Chapter Text
11/4
It had been a month since Shinjiro’s death. A month full of dread and waiting for the end. His dying face kept popping into Minato’s head, like a jumpscare. Each day he lives, it feels more and more like punishment.
Minato was out on the streets near Iwaitodai station walking around gloomily. An hour before, the chairman of Gekkoukan High, who seemed to be a trusting person, betrayed SEES. He used Aigis to summon the so-called ‘God of Death’ and kept calling himself a ‘prince’. They had been working together for months now, so why did it have to end up like this? Why did the chairman have to do that? And now, poor Aigis is barely functioning. Her dead eyes while fighting against her was frightening.
Each death that happened was a constant reminder of his parents’ deaths.
Why? Why did he have to feel this way? Why couldn’t he save them? He sat down on one of the steps leading into Iwaitodai station. The cold concrete stairs temporarily relieved him from his dispirited thoughts. He thought back to the exchange he had before with Pharos. He was sitting on a blue couch, sulking. While Pharos was kneeling beside him, whispering poisonous words into his ears.
“Why bother making friends? They’ll leave eventually and you’ll get hurt.” the voice of Pharos echoed in his head. “You don’t need anything. You don’t want anything.”
The boy was right. What is the point of even having any friends? He’ll just get hurt over and over again. It’s a vicious cycle. He placed his hands in his pockets to feel some kind of warmth.
Maybe, if he wasn’t even born at all, none of this would’ve ever happened.
The sounds of footsteps slowly trailed from behind him. He noticed the noise, but didn’t move. He could care less about the things around him right now. It came closer, until it stopped closely behind him. He felt a light tap on his shoulder. Then, he looked behind him to see a tall boy with a yellow scarf wrapped around him. He had slick back black hair, two extremely big blue eyes and a mole under his left eye.
“Good evening.” The boy said with a smile. He walked down the stairs and sat next to Minato. “You know, it’s dangerous to be alone at night. What are you doing here?”
“It’s…” Minato mumbled. He examined the stranger carefully.
“... nothing?” The boy said, finishing his sentence. “If you’re not doing anything, then why not talk to me?”
Minato stared at him. The boy looked nice enough, but… if he were to create friends–he’d get hurt, wouldn’t he? In return, the boy would get hurt too. And what if the boy died? What if he fails him just like all the others? He already had enough grief in his body, he didn’t need anymore. He stood up and started walking away.
“Hey? Where are you going?” the boy asked.
Minato stopped and idled. “I have…” he trailed off, and started walking again.
“... nothing to say, so I’m leaving?” The boy finished his sentence once more. He sat there, hoping that Minato would come back.
Minato ignored his words and continued walking forwards, without batting an eye to the lonesome boy.
“That makes me sad.” The boy responded to Minato’s ignorance.
Minato didn’t falter and kept walking. Eventually, when he got a bit further away, he looked back. The boy had completely disappeared in the few seconds he walked. Gone, with no trace left behind. It was curious, but he shrugged it off. It didn’t matter as long as he didn’t get close with the boy.
11/9
The classroom was lively as ever with students, each in their own group. Yukari and Junpei were standing around Aigis, happy that their robot friend had gotten repaired. Their faces were filled with joy. The sound of the door opening caught their attention. Minato walked through the door. He seemed to look more ill. These few days, they were worried about him. He’s been more distant than before and he had started avoiding them entirely; as if he was scared of them.
Junpei waved and ran towards him. “Yo, Minato! What’s up?” he said loudly, with Yukari and Aigis tagging behind. Junpei tried to be the most cheerful he can, in hopes of Minato feeling better. The students in the class were attracted by the sound and glanced at them for a moment before returning to their conversation.
Minato looked at the three and felt his heart drop a little. It was depressing to know that each friend he makes will leave or die with time. Each person who has a relationship with him will always get hurt. In all honesty, he wanted to be selfish and have companionship. But–to not feel sadness ever again and to not hurt others–it’d be better just to push them away.
“Minato-san?” Aigis worried, walking in front of Junpei to see Minato. Even as a robot, she had noticed the drastic change in his emotions. It was wounding to see the one she vowed to protect suffering.
Before Yukari had the chance to talk to her friend, the bell rang. Everyone quickly went to their seats and sat down. The teacher, Ms. Toriumi walked in with a boy wearing a scarf into the class.
