Chapter Text
She had known Naganaki Shrine for her entire life.
Her earliest fond memory, along with other memories that came after, about that place was of gentle spring wind and warm sunlight. Her parents would accompany her during one of those beautiful days, so that she may play like a healthy young girl should. Sometimes. She would meet and play with other children, sharing places and games alike. Some other times, her innocent bravery would push her to defend the weak against bullies. In turn, she would usually receive a quiet thank you from the victim, a silver-haired boy even younger than her, before said boy scurried away from the playground.
But her meeting with a man with mask in that place might have left the most impression in her short life.
It was not really a fated meeting, per se, given that she had only witnessed five winters before they met. The man—if he could be called a man at all; shouldn't men have shorter hair rather than tied ponytail?—was looking at the shrine. He might be praying, but Hamuko never witnessed him shaking the bells, nor did he clapped his hand and made praying gesture. How should one pray without awakening the sleeping gods?
When he turned to her, his warm eyes was quickly on her own (she could feel his affection; for a single moment, she felt favored) despite having half of his own face covered with a butterfly mask. Hamuko quickly felt at ease; even when the stranger scooted over to greet her, something inside her hummed: he's a good man, my darling self.
She always trusted that voice in her heart. It was never wrong, and now it shouldn't be either.
The man slowly knelt so that he may gaze at her levelly. A kind smile graced his lips, "Have you come to look for me?"
She blinked unsurely, because it should be wrong. She expected her friends to be here, not some stranger. But the voice inside her heart told her to nod, so she did so. Hamuko always trusted her heart the most after all.
The man continued smiling and consecutively pats her head, a reminiscence of affectionate gestures that her family used to give. She did not like it though, so she quickly patted that hand away; her mom once told her not to talk with strangers. The man seemed taken aback, though she could sense amusement on his part.
"My, aren't you shy," he chuckled and eventually stood. She saw him glowing briefly, which didn't scare her but still made her surprised. "Nevertheless, I believe a friend of yours really needs some cheering."
As if on his queue, she could hear the footsteps of her friends as they climbed the shrine's staircase. Hamuko quickly turned her attention towards those footsteps. The first person she saw was that silver-haired boy whom she saved the other day. The other footsteps, however, did not belong to some others whom she expected. Instead of her usual girls, she saw a woman as old as her mom, smiling at her so oddly that perhaps she did not actually have the heart to do that. Her long silver hair was an absolute detail that gave her away as the young boy’s mother.
The boy was clinging on to his mother’s feet like a baby koala to its parent, and it seemed to irk her more than it should be (she gasped a bit when the mother actually pulled her son by his shirt just to make him go away). After some coaxing, the boy seemed to loosen his grip and eventually inched away from his mother, as she quickly reached out to her phone and drowned herself in talks and gossips with whoever she was talking with.
Hamuko wanted to hit her just because of that.
"Wow mister,” she mused, still looking at the dejected young boy, now sitting on the seesaw alone. “I don’t know how you do it, but you’re right.”
There was no reply, which made Hamuko turned. The spot which he occupied was now empty.
“Mister?”
She could hear the voice in her heart chuckled, a soft rumbling melody that told her to ‘stop looking so foolish and do what he said’.
Though she was baffled with how he disappeared when he was just standing next to her, Hamuko eventually approached the silver-haired boy, who had been staring at her owlishly at her, with a bright smile on her face.
That day, she would learn that the name of this boy was Yu Narukami. Later, she would also learn about how his family was so busy that little Yu was left with nannies, but they loved him all the same anyway—or so Yu believed. It did not make sense to her, because parents were supposed to pat and hug and kiss and cuddle; anything less than that wasn’t love.
When she said this to him, Yu only smiled sadly. It really made her wanting to kick him or something because ‘no one shouldn’t smile so sadly like that’. Hamuko even proposed to go with him and tell his parents to give him more hugs.
Yu Narukami would mutter a thank you, then Hamuko would reply with a smile and ask whether he wanted to play some more. When he nodded, she quickly grabbed his hand to drag him to the monkey bar.
