In The End, All Girls Are Like The Rose Bride

————

It was common knowledge around Wayne Manor that disappearing into your room (or apartment) for a few days meant something different for everyone. Usually, it wasn’t anything to worry about. 

Sometimes it would be Tim finally sleeping when he’s pushed himself too far. Other times, it was Dick working a case and refusing to leave until he knew what to do. For Bruce, it usually meant he was injured and trying to hide it from everyone. 

Jason was still finding these things out little by little, so when you suddenly disappeared into your apartment, he was worried. 

“Honestly, it’s nothing to worry about,” Tim tried to ease his mind. “Y/n tends to retreat when things get bad.”

“And you guys are okay with that?”

Dick shrugged, adjusting the ice pack he had pressed to his forehead. “We tried the first time it happened. After a while, we realized that alone time is the only thing that really works. If y/n needs help, y/n will reach out.”

And the topic ended there. Or at least, it did for Dick and Tim. Jason couldn’t stop thinking about it though—did they really just let you suffer in your apartment all alone whenever you had an episode? The thought made his skin crawl. 

He’s had a few bad episodes over the course of his life, and while he managed to deal with it alone, he didn’t think that you should have to. 

Maybe that’s what led him to your apartment at four in the morning with a bag of takeout. 

You open the door dressed in your pyjamas despite not having slept a wink. You're almost surprised to see Jason standing there with the paper bag. Didn’t everyone know to let you ride it out on your own? You thought they decided to stop bugging you ages ago. 

Still, you don’t think it was fair to slam the door in his face, and instead welcome him inside. “What are you doing here, Jason?”

“Just thought I’d check on you,” he sets the bag on the counter. “Haven’t seen you in a while and wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

You squint at him. Did he really think you were that dumb? You figured he would have asked Dick or Bruce right away if you suddenly fell off the face of the earth, and they would have told him about your situation. Jason and you had never been particularly close, either, so why was he here?

He raises his hands in defeat. “I just want to make sure you’re taken care of somewhat. Alright? I’ll leave you alone after that.”

“I mean, I’m fine aren’t I?”

Your words come out harsher than you’d like, but you can’t help but be annoyed at the sudden intrusion. Not to mention the implication that you can’t take care of yourself. 

“You clearly haven’t slept in a while so we both know that’s some bullshit.”

You sigh. He’s right, after all. You can’t remember the last time you slept, let alone for more than a few hours. Though used to staying up late on missions and patrols, you never went this long. 

“I just have a lot on my mind, I guess,” you admit. “But I can take care of myself, Jason. So while I appreciate the concern, you can leave.”

He doesn’t protest, instead grumbling to himself while you show him to the door and effectively kick him out of your apartment. He stands outside the door for a while, wondering if he should try harder. 

He decides against it, and thinks he’ll just have to check on you again tomorrow. 

—

You almost feel guilty unpacking the takeout he got you, but then again, there weren’t many days lately where guilt and stress didn’t weigh heavily on you. As soon as you felt that familiar flood of negative thoughts and emotions, you knew it was time to withdraw. Still, through all of your episodes, you were yet to experience one quite this bad. 

It’s nice that Jason checked on me, you think to yourself. At least someone thought of you. Sure, you’d told the others countless times over the years that solitude while you sort through your thoughts was imperative, and it was true. Regardless, it was nice to have someone check on you, even if it was annoying. 

You dish yourself a plate of Chinese food and sit down on your couch, looking out at Gotham city through the window. It’s a dim, rainy night and the weather does nothing to help your mood. You find yourself picking at your food, having only a few bites before packing it up and leaving it in the fridge. 

You didn’t eat much, but it’s a start. 

—

Jason tries to push back the thoughts of you on patrol the next night, but he can’t. He just thinks of the bags that line your under eyes and the way your voice cracked when you said you were fine. 

It’s only when he damn near loses an eye to a stray bullet that he realizes he can’t ignore it anymore. He ducks around a corner, ready to head back to his bike. 

“Hood, where are you going?” Nightwing calls after him. 

“I gotta go check on something!”