“Good morning, class.” Ms. Toriumi spoke with confidence. “We have another transfer student joining us.” She looked at the boy standing next to her, telling him to introduce himself.
“I’m Ryoji Mochizuki. I’m from abroad, so please show me the norms here.” he winked, charming the attention of everyone in the class.
Whispers erupted from the class praising his beauty and handsomeness. Students were already preparing to ask him out after class. Minato remained indifferent as Mochizuki was just a person. A person he doesn’t know anything about or even care about.
“It’s you!” Mochizuki looked at Minato. “Small world, huh?”
Minato looked up to see the boy from the other day. His eyes widened at the coincidence of them being in the same class.
“Oh? You know Arisato-kun?” Toriumi asked, “why don’t you sit next to him, then?”
He nodded and walked to the empty desk beside Minato. He took out the chair and smiled quietly at him. Minato stared and then looked ahead, waiting for class to start.
“Hey, what’s your name?” Mochizuki said in a soft voice.
“Minato Arisato,” he replied, not giving him a glance of his face.
“You can look at me, you know? I don’t bite,” Mochizuki smirked. “I don’t mind being with men, if you want to know.”
Minato looked away in a cringe. He didn’t need any type of attention, especially the romantic kind. The background chatter became slightly louder, gossiping about the new transfer flirting with the same gender.
Aigis turned her head around to face the new transfer. She looked at him with fierce eyes, seeming angry. Mochizuki was too busy looking at Minato to notice the girl staring at him.
“Alright, settle down now.” the teacher announced. The class quieted. “Now, remember—we have a trip coming up soon, on the 17th—“
“I request that I switch seats with Mochizuki-san.” Aigis interrupted Ms. Toriumi, sternly looking at Mochizuki. All heads in the classroom turned to her. Yukari looked worried unlike the others, unsure of what Aigis’ next action was. Aigis turned to look at the teacher and raised her hand. “Please, Ms. Toriumi. Mochizuki-san is dangerous and must stay away from Minato.”
Mochizuki and Minato looked over at Aigis. Mochizuki hushed in closer to Minato. “Did I do something?”
“Dunno.” he answered. Aigis’ behaviour was puzzling. Could it be an error? Whatever, it didn’t matter to Minato anyway.
Ms. Toriumi paused for a second, confused as to what was happening.
“I’m sorry if I offended you or anything.” Mochizuki spoke up. “Can I treat you to dinner as an apology?”
“Aigis-san, no. Stay in your seat.” Toriumi sighed. “You’ve disrupted the class enough.”
Aigis lowered her hand, disappointed.
—
Dinggg. The bell rang for the end of the day.
Finally, Minato could finally go back to his room. He didn’t have to deal with reality for the rest of the day. He got up from his seat and took his bag, proceeding to walk to the door before being stopped by a familiar someone.
“Arisato!” Mochizuki spoke cheerfully. “What are you doing after school? Wanna come to my welcome party?”
Minato continued to walk towards the door with Mochizuki following from behind bombarding him with questions. A hand suddenly flew up, separating the two.
“I cannot allow you to hang out with Minato-san.” Aigis said.
“Do you want to join too, Aigis?” Mochizuki asked obliviously. Aigis almost looked offended at the question.
Taking the distraction, Minato slipped out of the class silently while the two bickered. He put on his headphones and blasted his music. He kept walking forwards without looking back at the classroom even though he so badly wanted to be next to others. He knows he’ll fail them. It’s a suffocating feeling.
A person stood in front of Minato, Toriumi. He was stopped in his tracks. Dismayed, he took off his headphones.
“Sorry to bother Arisato-kun but, could you get Mochizuki and take him to the faculty office?” she requested and handed him some papers. “Oh, and give this to him too.”
Minato nodded silently and headed back to class. As he walked, he observed the students talking to each other contently. A broken melody played in his heart. He wanted to be able to talk with others too—to become closer. However, he knew all too well the consequences.
He opened the door and saw Aigis about to subdue Mochizuki with Tomochika attempting to pull Aigis away while Junpei tried to speak to her. His eyes widened in fear, scared that Mochizuki might pass out or… die.
“Aigis!” he yelled, stopping the robot from proceeding with her action. Everyone looked at him with relief. “What are you doing?!”
Junpei ran to Minato, holding him by his shoulders. “You gotta stop Aigis, dude!”
“Hello, Minato-san.” Aigis said. “I am getting rid of all possibilities of danger.”
