#in june suddenly your dysphoria disappears

[kittytheartist]

happy pride♡

be safe and love yourself<3

[chroniccombustion]

Caught in the Grey (ch 3)

Genre: Trans!AU, hurt/comfort, romance, angst with a happy ending Rated: T Characters: Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), Yosuke Hanamura, Naoto Shirogane, Kanji Tatsumi, Investigation Team, Izanagi/Shadow!Souji Warnings: depression, dysphoria, disassociation, self-hatred, implied suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts, mentions of homophobia, implied past child abuse and transphobia, canon-typical violence, mild sexual content Status: multi-chapter, incomplete

Playlist: Spotify | Youtube <- previous chapter | next chapter ->

Something is wrong. Yosuke is in the hallway outside their classroom by the time Souji and Kanji have parted ways, backed against the wall by a fuming Chie and a scowling Yukiko. There is a bright red handprint burning across the side of Yosuke’s face. “You!” Chie snarls, fists balled at her sides. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’ve been acting like a jackass all week!”

Chapter 3: The Walls You Made

“You were falling away, you left me with a bittersweet taste But when I send my heart your way, it bounces off the walls you made, ricochet…”

- (“Ricochet”, Starset)

November

 The week stretches on after Souji’s return to school and, for the most part, life has gone back to normal.

There are a few exceptions, of course, such as the newfound rush of safety he feels whenever he and Naoto spot each other in the hallways. The short smiles he gives them are lighter, freer than they would have been the week prior, and in response Naoto’s smiles are soft and warm and reach their eyes without any of the unsurety he knows they still harbor when it comes to actually having friends. He thinks that might be another reason the two of them click so well; Naoto’s used to isolation, too.

The physical kind as well as the mental.

Another happy exception to the normality of everyday life is the way Kanji has taken to meeting him a short distance from school and walking in with him in the mornings. It’s nice, and seeing the way Kanji’s face lights up and his shoulders relax makes Souji happy in ways he can’t quite describe. It reminds him just a bit of when Nanako shows off something she did in class and it makes his heart pulse with pride.

Souji loves all of his friends, of course, and he loves helping people (loves feeling needed, wanted, like maybe he’s worth something after all), but he’s still not used to having people around him, even after months. Souji hates to admit even to himself, but he isn’t sure how to be a friend; there’s a tiny part of him that wonders if he’s only been going through some kind of pre-set motions. He usually tries to discard that thought immediately and replace it with the reminder that he enjoys making his friends happy, spending time with them, doing things with them and not just for them. It helps, if only for a while.

With Kanji and Naoto, though, it seems deeper. He wouldn’t say they’re more important because that sounds too cold, but he acknowledges that those two are definitely in a category all their own. They share secrets with him, and he them – that’s a level of trust and comradery that Souji’s never experienced before.

He’s noticed he tends to put his friends into groups, just for his own mental benefit. Chie was the first person that extended a friendly hand right after he’d arrived in Inaba. Yosuke came soon after, yes, but Chie beat him to it by a day, so Souji counts her as his first friend here. Yukiko, too, though she hadn’t had much time and wasn’t there with them upon their first visits to the TV world, but Yukiko and Chie are a pair and Souji can’t think of one without the other. Separate people, but very much part of a whole.

Teddie and Nanako are in a group together, too, one that overlaps Rise in a kind of venn diagram. Teddie is like an excitable younger brother – not his own, but more like the Group Little Brother – and the bear’s adoration for Nanako is so precious that Souji thinks it might rival his own a little. Nanako is family and Teddie is team family and Rise is something similar that Souji can’t quite name. He likes her, respects her for her strength and willingness to take control of her own life despite her fear. She’s open in a way that Souji wishes he could be, still has an innocence that reminds him of Teddie and Nanako only different, and while Souji can’t give her what she wants in terms of love, she is still dear to him. She’s known loneliness, too, just like him, just like Teddie and Nanako and, well, all of them, it seems; a group of lonely people seeking solace in each other.

Souji desperately doesn’t want to be lonely anymore.

But that’s the other exception to how the week has returned to usual: a special, terrible kind of lonely ache that only comes when someone you care about wants nothing to do with you. An ache Souji is so, so horribly familiar with.

Yosuke is avoiding him.

Midweek rolls around and whatever rift has formed in their friendship has only seemed to widen. Souji is especially grateful to Kanji for walking the last fifteen or so minutes to school with him because Yosuke doesn’t wait for Souji at their usual spot in the mornings to walk together, nor does he show up when Souji waits for him. In fact, it almost seems like Yosuke has started timing his arrival to the classroom so that he just barely makes it into his seat before the teacher walks in. Souji wonders if Yosuke has been hiding in the hallway until the very last minute.

He disappears at lunch, too, dashing off as soon as the break begins and only coming back just as the bell sounds, ensuring the absolute minimal amount of interaction possible. During the time where they’re all actually in class isn’t any better because his evasive behavior from Tuesday has been ramped up to 11. He’s jittery and distracted, refusing to look directly at Souji even when he’s forced to and instead looking just past Souji’s shoulder or somewhere near their desks. He doesn’t speak to Souji unless Souji speaks to him first, and only then in short, non-committal responses – and only if he absolutely cannot pretend he didn’t hear him in the first place.

But it gets weirder. Despite doing everything possible to keep from having to talk to or make eye contact with him, Yosuke does an awful lot of looking at Souji when Souji isn’t looking directly back. He keeps staring when he thinks Souji doesn’t know, and more than once Souji catches Yosuke giving him strange looks out of the corner of his eye, only for Yosuke to look away as if electrocuted when he notices Souji has seen him. Like Souji’s gaze is somehow toxic.

It’s maddening.

It hurts.

On top of all that, the apathetic silence and constant staring, Yosuke also seems… nervous? Uncomfortable? Something around him, and Souji isn’t sure but he thinks it might be the same kind of uncomfortable that Yosuke had been around Kanji in the tent during the camping trip. That leaves a whole new kind of bitter taste in his mouth, a familiar tightness in his heart. But Souji has no idea what’s brought it on; it makes him question if this is still about Souji disappearing after the pageant and not telling Yosuke where he went. Is Yosuke that upset that Souji didn’t back him up against Chie the day Souji had come back? Or is he annoyed that Souji hadn’t been there to ogle swimsuits with him during the second pageant? Or is it something else entirely?

Whatever it is, Souji wants his friend back – and for whatever his partner is doing to stop.

After class is no different. It’s the same story every day, that he has a shift he has to rush off to, to the point where, for two days in a row, he didn’t even bother to give Souji the opportunity to say goodbye as Yosuke was rushing out the door. It’s hard not to take it personally, and Souji has taken to reaching desperately across the Wheel of Fortune and Emperor bonds just to feel that warm, golden thrum and keep himself from sinking into a familiar pool of sadness and dread.

Because Souji can feel the Magician arcana stretching thinner, can feel its edges fraying, and it feels like the floor is dropping out from under him in his helplessness to stop it.

This isn’t what his friendship with Yosuke is supposed to be like – Yosuke is sunlight and smiles, someone he can lean on and who leans on him without shame, whom Souji is happy to help support. They’re partners, damnit, and no matter how bad things got they were supposed to work to keep it that way.

He tries to avoid going to Junes for as long as he can because he doesn’t want that to be another place where Yosuke runs away from him. He doesn’t want Yosuke to feel trapped, but he also wants to give his partner the benefit of the doubt for as long as he can. If he’s honest with himself, Souji is terrified that he’ll get there and find out Yosuke never had a shift at all.

The house needs groceries, though, and Nanako has that look about her that says she needs a bit of cheering up, so on Thursday he texts Teddie to ask if the little bear is working and what time he goes in. He still owes his strange friend an in-person apology, after all, even though he’d called him after school on Tuesday. Teddie of course is elated and informs Souji that his shift starts at 5:00, so Souji wraps his sister’s tiny hand in his own and plasters an exhausted smile onto his face.

They meet Teddie (who arrives in his human form), outside Junes, where he proceeds to throw himself bodily at Souji and wrap practically every limb he has around Souji’s waist. Souji just awkwardly pats at Teddie’s head and lets the boy hang off him in what has to be the world’s most bizarre attempt at reverse-mitosis. Thankfully, Teddie had been so emotional over the phone when Souji had first called him that he’d forgotten to ask why Souji had run off in the first place. Souji uses this to his advantage as he recounts the same story he’d used for everyone else, playing up that he’d been “perfectly fine” until he “suddenly felt very sick.”

