Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Did it really matter who I was?!”

It’s March, a week before you leave, and you’re not sure how you got here, but you’re screaming at them from the metal rafters near the entrance of the TV World, standing high above them with your lip curled in disgust. It’s an expression you know doesn’t suit you, but you can’t stop it any better than you can keep the next words from tumbling from your lips.

“As long as you had a pair of ears to listen to you whine, it didn’t make a difference who they belonged to, did it?!”

“That’s not true!” Rise shouts up at you, her hands clenched in front of her, the ache of that accusation clear on her face. The rest of them are gathered beneath you, their faces with varying expressions of worry and a deep, unsettling fear that simultaneously repels and empowers you.

They should be afraid of me. Guess it does matter who I am when it comes to that.

Your arm is rising like it’s not part of you, gesturing wide. “All any of you wanted was a pair of arms to take you in and accept all your stupid sides!” You point to each of them in turn, a sneer splitting your face, too wide and with too many teeth to really feel like you.

“A Shadow, a child doing the work of adults, an idol who both loves and loathes the attention she gets, a tough guy with a soft side, a girl who wants to escape her family obligations, a tomboy with an inferiority complex, and a city boy who resents the people around him as much as they resent him! Pathetic! You’re all so wrapped up in your own petty bullshit that as long as someone came along who could protect you, tell you it was okay to be the stupid fucking teenageryou all are, and say whatever you wanted to hear, it didn’t matter if it was me!”

You can feel yourself unraveling, like you had a loose thread somewhere and someone’s pulling it, exposing all this ugliness you’ve kept buried inside you. The feeling makes the resentment grow, because they’re the ones doing this to you, they’re the ones who came to save you because without their human life raft, they’re all going to drown in their pools of self-pity.

“You’re all unbelievably selfish! It didn’t matter if I had someone else I was helping or something else to do, if I couldn’t make time for you, I was a let-down! But if someone else had been around to listen to you, you’d go running to them in a second. It didn’t matter who I was, it didn’t matter if I had thoughts and feelings and needs of my own, as long as I was always there for you!”

Every breath feels like you’re inhaling poison, like you’re breathing it in and filling your lungs and coating your guts with it, like saying these things is expelling this invisible toxin because if you don’t, it’ll consume you from the inside out. You can see the shock and the hurt on their faces, but you can’t stop.

You’re starting to think that maybe you’re the one who’s drowning.

Still, you shriek, mockingly, voice a high falsetto that you loathe as it pierces your eardrums but that you can’t hold back, “Oh, Souji will make me lunch today! Souji will listen to me talk his ear off endlessly about shit he doesn’t care about, as long as it makes me feel better! Souji will clear out his schedule and his obligations and run himself into the fucking ground to help me!”

Throughout your tirade, you can feel your knees buckling, shaking unsteadily beneath you, your arrogant expression melting away, and your vision blurring with tears you hadn’t noticed until just now, the seven people standing beneath you becoming an indistinct smear of color. You’re panicking, the poison inside you is filling every ounce of your being, and you have to do something to get itout. You straighten, locking your knees and breathing deeply, screaming down at them before you can even think about stopping yourself, expelling the venom that’s been building up for the whole year.

“No one, not a single person, ever asked me what I might need, what I might want! What, did you all think I didn’t need anything since I’m your perfect fucking Leader?! What a load of bullshit, I bet you all told yourselves that because it was just too fucking hard for you to stop whining about your lives for a single goddamn second!”

Your face is wet, your breathing heavy, and you can scarcely stand.

“Was I just the convenient friend?” you ask softly, your voice cracking, and then you’re tipping forward, falling toward the ground, toward that aptly painted target with the outlines of bodies on it. You think this is the end, but there’s a flash of blue light from beneath you, and a moment later Susano-O has you in his arms and is setting you delicately down on the ground so you’re standing on yet-unsteady feet.

And then Yosuke slams into your chest, knocks you onto your back, and punches you in the face as hard as he can.

You see stars and taste blood, and it’s suddenly the most human you’ve felt since you woke up the TV World. and you can only stare up blankly as Yosuke glares down at you, tears streaming down his face even as his jaw clenches in anger.

“You fucking idiot,” he begins, slowly, having to hiss out each word between ragged breaths. “You’re the selfish asshole, here!” He hits you again, and your head twists to the side, your cheek throbbing and your tongue tasting copper. He grabs you by the front of your jacket, shaking you, ignoring the worried “Yosuke-kun” that Yukiko murmurs from somewhere behind him.

