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It’s not that hard a walk down the hall, but Shinjiro’s grateful for the lack of distance, for more reasons than one. Honestly, the same floor? Way to rub it in. Day he wakes up is the day she falls asleep, and if he puts two and two together then what happened has gotta be because she gave herself up to save people. Fucking parallels.
He pauses when he gets to her door, mostly to catch his breath--“not that hard” does not mean easy, not yet, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to get rid of the damn IV--but also because he hears a voice in there. Not one of the nurses, and not hers, of course. A guy.
Of course.
Shinjiro takes time for another breath before he knocks on the slightly open door. He doesn’t bother waiting for a response; he opens it fully right afterwards, taking in the expected sight: Akihiko sitting next to her bed, turning towards the door, his face soft before settling into a mask that both of them know wouldn’t fool anyone in this room.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Shinjiro says. “I just wanted to say hi. I’ll go.” Why did he even enter; why did he think it was okay to bother them.
“No, it’s fine, come in,” Akihiko says, standing up. Shinjiro’s about to protest--he can stand, he doesn’t need pity--but Akihiko just walks around the bed and pulls up another chair from across the room. Of course she gets multiple visitors at a time. He’s surprised there aren’t enough for the whole team.
He sits down slowly, carefully, making sure not to wince or breathe too hard or show anything that might be weakness. Akihiko wouldn’t care, but he needs this. He needs to prove that he’s not beyond hope.
The nurses got all mad at him when he came back that day. Said he shouldn’t have gone running off like that when he was still in poor condition. They were probably right, to be honest--he felt pretty shitty in more than one way when he returned to the hospital. It might’ve delayed his recovery for a while, they said. Yeah. Well. He’s not going anywhere right now anyway.
Akihiko sits back down, eyes still on him for a moment before flicking back to the girl in the hospital bed. She’s as still and silent as she was the last time Shinjiro visited her, which was the day after she arrived. Not that long ago, really. He just needed to see her.
He knows enough about himself these days to know he needs to see her all the time, feels that distance between their rooms like an impassable desert. Knowing she’s there twists in his stomach, sometimes hurts more than the bullets did. She’s closer to him now than she was when they were in the dorm. He saw her every day back then, could’ve seen her whenever he wanted; whenever she wanted. Now she’s right down the hall, and he wishes more than anything she was far away.
There’s a tiny selfish want in him that says, now you’re closer to her than all the others, you’re near her every hour of every day and none of them can be here even close to that, but he’s getting good at ignoring it.
“So,” Shinjiro says.
“So,” Akihiko echoes.
She wouldn’t let the silence go on; he has a moment of well, she’s not really here, is she, but then he has a moment of but that doesn’t mean she’d be happy about it. So he starts up again. “Do you come here a lot? I can’t tell when it’s just one person. The nurses got all annoyed when everyone showed up, but someone on their own is a lot quieter.”
Akihiko shakes his head. “Only once before this,” he says. “I would’ve visited you too, but…”
Shinjiro gets it, and doesn’t ask for more. Sometimes you gotta be alone.
Akihiko exhales, long and low, and the mask slips a little. “It’s hard being here,” he says quietly. “My head gets all full up of things I wanted to say to her. There’s this…” His mouth twists like he’s not sure he wants to continue. “…this space in me,” he finishes. “And every time I think about her, it gets more crowded with stuff I wish I’d done, and then I can’t think about anything else. So I don’t come here a lot.”
Shinjiro gets that, too; god does he get it. Except it’s a little suspicious, isn’t it, that Akihiko gets it just as bad? That it’s not just him.
He can’t ask about that, though, so he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything, when Akihiko’s hand slips into hers, holds onto it the same way Shinjiro did when he first visited.
All he can think is, Minako, when you wake up, you’ve got some explaining to do.
Akihiko looks up with a wry smile. “Yeah,” he says. “Are you surprised?”
Shinjiro doesn’t nod or shake his head. He just looks down, and tries not to show anything.
“When did it start?” he asks, and curses himself for it. It won’t do him any good to know.
“A little while after you got shot,” Akihiko says. Okay. That’s not so bad. He practically told her she’d be better off with Akihiko. Doesn’t make it hurt any less, but still. That’s not so bad.