Teddie sniffles in that overdramatic way of his and raises watery eyes, informing Souji, “You leave it to me next time, okay, Sensei? I’ll come over and take the beary best care of you!”

Souji smiles and tells him “thank you” and pointedly does not let on how uncomfortable that statement makes him feel. Teddie is incredibly sweet, but good intentions or not, he knows little about the human world and Souji doesn’t feel like getting sick for real.

(There are a myriad of other reasons he doesn’t want to ever have to take Teddie up on that offer, but Souji stuffs them into a box in the corner of his mind and tapes it shut as best he can. Just more things he doesn’t want to think about.)

They talk for a few minutes more before Souji, casually as can be, asks Teddie if he’d like to go grocery shopping with Nanako before his shift starts.

Nanako and Teddie both instantly perk up with an excited “Can we?!”

Souji nods. The two of them run inside and Souji finds a place to sit down and wait. He trusts Teddie, even if the bear is a handful sometimes, and this way Nanako gets to spend time with her friend while still getting the shopping done. He only feels a little bit bad about manipulating them like this, but neither of them had needed any kind of pushing, so it isn’t like he’d done anything too horrible. He lets himself get away with this one, if only because of how happy Nanako had looked.

And this way, Souji doesn’t have to run the risk of bumping into Yosuke. Or worse, not bump into him and be given undeniable proof that Yosuke wants nothing to do with him.

Souji abruptly switches directions, deciding to try and keep his mind from spiraling again by going to look for the stray cats that sometimes hang around the Junes dumpsters until Nanko is comes back.

Trying to text Yosuke outside of school and around his supposed shifts proves just as fruitless as everything else. Souji texts and texts and texts, has pulled up Yosuke’s number more than once and held his thumb over the call button for ages before chickening out and shutting his phone. There is barely any answer. If he responds at all it’s with things like “k” or “yea” and maybe a smiley but nothing else. Souji must be extra lucky that night, because Yosuke finally messages him back hours and hours later with “srry @ work” after Souji had sent him an “I miss you, Partner,” right after leaving school.

So Souji decides to stop trying to apologize, to stop waiting for a response, to just stop trying at all. He doesn’t want to, wants to try and stick it out for a while longer, (just a little, just a day or two, maybe he’ll come around, maybe he’ll like me again), but Souji has already given far too many people far too long and he’s tired of waiting for something that’s never going to come.

The dark, resentful little voice in his head tells him he really must be a Fool if he ever could have thought Yosuke would be any different. It whispers that the case is over, Kubo was caught, and now Yosuke doesn’t need him anymore.

He never cared about you, it hisses, he only cared about your help. You only have worth as long as you’re useful, remember?

It threatens to break him, but he’s picked himself up off the floor after being shattered completely in the past; he’s learned by now how to make it so that he only cracks instead of splinters.

So he builds the wall back up around his heart and prepares himself for the end of an era. Friday morning, just as he’s heading out the door to go meet up with Kanji, he sends one last message that he knows probably won’t be read until long after it no longer matters.

Seta Souji: I’m sorry. I won’t bother you anymore.

He turns his phone off and leaves it in his bag where he doesn’t have to look at it.

 ---

 Something is wrong.

Yosuke is in the hallway outside their classroom by the time Souji and Kanji have parted ways, backed against the wall by a fuming Chie and a scowling Yukiko. There is a bright red handprint burning across the side of Yosuke’s face.

“You!” Chie snarls, fists balled at her sides. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’ve been acting like a jackass all week!”

Yosuke’s face is oddly devoid of anything as he says, “Chill out, Chie, it was just a joke.”

Yukiko’s hackles rise impossibly higher and she holds up a hand palm out as if to slap him again. She opens her mouth to say, “It wasn’t funny!” just as Chie barks, “Like hell it was!”

Yosuke flinches involuntarily, but his face remains impassive, even as the other students milling about the hallway begin to gather and stare. He gazes back at the two girls with lightless eyes.

He tisks. “Yeah, well, you’re girls, of course you wouldn’t get it; it’s guy humor.”

Chie crowds in closer until she’s right up in Yosuke’s face and he’s looking down his nose at her, going slightly cross-eyed in the process. “You think you’re such hot shit,” she seethes, and even from a few feet away, Souji can feel the anger rolling off of her. She pushes a finger into Yosuke’s chest, hard, and says, “We put up with your nasty ‘jokes’ and your weird staring because you’re our friend, but there’s a limit, Hanamura! And you’re freaking pushing it.”

“Girls don’t like it when you say things like that,” Yukiko adds, voice low and sharp and cold in a way Souji doesn’t think he’s ever heard from her before. “If your brand of humor makes other people uncomfortable, then it isn’t really humor at all, it’s gross.”

Souji feels something acidic churning in his gut. Yosuke has always had a penchant for dirty jokes and gutter-minded trains of thought, but he’d been doing better lately, had slowed his lewd comments considerably in the months since the IT had woven itself to near family-like tightness. Souji had wanted to believe that most of the remaining perviness was just harmless, friendly banter – especially since it was usually aimed at Chie, who could throw a few good barbs right back and never lace them with any real heat. But that was before the pageant, and now Souji has the vile, disheartening suspicion that whatever Yosuke has done to get the girls so angry is linked to that. He thinks back to the comments Yosuke had made about the girls on stage on Tuesday and Souji feels his heart convulse.

You really were wrong about him, weren’t you?

As if he’d somehow heard Souji’s darkening thoughts, Yosuke’s eyes finally veer away from Chie and off to the side – where they grow almost comically wide as he catches sight of Souji standing not five feet away.

Souji doesn’t know what his face looks like, but whatever Yosuke sees there must stun him into silence. They stare at each other for several tense seconds – the first eye contact Yosuke has made with him in days.

Yukiko and Chie both notice Yosuke’s sudden change in demeanor and turn to follow his panicked line of sight. It’s enough to break whatever spell he’s under, because the moment their attention is focused on Souji, Yosuke shoves his arm between them and slips out from where they’ve kept him trapped against the wall.

“Whatever,” he spits, face locking down as he turns his back to Souji. “You guys throw your hissy fit, I’m goin’ to class.” He tugs his headphone up over his ears and stalks the rest of the way down the hall, disappearing into the classroom like a sulking child.

A piece of Souji’s heart chips off and falls away.

“Asshole,” Chie growls after him, even though Yosuke is long gone. She plants her fists on her hips, turning back to Souji and heaving out an aggravated sigh. “Hi,” she says, and it’s very much tinged with something Souji knows isn’t directed at him.

“Uh, hi,” he says, unable to keep from frowning. “What happened?”

The warning bell sounds and Yukiko, who has been glowering in the direction Yosuke left, waves a hand at them both over her shoulder. “We’ll tell you at lunch,” she says, and her voice is still that low-simmering ire. It’s terrifying, even if Souji isn’t on the receiving end of it. She starts walking towards the classroom, shooting heated glares at anyone still lingering nearby. “For now we should hurry before we’re late.”

Chie nods at him before jogging off after Yukiko, and Souji takes a few extra seconds to try and breathe normally before he joins them. He’s almost the last one into the room by the time he recovers, and he doesn’t even have to look at Yosuke to know his former partner is looking everywhere but at him.

It’s a long, long time until the break for lunch begins.

 ---

 As expected, Yosuke is up and moving practically before the bell has finished ringing. He doesn’t even pretend to be polite this time; the moment the clock hands tick into place he’s shoving his headphones up onto his ears and is out of his seat like the wind caster he is. Nobody tries to stop him, and Souji doesn’t have the will to watch him leave.

With his heart somewhere down near his feet, Souji shifts in his chair until both Chie and Yukiko are more clearly visible without turning his head too far. He moves slowly, in absolutely no hurry to hear whatever it is he’s about to hear. A part of him is torn, of course, because he wants to help his friends, to know what went down in the hallway so he can make everything better – especially for the girls, since it’s obvious they were the ones wronged. On the other hand, Souji isn’t sure he can handle knowing just how badly Yosuke has messed up. This isn’t just a matter of making someone apologize, it’s become a behavioral issue that is clearly disrupting team dynamic and needs to be addressed on a deeper level.