“Don’t! Don’t do that…” Minato ordered. Aigis unhandled Mochizuki’s scarf. Tomochika quickly ran to Mochizuki’s side and helped him fix his scarf.
“Is there a reason?” Aigis questioned, walking to Minato and Junpei.
“He hasn’t done anything that would put any of us in danger, he isn’t bad.”
“Yeah! All he does is just flirt with everyone anyways.” Junpei butted in.
She stared at them, thinking. It was true that Mochizuki hasn’t done anything yet. “I suppose you are correct.” she raised her hand to her torso. “However, I will attack if he does anything suspicious.”
The last sentence she spoke was slightly concerning. Thankfully, Minato was able to stop Aigis from killing Mochizuki. Junpei smiled in relief and placed his hands behind his head. Then, Minato pushed past them with the two following behind. He walked towards Mochizuki.
“Are you okay?” Minato asked Mochizuki, ignoring Tomochika.
“Yeah, don’t worry! If it weren’t for you–”
“Do you have your papers?”
“Huh?” Mochizuki tilted his head curiously.
“Student registration forms.”
“Oh yeah! I do. What for?”
“Isn't it kinda obvious, Ryoji?” Tomochika bumped him on the arm playfully. “You need to get them to the faculty office.”
Mochizuki stared over at Minato. “Well, I don’t know where the faculty office is. You’re going to take me, right?
“Did you want him to take you?” Minato said, glancing over at Junpei. Junpei smiled brightly, looking proud.
Mochizuki looked shocked. “No! I mean, no. I want you to take me, Arisato!”
“Hey man!” Junpei’s smile visibly dropped.
“I shall come too.” Aigis said, walking between the two.
“I’ll be fine.” Minato shook his head. “Go hang out with Junpei and Tomochika.”
“I will see you at the dorm then.” Aigis’ face remained still. She silently suppressed her annoyance.
Minato left the class without saying another word. The rest looked at each other in silence.
“... shouldn’t you go follow Arisato-san?” Tomochika asked.
Mochizuki perked up, took his papers quickly from his bag and ran out of the room. He quickly caught up because of Minato’s unique blue coloured hair. He tapped him on the shoulder and grinned. Minato peered over his own shoulder and looked back at Mochizuki. He gazed back in front of him, continuing to walk towards the faculty office.
“Arisato… no, Minato.” Mochizuki spoke. “Can I call you that?”
Minato shrugged, it didn’t matter if he was called by his first name.
“I’ll be taking that as a yes! You can call me Ryoji.”
He nodded once in response.
“Minato, why are you so distant from others?”
He stayed silent.
“Are you afraid of something?”
Minato picked up his pace. Now a few meters away from Ryoji.
“Ah! Wait!” Ryoji ran. “You don’t have to be afraid of people.” He continued as they walked down the stairs. “Your presence seems to mean a lot to your friends.”
“What makes you think that…?” Minato spoke his first words of the conversation, slowly warming up to him. If his friends deemed him important, then would they really leave him? What if he fails them, just like with Shinjiro? The memory of Shinji’s dying face sent chills down his spine. He never wants to fail another person, ever again.
“From what I can tell, Junpei-kun was talking about how cool you were. He came up to you immediately when I was in trouble probably because he really trusts you. And Aigis–”
“We’re here.” Minato stopped and opened the faculty office door. If he heard anymore, he would selfishly get attached. Then, they would betray him or the worse outcome; he would fail them. Death would embrace them, without him being able to do anything.
The door revealed many chairs and a few teachers working. They walked into the room and made their way towards Ms. Toriumi.
“Hello, Ms. Toriumi!” Ryoji said, catching her attention. She spun around in her chair and looked up at them. He handed the papers to her.
“Thanks,” Toriumi examined the papers. “I’ll be submitting this… after I bring those piles of boxes to the music room.” she hinted, wanting the students to do it for her.
Ryoji’s eyes widened. Minato turned to leave. “We’ll help!” he said enthusiastically. “We can’t let a hard working teacher do everything, can we, Minato?”
Minato looked in the opposite direction, avoiding eye contact.
“I don’t know the way to the music room, so you’ll have to help out either way.”
“…Okay.” he reluctantly agreed.
“Thank you both. Oh, Mochizuki, the Kyoto trip groups; you’ll be with Arisato and Junpei..” Toriumi said, twirling back to her desk. “Now, be on your way.”