Red Robin scoffs, “y/n is a big kid, Todd. Just leave it alone.” 

He shakes his head at the younger boy. He wants to argue with him but for once in his life, Jason Todd bites his tongue and turns the other cheek. 

When you open the door, you’re unsurprised to see Jason Todd standing there in his Red Hood suit. “Jason?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, walking past you straight into your apartment. “I’m back.”

“I—welcome back?” You close the door behind him, spinning around on your heel and raising an eyebrow at the man in your living room. 

“Look, I know I said I’d leave when I knew you were taken care of but I don’t—you’re not. Like, seriously, y/n, just talk to me.”

You sigh and take a seat on the couch. “Do you really want to listen?”

“Yes,” he says and sits down next to you, dropping his helmet on the cushion next to him. “If it helps you, I’ll listen til my damn ears bleed.”

His words are almost enough to bring a smile to your face, the muscles twitching almost painfully. You nod slowly, drawing your knees into your chest. 

Jason analyzes your body language, seeing just how vulnerable and small you really are despite your usual front. He knows to tread lightly here. 

“I—,” you tug on your hair slightly, trying to think of how to verbalise it. “Have you ever been so tired, like beyond tired, that you can’t sleep?”

He goes to speak, but thinks the better of it. You don’t need to hear about his own problems right now, but the truth is he has. He’s been where you are before—guilt and misery weighing so heavily on him that he can’t breathe. 

“I don’t even know what triggered it. I was fine one day and then all of a sudden….” You gesture to your current state in hopes he gets the idea. “I really hate feeling like this,” tears prick at your eyes and your nose stings with every word, “but I’ve never really found a way to make it stop and—and—“

Jason is almost as surprised as you are when he sets a gloved hand on your shoulder. “Y/n,” his voice is soft, “it’s okay to feel this way.”

His touch helps ground you and you manage to take a deep, shaking breath. “I don’t want you to see me like this, Jason,” you say quietly, voice so soft he almost doesn’t hear.

“There’s no shame in the way you’re feeling.”

“I know that I just—can you just go? Please?”

He opens his mouth to speak, to argue with you, but thinks the better of it. You look so soft and sad and vulnerable. He doesn’t want to push his luck and push you further away from him. 

He grabs his helmet and stands up. “Have a good night, y/n. I hope you manage to get some rest tonight.”

You watch Jason Todd walk out of your apartment door for the second night in a row. 

—

Jason is surprised when his phone screen lights up with your picture while he’s on patrol. The last person he’d expect to call him at two in the morning was you, especially considering he hadn’t heard from you in a few days. 

He tried to come and visit you the next night, but he couldn’t bring himself to knock at your door. Y/n’s tough, he thought to himself. You don’t need his help. 

He can’t pick up the phone in the middle of a fight, though, and has to wait until the henchmen are in a pile on the ground. He doesn’t even retort to Damian’s comment on how long it took him to take them down—his mind too focused on you and what could possibly be wrong. 

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, pressing redial on your number. Please be okay, he thinks. 

You answer on the third ring, your voice sounding soft and defeated. “Jason?”

“Y/n? Is everything okay?”

“I-I just…” you sigh into the phone and Jason’s heart clenches at the sound. “I don’t really want to be alone right now.”

Jason considers this for only a second. “Alright, I’ll be there in 10.”

He hangs up the call and shoves his phone back into his pocket, making the walk back to his bike. 

“Todd?” Robin says in his earpiece. 

“Pipe down, brat. I have more important things to deal with tonight.”

“More important than protecting the city?” Nightwing says over the comms. 

You have no idea, he wants to say. But he doesn’t, opting to turn off the ear piece and focus on getting to you as quickly as he can. He said he’d be there in 10 minutes, but he’s at your apartment door in 7. 

You’re waiting at the door when he knocks, a blanket over your shoulders, curled in on yourself. As soon as you open the door, you’re wrapping your arms around him. 

His suit is damp from the rain, soaking into your pyjamas and making you shiver. Still, you don’t let go of him. It’s been a particularly rough day, and you needed some company to combat the thoughts filling your head.  