“You think you have any goddamn right,” he snarls, so emotional he can barely speak, “to accuse us of being selfish, when you’re the one who just kept it to yourself if you needed something?!” He shakes you again, hard, enough that you can practically feel your brain jerking around inside your skull, jarring enough that you don’t know how to respond.

“If you want something from us, then fucking say something!” Yosuke growls, so close that you can feel his hot breath ghosting over your face. “Or did you just keep quiet so you could blow up at us later, huh?! Do you just not…” He falters, suddenly, his brows knitting together, and makes a face that makes your heart drop into your chest like a rock, because you know that’s the face he makes when he feels the most awful about himself, when he’s taking on blame he doesn’t deserve. It’s the same face he made at the riverbank when you held him and let him soak the shoulder of your shirt with his tears.

“…Do you just not trust us?” he asks, finally, but his voice this time is achingly small, all his hurt seeping through the cracks of his anger. But the question also freezes all the resentment in your heart, and you study his face even though you can barely meet his eyes. You’ve wounded him, honestly and deeply, and when you look behind him at the others you can tell you’ve hurt them all, and even if you knew that, even if you knew on some level that hurting them was your goal, you feel a wave of intense, awful regret. You look back at Yosuke’s face, and he’s looking at you again with the same intensity, seeing right through the mask you’ve put up like he can peer through your eyes and into your very soul.

I don’t want to leave.

The voice trembles in the back of your mind. Your voice. It’s as though Yosuke’s pulled the last of the thread away, and you suddenly feel small, exposed, like everything up until now was a big show, a distraction from your deepest and truest fears. Your mouth moves against your will, and you whisper those words to him, your partner, because you know that it’s not them you don’t trust.

It’s yourself.

“I don’t want to leave.”

And then Yosuke’s arms are around you, tighter than anything, squeezing the air and the rest of that poison out of your body, and his face is wet and so is yours but you don’t care, because he’s warm and solid and real and you don’t have to leave, not yet. He presses a hand to your face and the Dia spell warms you, the bruises fading as he heals the damage he's done. You can see the others over his shoulder, their faces worried but no longer afraid, as Yosuke presses into your ear and murmurs to you, the last of your walls coming down with every one of his words.

“And you think it’s easier not to be hurt if you hurt us first, right?” he suggests, as observant as always, giving a soft, shaky laugh. “Shutting people out… It doesn’t work like that, I should know. Remember, Partner?”

“But, what if…” you choke, your real fears surfacing before you can stop them. “What if you don’t want me when you find out I’m like this? What if you think I’m not strong enough to help?”

It’s bubbling up inside you, and your vocal cords constrict for only a moment before you finally ask the question that’s been tearing you apart.

“What if you don’t need me anymore…?”

“What are you, a moron?!” Kanji shouts, suddenly, making everyone jump and Yosuke tense against you. “Of course we need you, Senpai! Y’think we were just throwin’ ourselves in front of all that shit because we didn’t care about you?!”

“I mean, yeah, we do still need you. We’re all still kinda screwed up, here,” Chie says, sheepishly, kicking the ground with her foot. “None of us are perfect, so…”

Naoto adjusts her hat, doing a poor job of masking her relief, and adds, “Pardon my rudeness, but I would also include you in that statement, Senpai. So I can only deduce that you must also still need us, as well.”

“You’re our friend, Senpai, and we love you!” Rise chimes in, managing somehow to speak clearly through her tears. “If you needed us for something, you really should have said so, stupid!”

Teddie hops up and down, squeaking with every jump, and yells, “And what about Nana-chan?! I can’t bear-lieve you’d think that about her, too!”

“You’re coming back to visit, and that’s final.” Yukiko says decisively, fanning herself a few times. “I won’t allow you to just leave and never come back.”

“We do need you, Partner,” Yosuke finishes, letting go of you long enough to grasp your shoulders tightly, “and it totally matters that you’re you. You’re the guy who eats gross crap out of the fridge until you make yourself sick, you’re late sometimes because you stopped to pet a freakin’ cat for like, hours, and you’ve got a little sister complex that’s actually kinda creepy…” He trails off, and peers at you.

“Actually,” he says with a laugh, “maybe you do need help more than we do, you weirdo.”

Yukiko snorts, loudly, and then she’s off, doubling over and laughing uncontrollably. Chie lets out an audible and over-dramatic sigh, but then also starts to snicker despite herself. It spreads through the rest of them almost immediately until they’re all laughing, with Yukiko gasping “it’s true, it’s true” between her giggles. Yosuke glances back at them, then smiles at you, and you can’t help but smile back, because your partner’s grins have always been contagious.

In the reflection of his glasses, you can see your eyes fade from yellow to grey, and you wrap your arms around Yosuke’s torso, holding him tightly. It’s starting to become familiar, this feeling of him against you, and you almost say something about it, but it’s interrupted by Rise appearing behind you, pressing herself into your back.