(Not that they really need to be a team in a combat sense much anymore, but they’re all still friends, aren’t they? And friends shouldn’t do whatever the hell Yosuke thinks he’s doing right now.)

Souji sighs and forces himself to look up at his two friends still in the room. “Are you both okay?” he asks first, because that’s the most important thing, even above Yosuke’s bullshit. He looks from one to the other, scanning them with a leader’s eye honed from months in battle.

“Physically?” says Chie, “Yeah, I guess,” She looks to Yukiko, who gives her a quick nod.

Yukiko’s expression is tight as she tilts her head in a way that makes her look like she’s talking to both of them at once – which she likely is. “He tried to pinch my skirt,” she says, and Souji feels his eyes go wide. Her mouth twists. “He didn’t actually touch me, though.”

Chie’s face darkens. “Good thing he didn’t ‘cuz I’d have kicked him so hard his junk would have fallen off.” Her fists clench at her sides the same way they do in battle right as she’s bracing herself for a takedown kick, and Souji instinctively swallows against the way the gesture makes his throat constrict.

He holds his breath just a little too long to be comfortable, trying and not-quite succeeding to steel himself for the conversation ahead. “What happened?” he asks, and his voice isn’t real, isn’t his. It’s ‘Leader’, ‘Friend’, one of the dozens of masks he wears when he needs to (he always needs to) when he has a specific task to complete (he always does) and needs to push his own mind as far way from everything as possible (like always).

Chie and Yukiko look at each other, seeming to silently decide who should go first before Chie refocuses on Souji and squares her shoulders. “Okay. So you know how Yosuke’s been a jerk ever since the cultural festival?”

Souji nods. Of course the girls have seen it, too, he thinks; how could they not have when the four of them all sit right next to each other?

He already wishes this were over.

“Well, every time Yukiko or I has tried to call him out on it he just gets all defensive and blows us off.” Chie pulls her phone from the pocket of her green jacket and holds it up like a prop. “I’ve been texting him for days trying to get him to tell me what’s going on and he doesn’t answer! He just sends me those crappy dirty jokes of his or says something really evasive, like…” (and here she drops her voice in a sarcastic imitation of Yosuke’s), “…’can’t talk, I’m at work!’ or ‘lol you’re crazy, Chie!’” She clenches her teeth and makes an aggravated noise in the back of her throat as she roughly shoves her phone back into her pocket. “And the thing is, I know he didn’t work on Wednesday, because I had to stop by Junes for my mom and I ran into Teddie, who told me Yosuke had the day off!”

I knew it.

It feels like the wind has been knocked out of his lungs. Everything he’d been hoping he was wrong about has been thrown directly back at him; the last trickle of faith he’d been so desperately clinging to, the hope that his partner might not have been lying to his face and avoiding him, it all disintegrates like paper in a blaze.

He thinks maybe if he wasn’t sitting down, if he couldn’t feel the chair, hard and solid beneath his legs, then he might just fall away and be swallowed up, too.

Oblivious to Souji’s encroaching disassociation, Chie sits back with a scowl and snorts harshly through her nose. “And his ‘jokes’? They’ve been really bad this week. Like, they were never good, but they’ve been getting worse – now they’re just straight up gross and it’s been making me super uncomfortable.”

It’s like there are screws being twisted into his skin; cold and metallic and so sharp that it’s barely painful but still stings with the bite of bitter frost. Nervous energy crackles along his limbs as though the flight half of his fight-or-flight instincts is trying to wrest away any control he has left over his body. He doesn’t want to hear this.

Yukiko nods, eyes narrow. “He’s been doing similar things to me, too. I ran into him on my way home yesterday and when I tried to ask him why he looked so sad, he made some comment about me, ‘cheering him up.’ Then he ran off.” She shakes her head. “Even I knew he was being inappropriate. I let it go at the time because it seemed like he was just trying to distract me. ”

Chie tilts her head. “Has he been sending you weird texts, too?”

“Only when I text him first.” Yukiko’s expression goes flat. “He asked me if I had any pictures from the pageant but when I told him I didn’t he asked me to send him a new picture instead.”

The look on Chie’s face implies that she would very much like to roundhouse kick something, but is managing to hold back with just the thinnest thread of restraint. Souji surreptitiously pulls his legs a little further from her reach. He would almost flinch when she turns her focus back to him, but everything is rippling slightly, slowly, like the air is gradually turning to water and he’s already under the surface.

“So yeaaaaah…” she drawls, irritation simmering in the lower notes of her voice. “We tried to corner him this morning; two against one, right? We thought maybe we could get him to explain himself—“

“Because it’s obvious he’s hurting you, too,” Yukiko cuts in, looking at Souji with something like protectiveness, and it catches him off guard so badly that he forgets to exhale again.

Chie nods emphatically. “Right! And we figured if he’s pulling that evasive crap with us then there’s no way you’re having any better luck, what with him running off like his butt’s on fire every time you come near.” She pauses, grimaces – a scrunch of her nose and a turning of her lips. “Eheh. Uhm, sorry.”

Souji blinks. Even before learning about their own messed-up dealings with Yosuke this past week, he wasn’t surprised that his friends have caught on to the way Souji and Yosuke’s friendship has been fraying. They aren’t blind, after all, and by this point they’ve all known each other long enough that it would be hard not to notice that something was up. No, what surprises him is the way Yukiko had seemed more visibly upset about the effects on him than she was about the things Yosuke had said to her, the way Chie makes it sound like she wanted to confront the other boy on his behalf just as much as theirs. One some level he knows his friends care, or at least the stubbornly hopefully pieces of him that still exist after all these years have wanted to believe they did, but knowing and having it proven – even in as small and heavy a gesture as this – are two very different things.

He doesn’t like that this surprises him, just like he didn’t like that he was surprised by Naoto. He’s pretty sure this proves his theory that he doesn’t know how to be a decent friend in return.

He’s forgotten to respond, it seems, but Chie continues. “So we corner him,” she repeats, “and he gets this really funny look on his face and acts like he wants to bolt, but when he can’t he tries to make a crack about my legs and how I should ‘lay off the meat’.”

“And then he compared her legs to mine.” Yukiko taps her short, blunt nails across the top of her desk in annoyance. “Which is when he tried to pinch my skirt and I slapped him.”

“And then you showed up and he ran off,” Chie finishes, before adding, “Or, well, you saw that part.”

Souji just nods again. He can’t do anything else, he feels almost paralyzed. The thought of Yosuke being purposely horrible is so beyond anything he’s ever thought his friend capable of. He wants to cling to what Yukiko said about it seemingly like Yosuke had been pulling a distraction tactic, but even if that’s what the stunt in the hallway was, too, it’s still over the line. As far as he knows, Yosuke has never tried to physically do anything to anybody, and pinching a skirt is pretty minor compared to some of the stories Yukiko has told of drunken businessmen at the inn, but still.

Everything just feels so wrong; not just in the sense that Yosuke is suddenly wildly out of character, but just… everything. Why the change at all? And if it was going to happen eventually, why now of all times? Souji’s mind circles itself, trying to find something to latch onto because the whole situation is missing more than a few pieces and the part of him that just spent several months working to solve a murder mystery is still there, not yet inactive. He can’t tell if it’s only that or if there is still something in him that refuses to let go of his partner even now. Yosuke had inserted himself into Souji’s life so seamlessly that it’s hard for Souji to see what’s left of himself past the jagged outline Yosuke’s departure has left in him.

But he can’t think, and so he’s left sitting there in his own head, grasping at straws and praying one of them will have the answers he desperately hopes are there.

He must have been unresponsive for too long (again), because he blinks and catches the end of the worried look shared between his two friends. He forces himself back out of his thoughts before one of the girls can call him on it and inhales through his mouth to stall for time as he pulls up something to say.

Yukiko beats him to the punch. “Souji-kun… Are you alright?”

He clicks his mouth shut so quickly his teeth sting. The words “I’m fine” sit uncomfortably close to the tip of his tongue and he swallows them back. It would be all too easy to admit just how much like a slow-acting poison Yosuke’s silence, his behavior, has felt; the sinking, sick sensation growing and spreading over the course of the week until Souji can barely breathe. He swallows that back, too. “I’m… concerned,” he settles on, and Yukiko nods in agreement.

“Do you know what might be going on with him, even a little?” she asks, and beside her, Chie gives him an oddly sad look. “This isn’t the Yosuke-kun we know.”

