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SEPTEMBER:
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Chihiro is looking more nervous than usual when she subtly moves her chair closer to his and whispers, “Is… she really always like this?”
Minato doesn’t need to follow her gaze to know who she’s talking about, but he does it either way. Sure enough, Aigis is sitting two tables away from them and by the looks of it, she’s about to break another stapler. The second today, fifth one in total since she started tagging along to help the Student Council.
“Yeah…” Minato sighs. “Sorry about that, Fushimi-san.”
Chihiro hurries to shake her head. “No, Aigis-senpai’s strength is quite amazing! It’s just… a little scary, maybe?”
He keeps silent at that, gaze returning to Aigis. Scary, huh?
He wakes up every now and then to bullets flying over his head. And there is no doubt that if she were to miscalculate her strength, any of them could end up crushed under her hold. Yet, he has never thought of her as scary; worrisome, yeah, even troublesome, at times. But not scary.
Why is that…?
As if feeling their eyes on her, Aigis chooses that very moment to raise her face. When their eyes meet, she taps the stack of papers neatly arranged on her desk. “I have concluded the assignment you tasked me with, Fushimi-san. Is there anything else I can be of assistance with?”
Chihiro pulls back her chair and gives Aigis a grateful smile. “Thank you very much, Aigis-senpai, but it’s time to have lunch, isn’t it? We have kept you two long enough.”
Ten minutes later, Minato and Aigis are sitting together on the rooftop but Chihiro’s words won’t leave his mind. He takes a look at Aigis from the corner of his eye, wondering if he should say something or not. To be honest, it's a hassle, but he guesses things like these are part of his duty as leader of the team.
Minato can’t help but hold back a sigh. “Aigis… you have to measure your strength when you aren’t at Tartarus. And you definitely can’t use those guns,” he stresses as an afterthought, pointing at her fingertips with his chopsticks.
Aigis cocks her head to the side in what Minato guesses must be confusion. It’s hard to tell, though, since her face remains blank. “But I must remain alert for any possible threat. My highest priority is to ensure your safety.”
He squirms a little in his seat. For some reason he can't pinpoint, he feels rather high-strung whenever Aigis focuses those unblinking blue eyes of hers on him. “There are no threats outside of Tartarus, Aigis, so you don’t have to worry about that.” She looks like she wants to protest, so he tries a different tactic. “Aigis… if people notice, you will put Mitsuru-senpai in a tight spot.”
That seems to do the trick, because Aigis grows thoughtful, shifting her gaze from him to her hands. “Understood,” she concedes, “I will amend my behavior.”
“Thanks.”
Silence settles between them, and Minato isn’t as surprised as he probably should be to realize he feels guilty. He knows Aigis won’t feel hurt for what he just told her, but he can’t help it. He feels ridiculous for it. Like a complete fool.
Because Aigis is a robot and he is so acutely aware of it that it hurts, yet he keeps managing to forget.
“…Whenever you don’t understand something, you can always ask me. Or any of the others. That’s what friends are for, right?” He ends up saying, a poor attempt to comfort someone who doesn’t even need comforting in the first place.
“Friends…” Aigis repeats, voice trailing with something akin to wonderment. Minato’s eyes widen. Whatever he is expecting, this certainly isn’t it. This—the way she turns back to him with the barest hints of a smile on her face, her eyes crinkling just so. “That’s right. I will ask my friends. Thank you, Minato-san.”
And Minato can only stare, because—
Ah… that's right.
Is it really that surprising that he keeps forgetting, when Aigis makes it so easy?
OCTOBER:
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“Minato-san, what are you always listening to?”
Minato blinks at her question, the latest of what has turned out to be a steady and ever-increasing torrent. Aigis has been growing more and more curious, and he isn’t sure what to make of it just yet.
“Music,” he states blandly, more out of habit than any real desire to shun her away. He knows from experience that most people would have rolled their eyes and left by now, but Aigis is not most people. So she remains undeterred and glued to her spot, patiently waiting for him to elaborate. Maybe that’s why he finds himself taking off one earphone and offering it to her.
It’s her turn to blink, now. She glances down at the offered earphone and then back at him with a tentativeness that isn’t quite usual on her. “May I?”
If anything, her uncertainty only makes Minato feel more certain. “Sure.”
