please I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to, I wanted to live and go see Paris and New York and London like we promised we would-” she choked and coughed, blood streaking her lips as her hand shakingly reached up. Minato reached out and took it, holding it between his as she struggled to breathe. “Please help me. Please don’t let me die, I have so many more things I want to do.” Tears streaked down her face to mix with the blood. “Please, Minoru-kun I’m not ready to follow you yet…”

Minato just distantly watched her and held her hand as she slowly went still and cold and even the echoing screams of the gang members eventually stopped. Everything felt distant and painful and he couldn’t bring himself to move even once Death returned to his side with bloody swords.

He wondered if he was supposed to cry here. If he was supposed to feel grief and loss the way everyone had said he should for his parents and sister. If he was supposed to feel anything beyond the disconnected exhaustion and pain of the shattered seal.

“What am I supposed to do?” he wondered aloud, staring down at his cousin’s body blankly.

A soft sigh came from above him, and suddenly Death had discarded his swords and knelt down to wrap his arms around Minato. “I think we both know that normal rules do not apply to you.” A pause, and his grip tightened. “I am sorry for that. It is my presence that has stolen pieces of your humanity and suppressed your emotions.”

Well they hadn’t talked about it, but it made sense.

Minato let go of her hand and twisted around to lean against Death. “Maybe. I don’t blame you for it though.”

“… I know. Perhaps it would be easier if you did.”

“I doubt it. I waste enough energy on just staying alive. Hating you or the robot on top of it just sounds exhausting.”

Death let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “I would say that I don’t understand you, but I unfortunately do after spending nearly ten years in your soul.”

Minato hummed tiredly, closing his eyes and trying to tune out the pain still stinging his chest and blood still seeping through his shirt. “Whatever consequences it may have,” he said quietly, “I’m glad you did. I wouldn’t have wanted to go through this without you.” His lifeline. One of the two things that kept him sane and grounded in the static haze of this life.

The Shadow let out a shuddering breath and hugged him tighter. “I am glad that my presence has brought you something other than pain, at least.”

“Death, you’ve been my best friend for most of my life now. I’ve been with you longer than I’ve been without you.” He reached up rest a hand on his shoulder. “You should know by now that you’ve given me plenty more than pain.”

Death went still for a long, long moment, and Minato waited for him to process and accept that before responding. When he did, he caught Minato off-guard. “I suppose I can’t deny that. But… Death is not accurate for who I am anymore. For whatever I may have given you, you’ve given me far, far more.” Minato blinked his eyes opened and craned his neck to look up at him. “I am Thanatos - and you have given me so much of yourself, shared so much of your soul with me even beyond the nature of the seal, that I have become a Persona.”

“A Persona?” There was psychology terminology in the back of his mind that he couldn’t quite remember through the exhaustion of the night’s events.

“An aspect or manifestation of your soul. It’s-” he paused, amending, “-likely a bit too complex to explain in your current state. In normal cases a Shadow is the parts of yourself you deny, a Persona is the part of yourself you accept and project unto yourself. I’m a special case, for obvious reasons. Consider me an extension of your soul who wants to protect you, for now.”

“That’s what you’ve been for years,” Minato muttered, closing his eyes again. “So even thought the seal is broken now, you’re staying?”

“Yes. I’m not leaving you alone. I’ll remain at your side for as long as I can.”

“Saying it like that makes it sound like you’ll leave eventually.”

Dea-Thanatos was silent for a moment, and Minato felt his bone chin brush his head. “… eventually I may have no choice, and I’m sorry for that. If I had my way I would remain by your side forever.”

“But?”

“But I have a feeling the events from nine years ago are going to come back and haunt us soon. Death was separated into many parts that were scattered, and I was sealed within you. If those parts are rejoined, Death will come again and usher in Nyx. I will have no choice.”

“We can’t just prevent the pieces from being rejoined?”

“I doubt it. Nyx, even incomplete, is the source of the midnight hour and the Shadows. So long as we exist, so to will they and so too will the Shadows. I suspect things will come to a head very soon.”

“And we’ll be in the center of it,” Minato sighed, tipping his head against him. “Okay. I still want you to stay with me. As long as you can.” He wasn’t sure what his life would be like without Thanatos, but given how much the Shadow had been a constant companion and push forward he doubted it would be better.

“I will. You should sleep - my breaking through the seal exhausted you thoroughly. I’ll keep watch and prevent any Shadows from coming near until the hour is over. From there, though…”

“Someone will see the bodies and call the police,” Minato murmured as he finally began giving in to sleep. “Since I’m injured too I probably won’t get in trouble.” Hopefully. Whatever Thanatos had done to the gang members, it definitely wasn’t something he could be blamed for.

“Then rest - you’ll need it.”

~ ᙙᙖ ~

Minato woke up in the hospital a week later.

It was incredibly disorienting to experience - the neutral tones of the room, the beeping of the monitor, the IV in his arm, the fuzziness in his head - but Death- Thanatos- rose up to press against the back of his mind with a familiar reassuring coolness that helped chase away the worst of the confusion.