She could feel a tingling of static shock whenever their hands touched. Every time that happened, the voice inside her hummed knowingly, saying that the boy smelled of thunder.
It was alright, Hamuko thought to herself, to the voice inside her; she was never scared of a little thunder.
She was seven years old when her parents told her that she would have a brother.
At first, Hamuko thought that they are going to have another little baby, which meant she would have a little brother to swoon and be proud of (when he gets older, maybe she could tell him around to do her chores, muhahaha). But her mother still remained without bulging stomach. She once threw that question to her mother, to which she chuckled and laughed. You will know soon, alright sweetie? And with those words, it’s back to mystery for her.
When the quiet young boy with blue hair entered their living room, she got an eerie hunch about how wrong her presumption was.
She remembered the details of the living room of their home down to the pattern of the tablecloth (it was blue, just like that boy’s blue hair), and how he stood there, so thin and frail and grim. The man with him, who was as tall as her father but seemed so strict with that brown hair, that sharp stare, and that flashy police badge, had been talking with her parents. Sometimes later, her mother would tell her to go to sleep (it was past her bedtime anyway), to which she outright refused. Her mother then gave an irritated look, and it spoke volumes to her, because that look meant no more midnight snacks.
Contrary to popular opinion, she backed down quite easily from that glare. She loved her midnight snacks too much to risk it.
So with a slumped shoulder, the young girl dragged herself back to her room. The voice inside her chastised her, telling her to go back because it is important, my dear self! Well, Hamuko was not going to sacrifice the rest of her midnight snack just because the voice wanted her to meet this unknown boy. Definitely no.
Without thinking further, the young girl quickly scrambled to her bed, despite the protests of the voice inside her.
That same night, she dreamed of a golden butterfly.
The boy’s name was Minato Yuki, and he was here to stay.
Her mother told her that Minato previously lived in Sumaru City, which was pretty much faraway from Iwatodai. His parents died not long ago, and there were no other relatives whom he could go to, so the police officer who came to her home previously (apparently, he was a friend of Minato's dad’s as well) asked for a favor and sent the boy to the next best thing: her family. Her mother had agreed, while his father even bought the idea foremost; something about preserving brotherhood and such.
Hamuko was not actually against the idea. Sure, she’d really like a brother; sometimes it felt so lonely to be alone when all of her friends boasted about their older siblings, or perhaps talked about how cute their little siblings were. Yet she did not feel especially settled with the fact that she would get an older brother. To make matter very awkward? Said brother was only older by hours (apparently they shared the same birthday date, only differing in hours of birth).
To make matter even more worse (for her, so far); he was supposed to stay at her room… because there was simply no other room to occupy. Hamuko raged—or rather, threw a tantrum—when her dad told her so, to which he only closed his ears and declared that the decision was final.
In the end, she had to share room with him. It was her mother’s idea, really, because her baby was still little anyway, and it would probably give both of them the time to bond like a brother and sister should… except Hamuko did not really want to share her bed with someone else. Her father solved the problem with a spare bed from storeroom, tucked neatly under hers.
It seemed her parents were pretty much adamant with their sleeping arrangements, and given how she obtained her stubbornness from those two, Hamuko wouldn’t even try to convince them otherwise.
Lying on her own bed, she finally took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried her best to ignore the boy who was lying on the lower bed. But she was too tensed to actually sleep at all, especially with a brother whom she needed to know more but seemed to sleep early than herself—
“Hey.”
Hamuko yelped; it was a little bit out of character even for her, but that was surprising. She never expected the boy to talk to her at all (she tried talking to him previously, but it seemed that he rather hide somewhere rather than confronting her), and now the boy was the one to greet the ball and run with it.
She quickly turned to face her supposed brother and glared at his eerie gray eyes. His blank expression did not win her any good impression, “what?”