“Miss me?” He jokes. 

You say nothing, content to hold him as close to you as possible. He rubs your back gently before wrapping his arms around you and half carrying you back into your apartment. 

He closes the door behind him, awkwardly adjusting to hold you up with one arm. Not that it’s much of a struggle for him, considering he’s a lot bigger than you are. 

He’s torn, he doesn’t want to let go until you do, but he wants to talk to you and figure out why you needed him so badly. Lucky for him, he doesn’t have to make that choice because suddenly you’re pulling away from him and tucking your hair behind your ears. 

You look anywhere but him. “Um, thanks for coming…”

“Anytime.” 

You try to think of something to say after that, anything to break the ice and explain yourself and not make this a huge waste of time for him. Before you can speak, though, Jason goes first. 

“You don’t have to explain it to me if you don’t want to,” he says. “I know it’s hard.”

You nod slowly, every movement of your body feels sluggish and heavy. You got a few hours of sleep the other day, but only out of sheer exhaustion. Now, it seems the exhaustion is catching up. 

“I’m just gonna…sit down,” you plop onto the couch cushion and pull your knees into your chest. You pat the cushion next to you, inviting him closer. 

Jason takes off his helmet and jacket, laying them on the kitchen island before sitting next to you. “Have you slept much?”

You shake your head, resting your cheek on the cushion and looking into his eyes. “A few hours the other day but…nothing since.”

“Did you want to try while I’m here?”

His eyes are soft, a jarring contrast from his other features. It’s almost as if he’s pleading with you. 

“Y-yeah, okay,” you slowly rise from the couch, your damp pyjamas clinging to your body. You usher for Jason to follow you to your room. 

You dig through your drawers, looking for a pair of clean pyjamas. You settle on a t-shirt you stole from Dick ages ago and a pair of sweats you used for training. Jason looks away while you change, trying his best to respect your privacy despite the way his face heats up. 

You crawl into your bed, trying to rearrange the messy comforter to cover your body. “Do you…is it okay if you lay with me? It only has to be until I fall asleep.”

Jason knows he’s pushing his limits, his heart racing at the thought of being in bed with you. He shakes the thoughts away—this is completely innocent. He’s just taking care of you. 

“Yeah, I can stay a while.”

Jason lays down next to you, his broad frame taking up more than half of your bed. Your breath catches in your throat at his proximity, and his warmth draws you in. Somehow, for the first time in days, his presence is enough to let you relax. 

Jason lays with you for some time, just staring at the back of your head while you cuddle your pillow. You must have fallen asleep at some point, because your breathing is even and your body is relaxed. 

He smiles, it’s the most calm he’s seen you in days. He knows you’re sleeping now and he can leave, but he doesn’t want to. What if you wake up and he’s gone? He doesn’t want to risk upsetting you. 

You roll over in your sleep, your head landing perfectly under his arm and on his chest. His breath hitches in his throat at the contact. He tries to adjust his body to make it as comfortable as possible for you to lay on him. 

in all seriousness, i don't think it's that big of a reach to assume that he has fucked. that he fucked frequently, in fact. at least before he rejoined SEES. some people seem to think that the reason he's reluctant to let kotone into his room (with some people going so far as to say that she's forcing him) is because he's nervous about the potential of sex with her. but it's not that. or, it's not only that.

it's not the sex he's nervous about. it's the fact that if he lets this happen, it means more pain for them both. but the way she keeps pushing him to let her in is making it painful for him to keep pushing her away, too. painful because if he lets her get closer, then his death will just hurt her even more. and knowing that he's going to hurt her kills him.

pretty big evidence to me of him being sexually experienced is the way he tries not to let kotone into his room because he knows what it means and he knows what she wants. if he was sexually inexperienced like, say, ryoji or akihiko, he wouldn't have reacted that way. ryoji and akihiko weren't nearly as embarrassed about the prospect of being alone with kotone in a dorm room.

but shinjiro was, because he knew what it would mean. perhaps akihiko and ryoji were trying to hide their sexual interest, and if they were, then it just reinforces the fact that shinjiro very clearly wasn't.