“…I guess it sort of started before then, though,” Akihiko says, and Shinjiro’s stomach plummets.
“Yeah?” he manages. He can’t look up yet. He doesn’t want to see the expression on Akihiko’s face--maybe wistful, maybe bittersweet. Things that didn’t show on his face a lot.
“She’s just so--well, you’ve seen what she’s like,” Akihiko says, and Shinjiro doesn’t say I’ve seen more than that. “She spent a lot of time with me. I don’t think I could have felt any other way. And it seemed like maybe she did too. But I didn’t have the courage to actually ask her about it until after…everything. September was kind of a quiet month for us.”
For you, Shinjiro doesn’t say, doesn’t let his fingernails dig into his palms. Quiet for you, and maybe that’s why it wasn’t quiet for me, maybe she thought if you were never going to make a move then she might as well try for the next in line. And then that one went away and she figured she’d go back to the first one. Would she have stayed with me if she thought you were still an option? I told her I wasn’t a nice guy. Maybe she listened. I didn’t want her to listen. Stupid, selfish. Maybe she listened anyway.
“I wish we could’ve started earlier,” Akihiko says quietly. “I wish I’d been strong enough to do something about it, instead of just leaving it there and hoping it would get better on its own. We barely had half a year together.”
“You’ll still have time,” Shinjiro finds himself saying. “Don’t talk about her like she’s dead. I woke up, didn’t I? She will too.”
He looks up; Akihiko is smiling faintly. “Took you long enough, though,” he says.
“Yeah, well, she’s in a lot better shape than I was,” Shinjiro says. Still is. He doesn’t have enough pills to last forever.
He realizes he can’t begrudge her for this. If he only had a few weeks of growing close and one night of growing closer, that was still more than he deserved. He must have made her happy, at least for a little while, and the fact that she wanted to make him happy, at least for a little while, is enough to hold onto. He can’t remember having a better night than that and he certainly hasn’t had one since; how can he blame her for any motives she might have had?
She told him she loved him. She might have meant it.
He didn’t tell her. He would have. Goddammit.
And he definitely can’t blame Akihiko, not for wanting the same things he did. This whole situation is a mess, but it’s a mess worth having, at least for him.
“You know, that party we had, that was her idea,” Shinjiro says. “She was so pushy about it. Hard to say no to her, isn’t it?”
Akihiko snorts. “You have no idea,” he says.
If you were the one to ask her, and she didn’t have to keep asking, then I sure as hell have more of an idea than you, Shinjiro doesn’t say.
“…I keep thinking, maybe I could have helped, if I was there,” he says instead. “But probably not, from what you guys told me. Still, I keep thinking it.”
“I think everyone thinks they could’ve helped more,” Akihiko says with another wry smile. “I sure do.”
Shinjiro’s quiet for a moment. Eventually, he says, “Seeing her like this…gotta say, I don’t like coming here either.”
“She’s not wearing her hair pins,” Akihiko says softly. “She doesn’t look right without them, does she.”
She even slept with those things on, Shinjiro remembers. He wonders if Akihiko knows that.
Does it really hurt as much for Akihiko as it does for him? Probably; Akihiko knew her longer, was with her longer, spent more days and nights with her than he ever did or ever will. But seeing her in a hospital bed is a knife in the gut, twisting more and more with each passing day. She shouldn’t be here. There’s no good reason for her to be here. The reason she’s here is awful, maddening, acid in his veins. And it hurts so hard he can barely think, sometimes. Akihiko can’t know what it’s like.
But he does. It’s written on his face, as the pathetic attempt of a mask gradually slips. It’s written in his words, painfully honest. It’s written in the way he holds tight onto her hand, like he’s afraid she might slip away if he lets go.
Shinjiro turns his face towards her. Peaceful, like always.
“How you doing over there?” he asks. “I hope you can’t hear us being a bunch of saps. You were always so big on making people happy.”
Akihiko doesn’t say anything, so he continues. “I couldn’t hear much of anything when I was there, so you probably can’t either,” he says. “Wouldn’t put it past you to be special, though. You were pretty big on that, too, even if you didn’t know it. Always knowing what to do. Special with your Personas, and special as a person. I don’t think there’s anyone else out there like you.”