He seemed to pause for a moment, perhaps pondering what to say. Eventually, Minato bit his lips, his gaze lowered as though offering an apology, “...I’m really sorry if I offend you… or anything…”
Hamuko blinked once, twice, then thrice… until she realized just what made him feeling so… awkward. Later, she would fall down into a fit of giggles. Her supposed brother seemed to grow more confused with this turn of event as he muttered something about, ‘did I do something wrong’ or ‘why are you laughing at me?'
The young boy blinked awkwardly at him. Like a fool.
But he’s not, the voice inside her heart sing-sung, he is not the fool, my darling self.
She halted her giggling fit altogether and ignored those words completely. The voice was talking about nonsense again, but she kicked it out of her thoughts as quickly as it rose.
“It’s not that,” Hamuko chuckled; her red eyes were now completely on his figure, her hands had stretched to prop her head on the bed, so that she could converse levelly with her brother. “You just don’t speak much, so I don’t actually know what to say,” she grinned.
Hamuko swore she could see a faint pink tinge covering his cheeks, “...Ah, I don’t really know what to say,” he commented, clearly trying to hide embarrassment but failing anyway. The moonlight that shone from her window illuminated every facial detail of his.
“Mister Cat suddenly came to and told me that I’m moving… and before I know, now I’m living with Arisato-jiisan. ...I mean dad.” Another awkward pause, and said boy rubbed his eyes in frustration, “....ugh, I mean the family."
She couldn’t understand why Minato whispered the last parts like that, not when she got curious with his other words, like that cat. “Mister Cat?"
Minato nodded, "the person who dropped me yesterday."
"Oh. You mean that police nii-san..."
He nodded again in response, and Hamuko hummed, “But why call him cat? He has no cat-ears or anything." Her eyes widened as though she had arrived with the perfect explanation, "don't tell me he's a cat ranger?!"
She was expecting any emotion to reflect in his face (laughter, maybe?), but he continued to stare at her with that blank stare. It easily unnerved her, and eventually made her pout, "Did I say something wrong? Or maybe he’s a dog ranger instead of cat?"
She didn't get any definite reply for a few seconds. But when she saw his lips twitched a little bit and how he quickly covered the lower half of his face with both of his hands, Hamuko knew that the boy was downright giggling.
Hamuko frowned. "What's so funny?"
Eventually, Minato stopped giggling, though traces of amusement still lingered on his face, "the way you said it... cat... and ranger..." he snickered for a moment and eventually smiled, "he says he hates cats, but Katsuya-niisan always left some leftovers for kittens outside his home... Does that make him a cat ranger?"
Her displeased expression slowly warped into something similar to thinking, the edge of her lips stretched to form a smile. "Sounds fitting for a cat ranger."
Both of them continued their giggling fits, with Hamuko ending hers first. She hummed softly, her red eyes meeting his grey. Minato stopped, his smile didn't falter.
"You're not bad for an older brother, Minato-kun."
Another chuckle, and a gaze warmer than the one she previously received, "you're nice enough for a sister."
She could feel a soft hum inside her, the voice inside her heart quietly whispered of lullaby. But then the voice giggled, he's death waiting to happen.
She tried her best to ignore it; sometimes the voice sounded stupid. Some times.
They bonded together so quickly that even their parents were surprised that they didn’t tear each other apart. In one week, they were acquainted enough to call each other with suffixes, sometimes for real, sometimes just for teasing. They would play together in the shrine, usually together with the silver-haired boy around the corner. They talked about many things, built many sandcastles, and played everything available in that place. She picked the best time to play as well; they always managed to dominate the whole playground for themselves.
Once, she would tell them about butterflies that sometimes graced the shrine. She would speak about how she spotted yellow butterflies everywhere: in her room, in the kitchen, or even when they were playing together. Sometimes, Hamuko would also talk about how those butterflies would linger next to a man with butterfly mask, who had been sitting on the bench near the monkey bars every time they went to the Shrine.
When he was there (which was always), she would point at him to show and tell them that his name was Philemon, but she liked to call him Phil instead (too mouthful, she thought). Every time she talked about it. Yu and would later glance at the young girl awkwardly, telling her that there was no one there.