Chie glances from Yukiko to Souji and adds, uncharacteristically quiet, “Yeah. I mean, he’s a pig right now but he’s still one of us. We’re worried.”

As hurt as he is, and as much as he’s ready (or wishes he could be ready) to wall off that tattered bit of his heart, Souji can’t disagree. There is another whispering part of him, softer than the one hissing doubt and pain, that cares about Yosuke, wants him to be alright, even if Souji isn’t. He always did like making people happy.

Souji keeps his back straight but lowers his eyes, unable to hold his shield against the anxious sympathy painted across his friends’ features. He shakes his head. “No,” he admits, and it’s both a relief to admit and a stone in his heart. Saying it out loud always makes it more real, less like a bad dream; the wound might be lanced for a moment but it still bleeds. He sighs, and it’s a shaky, defeated sound. “I don’t. And no it’s not. Whatever is happening, he won’t let me help.”

Yukiko’s shoulders slump, echoed by the way Chie’s face seems to fall even more. They share another look between them – Souji can see them both in his peripherals but he cannot decipher the silent exchange.

If only Yosuke could see the way his friends worry about him, Souji thinks, then maybe he’d stop pushing them away like this. It’s been clear from the very beginning that Souji’s partner has some heavy duty self esteem issues, (his shadow alone had been more than a hint at just how Yosuke saw himself), so it isn’t a stretch to think maybe Yosuke doesn’t know just how valuable he is to his friends, to the team, to Souji, and it hurts somewhere deep, like a broken bone.

Souji feels the black tendrils in his mind starting to tug him lower. Unable to think of anything to say and too afraid of sinking deeper into his own quagmire of negative thoughts, he glances at the clock in case time has decided to be merciful and lunch break is almost over. No such luck.

He frowns. His sense of time is shot. His sense of reality is cracking as well, but time is more important when on a schedule – or when he just wants the day to end. With nothing he can do with the little time remaining, and too much time left to just sit in silence, Souji quietly digs out the bento he’d brought and holds it out in offering towards the girls. He’d brought extra, intending to share it with someone anyway – possibly Kanji – and it’s been a short while since he’s been able to bring anything for Chie or Yukiko. “Does anybody want this?” he murmurs, still not quite able to return his gaze to their faces.

There is a stunted exhale overlapped by what might be a hushed, “Souji-kun,” but he doesn’t raise his eyes from the box in his hand. He is aware – faintly – of how strange it must look for him to switch gears so abruptly, since the others aren’t privy to his coiling lines of thought. Whatever they think of it, though, no one says anything aloud. In fact, a long beat of silence passes before slim, delicate fingers – Yukiko – finally reach out and take the bento from his grasp.

Suddenly Chie’s voice is forcibly-bright, a bottled kind of blue sky amidst dark clouds, plastic-happy and overenthusiastic as she says, “Aw hell yeah! We haven’t had lunch together in ages!” There is a movement on he edge of Souji’s vision that looks suspiciously like an exaggerated fist pump.

His breath catches in a huff as he exhales through his nose, like the mimicry of a chuckle that comes unbidden and tugs inside his chest. It’s enough to let him flick his gaze upwards.

Chie is grinning at him, wide and strained, but it reaches her eyes nonetheless. Beside her, Yukiko holds the now lidless bento between them with a well-crafted smile stretched across her own face. There is still a tight sort of sadness around the edges, but the longer she holds the smile in place the duller those edges become.

“Yes,” she says, and her voice lilts upwards in a very deliberate way that is meant to sound easier than it is. “Have we ever done this with all three of us together? I can’t remember.”

“Hey, no, I don’t think we have! What took us so long?”

The huff of breathy laugh that slips out is a little stronger this time, a little more solid. The weight in his chest is still there, but in this moment, with Yukiko passing the bento off to Chie so she can dig for her chopsticks and Chie “stealthily” grabbing a chunk of meat with her fingertips to pop into her mouth, Souji thinks the weight might be manageable. If only for now.

Thank you, he tells them silently. To say it out loud would be to puncture the illusion they’ve worked so hard to create, and he doesn’t want to ruin the kindness he’s being given. He knows what they’re doing; he’s grateful.

The three of them pick at the food – Chie going for the meat and Yukiko the vegetables while Souji mostly just pokes the rice – until the break runs out. There is still some left at the end, mostly because Souji couldn’t muster up the will to be hungry, but the girls (Chie) have made a much larger dent than he, so it’s not a waste, at least. He gives them a drained, faint smile as the room fills back up with their classmates and is pleasantly startled to find it comes easier than he thought it would.

Yukiko smiles back, eyes crinkling, and Chie shoots him a lopsided grin and a thumbs up. There is a fizzy, pink-yellow warmth that flows along the Priestess and Chariot arcana, and while the flood of light and golden tingling that follows a rising rank doesn’t come, he can feel the threads winding tighter together. It’s comforting – a reminder that even if his Magician bond snaps and dissolves, there are still connections there, he still has friends.

It’s so hard to remember sometimes when all his life there has been a cold, aching loneliness nested deep inside his heart, familiar in a way that old wounds are. But now there is something to chase the hollowness away when the ache threatens to overwhelm him at the loss of his former partner, and Souji allows himself a few precious moments to bask in that sliver of sunlight. He may not share secrets with Chie and Yukiko, but somehow, right now, their brand of protectiveness is just as wonderful.

The warmth stays with him through the duration of the lesson, and distracts him long enough that he doesn’t notice until the start of the next period that Yosuke has yet to return to the classroom.

 ---

 Classes end for the day and still Yosuke does not reappear. Chie and Yukiko haven’t quite gotten over their ire and irritation from earlier, understandably, but there is clear worry there, and nowhere to direct it except at Souji. He appreciates it, wishes he could accept it, handle it like a normal person, but it’s something he hasn’t gotten used to yet and it overwhelms him. It’s comforting but also just the tiniest bit suffocating. That’s why, when they ask if he’d like to walk with them while they go run errands together, he politely declines.

Under better circumstances he would happily spend time with them, would be hard-pressed to say no to something like walking with friends, but he isn’t sure how long he can pretend not to be silently flaking apart inside. He thinks they understand, because Chie gives him a gentle punch to the shoulder – so light it’s more like a tap – and Yukiko gives him a kind smile with eyes that look a little too deeply into him.

“We don’t have any more large groups booked at the inn until mid-month,” she says, (more quietly than a casual statement should warrant), “so I should be pretty free this weekend.”

“You should come train with me again sometime,” Chie chimes in, and Souji notices that her fist hasn’t left his shoulder yet. It’s just sort of resting there, knuckles lightly digging in to the meat of his arm. “I’m gonna be down by the river all morning on Sunday. You’re welcome to join.” She taps him once more with the backs of her fingers before finally moving her hand.

Souji smiles at them. It’s weak, probably, but grateful, and he hopes they can see the honesty on his face as well as they can see his crumbling edges. (And he’s slowly discovering that it isn’t quite so scary right now that people can see the hairline cracks forming along his paper-mache faces, because no one that’s seen them so far has commented. As long as he doesn’t have to acknowledge it out loud he thinks he might be fine.)

It’s fine.

I’m fine.

He walks with Yukiko and Chie to the shoe lockers, where the girls both shoot him a final knowing look before they say their goodbyes and head out together, leaving Souji to gather his thoughts as well as his things. He loiters for a few minutes. Fishing his phone out from where it’s been resting all day with the power still off at the bottom of his school bag, he debates on whether he should turn it back on or not. Eventually he decides against it and drops the phone back into the depths of his bag.

He isn’t in any real hurry to get home, though he also doesn’t exactly trust himself to take his time lest he get too deeply lost in his own head; there is so much he needs to process after this morning, after lunch, the whole damn week. It’s daunting, and he has no idea what kind of person he’s going to have to be to get through this giant, hulking mess. He wonders how thick his walls will have to be by the time this is over, and whether he’ll still have a best friend.

He isn’t certain he can fix this – isn’t certain at this point that he has the strength to try. He wants to, though, and he thinks that might make him stupid. Or desperate. Or both.

Souji sucks in a breath between his teeth and forcibly grounds himself. This, this is what he was afraid of, the creeping wave of negative thoughts that start off small and contemplative and then deceptively turn to something much darker, much heavier, until he’s buried up to this throat in dark water and it’s too late for him to pull back.