Aigis sits by his side and carefully holds the earphone near her sound sensors. He eyes her with slight curiosity, but two songs come and go without her saying a single word. Despite himself, Minato starts to feel a little anxious. “So… do you like it?”
“I do not know,” Aigis admits, and it’s probably his imagination that colors her matter-of-fact tone with a touch of frustration. “I am familiar with the concept of music, but I do not know what criteria I should use to evaluate it.”
He feels his lips quirk up. “Heh… I don’t think it’s that complicated.”
“Eh?”
“You don’t need to be an expert, Aigis,” Minato explains with a slight shrug. “Just focus on how it makes you feel.”
Aigis, unsurprisingly, looks lost. “How it makes me… feel?”
The look on her face is anything but encouraging, so Minato shifts his gaze to his MP3 player; turns it over in his fingers and wonders why he is even bothering when, for all he knows, it’s simply impossible for Aigis to process human emotions.
And still, the words just roll off his tongue. “Aigis… do you want to hear something slower? Faster?”
“I believe slower would be nice,” she says after some deliberation, and Minato guesses that’s a start.
“All right.”
He jumps tracks until his player lands on a song Maya sent him, saying it was from an anime she watched. The vocals aren’t his cup of tea but he still found the melody soothing enough to keep, so he lets it play and leans his head back against the couch, closing his eyes.
He is so engrossed in the song that he almost misses the way Aigis gasps when the chorus starts. He turns only to find her eyes widened with awe, a sight he hasn’t really seen again since that time they met at Yakushima.
“Aigis…?”
“These words,” she tells him, the corner of her lips turning up just so. “They remind me of you.”
He finds himself staring at her, momentarily taken aback by how expressive her face has become. He can’t even recall what the lyrics say and Aigis must be able to tell, because she closes her eyes and recites them for him.
“Within the passing seasons, now there is one certain thing inside of my chest. If it's to protect you, then I won't regret a thing. Because I'll take any pain in your stead, I'll always be by your side,” when her eyes open again, they seem brighter somehow, in a way that makes Minato’s heart speed up a notch. “It sounds like something I would say to you.”
He doesn’t know what to respond any more than he knows what to make of the way Aigis is making him feel, so he settles for the first thing that crosses his mind. “…You have a good memory.”
It’s probably a stupid thing to say, considering she is a robot, but Aigis doesn’t seem to take it that way. “Actually, my memory is just like a human’s. However, I do try to store as much information as I can and decide what ought to be kept and what out to be discarded during my downtime.” She falls silent for a moment, before turning to look at him. “Do you like this song, Minato-san?”
He doesn't have to think twice. “Yeah.”
She nods. “Then, I will remember it.”
There is no fighting the feeling, now. It spreads from his chest to the tips of his fingers and the corners of his mouth, and Minato surprises himself thinking he wouldn’t mind losing this one fight.
DECEMBER
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The morning of the last day of the year finds them in the cemetery, the cold winter breeze biting through Minato’s jacket as he and Aigis watch Junpei pay his respects to Chidori. They stand at a distance, but even the space between them isn’t enough to cloud the stiffness of Junpei’s back, the slight shaking of his shoulders.
“Junpei-san… is probably holding back tears,” Aigis observes, sadly.
“…Yeah.”
“Just as I thought, loss is… a formidable foe.”
Aigis suddenly grows quiet by his side, and Minato doesn’t realize she is hesitating until she turns her sad gaze on him and asks, softly, “Was it like this for you, when you lost your parents?”
For a moment, Minato is too taken aback by the unexpected question to do anything more than stare at Aigis. But then his shoulders relax and he turns back ahead, eyes staring past Junpei and towards the field of graves standing beyond him.
“…At first,” he murmurs, aware that he hasn’t talked about this to anyone in years; not since the mandatory sessions with the counselors came to an end. Somehow, for some reason that he has learned not to question, he finds it easy to talk to Aigis. “It was… hard, getting used to them not being there.”
“I… I’m sorry.”
He notices the way Aigis seems to grow smaller, the crease that draws her brows close together as she stares at her feet. “Aigis…?”
“Had I arrived earlier, I may have been able to do something for them. But then again, the me from back then was…” she trails off, voice quiet. “Perhaps, I would have been too focused on the Appraiser to care.”
“You would have helped them,” Minato tells her with a faint smile, wrapping her fisted hand in his and giving it a reassuring squeeze.
She gives him a hopeful look, eyes trembling with conflicting emotions. “How can you be so certain? You didn’t know me ten years ago.”