She thought them stupid, at first, but when she saw the man putting two of his fingers on his lips, she decided to bite her tongue. Don't tell anyone, he seemed to say. Her trusted voice seemed to agree, as it began humming some soothing melody that she never heard. In the end, Hamuko only grumbled, muttering something like stupid boys why are you all so blind—
But at least that man smiled at her; somehow, Hamuko felt that she had decided something important.
She was eight years old when her parents died.
Hamuko was never with her parents when they crashed to their deaths. The young Arisato was actually on a sleepover with one of her friends, and her family was supposed to pick her up sometimes during midnight (because that’s the only time available for them). Minato Arisato, being a good brother he was, persisted to join in.
But they never got to pick her up. She noticed this already, because her friend’s parents would have woken her up when they arrived that night. Hamuko was woken up on the next morning, though.
They told her to dress up. She wanted to ask what went wrong, because Hamuko could sense the panic and confusion in the air; try as hard as they want, she knew what a false smile when she saw one (at least, the voice inside her said so. Apparently, it hadn't been spouting nonsense since several days ago). The young couple was flashing those smiles, and it made her stomach churned with dread.
She was quickly out of the bedroom, leaving her sleeping friend as she did. Following the couple to the living room, she was told to sit down—to which she complied—and they slowly broke the news to her.
Disaster stroke. Her parents died in a car crash. Her brother survived.
The next hours passed like a blur. She remembered about entering the car, being driven to a hospital, and watching nurses and doctors passed by in the corridors. The heavy news still hung in her conscience and had yet to sink in as her psyche could not comprehend the gravity of this, at all. The usual voice inside of her did not even make a sound, as though it was silenced by the news.
So she watched the white wall, the people whom had been walking in and out, pass and through, away and near, not caring at all, because she could not understand; her parents couldn’t just go away, they loved them too much for that. The reality she was in did not make sense—those nurses who comforted her on her bench did not make sense, because her parents are not dead—
—‘because time waits for no one, and it will eventually herd all living things to death.’
The words rang inside her, freezing her heart away from pain. Amidst her mental debilitation, she could feel someone’s hands gripping her hand strongly, securely, as though she was about to fall. Her glazed red eyes slowly rose to her right… to Philemon. There was no smile, no glint of playfulness; his face was a perfect facade that could not be read, and it was like seeing at a bottomless pit. But his grip on her shoulder remained, and it was enough for her to know that this man was very sorry for what happened to her.
Despite being invisible to other people, despite being so secretive, despite being his only material friend—
“You are a brave girl,” he spoke, the words sounded so much like the voice inside her, right down to the tone and pitch. Perhaps this man was it, and he never left her at all. Perhaps… he was the real manifestation of the voice inside her. His hand slowly brushed the tears away, “But never be afraid to cry.”
Hamuko gasped and closed her lips with her hand as she tried to stop the wailing agony that had been unleashed by grief and sorrow. But the man simply shrugged her hand away and shook his head and smiled gently.
“It will be alright.”
So she wailed.
Hamuko and Minato were almost nine years old when they were sent to orphanage.
After their parents’ death, they were effectively sent to the orphanage until officer Kurosawa located her relatives… or at least those who were eager to take care of two additional children in their family. She was promised several days for information, but as days dragged on into weeks of no information, Hamuko just could not bring herself to care.
Every night in her waiting, she would cry herself to sleep, because whenever she closed her eyes, Hamuko pictured the face of her parents together, smiling so happily in their last vacation. Sometimes, her scream was so loud that it woke the den mother up and made her tried to calm Hamuko down. Other times, she would cry so silently that no one really noticed, so she was left alone to grieve until there were no tears left for the night.
There were also times that her brother would sneak into her room and comforted her sobbing form as best as he could. Whenever he did, she remembered of colossal moon sitting on the heavens as though it was ready to fall down, and how everything turned green and red. But she never really cared, because she was grieving, and she needed his voice—so gentle and soothing like her own father—as her anchor to bind her to reality and his hugs— as firm as her mother’s hugs—would to remind herself that affection never died.