and if that isn't enough--say, you think that kotone is just being pushy--think about what happens when shinjiro actually lets her into his room. he makes it very clear that if she stays, they're going to be having sex. he gives her one last chance to leave: "you get it, right? go back to your room."

why would he be so certain that he wouldn't be able to hold himself back anymore if she stayed? why would he go as far as saying, "i ain't a nice guy. i can't let you in my room" ?? how am i supposed to take that? it isn't just him saying he's a bad person, he says almost the exact same thing in japanese, "i'm not a gentleman" (俺は紳士じゃねえんだ).

sorry but there is no universe where a virgin would act like that, much less when they're literally alone together in private. and you can trust me, because i used to be a virgin too.

with ryoji and akihiko's romance scenes, the implied sex was a lot more implied. i could even argue that it's generous to say that shinjiro and kotone have "implied" sex. what the hell else would "then let me make myself clear. i ain't holding back anymore" followed by "you spent a long time with shinjiro..." even mean? seems pretty explicit to me, man.

to say nothing of what he says in japanese, which is even more explicit: "just so you know... i won't stop" is my cursory translation of it (言っとくが…止まらねえからな).

i think this scene makes it plainly obvious that shinjiro is nervous, but not about having sex. he's nervous about what the sex means. he spends the entire goddamn game trying to fade into the background, trying not to be noticed, and kotone refuses to let him do that at every turn. he can't reject the love he so clearly desires no matter how hard he tries.

i think that subtext goes over a lot of people's heads and they just interpret him as nervous about the potential of having sex with her. again, it's not the having sex part that he's nervous about, it's the with her part. it's all the thoughts repeating in his head about how this isn't how it's supposed to be and i can't do this to her but i can't keep holding back anymore either, and i know this is selfish but maybe i can give her one last good memory, and maybe i can give myself one too. so she can remember me this way. no matter what happens next.

writing all of that off as just him being a virgin really shows a lack of comprehension of shinjiro's character as a whole. he's a pretty classic bad boy archetype what with the drugs and all. he even says (in the p3p guidebook iirc) that he spends his nights at club escapade. tf is he doing there? working? even if he is, you can't tell me he was never propositioned and never took someone up on that. be realistic. he has to have had at least a few moments of "well i'm gonna die so fuck it" that he regretted in the morning.

one thing i also imagine is that being with kotone is the first time sex has ever meant anything to him. it's not just a means to an end. it's an expression of love, love he doesn't want himself to feel. love he hates himself for feeling. i think that makes their romance more beautiful, even, that he knows what sex is and what it looks like and what it feels like, but even with all that knowledge, kotone makes everything feel new again. because he loves her. and he has to spend the entire night trying not to let himself even think that--because he wants to save her the pain, yes, but because he wants to save himself the pain too. he wants to die with no regrets. he doesn't want to die thinking of the future he could have had with kotone.

a beautiful thing about shinjiro is that he contradicts himself. "i don't deserve anything since i'm going to die anyway" but he can't say no whenever kotone wants to spend time with him. "girls make life more complicated" but he falls for kotone with zero romance flags. "i ain't a nice guy" but he gives her a million chances to back out.

him being simultaneously sexually experienced but also nervous about the potential of being with kotone just backs that up even more. he's a three-dimensional character. arguably one of the best in the entire persona series.

that's why i just can't understand why people wouldn't be able to draw the conclusion that shinjiro has had sex before, and quite a bit of it. by doing that, you essentially lock yourself out of even more beautiful foolmoon angst: "i didn't know it was supposed to feel this way, but this is the only time i'll ever get to feel this."

it even brings up more angst potential if he survives after kotone dies, because then he's forced to live with the fact that he could have had more time with her. and it's his own fault that he didn't.

shinjiro's whole character arc is him beating himself up over his mistakes, and his sexual experience ties in to that very well, in my opinion. giving kotone one last good memory of him but then that ending up being his last good memory of her when she dies and he's forced to live is so heartbreaking.