No. He refuses to sink right now, not in the middle of school grounds where people can see. One foot in front of the other, he starts to move. He wishes now that he had gone with Yukiko and Chie, if only for the distraction they would have given him.

One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, keep going. Just keep going, don’t think…

“Yo, Senpai!”

Souji stops and snaps around at the familiar voice, a brilliant, soothing flash of gold tugging at the Emperor bond inside his soul.

Kanji waves at him from a short distance away, expression bright and open and happy. When he sees that Souji has stopped walking he quickens his pace to close the gap. “Heh. Didn’t think you’d still be here,” he calls as he approaches, clearly glad to have been proven wrong.

Souji is so, so happy to see him right now. Like Naoto – but for different reasons – Kanji is safe, is good, and even after the revelation on Tuesday, Kanji hasn’t once tried to pry. He could hold it together around Kanji, he thinks.

Souji must look as ragged as he feels, because Kanji’s face falls a bit as he comes to a stop in front of him. “Everything okay, Senpai?” he asks. His plucked-thin brows furrow slightly, curious concern lacing his features.

How Souji was ever nervous around this human ball of mochi, he’ll never know.

Souji doesn’t want to lie to him, not when Kanji’s expression is so earnest. The shield he’d used with Chie and Yukiko was different; they’d somehow seen past it, just a little, and forgiven him for it due to circumstance. To hide behind it now with Kanji would feel wrong.

He sighs. “I’m better now,” he says, deciding to stay at least a little vague. It’s not his place to discuss the hallway incident this morning, anyway.

Kanji gives him a skeptical look; Souji huffs a quiet, humorless chuckle. “It’s nothing. There was an issue this morning but it’s over now.” Well, at least until Yosuke shows back up, but that’s something to think about later when Souji isn’t fighting back the disassociation for the millionth time this week.

Kanji still looks somewhat unconvinced, but he thankfully chooses not to dig. Instead, he stares at Souji for a few more seconds before apparently letting it go. He shrugs. “Okay, well, as long as you’re alright now I guess.”

Souji manages a tired smile. “I am. Thank you, Kanji.” (And if he sees the faintest dusting of pink across his friend’s ear-tips then he stifles the flattered surprise and keeps the knowledge to himself.)

“Y-yeah, no problem, Senpai.” He looks away for a moment and clears his throat. “Anyway, I was wonderin’ if you wanted to walk together?”

(Souji shouldn’t find it adorable, but he does, and he promptly tucks the thought safely away and leaves it be.)

He nods, a tiny, grateful smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I would like that.”

Kanji doesn’t verbally respond, just mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like “damnit, too cute,” and takes a few steps in the direction of the gate.

Souji falls into step beside him, easily catching up.

  They walk unhurriedly, meandering, sometimes slowing to a stop for a few seconds before continuing on. It’s casual, comfortable (after Kanji gets over his blushing), and it’s exactly the kind of balm Souji needed. He feels the dark spiral in his head slide back, back, until it’s only a weak tingle in the furthest parts of his mind rather than the creeping talons it had been before.

They chat as they make their way to the river out of some kind of absentminded habit, the topics varying from knitting (which Souji wants to learn) to cats to gardening (which Kanji wants to learn) to anything that comes to mind. As they talk, Souji notices that Kanji is more animated than he’s used to seeing. Kanji’s face is expressive and cheerful, his smile easy as he explains some of his personal projects, and it occurs to Souji that Kanji probably doesn’t get much of a chance to talk about the things he enjoys. If Kanji was still guarding himself before out of fear of being judged, having come out as bisexual and receiving nothing but acceptance in return must have broken down that particular section of wall, which Souji now has the privilege of peering through. That odd kind of pride flairs up in him again, and Souji feels his smile stretching wider as Kanji finishes telling a story about making his own sewing patterns.

He wonders just how often in his life Kanji has felt comfortable enough around a person to be this open with them, to talk about his love for cute things without shame. Likely not often, he thinks, and sadness pricks at his ribs. He’s glad he can be a source of happiness for his friend. Kanji certainly deserves it.

By this point they’ve almost reached the floodplain, the familiar stretch of grass and water slowly starting to come into view. Souji is just about to ask if Kanji would consider taking a commission for a gift for Nanako when there comes a sudden thrumming along the Fortune bond. Delighted, he looks up just in time to spot Naoto heading along the path in their direction. He smiles.

“Naoto, hello,” he calls, raising a hand in greeting. Beside him, Kanji chokes on his tongue and turns a glorious shade of dusty pink.

Naoto returns the gesture. “Hello, Senpai, Kanji-kun” they say when they’re close enough to speak without raising their voice, nodding at both of them in turn.

Kanji, to his credit, doesn’t go scurrying away like he usually does when faced with his crush. (Or, well… one of his crushes? Souji isn’t sure if it’s just Naoto at this point, but he’s certainly very amused.) Fighting a smirk, Souji watches his blond friend square his shoulders and force himself into some kind of casual pose that… doesn’t actually look very casual.

“H-hey,” he sputters, and the way his voice cracks ever so slightly is endearing as hell.

Souji wonders if he’s close enough now with either of them to start giving them gentle nudges towards one another. With that fluffy thought threatening to give his smile away, Souji decides to spare Kanji’s nerves for a moment and do the talking. He’s good at this kind of thing, after all. “Would you like to walk with us?” he asks, natural as anything. It doesn’t escape his notice that Naoto has to flick their gaze over to him from where it’s been locked on Kanji.

Naoto gives a thoughtful hum. “Well, I was doing something, but I suppose it’s finished now.” They smile. “Alright, why not?”

They take the free spot on Souji’s left so that he’s flanked on either side by his friends. It’s a good feeling – one he is selfishly going to enjoy until they all have to part ways.

“What were you busy with?” he asks as they all start moving again. Kanji keeps glancing across him over at Naoto on his other side and Souji as has to keep his face in check. He slows his pace just enough that he’s half a step behind them, making it easier for them to see each other past his shoulders. “If I may ask.”

Naoto’s expression twists a little. It’s an odd look, one that is very much a mixture of their ‘Detective Face’ and something else. “To be honest, I was tailing Yosuke-senpai.”

Oh.

Suddenly the warm and happy feeling that’s been buzzing through him sinks to someplace cold and nervous. He’d successfully managed to forget about Yosuke for a while, thanks to Kanji; he’d been perfectly content keeping it that for a while longer.

Trying not to let his fallen mood show, he holds the neutral mask in place even as he lets the smile drop. He has no doubt Naoto has already picked up on it.

It’s Kanji that spares him this time by asking, “Huh? Yosuke-senpai? What’re you followin’ him for?”

Naoto looks over at him. Souji spots the split second where their eyes flick up to study him before switching back to focus on Kanji once more. “I saw him heading to the roof during lunch but I never saw him come back down. Then after classes were over I spotted him by the shoe lockers.”

Souji startles a bit at that. Yosuke had still been at school? When he hadn’t returned to the classroom, Souji had assumed his former partner had just skipped out entirely and left. Apparently not. What would be the point of that? he wonders, and it’s bitterer than he expected. Why not just leave? That’s all he’s been doing all week.

But Naoto isn’t finished speaking, it seems. “He was acting strangely; it almost seemed like he was watching you, Souji-senpai, because I watched him hiding behind the lockers while you were talking to Yukiko-senpai and Chie-senpai. Then when you left he followed you, so I followed him.”

Naoto studies his face for a moment and Souji can’t even begin to imagine what he looks like. Yosuke had followed him? How? Granted, it wasn’t like he had been entirely outside his own head after Chie and Yukiko had left, but he would have noticed at some point, right? With as hyper-tuned to Yosuke as he’s been in the past, then surely…

“Wait,” Kanji says from over on his right. From the corner of his eye he can see Kanji looking at him, mouth twisted downward in a fashion similar to Naoto’s.

Feigning normalcy, he turns his head to give Kanji his attention. Kanji in turn tick his gaze back over to Naoto as if he hadn’t just been giving his senpai a curious stare.

“Where was he? Because when I caught up with Senpai in front of the school I didn’t see Yosuke-senpai anywhere.”

Naoto hums, their lips a tight line. “Yes, I saw all of that. While Yosuke-senpai wasn’t exactly close behind Souji-senpai, he also ran off as soon as you approached. That neither of you noticed him doesn’t surprise me.”

