kinkfest | Neverending Twist [Persona 3 – Minato/Yukari, PG-13] (Reply)

Title: Neverending Twist
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Persona 3: FES and slight Persona 4 spoilers
Word Count: 1,121
Prompt: 29th - Persona 3 – Minato/Yukari: Reunion – A bittersweet romance I wouldn’t trade for anything else in the world

'Encounter leads to Separation, Separation leads to Encounter, the neverending twist of fate.' Belladonna, P2:EP

*

Chihiro Fushimi came to us on graduation day, all stutter and awkward smile, with her eyes at the floor, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the rumors that circulate about the student council affairs were true. About a certain treasurer and a new student council member.

“Congratulations, Takeba-senpai,” Chihiro bowed until her eyes were covered by the glasses.

“Thank you, Fushimi,” I said to the shorter girl, and glanced at the school building. March’s sakura had bloomed in succession again this year, covering Gekkoukan’s ground with white-pinkish petals that reflected off the sun, blinding the students’ eyes. The school’s rooftop was almost unseen, and beside me, I knew Aigis was fixing her eyes at that place, burning the image of the school’s rooftop in her memory bank, about another March morning and another graduation. “Three years is a long time. I don’t want to forget any of it.”

They’ve placed a vase on the desk beside Junpei’s for 40 days on their last year, and when a new student transferred in, Aigis was the one who removed the vase of pink gerberas, telling her classmates it was to honor a memory, to cherish his memories could also be done by moving on.

“Neither do I. That’s why…I’m running for the Student Council president next year,” Chihiro muttered, breaking me out of the day-dream, and for a second I wondered why this younger girl was telling me all this, to someone who she had barely spoken to. Oh, right, the rumors. When you arrived at school with someone, you tend to fell in love with them. In front of us, Fushimi was standing in the middle of sakura petal rain with eyes straight at me, not-slouched and brimming full of confidence. Behind her, the school’s building shone like a newly-built, reminding me of sky-scraping tower, of midnights and other-selfs.

I pushed my bangs out of my eyes, blinked back the imminent tears and smiled back. “I wish you good luck, Fushimi.”

Aigis returned to the lab later that summer. We said our goodbyes; we even declined from ordering food and went to a karaoke despite Mitsuru senpai’s initial hesitation. For my farewell gift, I gave Aigis a new red ribbon which she immediately tied on her neck.

“This way I would resemble Yukari-san,” she had commented with a Metis-like beam, patting the ribbon fondly. For the first time in many months, I remembered that she was not human. It didn’t make the separation any easier, but we hugged each other before her leaving. A pot of pink geranium stood next to the one I had bought last year when she left.

In spite of my onslaught of emotions, I didn’t dream that night.

I found the woman in the velvet dress standing in front of the dorm the next year, still wearing the impossible outfit, fixing her unique-yellowish pupils at the dorm’s building. The Abyss of Time has been gone for a year now, and it showed no signs of a return.

“Are you still looking …?” The woman uttered slowly, taking her time to turn around, pointing a gloved finger at me. “For him?”

“I already found him,” I answered, “or what’s left of his wishes.”

“Yet you’re still unsettled, Yukari Takeba.” The velvet woman said, “Why is it that you seemed reluctant to let go?”

“I never let go,” My fingers slowly furled into fists, fixing my eyes defiantly back at her. “I never had any intentions to let go. If there’s any chance of returning him, I’d fight for it with all of my power. I’d choose him over the world.”

There was a curving of her lips that could be recognized as a cynic grin, and the velvet woman crossed her arms.

“I’m sorry, but who-”

“He chose the living over his own life,” she whispered, “And bound himself to seal Death. He knew his fate the moment Death appeared in front of him.”

“If I can change that--”

“My master has practiced such – you’d need to relieve yourself of your memories, Yukari Takeba, because the world you knew of would be no more, and everything starts anew. Master once gave a human this option, to defy death in exchange for his loved one, but that human could not keep to his word. He was no more,” Strangely, her voice was stricken with grief. “He, on the other hand, had exhausted all options, because that was his choice. It is too late for him.”

Somewhere along her long explanation, my mouth went dry with dread. “Then why do you tell me all this?! Why give me hope when you actually have none?”

“Because I can free him from that seal.”

The shock never came. Ever since we found him crucified at Death’s door, I had been pining, hoping for a release. “But he is not of this world anymore.”

“True,” her smile reminded me of his Messiah, his Orpheus and even Thanatos himself, broken, stone-like and too beautiful to ever be real. “In the end it was for you to decide, Yukari-san.”

Long after Elizabeth-the velvet woman later introduced herself- left, Isis’ whisper rang loudly in my head, Yukari, Yukari, don’t be foolish. You knew, you understood clearly why he sacrificed himself.

Of course, I didn’t tell her I’d rather be a fool.

When I turned to look at her and woke up with my pillow soaked with tears, I finally realized I’ve been dreaming again.

There was that brilliance of the streets when I stepped out of the apartment for work that day.

I was back at Kyoto and my mother was happily re-married with another man and expecting another baby. A small boy and his mother were next of me when I walked down the street, hand in hand. His timid smile was infectious, and he grinned at me when I walked past. “Pink’s cute,” he muttered, and for one cruel second he was another boy with phones over his ear.

When the green light started to blink, he was gone.

“Minato!” His mother screamed, and the boy was running for his ball, diving carelessly into the middle of the street. “Minato! Come back here!”

My mouth tasted like bile when I dived in to the street as an instantaneous reaction. The last thing I heard was the sound of screeching tires near my ear and the pain that disappeared almost instantly.

They said your life flashed before your eyes before your untimely demise.

To me, it did occur.

He was standing next to my father at that supposed to be another side of the pretty river, the phones around his ears and dressed in Gekkoukan’s uniform, extending one hand. A sweet small smile only for me.

“I’ve missed you, Yukari,” he said, pulling me into an embrace, and that was all that mattered.