The two took one box each and headed to the door. “Bye, Ms. Toriumi!” Ryoji winked. Minato pushed on his back slightly with his box telling him to get a move on.
They walked quietly to the music room. Ryoji tried to make conversation again but Minato didn’t say a word this time. He’d already let himself loose one time, he can’t let himself get close to him. It’d be better just to ignore him. It’d be better for the two of them to never become friends.
As they walked, an average looking girl walked up to Ryoji. She had black hair and bangs, alongside two small pigtails on her head. Her hands were behind her back as she nervously stepped.
“Hello, Mochizuki-kun!” she placed her hands on her hips, wanting to seem more mature.
Ryoji looked down at her and gave her his signature smile. “Well, hello! It seems like the gods have blessed me with a beautiful lady.” he flirted.
“Ha, so the rumours are true…” her voice faded as Minato’s mind focused on something else.
Minato watched them talk back and forth, without hearing any voices. He felt a tinge of sadness in his heart seeing Ryoji flirt with someone he had just met. Why? Why does he feel sadness about such a small problem? They weren’t even together–was he already getting too attached? This was bad news, horrible news in fact.
No, no, no. He repeated in his head. I can’t let this happen. I don’t want this feeling to stay any longer.
“Ryoji.” Minato spoke, interrupting the conversation.
“Ah? What is it?” Ryoji asked. The girl looked mildly disappointed.
“We have to get the boxes to the music room.”
Ryoji faced the girl apologetically. “Sorry, but I gotta go now. You have my number, right? Let’s go to dinner sometime!”
Minato shifted to the opposite direction in discomfort. He walked ahead quickly, trying to distract himself from his feelings.
“Minato! Stop running away from me!” Ryoji complained. “You walk too fast.”
Minato ignored him. He stopped at a door and placed his box down. Then, he opened the door. He took his box from the floor and moved methodically. Ryoji followed, with his eyes set on the grand piano basking in the sunlight. He stared at it, forgetting about the box in his hands.
As Minato prepared to leave, he saw Ryoji admiring the piano.
“Ryoji?”
“Hm?” Ryoji responded, still staring at the piano.
“The box.” Minato pointed.
Ryoji glanced down at the box in his hands. He had only just realised he’d been staring at the piano for way too long. He walked towards Minato’s box, and placed his box right on top. “Thanks for reminding me.” Ryoji said.
Minato nodded his head. He placed his headphones on and headed for the door. Ryoji watched, feeling a bit sad. He wanted to spend a bit more time with him.
All of a sudden, before Minato got the chance to even touch the door, Ryoji grabbed him by the wrist. Minato eyed him, slightly annoyed.
“Minato–um, you like music right? I see you with your headphones all the time.” he smiled awkwardly. “Why don’t I play something for you?”
“Why…” Minato shook away the hand holding his wrist tightly.
“... would you do that?” Ryoji answered for him. “Because you’re my friend.”
Minato felt a small scare inside of him. “Don’t say stuff like that. We’re not…”
“... friends?” he pouted. “...Ah. I still want to play a piece for you, though.”
Hearing Ryoji say things like that made his heart burn. He hated hurting others but it was the only way to avoid any giant catastrophes. He walked backwards to the door, distancing himself more and more.
“Where are you going?”
“I have something…” Minato trailed off as he left the room abruptly.
He walked as naturally as he could, not wanting any attention drawn to him. He didn’t want to think about the way Ryoji spoke, his face or him in general. His voice was so soft, and so saddened. This was for the best, right? This way he can protect others and himself. He’ll never have to worry about failing anyone.
–
Ryoji stood there alone after the interaction. He wasn’t sad or anything, it was more like pity, pity for Minato. He always shuts himself off, stopping anyone from getting close. He was clearly hurt. One could not imagine the horrors he’s been through. He was curious as to what happened; what made him become so reserved?
He walked to the piano he had been eyeing ever since he entered the music room. He opened the lid of the piano, took the seat out and sat down. He readied his hands on the piano keys, and closed his eyes, imagining Minato. Then, he gently started playing a rather melodramatic tune–each note, each sound dedicated to Minato. He started playing louder, showing his raw emotion through the music. He imagined a quiet violin playing with him. The violin played softly, yet with so much passion. As the piece ended in a classic ritardando, Ryoji took a deep breath.
“Minato…” he said in a low voice. “You’ll believe in friendships again, I promise.”