Kanji’s brows furrow, his eyes narrowing beneath them. “That’s…”

“Suspicious?” Naoto supplies, “Worrying? Yes, I agree.”

Souji doesn’t contribute; he’s too busy trying to keep himself grounded in the conversation at hand and not drift away into his own thoughts. He doesn’t know how to process this, doesn’t know what to think. There are so many questions now and he’s tired, he’s just so tired and hurt and he’s sick of being tired and hurt things were supposed to be different here.

“So where’s he now?” Kanji looks around, even checking behind them as if he expects Yosuke to pop out of the bushes and attempt to scare them all like a bad Halloween prank.

Souji hunches his shoulders and tucks his face into the collar of his jacket.

This time when Naoto speaks, though they’re responding to Kanji, their eyes linger on Souji – he can just barely see it past the fabric of his collar. In a way it’s almost… okay, because it gives him something to focus on, even if he doesn’t want eye contact right now. He watches Naoto chew at the corner of their lip while they look at him, likely debating how much they want to say.

After a moment, they finally reply, “He was heading towards the river when I lost track of him. I believe he might still be somewhere nearby.”

Souji freezes in the middle of the path, feeling the blood drain from his face. His lungs stop working, just stop; he cannot remember how to inhale, doesn’t have the ability to exhale, he just stands there with wide eyes and numb lips and burning lungs.

No. No no no, that’s not good, that’s not good. Souji isn’t anywhere near mentally prepared to run into Yosuke right now. Not with everything he’s found out today, not when he just learned that Yosuke, despite having been running from and avoiding him for days, was just secretly following him around less than an hour ago. How the hell is he supposed to process that?

Both Naoto and Kanji have stopped now as well, and are staring at him in concern. “Senpai?” Kanji calls, unsure. “You okay there?”

He feels himself nod but it’s a robotic response, not one of his own bidding. Naoto and Kanji exchange a look.

“Perhaps we should find a different route to take?” Naoto suggests, and Kanji nods in agreement.

He takes a step closer to Souji, raising a hand as if to reach out, when the hurried sound of approaching footsteps becomes audible over the ambience of the nearby river.

Naoto stiffens, and Souji feels his stomach drop out when a familiar voice shouts, “Heeeey! Partner!”

Perfect timing.

The words are tense, drawn-out, laced with a nervous, forced casualness that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He immediately snaps his attention towards the voice, Naoto and Kanji echoing the movement in his peripherals.

Up ahead, from the direction the three of them had been heading in and appearing from seemingly nowhere, is Yosuke. He’s power walking, moving so quickly towards them that he’s nearly jogging, making Souji feel the phantom terror of being closed in on like prey in a corner – like he’s a child again, small and frightened as an angry parent looms. Souji instinctively takes a half-step back.

Naoto takes a full step in response and moves themself in front of him. A second later, Kanji does the same.

“I didn’t realize he was so close,” Naoto whispers through their teeth. It’s a harsh sound, one that’s reminiscent of the way they speak inside the TV world when the group goes (or still went) training – low and tense.

Kanji straightens his spine, bringing himself up to his full height. “What the hell’s goin’ on?” he hisses, and the part of Souji that hears all of this is shocked and almost desperately grateful that Kanji would step to defend him even while having no idea why.

His reaction to Naoto is similar, but he also knows that Naoto at least has an inkling that something is wrong.

Case in point, when Naoto hisses back, “I’m not sure, but clearly something is.”

They stand that way, both Naoto and Kanji just in front of him and each with a shoulder between him and their oncoming teammate, like a living, two-person wall of defense.

Yosuke nearly skids to a stop before them. His face is a wild shade of blotchy red; extreme even for the chill and the way he’d just been moving. In his eyes is a kind of desperate mania that only grows more intense as he snaps his gaze to Souji just over Naoto’s shoulder. “Hey, cool, there you are, just who I needed to see.” He moves sharply, like he’s going to try and step around Naoto or maybe reach across them to pull Souji away, and something about his eyes, the way it looks like Yosuke means to grab at him, suddenly has the anxious, tight feeling inside Souji’s ribcage hatching into full-blown fear.

He doesn’t even know why.

Except yes, you do.

Old terrors come scratching at the base of this skull, threatening to overlay his current situation with others long passed – like a dozen images superimposed on a single camera shot.

Naoto steps to the side to intercept Yosuke, blocking his raised arm with their shoulder. Now behind them, Kanji moves forward and puts his own arm out, slung low so that Souji is ushered more securely behind him again. There is not an ounce of hesitation in either of their movements, both of them ramrod straight and moving fluidly, silently, like the synchronized unit they have trained to be in the TV world. Except this time, they’re in front of their leader, not just beside.

“Hello, Yosuke-senpai,” Naoto says, voice dropped to the smooth, quiet tenor of their Detective Prince guise. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, Senpai, you look kinda jacked. You okay?”

Tense as they are, neither Kanji nor Naoto sounds angry or defensive; in fact, other than Naoto’s pitch, they speak as if everything is perfectly normal and it’s just another typical day running into a friend outside of school. It helps a little – a sliver of calm against the surge of muscle-memory fear thrumming in Souji’s bones.

This is so stupid, he thinks, berates himself. They shouldn’t have to defend him, shouldn’t have to protect their leader from a threat that’s probably only in his head. (He should be able to handle this himself, for one thing.) The loyalty isn’t any different from what he’s seen after weeks and months of fighting together, but here, outside of the TV world is different, different, because in the TV they fight for their lives; out here they don’t need to do that. Out here he can’t summon Izanagi – out here he isn’t valuable as a commander, there’s no need.

And it’s clear that neither of them knows what’s going on; hell, even he doesn’t know what’s going on, only that Yosuke has been acting like a completely different person all week and that right now his (former?) best friend is erratic and wild-eyed and it scares him. But apparently that last part is enough for Naoto and Kanji – who can’t possibly know just how irrationally freaked Souji actually is – because here they are, standing squarely between him and someone who is still their friend, too, as far as Souji knows, with wide stances and cautiously amiable voices.

Yosuke glances at Naoto, then Kanji, as if finally noticing them. “Oh hi guys,” he says, and it’s rushed, breathy, like he’s only sparing them the absolute minimum amount of attention. He switches his focus back to Souji, who has to fight not to take another step back.

The way Yosuke is staring, he thinks there should be yellow looking back at him instead of unblinking hazel.

Yosuke rocks forward on the balls of his feet, like he wants to try and reach for Souji again but is holding himself back. He tilts his head and licks absently at his bottom lip. “Hey uh, is it cool if I steal him from you two for a bit? I really need to talk to him.”

“Shouldn’t you be askin’ Souji-senpai if he wants to go with you?” Kanji asks, genuinely innocent. “Cuz yeah, we’re just walkin’ but it seems kinda rude to talk around him like that.” He glances back at Souji, eyes questioning.

Souji barely sees it, fixated as he is on Yosuke – like a rabbit in headlights. His face feels numb, likely pale, and whatever his expression is doing must be the answer to Kanji’s unasked question because Kanji suddenly shifts his weight to better shield him.

Naoto must also notice Souji’s inability to answer, because without even looking behind themself they add, “While I certainly am not trying to police Senpai’s interactions, I have to agree with Kanji-kun.” Souji can only see part of Naoto’s face from the angle he’s at behind them, but what he can see has melted into something concerned yet increasingly wary. “You’re also more than welcome to join us if you want to, Yosuke-senpai,” they say, and it almost sounds less like an offer and more like a tentative suggestion.

Yosuke’s expression darkens in frustration, his face going tight and his jaw clenching as he keeps his features steady. It’s more unnerving than any shadow Souji has ever seen.

“Yeah, no, sorry, Naoto,” he says in that same rushed, breathy way as before, only this time it’s laced with the tension of grit teeth. He tries to smile; it looks like bared fangs. “Thanks for the offer and all that but I really kinda need to talk to Partner alone, you know what I mean?”

Naoto tilts their chin forward and stares him down.

Yosuke stares back for a moment, unmoving, before he apparently concedes the challenge and turns his feral gaze back to Souji, who has unconsciously moved to where he’s almost pressed against Kanji’s spine.