Sometimes, she would look up to see his face and noticed how tears were welling in his blue eyes. Too blue to be Minato’s, she thought for a moment, because she remembered his gray eyes meeting her red ones in the night of their meeting.
Somewhere inside her, the voice hummed again, a warning: My dear self, it is too late. Death has come for you.
Hamuko never understood what it meant, so she ignored it and took whatever comfort his brother could offer with a desperate crushing hug.
Hamuko was nine years and one month old when her guardian angel returned, though different than who she used to remember.
Perhaps it was fate that brought her to Naganaki Shrine once again, her small legs dangling from the bench where she sat. She was not bothered with the cool wind, nor the lack of kids playing that afternoon. In fact, the quiet was better for her, because she would have thrown tantrum in noisy place instead of taking things calmly. Unlike her brother.
Hamuko bit his lips; thinking of her brother only brought back the memories of things that happened in that night—and the fact that her parents had gone with it. Such change… she clearly was still unable to comprehend that her life had and would change for the rest of her life.
A yellow butterfly passed at the edge of her vision, and as quickly as it went by, she could feel a sudden presence of a person sitting next to her. Hamuko did not waste a moment to turn and identify the only one who could do that: him. Or, as she dubbed, her guardian angel; always following her around without asking too many questions, but still unnoticeable even by her friends. Some shunned her because of that, but must she care at all? Those kids never understood that he is as real as the voice in her heart.
She glared at the young man, who was shorter than she remembered. Appearing out of nowhere is definitely not a good habit. “...why did you do that?” she pouted, but the man only cocked his head, his butterfly mask glinted, as if asking mutely of what she meant. Hamuko only pointed her hands to the seat, “You startled me.”
The man looked at her; there was a glint of amusement in that brown eyes beneath the slits of his butterfly mask. He stayed his voice though, and watched how the young girl’s face turned more irritated.
“What, what’s so funny?” she grumbled, but the man only shook his head. Come to think of it, he had not even said a word about anything since his arrival. So Hamuko frowned and asked, "Say something, will you?”
The young man regarded her for a moment, and for a moment, Hamuko could feel the faint whispers of the wind… but it was so subtle that she couldn’t make it. When it stopped, the young man stood, looked at her oddly, before vanishing in a golden light, leaving the young girl dumbstruck and alone.
So much for company.
The next day, he was back again in the same spot, still observing her as she walked into the shrine with head held low. When her red eyes caught his silhouette, her expression quickly turned from sadness to annoyance. But she kept on walking anyway. And sat next to him. And be silent. Alright, she wasn’t actually being silent with her stomps and grumbles, but who wouldn't when anyone left just like that?
"What are you doing here again? I don’t need you disappearing like that again." She grumbled. Just like mother and father.
Of course, the last bit was never voiced.
Hamuko kept her gaze away from the masked man, but another flutter of butterfly wing was enough for her to snap her attention back; the feeling of those flutters intensified, forming soft whispers that finally made sense... if she just stopped and listened.
I think you need some company.
The words... they didn't sound the same as the previous man-with-mask. It sounded even younger, like an older brother (but not Minato; older, so much older than him).
When she looked at him, the lower half of his mask was already gone, revealing a goofy smile. The brown eyes that were shown beneath the slits seemed to twinkle in delight, as if recognizing her effort to listen and pay attention.
Ah yes, she’d been doing that pretty poorly lately (because mom is gone dad is gone minato is different yu is different—)
"...oh, that’s good. Now you can hear me,” the smile was sincere, as far as Hamuko noticed. The half-masked man leaned, so that they could speak levelly, “I think you’ve been sad for too long, young girl.”
Hamuko scowled; what could an invisible man knows about sadness, anyway? He’s not the one whose parents died in a car crash. “So you mean it’s wrong to miss my father and mother? Well you’re just another jerk then, and I shall not hear another word from jerks like you.”