He swallows thickly. “So hurry back, okay?” he mumbles, his voice a lot less steady than it started. “There’s a lot waiting for you. It’s not like you to leave people behind.”
He glances up; Akihiko’s head is bowed, his face hidden, but Shinjiro knows the mask is gone. The shaking of his shoulders is more than enough evidence of that. Shinjiro hesitates, just for a moment--he shouldn’t take advantage of this, but. Akihiko isn’t watching. If he does it quick…
Shinjiro touches her other hand, just for a moment. Too briefly for Akihiko to see. He wants to leave it there, and every passing second he wants to put it back, wants to test the limits of when Akihiko will look up again. Maybe she would be okay with that. If she really did love him.
Maybe she would want it to be safe for Akihiko to see him holding her hand.
He clenches his hand into a fist to keep it from moving. Maybes aren’t doing him any good.
Eventually, Akihiko wipes his eyes and looks back up. He looks unimaginably tired. “I think I’m gonna go home for the day,” he says. “Thanks for stopping by. It’s hard to think when it’s just me.”
“It’s no problem,” Shinjiro says. “I bet she’s happy you came.” And he does, oddly enough. If she loved Akihiko, of course she’d be happy to see him.
If she’s happy to see him…
Akihiko stands up. “I’ll come back in a few days,” he says. “Gotta check up on you too, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll just fall apart without you,” Shinjiro says with a slight smile. “See you later, Aki.”
“Same here, Shinji.”
And he’s gone. Shinjiro’s alone with her, the way he’d thought it’d be before he heard Akihiko’s voice.
“Hell of a way to find that out,” he says. “Were you ever gonna tell me? Probably not. I don’t know why you would have; it’s not exactly important.
“…were you ever gonna tell him?”
For all that she wouldn’t enjoy silence, he can’t bring himself to say anything for a while.
“You don’t have to,” he says eventually, softly. “I get it. Did you know I’m on a time limit? Don’t know exactly when, but maybe before you wake up. It’d be better for you to not have to deal with that. Maybe I’ll just slink off like a cat so no one can see it. You’ll be plenty happy with Aki. You probably already are.”
It’s too much of a liberty to take her hand now, but he can be selfish for just a little while, so he does. Her hand is warm and mostly soft but a little calloused, too, from all the fighting. Dia spells never did get rid of those.
He doesn’t want to let go.
He closes his eyes and remembers what it was like when she told him she loved him; what it was like when she smiled at him, wide and brilliant; what her mouth and fingers and skin were like; what it was like to look at her and think, even if only for a little while, that he was absurdly lucky for her to think he could have all that.
He opens his eyes and keeps them on her face, beautiful even like this, serene in a way she never was.
“You’re going to wake up,” he says. “For him, for everyone, maybe for me, if you want. Even if I’m not around by then. And when you do, you’re gonna be happy, you hear? You stay with who you wanna stay with. Just keep doing the crazy shit you do. Not all that Persona shit, all that caring about people, all that doing stuff.” He grits his teeth in frustration; the words aren’t coming out right. “Fuck. I’m not good at this shit. But you get what I mean, right?”
No response. Just the sound of her breathing, and the occasional steady beep of the machines around her.
He thinks she gets it anyway.
He stays there for a while longer, holding onto her hand, silent. But he gets pretty tired himself these days; sometimes it feels like he’s only half-awake, drifting in and out of another long sleep. So he has to get back to his room before he falls asleep right next to her.
Chalk another one up for fuckin’ parallels.
He lets her rest. She’s earned it, after all.
And if she wakes up soon, well, he might be the first one there. It’s not such a long trip down the hall. He’ll hear the commotion.
Back in his room, Shinjiro closes his eyes, and thinks about hers opening.
---
She doesn’t know where she is.
She’s been here for a while, she thinks, in this starry expanse. There are no distinguishing features; no walls, no far-off structures, not even a floor, really. Nothing but far-away stars. Sometimes she thinks there might be faint traces of voices, off in the distance, but she can’t tell for sure.
It’s not unlike where she was when she defeated Nyx, really.
It might even be the same place, for all she knows. But there aren’t any world-devouring monsters here now. Only her, and only the stars.
She doesn’t sleep here, but sometimes she closes her eyes anyway, to look at the shifting colors behind them. It’s a nice change. A blip of difference in this unending plain.