Souji wishes he could remember how to stand like a fighter, how to conjure up that confidence that somehow comes naturally to him in the TV world. He can’t. It’s awful and embarrassing, hiding behind his friends like this, but Yosuke isn’t a shadow, isn’t a formless swath of darkness and negative human emotions that Souji can just swing a sword at and call it done. Fighting otherworldly creatures is one thing, something he’s trained himself to do. Holding his own against people on the other hand – especially someone he should be able to trust – is entirely another, and it’s something the world has taught him he absolutely is not allowed to do.

“Partner,” Yosuke calls, voice borderline pleading and pitched in a way that is probably supposed to be coaxing, harmless. It sounds exactly like what Souji would imagine a starving monster beneath a child’s bed to sound like as it convinced its dinner to join it in the dark below.

Yosuke takes a step forward. “Dude, come on…”

Souji flinches. “No…” he whispers, so faint it’s just a ghost of a breath, and he doesn’t mean to, it just comes out before he can even think to reel it in. And it’s so, so quiet – nothing more than a half-gone memory dripping from his lips, and it takes Souji a second to realize he’d even said anything at all.

But close as he is, Kanji hears it.

Hesitance gone, Kanji positions himself completely in front of his senpai and rolls his shoulders back, pushing his chest out to give his already-decent height even more of a presence. “I don’t think he wants to, Yosuke-senpai,” he says, and in his words is the steely resolution of the boy that fought off a biker gang so many months ago.

Naoto must hear the difference, because their shoulders twitch like they’re mildly startled and they glance behind themself to give Kanji – and in turn, Souji – a tense, questioning look.

In that moment, that singular frame of time where his guards are distracted, Souji sees Yosuke’s threadbare patience snap.

Hazel eyes (not yellow not yellow not yellow) zero in on Kanji’s face, a frustrated, irritated grimace curling at Yosuke’s mouth like a tightening screw. “Look,” he growls, voice cracking, “this is important, okay? You can try and get in his pants or whatever the fuck you’re doing later, but right now I need to talk to him!”

Naoto actually gasps, the sound nearly drowned out by Kanji’s own exclamation of shock.

(Something pulses through the bonds in Souji’s soul.)

Everything happens like flashes of a strobe light, the time between moments obscured and blotted out so that it feels like sound and color and movement are all simultaneous, but split into freeze-frame stills that clumsily overlap. Souji feels the blood in his veins slow with it, suspending him outside the chaos as if he were a bird on a windowsill.

Naoto and Kanji are a whirl of voices, indignant and aghast and rightfully appalled.

“Yosuke-senpai, what in the—?!”

“OI! The hell?! It ain’t like that—!”

“—what is wrong with you?!”

“—you got a problem with me ‘n Souji-senpai bein’ friends?”

(There is another pulse along the bonds.)

Yosuke hunches inward, poised almost like he’s coiling for battle. “’Friends’,” he spits. He slinks to the side in the confusion, weaving as if he’s just shifting his weight to keep the other two in front of him while subtly making his way closer to Kanji’s side, closer to where Souji now stares slack jawed at the unrecognizable mess that was once his closest friend.

This isn’t right, this isn’t right! Why can’t he move?

Yosuke slides back half a step to avoid Kanji leaning low and forward into his space with fist held ready. The movement successfully puts him around Naoto’s other side, just barely too far away for Souji to reach out and touch. “Right, sure, that’s why you’ve been all over him the past week, isn’t it? Completely innocent, no ulterior motive whatsoever—“

“What the fuck?!”

“Yosuke-senpai, you are entirely out of line—“

“Like hell I am!”

(Another pulse. It’s almost like a heartbeat now.)

Yosuke dodges an arm swung his way, ducking under it and wrapping his fingers tight and burning around Souji’s frozen wrist. “Come on, dude; let’s get out of here and find somewhere safer—“

(The pulse becomes a pounding. Izanagi roars inside his mind.)

Quick as the lightning he commands, Souji’s everything flares back into life, shattering the strobe effect of his perception of time as something hot and angry surges beneath his skin. He twists his arm like he’s a statue turned to vibrant flesh and turns it in Yosuke’s grasp so that he’s the one now digging his blunted nails into the other boy’s wrist.

“No,” he seethes, and for a moment the whole world seems to tint a glowing, vicious shade of yellow.

Too far. Yosuke’s gone too far; months of fighting together, of Kanji proving himself over and over, both in battle and as a friend, of being far too lenient of Yosuke’s homophobic barbs. Everything they’ve all been through together, and Yosuke still thinks of Kanji as something vile?

And you let it happen, Souji’s mind whispers. You let him say those things and now look where we are. The pit of his stomach turns sour.

He grinds his teeth. Not anymore.

He throws Yosuke’s hand off of him, ignoring the other boy’s shocked outburst.

“Dude! What the hell?”

“Quiet.”

Souji’s voice is dark, deceptively calm. He feels it rumble in his own chest, vibrating like unspent electricity feverishly searching for a conductor. The noise around him instantly snuffs out; the cacophony of overlapping voices, the shuffle of bodies and their feet against the path, even the rush of the river appears to obey him and dull to nothing in his ears. He pulls himself up – spine, shoulders, neck – until he’s standing at his full height and looking down at the boy slowly turning white as a sheet before him. He’s never been more than an inch or so taller than Yosuke, but now, staring him down with a rising wave of newfound courage and wrath, Souji seems to tower over him.

Never again.

“How dare you,” he whispers, and in the sudden ringing quiet it sounds like distant thunder. He takes a step forward. Beside him, Naoto and Kanji fall back. Their eyes are wide, fixed on him as though mesmerized, and in his peripherals he can seem them instinctively take up their usual battle formation; not poised for attack, but readily defaulting to their positions behind their commander. He takes another step.

Yosuke looks absolutely shell-shocked. He gapes at Souji as he approaches, still standing exactly as he’d been when Souji had shoved his hand away. “P-partn—?”

“Don’t.”

Yosuke jerks like he’s been burned and takes a half step back. “Come on, man, what’s—?”

But Souji cuts him off again. “I said,” he hisses, “be quiet.”

Yosuke closes his mouth with an audible ‘click.’

“What,” Souji says, dark and resolute as iron, “is your problem?” He advances another step, crowding into Yosuke’s bubble, and the other boy quickly shuffles backwards a few more feet. Souji holds his ground. “It’s been months, Yosuke, and you’re still on this? How fucking dare you.”

The stunned faces he gets in response feels validating – he knows he doesn’t curse out loud very often, let alone like this, and the aura of authority that settles back over his shoulder as the words leave his lips is a familiar, invigorating weight. There it is; “Leader”, “Commander”, “Sensei”, “Senpai”, there it is! It wells up from within him like an endless tide, drowning out the cloistering fear from before and imbuing him with a stronger, more permanent kind of resolve.

This is what he should have been all along, the kind of leader he should have been for his team, one that can stand up for them instead of just giving them orders. He’s let this slide for far too long, should never have let it start to begin with – and for what? Out of fear? Because of the anxious voice in his brain that tells him he’ll risk Yosuke’s opinion of him if he steps in to stop the slander against another teammate?

He must not have been much of a leader before but he’ll make damn sure he’s worthy of the title now.

Guilt for his past hesitation and a fierce kind of protective solidarity lashes like fire behind his teeth; Kanji is his friend and a good person and doesn’t deserve even half of the shit that gets said about him, to him. He’d trusted Souji enough to confide in him, to come out to him, so what the hell kind of friend would Souji be if he stayed quiet now?

Souji lets the trembling, frightened version of himself fall away and in his place there comes to stand someone else: the general that the characters of his name spell him out to be, stormy-eyed and steel-boned with the breath of thunder in his lungs. He’d picked the name himself, long ago when he was still a child; time to live up to it. Time to make his lieutenant stand down.

Yosuke seems to shake himself out of his stun, his stance changing to one more grounded. His brow furrows harshly and his mouth twists into an incredulous, bewildered frown. He opens his mouth, likely to defend himself or to protest, but Souji doesn’t let him speak.

“No, you don’t get to talk right now after what you already said.” He narrows his eyes against the faint yellow at the edges of his vision, glowering at Yosuke with all the heat of everything he’s ever wished he had the courage to say.

“What does it matter?” Souji sweeps a hand over to where Kanji stands off to the side, never taking his eyes off his former partner. “What the hell does it matter what Kanji’s sexuality is? Has he ever done anything to you? To anyone?”

