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It's the things that didn't happen during the Decision Game that keep coming back.
Akane is used to having memories that aren't truly her own. She's seen more things through the morphogenetic field than most people could dream of, and most of them aren't pleasant. Death and destruction, pain that seems to linger even though it never touched her own body. She knows it wasn't her. She knows it wasn't him. But that doesn't make it any less real to the neurons firing in her brain.
She remembers Junpei's thin, weak, last breath in the control room, barely audible through the safety of the gas mask he gave to her. She didn't ask for it. She never asked for any of this. But he's always giving, even when there's nothing for him to take in return.
She remembers blood splattering all over her as they shielded her from the bullets in the rec room. Waking up in the power room to find him writhing on the floor at Carlos's feet. The flash of rage, the horror, the unfamiliar feeling of being utterly powerless.
Why did he come? Why is he always so desperate to find her? She thought if she disappeared after the Nonary Game he could go back to a normal life. One where he's not haunted by his own gruesome, inevitable deaths, where she doesn't kill him again and again to create a future so few of him will ever see. She wanted him to save her once, not over and over.
She remembers Junpei handing her the vial Carlos chose, and she had hardly swallowed when they collapsed next to her. Through her own vision going dark, she felt him reach for her, with both his failing body and his fading mind. He's always reaching for her, and she never seems to have the strength to reach back.
He wasn't supposed to be there. He wasn't supposed to want her so badly. She knows she exists to fulfill a purpose, to use her abilities to create the right path, not to pursue her own happiness. She had already made peace with letting him go. But apparently he never has.
She remembers with disturbing clarity how it felt to find the pieces of his body. The denial, the dread, the nagging feeling that something was wrong. The heart-stopping moment when Carlos entered the freezer and his face contorted into sheer horror. The way her vision went white and her legs gave out when she realized what she was seeing.
She remembers that as if it happened yesterday, yet there's not a blemish on his body right now. Akane runs her fingers up his arm, under the sleeve of his t-shirt, feeling the smooth skin and the flex of muscle as his hands move from her waist to encircle her back. She presses against him, tugging on his bottom lip before kissing him again, harder than last time. He groans weakly into her mouth.
He's alive. She can hear it in his quick gasps, feel his heart pounding in his chest. Everywhere their skin touches is warm, warm like life, like love, not like blood and bombs. She slides her hands up to his neck and into his hair, feeling every little vibration in his body as he kisses her, his breath hot on her lips when he stops.
It's not enough. Akane barely has time to fill her lungs before she dives back in, leaning into Junpei so hard he nearly falls backwards off the bed. He braces his shoulder against the headboard, letting Akane wrap herself around him and move her lips to his jaw, his neck, never meeting his eyes.
His voice is low and breathless when he speaks. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," Akane answers easily, kissing the spot on his neck that Mira had cut through so cleanly. "Everything is right this time."
"This time?" Akane leans down to kiss his collar, but Junpei gently pushes her back until she can see the skeptical look on his face. "What timeline are you thinking about?"
"It doesn't matter." Akane wraps her arms a little tighter around his shoulders. "Forget about it."
Junpei sighs. "You know I can't forget about it. And neither can you. Look, if you need some time to-"
"I don't!" Akane insists. "Please, Junpei. I don't want to talk about other timelines right now."
"I don't want to do this while you're thinking about... about dying, or..."
There's real concern in Junpei's eyes, and Akane lifts a hand to cup his jaw. "I'm not. I'm thinking about living. We're alive, Junpei, and we're together. Do you know how many timelines that happens in? I don't want to waste it."
"I don't either, but you seem..." His brow furrows as he tries to put his thoughts into words. He doesn't need to; Akane can sense what he means. She doesn't know anymore how much of it is the field and how much is just that they know each other so well, but he can obviously pick up on when she's upset, and she always feels what he's trying to say.
"I'm not just... using you to distract myself," she reassures him. "Besides, you're the one who wouldn't lie down without a goodnight kiss."
Junpei frowns. "That doesn't mean-"
Akane cuts him off by scooting her whole body closer, so she can feel his chest against hers.
"Look, if you want me to stop thinking about anything else... why don't you make me?"
He meets her gaze, his eyes quite clearly reflecting the twinkle in her own now.
"You think you can distract me that easily? I'm a detective, Akane, I don't give up until I solve-"
His argument is muffled by another kiss, less demanding now and more playful. Despite his words, Junpei immediately stops trying to talk and pushes back, easing Akane down until he's leaning over her.
She loops her arms around his neck again as if to hold him there, chained to her. If the consensus of the majority of timelines means anything, they're not supposed to be together like this. The strings of their fates cross once or twice and then separate, almost every time. But any opportunity he gets, he yanks those strings back together and ties them in a firm knot. It's messy and ungraceful, none of the beautiful loops worthy of a Boy Scout badge, but no matter how hard the universe pulls it doesn't come undone.
So Akane tangles herself with him and decides that the majority means nothing. In so many of them, he dies. In more of them she leaves him. But they're not in any of those timelines - they're in this one, where the strings tie them together instead of leading them apart.
Her ring glints as she fists her hand in his hair again. This time, she's not letting that knot come untied, ever.