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Minako's death forever cast her in a new light, as the darkle of Death is wont to do. Eventually the pain would subside, although in every mention of Death he would feel the flitter of her shadow—and Shinji, and eventually Koromaru and others until one day Death knocked at his door and granted him its sweet release—within the folds of these words, cinematography, pencil strokes, whatever the medium may be.
Shortly after meeting her he had come to admire her deeply. He most admired her mindfulness. Every now and then she made an observation that would make other people feel as if they were suddenly desnuded and thrown to the hiemal elements—no matter if it were a compliment or a deep-cutting criticism.
But of course, Mnemosyne is the greatest trickster, hence his Tolstoyan propensity for journaling after her death. Whether or not he remembered the event accurately was by then unknowable, but he would forever remember how her words made him feel.
Many moons and suns ago he had worked up the courage to ask her to study alongside him. Yet he tried to do everything solo in order to impress her, having confused his brotherly affection for her with romantic love. With her pen she had tapped his paper at some point in the dual-studying: "I want you to rely on me more."
He looked up. "Huh?" He looked down again at his homework and continued straining himself over the difficult passage.
She tapped again and he looked up in return, this time fixing his eyes on her shoulder in his timidity.
"I can see you're struggling, cuz that's how I struggled back then as well."
What had he even been reading that had caused him so much trouble? That was lost to the lined hands of Father Time.
In a low voice he responded: "I already rely on you with Tartarus. I just wanted someone near me while I study. I couldn't even give you anything in return given you're older than me."
She paused for a moment, locking her hands, the pen trapped in between. "That's all well and good, and you're reliable and all, but you also gotta let people help you as well. You'll just get all angry no one helps you even though you don't ask for it. Just ask for it outside Tartarus, kay? And it's not all about giving and returning. It's not a math equation."
It wasn't the grandest thing to say to someone, but it had shocked him to hear something like that. He briefly demurred before showing her the passage. She smiled and explained, although this is where his memory failed him. It agonized him throughout his life what passage he had struggled over. But the struggle was insignificant in the face of the girl who had become his first big sister figure in a ring of them.