The man’s eyes softened as he stood up again, so that he could take a more comfortable position by kneeling in front of her. For a moment, she wondered if this man treated her like a princess—or maybe a petulant child instead.
“It’s okay to miss them,” his eyes for a moment glinted with violet hue, “but sometimes later… you’ll have to accept that they are gone. It will hurt, but—” his hand reached to hers, holding them together to muster enough comfort, “—you have your brother. You have your best friend. You have me. I know you can pull through, alright.”
Hamuko would really love to scowl at this man, who had disappeared yesterday in the midst of their conversation, even she could feel the facts sinking in—that her parent were not going to be with her anymore, that her brother would forever be more muted than she would ever remember, and that Yu would always looked up to her despite everything that happened—and made her head clearer.
She could feel another wave of fresh tears welling in her eyes, but she quickly brushed them away. Hiding behind her own hands, she glared at the young man again and mumbled, “you never told me your name, and you’ve made me cry,” she grinned “you’re certainly a jerk…”
His smile turned into a smirk, and she could see how the violet gleam of his eyes reverted back to natural brown.
“I’m Naoya Toudou,” he spoke, his name triggered the voice inside her to hum the melody of souls… and it felt so soothing to feel its beat in her veins, “Phil sent me in his stead, because you were so sad… and now I can see why he worries.”
Now she really wanted to punch him, because the cocky smile was really getting under her skin. The song inside her be damned; this person needed to tone down his teasing note. “how would I know if he could even worry?” she grumbled, her red eyes were a little bit puffy but remained glaring at him, “He rarely talks, and the one time he did, I cried. Are you guys in the grand club of jerks that I should know of?”
Naoya seemed to almost crack at that, but managed to regulate his breathing and eventually gave a secretive smile, “well no, because no jerks will stand by you when hardships happened in your life.”
He grasped her hands again, and Hamuko knew how serious he was, “and I’m no jerk. I will stand by your side, as long as I am permitted to.”
It was weird to have a stranger whom she never knew suddenly pledged his loyalty to her, as though he had known her from the very start.
But the voice inside her hummed approvingly, a gentle voice in the midst of the now triggered music of her soul. She had learnt to trust her instinct about people in general. It had been easier that way.
She was almost ten years old when she met Makoto.
When she met the boy for the first time, the music inside her screeched like a psychotic violin notes. It wasn’t enough to send her reeling, but she was caught massaging her temples by her older brother. Later, said older brother would bombard her with questions about her health, of which she was tempted to throw back at him. Perhaps his common sense was hurt, because one sane person simply does not pick a random boy and brought him to the orphanage.
When asked about the possibility of his parents looking for the boy, she remembered the vacant look and bemused expression of Minato Arisato as he replied, “…ah, I never thought of that.”
Sometimes she really felt that it is justified to hit her brother on the face for his absolute ignorance towards many things in life.
She talked about this to Naoya, who became some sort of confidante aside of Yu. The convenient thing about having an invisible (magical, Hamuko reminded herself) confidante was no one would talk to him (Philemon aside). Meaning, Naoya was the perfect secret keeper, so she didn’t really hold back when she talks about it.
The masked man would then listen to and regard her carefully; his brown eyes glanced at her intensely as though trying to absorb every detail of body language that she exhibited. When she was done, Naoya hummed, but his fingers itched.
“…tell you what,” he mused, but even then, Hamuko knew that Naoya hesitated to tell her, “I think you should spend more time with him. You know… get to know with each other. It won’t hurt to widen your circle of friends, will it?” Another smile. “Maybe you should try the Persona Game. That should bring you all together.”
The idea stuck up in her mind like an unfit puzzle piece, but Hamuko nodded eventually. She could not deny what her confidante had pointed to her; given that Makoto was probably bound to stay (there had been no signs of his parents searching for him, so…), she might as well made him part of the entourage.
She never realized that it was the beginning to her end.