She closes her eyes just for a moment before she feels a presence.
There’s not enough inside her to feel excitement; all she does is open her eyes and see a familiar figure sitting cross-legged some distance away from her, yellow scarf dangling loosely around his shoulders.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, because she does know that much.
“Shouldn’t I?” he asks, smiling faintly. “I didn’t die. Nyx only went back to sleep. There’s no reason I can’t visit you now.”
“If you’re part of Nyx, then she must not be entirely asleep right now,” she says. “If she isn’t, then that’s…”
“There’s no need to worry,” he says. “I’m just visiting for a little while. I thought you might like someone to talk to.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “If I wanted to talk to someone, I’d choose one of my friends.”
He leans back, bracing his hands behind him on the not-floor. “But your friends wouldn’t understand, would they? They’d want to get you out of here. And you know that shouldn’t happen.”
She doesn’t know how she knows it, or why she isn’t afraid of it. “Yes,” she says. “I know.”
“There you have it, then.” He smiles just the way he used to, brighter than the sun. “I’m the only one who understands, so I’m the only one here.”
She meshes her fingers together, feeling the slight coolness of her skin. Not cold enough to be a corpse, but still colder than she’d like. Maybe. Not really. It doesn’t especially matter.
“You’re really only here to see me?” she asks. “You’ll just, what…go back to sleep once you’re done here?”
“Yes,” he says. “I know you. I know more about you than anyone does. And I know that you don’t like being alone.”
She’s silent for a long time. Maybe minutes, maybe hours; she can’t tell how time works here, or even how long she’s been here. A few days? A week? More?
“I don’t,” she says finally. “I always spent time with people whenever I could. I didn’t like studying or resting--having people around is…better. Easier.”
Even now, it feels…good, for someone to be here. Even if he’s a threat. It’s better than staying here by herself. There isn’t much she fears, but loneliness is up there.
She thinks maybe that’s why she loved so easily; she always wanted to help people find what they needed, and sometimes what they needed was her. And she’d liked that. Being needed. Even just being wanted was nice. But being a key part of what made someone happy…that was what she needed.
Akihiko needed someone who didn’t need to be protected; Shinjiro needed someone to accept him; Ryoji needed her like a puzzle piece needs the rest of its puzzle; and Theo really just needed a friend. Shame how that one hadn’t worked out.
No, she doesn’t want to be alone.
“Good thing people like having you around, too,” he says. “Isn’t it nice to think about how many people you helped?”
It’s something to hold onto, at any rate. She can’t muster up anything else inside her; no particular emotion, no real reaction.
She thinks that might be a blessing, because if she did, surely she’d be terrified.
He leans back forward, hands in his lap. “You brought a lot of good into the world,” he says. “More than most people. I’d say that’s enough. It’s okay to stop at that.”
She nods, for lack of any other response to give.
“But I’m not going to stop at that, am I,” she finds herself saying.
His smile is sad, now, waning afternoon light. “No,” he says. “You’re not.”
She looks around her at the endless expanse. It offers no consolation, but it offers no cruelty, either.
“You’re going far away,” he says. “When you get there, you can’t come back.”
“I know.”
She doesn’t know how she knows.
“It’s not so bad,” he says. “You’ll be helping people even more than you already did. You’ll help the entire world, all the time, every second. You’ll be the most helpful person there is.”
“…I don’t really want that, though,” she says softly, and isn’t sure why.
His smile has faded, leaving his eyes still and sad. “I’m afraid you don’t get a choice,” he says.
She knows that.
But it occurs to her that, deep down, in a place she hadn’t realized still exists, she doesn’t like that.
“Don’t think about it,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. “If you think about it, you’ll be lost.”
She forces it down, buries it. It won’t change anything. It will only hurt her.
The memories of laughing with everyone, feeling the thrill of combat with everyone at her side, hands--she remembers hands--everyone’s pride and love for her--smiles and skin--
She cannot think about it.
“There you go,” he says. “It’s better this way.”
It isn’t, not really, not at all.
But it’s the only way she has.
He smiles at her once more. “Not long, now,” he says softly.
She hopes so.
---
But it is not quite so.
