goodnight moon & goodnight you

[imugi]

title: a time for tomorrow.
dedication: larvayne

series: Persona 3 (Portable)
characters: FeMC & Shinjiro

rating: pg-13

summary: How to fall in love in 30 days.
author notes: --

The first time Shinjiro sees her, it's in the white halls of the hospital. He doesn't know her name, only thinks that there's something odd about her, the way she stands out so vividly in a colorless room. He thinks that maybe the only reason he notices is because she's someone that isn't himself or Mitsuru, someone visiting his friend of so many years— a friend always (always) too absorbed in his training to surround himself with people. He thinks it's strange, and he thinks she's strange, and he thinks that this other feeling he can't identify is certainly strange.

He writes it off as an out-of-place sort of jealousy, and stops himself before he confronts her, the unspoken words tasting bitter on his tongue. She stares up at him with wide eyes as he lingers there, and he's close enough to catch the faint scent of strawberries from her skin. He half expects her to recoil, or to voice some sort of fear or disgust, but in the end she does neither of these things.

He feels Aki's eyes burning into his back, a warning to play nice, and so he forces himself to brush by with barely a word spoken between them.

It would likely be their last encounter, anyway, he reasons, and doesn't look back.


.


It's some time later before he realizes how wrong he was. About everything.

He finds himself in a place he never thought he'd be again, surrounded by people he wishes would leave him, walk away and away until the distance is great enough to crush these temptations to reach out. Instead they are here, right under his nose, and he feels his fingers twitch and his insides rend with the consequences of his own isolation. It's only been a few hours since he walked through those doors, and already he feels suffocated by regrets.

He nearly jumps and withdraws when a gentle hand touches his arm to call his attention. There she is again, having braved the walk to the furthest corner of the lounge, smiling and carrying the scent of peaches with her.

“Here, senpai. You can go first.” And she's still smiling and offering her towel to him, a soft blue color that seems out of place in her arms for a reason he can't pinpoint. He bites back his words again, knowing it's been too long since he's properly washed the dirt and grime from his skin, and opens his arms to accept her offer. The fabric is soft and smells cleaner than anything he's touched in two years.

“... Thanks.”

The soap and water does feel good against his skin, and steam floods the room like a thick fog when he cranks it up to the highest temperature he can (or can't) bear. His skin is turning red, but he knows that it's not - can never be - scalding enough to burn away the weight of his sins. He presses his face against the wall and waits until it becomes too difficult to breathe, seeing crimson in the drops of water that trail down the glassy surface before his eyes.

When he wraps himself in a towel and opens the door, he's surprised to find that she's the first thing he sees through the abating fog, standing there with something clutched in her arms. Her face darkens a few shades and she averts her eyes, but he stares at her impassively until she gathers the courage to offer out what she's been holding— a fresh change of clothes.

“... Akihiko-senpai helped to pick them out. I hope you'll use them.” She mistakenly says it as if she expects him to stay as he is, and for the first time since their encounter, he begins to feel embarrassed himself.

They're dark in color, not much different from what he was wearing previously. But they're new and clean, two things that he's learned throughout the course of his life that make all the difference in the world.


.


She avoids him for a couple of days. Aki is the only one to continue his approaches, some thinly-veiled hope shining in his eyes. The visits only make Shinjiro feel worse, and so he spends his evenings at the dorm alone, his mind's eye constantly trained on the small boy sharing the same space. He pretends not to notice when Ken looks at him, feigns ignorance though it makes his stomach coil.

His coat is gone when he wakes up on the third morning.

He tries not to care, knows he lost his right to material possessions a long time ago— but he can't seem to ward away the disappointment and irritation that throbs at his head like a migraine. It lasts only momentarily, as he finds the coat in question hanging by the door when he makes his way downstairs, looking suddenly much redder and no longer stained with unattractive blotches of city waste. The wear is still there; the tears are still there. Maybe he's only imagining things, but he thinks for a moment that one of the sleeves smells faintly of raspberries.

She never admits to it, but he knows she's responsible when she approaches him later that evening. She explains that, as the appointed leader, perhaps the two of them should become acquainted. Without thinking, he accepts.


.