“Senpai, don’t ever do that again, okay?” she begs tearfully, rubbing her face between your shoulder blades. Then the rest of them descend on you, until you’re drowning in a different way, surrounded by the warmth of your closest friends, with Yosuke complaining loudly in your ear about how “that’s my foot, Ted, move,” and Rise crying into your uniform, and Kanji trying to act like he’snot, and Yukiko still laughing, and Chie still sighing at her, and Naoto pretending like she hasn’t reached in past everyone and grasped your hand tightly in hers.

They finally pull away and Yosuke helps you to your feet, still smiling, even through you can see the tear tracks on his face.

“Let’s go home, Partner.”

He doesn’t let go of your hand as he pulls you back toward the exit. Chie declares that this calls for a celebration, and that Yosuke is treating them all to steak. Yosuke squawks in indignation, ignored by the cheers of everyone else, and you can’t help but laugh again.

It feels good, like something else is filling you with every breath, something warm and happy and nothing you need to get rid of, not this time. It’s something that you’ll collect this last week and hold inside yourself for the train ride back to your parents’ house, something you’ll treasure until you can make it back here, to this place, and be with them again.

You watch everyone else disappear through the exit, and then plant your feet before Yosuke goes through. He’s still got your hand, so he stops when you do, turning to look over his shoulder, confused.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, coming back to stand in front of you. “Need something?”

“I want…” you begin, unsteadily, and then your words stop, and you’re unable to work them out through your throat. Everything feels better, infinitely so, but you didn’t tell them everything. This is between you and him.

“What?” Yosuke prompts you, leaning closer. “Tell me.”

You kiss him, instead.

It’s brief, shy, and you can already feel your face warming as you pull away. You’re embarrassed, opening your mouth to stammer out an explanation because you’re terrified that you’re about to regret that, that he’s going to take back everything he’s said and you’re going to leave in a week knowing your best friend hates you.

Yosuke stares at you, but he’s not angry. He’s startled, clearly, but as you finally bring yourself to look at him you see something you didn’t expect.

Relief?

He sags like he’s just dropped a heavy weight to the floor, and before you can say a word he’s got you in his arms again, tight against his chest and he’s kissing you back, forceful and hungry enough that you don’t need him to put words to how long he’s probably wanted to do this with you. He’s tangled one hand in the back of your jacket and the other in your hair and god, you’re both awful at kissing, but it doesn’t matter. You gasp against his lips and struggle to breathe through your nose and it’s like you’re drowning for a third time, suffocating in his smell, crushed tightly and desperately to his chest.

He breaks away, finally, staring at you with wide-eyes like he wasn’t the one who initiated that. For a second he looks terrified, but he’s got your hand in his again, somehow.

“Partner, I—” he begins, and hesitates.

“Shh,” you say, “later.”

“You… You should’ve said something sooner…”

“I know. You, too.”

“…I know.”

There’s an awkward pause, and then you glance toward the TV with a jolt, because there’s six faces all pressed through the exit televisions, gaping open-mouthed at you both. Naoto’s disappears with a yelp almost immediately upon being spotted, and Kanji’s bright red face splutters something about how he’s probably gonna punch Yosuke later but then he pulls back, too. Yosuke can’t even speak, his mouth moving up and down wordlessly, until Rise wolf-whistles loudly at you both and Teddie pipes up with the inevitable question.

“Is this scoring?! Yuki-chan, is this how you get a hot stud?!”

“I’m gonna make you disappear, bear!” Yukiko growls, and then the two of them are gone, followed by Chie, leaving Rise there, smirking at them both and opening her mouth to say something smug, but instead she shrieks.

“Okay, who touched my butt?!” she demands, and then she’s gone, leaving you and Yosuke alone again, the faint sounds of the chaos on the other side echoing through the television screens. Yosuke still can’t say anything, but you start to laugh, despite your horror at having been seen.

“We might want to go make sure they don’t totally destroy the electronics department,” you suggest, giving Yosuke’s hand a squeeze. Yosuke blinks like he’s been snapped out of something, and then visibly cringes.

“Oh crap, you’re right! My old man will totally kill me!” he yelps, pulling you toward the exit, glancing back over his shoulder. “I think you’ve got a busy week ahead of you. I can see your schedule filling up already.”

“With cleaning up your messes, maybe?” you ask, smirking.

“Hey, I’ll help if you do!” Yosuke snaps back with feigned indignation, then leans back long enough to kiss you once more before diving toward the exit. “Let’s go, Partner!”

And you do.