As long as he was still here, it was fine.

It took several long minutes of just thinking and reorienting himself to remember what had happened. While he didn’t feel the grief or pain everyone seemed to expect from these things, there was at least a twinge of regret that things had turned out as they had.

But what was done was done - there was nothing he could do about it. No one could change the past. Time moved forward regardless of wishes.

So he move forward with it. When the police questioned him what had happened he was mostly honest - until the events of the midnight hour happened when he feigned confusion. His cousin had been shot by the gang, and yeah he looked like he’d been stabbed but he was pretty sure it had been from behind, and he had no idea what happened to the gang because he’d passed out after being stabbed with a knife.

He was pretty sure the police came to the conclusion that his cousin had been involved with a yakuza or something, but she clearly hadn’t told him anything about her job so he somehow wasn’t held responsible for any of her actions and was simply handed off to his uncle - a high ranking and very wealthy businessman also in Tokyo - although in the Shimbashi district instead of Shinjuku.

Sure. Whatever.

His uncle was… distant, at best. Much like his other cousin had been, the man was busy with his work and wasn’t interested in interacting with him beyond the necessities. That was more than fine with Minato - it was nice to be invisible and self-sufficient without expectation again. He even got an allowance without needing to get a job again. It was a minor relief he hadn’t expected to feel, but it was there.

He still went to the same high school for the final three months but his uncle explained that he’d be leaving for an overseas business trip around March so Minato would be transferring to a different high school with dorms for the next year.

Minato was incredulous for… several reasons. The fact that his uncle was going out of his way to ensure he’d be… safe? successful? not left completely alone? for the year was surprising enough. The fact that it was an incredibly expensive private high school was even more so.

At least until he was told the name.

Iwatodai High School, on Tatsumi Port Island just outside Tokyo Bay.

It sent Thanatos on immediate high alert, and Minato understood a few moments later. The Moonlight Bridge leading to the island was where his parents had died and Death had been sealed inside him.

The the island itself was where everything began.

Thanatos had been right - the events of nine, nearly ten, years past were coming back to haunt them.

He didn’t show any of the realizations on his face, but he had a feeling that this wasn’t a coincidence. The man gained custody of him and immediately went on a business trip oversees and sent him to the island where this had all begun nearly ten years ago?

Especially now that Thanatos had broken through the seal.

His uncle may not know anything about what had happened, but someone did and this was no coincidence.

And so, come April, Minato left Tokyo proper and got on the train heading to Tatsumi Port Island for the year. Even with his headphones on and music blaring in his ears it couldn’t quite drown out the world around him this time. The buzzing beneath his skin from Thanatos was agitating, stirring up his own feelings of apprehension.

Whatever was waiting for them - scientists and laboratories and Shadows and Personas and at the end of it all the personification of death itself, and maybe, just maybe, a robot girl who had looked at him with such sorrow ten years past - most of it probably wouldn’t be good.

He probably wouldn’t even survive it.

But at the very least, he thought as he stepped from the station and into the coffin-strewn street to the dorms, he wouldn’t be alone through it. Thanatos would stay with him.

Although getting to the dorms and finding him smiling cheerfully behind the check-in desk with a quip that he was here awfully late made him suspect that the Shadow- Persona, would likely be stepping up his obnoxiousness and pushiness towards socializing and trying things.

… the contract was unexpected, but Thanatos likely had his reasons - even if he was pointedly keeping them to himself for the moment - so Minato just sighed and signed the book. As he handed it over he asked, “Are you planning to tell me what that’s about?”

Thanatos just smiled enigmatically at him, folding the contract close to his chest as though it was something precious. “All in due time, my dear Minato. All questions will be answered and all secrets revealed soon enough.” He closed his eyes thoughtfully for a moment. “No one can escape time. It delivers all equally to the same end.” He focused back on Minato and the fold vanished with a twist of his wrist. “You can’t plug your ears or cover your eyes to escape.”

The lights of the dorm began fading around them, shadows creeping up the walls and across the floor, and Thanatos smiled and reached out to Minato as they wrapped around him.

“And so it begins.”

And then he was gone, returning back to Minato’s soul with something mischievous about him that Minato didn’t feel like figuring out, and Minato was left standing along in the dark entranceway.

No one could escape the end. He’d known that.

They both knew that whatever happened in this place, during this year, would be an ending of sorts. It was just a matter of what kind of end. He placed a hand on his chest, where the scar from the seal still lay. But whatever it was - they couldn’t escape it. They knew that.

So they would just have to take what happened as it was, no matter what it brought.

He was at the beginning of the end.

“Who’s there?!”

~ ᙙᙖ ~

This was fun! It was also twice as long as it was supposed to be, but such is my curse with writing these days. The Ryomina was more implied than explicitly stated, admittedly, but I got caught up in the childhood friends part of it.