The two of them rarely encounter each other during the day, but he learns to become accustomed to her presence in the evenings. On nights when the plans of going to Tartarus are bypassed and most retire early, she usually finds him settled alone on one of the sofas in the lounge. He doesn't know what to feel when she wanders over to seat herself at the other end, but he thinks that he's not imagining the fact that she seems to choose a closer spot each time.

Her face is colored pink from the cold this time, having just returned from the mall moments before. She chatters excitedly about the songs she sang at the karaoke even without his prompting, and so he rests his head in one of his hands and listens quietly.

“It was a little difficult to sing. Do you know it, senpai?”

She's already fiddling with something looped around her neck before he can formulate a reply. He finds that he wouldn't know what to say anyway, suddenly at a loss. It feels foreign, as if the two of them belong to entirely different planes of existence.

“I don't really—”

She leans forward and he swallows the rest of his sentence, feeling her press one of her hands against his ear. A soft string of music starts from the earphone, and she smiles and does the same to herself with the one that remains, closing her eyes in a blissful sort of appreciation. He feels unsettled again, those familiar knots twisting in his stomach, but he tries to concentrate on the sound, instead.

Too comfortable, a voice in the back of his head warns, but he's too tired to pay it any mind. He brings a hand up and cautiously cups it around the one against his ear. She seems to start at that, her eyes flying open, but he speaks before she can react.

“It's not really my kind of music...”

He decides then that he doesn't like the way she's looking at him, doesn't like the feelings it begins to stir, and so he pulls her hand away and breaks that infuriatingly gentle string of music. She seems to understand the message, and presses both of her hands into her lap.

She glances over at him again after a moment, bravely. “What kind of music do you like, then?”

And he laughs, if only because the question is so simple and so absurd directed toward someone like him, and if only because he'd never again imagined being asked a question so simple and so absurd before the day he dies. She doesn't understand the humor, but she smiles again, and he finds himself strangely relieved.

“You're pretty weird, you know.”


.


There's a night where he almost thinks he won't make it back to the dorm, stumbling along dark alleys even when he can't see straight. His throat is burning, and he's eventually forced to stop in order to relieve the pressure in his chest, coughing until he feels raw and recognizes the slick feel of blood against his palm. He can taste it even in his mouth, mixed with the sour flavor of bile.

He wipes it against his coat, letting the two colors mix and blend. The action brings him momentary remorse, knowing that it had just been cleaned not even a month ago, not knowing when he'd have a similar opportunity— or if he'd even live long enough for it to matter.

But he couldn't let them see— couldn't let him or her see— and he's already stumbling through the doors even as the floor of the lounge seems to move up to meet him with a sickening thud.

Someone screams— Senpai?!— and he squeezes his eyes shut to block out the thoughts of what this could mean, who it is, and why they sound so panicked. But, in no time at all, there's already a pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders and someone breathing against his ear, whispering words he can't understand. He groans, and waits for his head to clear.

“—happened? I'll go get Mitsuru-senpai!”

“Wait,” his voice comes out in a heavy rasp, and he clutches her arm before she can move. “It's alright.”

When his vision steadies and he can see her properly, she has this bewildered look on her face, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears. Maybe it's only because his focus is still muddled and confused, but he has this fleeting thought that she's beautiful.

“... Shit,” he mutters and dislodges himself from her trembling arms, sitting up and rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth. “Need to brush my teeth.”

Her laugh is watery and relieved, and he decides to be compliant and allow her to lead him to the washroom. He spits in the sink a few times, washes his hands and face, and then the two of them brush their teeth together. He watches her face in the mirror, reaching out to swipe at a dribble of toothpaste that drips down the slope of her chin.

The next day, he makes her promise not to cry.


.


He's lost his pocket watch.

Maybe it shouldn't mean anything. But, like his coat, it was one of his few material possessions— one of the few things that he could call his own. It was old, but it still worked, and it was still his.

And so, the morning after having realized it was gone, he retraces his steps in the chill of the dawn.

He remembers the day Aki bought that watch, exactly one year after the fire that had taken Miki's life. He'd explained to Shinjiro the reason why he liked watches so much— because they always moved forward, and never stopped. Of course, that wasn't all accurate. A watch was just a piece of machinery, after all, and those things always have a tendency to break.