---
This place, at least, is familiar. She knows this shade of blue; she knows this chair, and those doors, and that table.
She does not know why she is here.
She faded a little, from the starry void, and faded into here instead. This can’t be the place she’s supposed to go. It doesn’t feel very far away; it has always felt like a part of her, and it still does.
There is one slight change.
There is only one figure, and he is not standing by the table; he is kneeling in front of her.
“Welcome,” he says, with a sadder smile than she has ever seen. “Though I’m afraid it’s a bit different from what you’re used to. My master is away; in his absence, there is little I can do.”
She realizes that she cannot speak. She never said much in this room anyway; once she learned what it could do for her, she mostly only asked for Personas, or said “Yes”. Or some other things, but she did not say those for a long time, and she did not say them more than once.
“There isn’t much time left,” he says. “I think this may be the last place you see, before…well. You’ll find out.” She doesn’t like the expression on his face; she wishes she could erase it.
“My master thought it would be appropriate,” he says. “I could hardly disagree. This is where everything begins, after all; it is only suitable for this to be the place where something ends. As for myself…” He hesitates for a moment before continuing. “It’s selfish, I know,” he says. “But I wanted to be the one to see you off. No one else could be here. I don’t want you to be alone when it happens.”
She feels the control she had slipping. Emotions will only hurt her, and yet--she doesn’t want to see them go.
His mouth twists. “There is a great deal of unfairness in this world,” he says quietly. “And yet right now the greatest one I see is what is happening to you. You did more than anyone could ask for; it is beyond unjust to reward you with a silent eternity.”
He sits back on his heels. “I told you, did I not, that I would be punished for my transgressions?” he says with a crooked smile. “My master only said that my feelings would be punishment enough. I thought it cruel at the time, but now--now I see what he truly meant.” He laughs, not especially happily. His eyes grow more serious. “But even now, I would not have traded it for the world.”
It was nice, at the time. More than nice. It had hurt to say goodbye. It hurts now, to be reminded of it.
It hurts now, to think of all the goodbyes she hasn’t said and never will; it hurts that there is only one person who can be there for her in these last moments. Will her friends even know what happened to her? She remembers their voices. They were so happy to see her, to remember her.
“It won’t hurt,” he says gently. “You’ll only fall asleep. You won’t feel a thing.”
Oh, but she feels now, she feels the floodgates--anger that this is happening, despair that her friends will never understand, but most of all--
“I’m scared,” she whispers.
His face crumbles. “No, no, please--” He scrambles to his feet and embraces her, awkward as it is, with her still sitting. She clings to him, finally able to move, and sobs, loud and wretched. It’s not fair. She did all that, and it wasn’t enough. She worked so hard, and this is how it ends for her, unable to even say goodbye. She will be truly alone, with no one at her side, perhaps forever.
She stays like that for a while longer, until he pulls back. The look on his face isn’t one she’s seen on him before--anger mixed with a raw determination, his mouth set in a firm line. “I swear to you,” he says, his voice hard, “I will find you. Once my duties are done, I will leave this place, and I will find a way to free you. If I have to go to the edge of existence, I will. This is not right. On my honor, I will find you.”
She swallows the lump in her throat as best she can. “Can you tell everyone?” she whispers.
His face softens. “I don’t think my master will let me,” he says quietly. “But I will continue to help them for a while longer. They will move forward, even through their loss. I promise you that.”
She manages to nod. “Okay,” she mumbles.
He settles to his knees again, and reaches for her hand, leaning his face down and kissing it. “I’m afraid it’s time now,” he whispers against her skin. “Thank you for everything you have done. Rest for a while. You’ve earned that much.”
She slips her hand aside and strokes his face, the way he did to her, once. He looks up as she does it. “You’ll be there when I wake up?” she murmurs.
He smiles, so sadly, so softly, so strongly. “I swear it,” he says.
She can feel her consciousness slipping. It’s still frightening, but--maybe not so bad, now. She has something to hold onto. The knowledge that her friends will be safe, that at the very least she does not face eternity alone…it is something to keep within her, warm and bright.
She holds onto his hand and does not think about last words; she does not need them now.
She closes her eyes.
At the edge of the universe, her next fight--not her last one--begins.
---
(1. With hope.
2. With truth.
3. With both.)