She may be right, but Minato thinks it's a pointless thing to worry about.
I know who you are now, Aigis. That’s enough.
“Because your kindness is what makes you who you are, Aigis.”
Her lips part once, twice, but no sound comes out of them. Minato simply waits, patiently, with a steady smile and eyes locked on hers; until Aigis’ fingers finally uncurl in his and she looks back at the ground, a soft smile touching her lips.
“Thank you, Minato-san,” she whispers, squeezing back. Minato wonders, then, when the breeze became so warm.
JANUARY
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A few days after Mewlie passes away, Minato decides to take Aigis to the Zoo. He doesn't know if it'll cheer her up, but figures it's worth a try.
It turns out to be the right thing to do.
As they eat ice cream and watch the birds, Aigis is so awed that she looks like a kid in a candy store. It’s ridiculously endearing and Minato has to get a hold of himself to keep from staring, but he can’t really do anything to wipe the dumb, fond smile off his face.
For some reason he can’t fathom, Aigis seems particularly fond of the albatrosses. She stares at them with mouth agape and one hand hovering near her ribbon, eyes wide and alight. “You seem to like them a lot, Aigis,” he can’t help but say, and she smiles brightly in response.
“I admire them!”
Minato isn’t sure he sees what’s there to admire, so he asks just that.
“No matter the distance, an albatross will always return to the same place, and the same partner. Their bonds last for a lifetime. I read it in the guide,” Aigis’ innocent smile nearly glows when she turns towards Minato, and she has never looked more human. “I wish to be just like that. I wish to always remain by your side.”
A wave of fondness washes over him, making the words spill from his mouth before he can even register them. “You would have to dance for me, right?”
“Eh?”
He darts her a glance, voice playful and deliberately light. “It’s part of their mating ritual, isn’t it?”
The joke seems to be lost on Aigis, because she blinks for a moment before smiling again. “Ah! I’m afraid I don’t know how to dance, but I believe there’s also some vocalizing involved, correct? Perhaps, I could learn to reproduce it.”
She sounds so proud of herself that Minato is almost sorry when he chuckles and admits, “There’s no need, Aigis. I was just joking.”
“So was I,” she reveals, her smile taking a mischievous turn right before his very eyes.
For a long moment, Minato is so stunned he forgets how to breathe.
Then he’s laughing, laughing like he hasn’t laughed in months—and when Aigis joins in, her giggles reverberating through him as if his very chest were made of strings, Minato thinks this is what being in love must feel like.
MARCH
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“It’s been a while since we last came here together.”
His sight is getting blurry but he can still hear Aigis’ smile loud and clear; it’s in her voice, in the contentment that seeps through his sore muscles as the words brush his ears. “Yeah…”
“I’ve… missed this. I’ve missed being with you. I’ve missed you,” she tells him, and something inside Minato’s chest catches. It mixes in with the tranquility, making his heart ache until it hurts to breathe.
“I thought I didn’t know what it felt like to miss someone, but the moment you were gone from my side, I realized I had felt it before… as I waited for you on that pier.” She sounds nostalgic, her smile quivering when she turns to him and admits, “This past month, I thought of approaching you many times, but I was… scared. The thought of you not remembering me was too painful.”
Minato wants nothing more than to tell her he isn’t going to leave her side anymore, but he doesn’t have the heart to make a promise he won’t be able to keep. So all he can do is smile back and hope Aigis will eventually be able to understand what he means when he says, “It’s… all right now, Aigis.”
“Yes… that’s right. You’re here, now.”
The smile reaches her eyes and Minato struggles to not let his own close, to hold back the apology that climbs up his throat.
“Minato-san, you look tired. Please, allow me.”
Her touch is gentle as she guides him to lie down on her lap, her expression almost shy. “Are you… comfortable?”
He gives a soft nod, hoping his eyes can convey all the things he can’t with words alone. “Thanks, Aigis.”
A peaceful silence makes itself at home between them, as Minato fights back the drowsiness to carve this last moment with her in his memory, so it’ll stay with him wherever he goes.
“I’m sorry for making you miss the ceremony, Minato-san,” Aigis says all of a sudden, and he wishes he still had enough strength left to laugh.
“Don’t be. This is… enough,” he whispers with a smile, eyes never leaving her own.
If it’s like this… dying may not be so bad.
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