“You know why I like watches?” Shinjiro had asked.

Aki had glanced over at him with genuine interest. “Why?”

“Because they tell time.”

It'd been a pretty smartass answer to give, and he'd gotten quite the dirty look for it. But they'd still been kids, had been excused from taking everything so seriously. They'd already experienced far too much of the serious parts of life, and it wasn't about to stop there.

The day Aki had joined SEES, he'd given that watch to Shinjiro, told him that he didn't need it anymore. Shinjiro had considered getting rid of it himself, but in the end he supposes that the both of them were a pair of sentimental idiots.

By the time the afternoon rolls around and he finds nothing, he's already resolved himself to buying a new one with the little money he has. But something else catches his eye, instead— a dainty looking wristwatch with a pink leather strap. He thinks of that girl and her promise not to cry, and he thinks of a young Aki's words— because they always move forward— and he doesn't know why he buys it, but he does.

He sits on a bench and dangles it in front of his face, suddenly uncertain. He knows that he's already too involved. He knows that she doesn't need anything from someone like him. It's a long time before he presses it into his pocket and decides to forget about it.

The day that she smiles and holds out a beat-up old pocket watch in her hands is the day that he subconsciously realizes that he's fallen.


.


It's the first of October and Shinjiro feels sick. Not because of the pills that are eating away at his body, and not because the full moon is only a scant few days away. He's been having nightmares lately, always does around this time. They become increasingly more vivid each night, and he worries that soon he'll become overtired and begin to hallucinate, or fall asleep and never wake up. Maybe the latter should have been preferable.

She's been watching him, he knows. He feels her eyes on him as he moves around the dorm, has become all too aware of that sort of thing lately. When she gets close enough, he notes that she's chosen to smell like flowers instead of fruits, and has flower-shaped pins fastened in her hair.

When he unintentionally dozes off in a corner of the second floor, Koromaru in his lap, she rouses him awake with a hand on his shoulder.

“... Senpai? Your room isn't very far... Are you alright?”

He swallows the dryness from his throat and stands, gently swatting her hand away. But when he makes to move to his room without a word, she fists her hands in his coat and holds on tight. He's confused at first, but feels immediately guilty when he spots the worried look in her eyes. It's the sort of worry that's wasted on him, he knows— But when he glances down at those hands, he notes that she's taken to wearing the watch that he's given her.

He reaches up and brushes his fingers against the side of her face, a gesture that's oddly tender. When he leans in just slightly, her eyes widen and her grip loosens, and he suddenly remembers himself and frowns.

Damn it. This is...

“I'm fine. So you can go to bed,” he tells her, and pulls away to retreat, leaving her confused in the lobby of the second floor.


.


She approaches him again the next evening with much more resolve, takes him off-guard and keeps at it until she's forced her way into his room. It's completely unexpected, and completely embarrassing, but also exciting— and he can't help the feral sort of possessiveness that arises when she brazenly rejects all of his attempts to deter her.

He knows she's not fully prepared for the consequences of her words when she jumps at the feeling of his fingers trailing up the soft skin of her abdomen. But he's already held back for too long, can't do anything but let her bear the weight of whatever new door she's opened. He reaches back to pull out the clips and elastics that hold up her hair, leaning over and suddenly aware of just how small she really is.

The first time he kisses her is in his room, by the dim light of the lamp on his desk. She grasps for his shoulders and he forces himself to be gentle, even though his gut is burning and he wants to be aggressive, to drink her up until there's nothing left. He knows that he has no more time, feels it under his skin and in his bones, but he wants to give her what he can.

She starts crying halfway through. He doesn't understand, but he decides not to question it when she shakes her head and manages to smile. He rolls his eyes and feels his own face grow warm, but he presses her to the bed nonetheless, and leans over to trail his lips along the salty trail of her tears.

Always move forward.

She stays with him the whole night, curled comfortably against his chest. He stays mostly awake and drowses, afraid to rouse her should he thrash in his sleep. He thinks about Aki, fighting for the future, and he thinks about Ken. He thinks about this girl and her promise. He counts down the seconds until midnight, ticking from the pocket watch sitting on the floor by his bed.

Don't look back.

He hopes that they won't.