Yosuke gapes at him, mouth working open and closed with only choked, half-formed sounds escaping.

Souji doesn’t give him the chance to find his words. “No,” he spits, “no, he hasn’t, and before you say anything about his shadow I want you to think reeeeal hard about your own.” He tilts his chin forward, looking down the bridge of his nose at where Yosuke still gawks wordlessly up at him. Souji’s eyes narrow even further.

“A shadow is a shadow, Yosuke, it’s made of fear and repressed negativity, so unless you want to look me in the eye and tell me everything your shadow said was a hundred percent true without exception…” He trails off and levels Yosuke with a pointed look, letting the implications of his words sink in. It’s a low blow; not quite the lowest he could make but close enough, and while he doesn’t like it, it needs to be said so that Yosuke understands just how serious this is.

Yosuke looks like he’s been struck. Pain flashes across his face and he recoils as though burned. “The fuck, Souji,” he breathes, and his voice is a mixture of anger and disbelief.

(If there is just the slightest hint of pain in there, too, then Souji forces himself not to react. He doesn’t want to hurt Yosuke – after all, up until now he’s been the best friend Souji’s ever had – but he can’t let Yosuke and his homophobia keep hurting anyone else, either.)

In the seconds before Yosuke tries to speak again, Souji hears Kanji move behind him. “Senpai, it’s okay, you don’t have to—“

Souji holds up a hand, glancing over his shoulder to give his friend a short nod. “Yes. I do.”

Kanji raises his eyebrows and falls silent. Beside him Naoto still looks tense and ready to fight should the need arise. (Souji wonders just how many times they’ve had to deal with this kind of thing. He hates the thought.)

Turning back, he schools his face into the cold, carved marble mask he’s grown used to wearing in the TV world. Yosuke hunches further down as Souji fixes a grey gaze on him, center of gravity lowered in case he needs to fight or flee. Souji recognizes the action, knows he’s hit a nerve.

He finds Yosuke’s gaze with his own and holds it, unblinking. “You need to apologize.”

Yosuke finally finds his voice. With a look that could melt glaciers – though still shaky around the edges – he bites out, “Me apologize? I didn’t even fucking do anything, why the hell should I have to apologize?”

“How about for the way you’ve been speaking to Kanji for the past six months, for starters?” And Chie, he thinks, and Yukiko.

The shaky edges seem to tremble harder, nervous energy rattling Yosuke’s frame as his shoulders tense. He’s angry, yes, but there’s something else there, too, something that was also there before; a kind of desperation that has slowly begun to creep closer to panic. “You make it sound like I’ve been attacking him,” he says, and his voice is thin, crackling. “So, what? I’m supposed to feel guilty about being uncomfortable? You want me to apologize for trying to make sure nothing weird happened?”

The yellow at the boarder of his vision turns to bloody red.

“Uncomfortable?” he snarls. He feels his spine curl forward, tight and controlled and coiled like a spring, his own body finally echoing his anger and almost dropping into a low battle stance. Like a wolf prepared to charge. “Uncomfortable? And just how the fuck do you think other people feel when you go around saying shit like that?!”

Yosuke jerks backwards, thrown so off guard he nearly stumbles. The wild-eyed look is back, that desperate-panicked-barely-held-together gleam shining brightly in twin oceans of hazel.

But Souji pays no heed. “Do you have any idea how much it hurts people when you say that? You think you’re uncomfortable? You have nothing on the ones that have to listen to comments like that every day of their lives.” He pulls his lips back over his teeth, baring them, and pours every last drop of his own hurt and anxiety in to join the righteous, protective anger he feels on Kanji’s behalf. “Maybe you’re right, maybe you didn’t attack him, but that’s the kind of thing that gets people attacked!”

There are sounds behind him; his friends, the running of the river, the hammering of his heart in his ears. His throat is starting to burn from speaking so much – his body isn’t used to it anymore – and he can feel the tremors in his chest that signal the start of hyperventilation, adrenaline mixing with everything else now burning below his skin.

Everything zeros in on one point, everything else fading away as Souji stares dead-on into Yosuke’s eyes. He’s never held eye contact for this long with anyone, but he refuses to let go of it now. He throws a hand out to the side and points somewhere behind him in the general direction of where he remembers Kanji being. “Kanji,” he emphasizes, “isn’t gay, Yosuke, and even if he was, what does it matter? He’s still a friend, and a member of this team, and fuck you and your homophobia!”

There is a line somewhere, deep in his heart, one that Souji has only ever tiptoed over once or twice before in his entire life. He’d been scarred for his efforts nearly every time and so he’s kept neatly to his own side of it ever since, never daring to cross it fully lest he be left damaged beyond repair. But it’s exhausting on this side of the line, soul-rending, isolating, and after years and years and years he finally feels his resolve break.

He opens his mouth, takes a breath, and leaps across the line inside him.

“If you’re so adamant about being uncomfortable around gay men then why don’t you lay off of him and start being uncomfortable around me?!”

He stabs at the air with his raised arm, jabbing harshly with the finger he’s been pointing behind himself at his silent friends, back where the Fortune and Emperor bonds have been burning, fizzing, blinding in their intensity at the base of his skull. “Kanji’s not gay!”

(“I can’t keep it in anymore; I gotta tell somebody or I’m gonna go crazy…”

“Like, it’s too big a secret to keep by myself, ya know?”)

He pulls his arm in and points instead at himself. “I am!”

The fingers on both his hands curl into fists, clenching so tightly into his palms that he can feel the skin giving way beneath them. He digs them deeper and rides out the tsunami of adrenaline until the very end.

“I’m gay, Partner,” he repeats, spitting the nickname like it’s acid. “And I’m sorry if I don’t fit your fucking stereotypes, but maybe, just maybe, queer people are normal goddamn human beings!”

The world goes silent.

In the sudden, ringing quiet he slowly becomes aware of his breathing, the way his chest heaves like he’s been dying, drowning, and he’s somehow made it back to the surface to take his first lungful of air in years. His heart pounds against his ribs – he can feel it in his ears, his mouth, loud and insistent against the backs of his eyes. His throat aches.

Yosuke stares at him. He is frozen completely still; even his chest is motionless, like the air inside him has been turned to ice with his blood. His face is white, his lips open and trembling, and his eyes; impossibly wide, his pupils blown so that the hazel of his irises is almost totally eclipsed by inky black.

Yosuke looks at him as if he’s afraid.

Oh fuck.

Something shifts behind him. A faint, hesitant trill of gold zings its way along the Wheel of Fortune right before Naoto’s voice (at his back, much closer than he’d realized), hisses, “Senpai! Your voice!”

Oh fuck.

The breath leaves his lungs like a gunshot and Souji claps a hand over his mouth in dawning horror, tasting the coppery tang of the blood on his palm from his own fingernails. He can feel it now, the echo of his voice across the floodplain, hanging heavy in the air and in his head – the way his throat feels like he’s swallowed blistering sand. He presses his hand harder against his mouth until his lips grind against his teeth. He realizes now that he must have been shouting; that he’d lost control over his volume as he’d lost his grip on his temper, and that his vocal cords – so used to quiet, lower tones, trained for over a decade to keep the pitch he wants – have more than likely betrayed him.

He wishes he knew what he’d sounded like.

He’s unbelievably glad he doesn’t know.

Black replaces the dimming red that lines his sight, blotting along the outline like ink in water. The leftover adrenaline still dripping into his blood sparks to life again and he can feel the old, familiar fingers of panic come clutching at his spine.

What have you done?

He doesn’t look at Yosuke, still silent and fearful, doesn’t even bother to acknowledge him. He just pivots on the ball of his foot and starts to move. He breezes past Kanji and Naoto – the latter of whom, he is vaguely aware, turns almost immediately and follows after him with only a split-second glance behind.

A second, heavier set of footsteps catches up a few moments later, and he can hear the gruffness of Kanji’s voice in the way his second follower breathes.

He walks. Only on some barely conscious level does he know where he’s heading, and only then because he’d turned away from Yosuke to do so. The only way away is further down the river, so down the river is where he must be going. He lets his mind slip sideways and allows his body to stride as far and as fast away as it wants to, not even a hint of destination in mind.

  It’s a long time before he comes back into his head.

When he does, it’s to find himself seated on the side of the road – well away from the river bank – with his back bowed and his head resting between his knees, both hands wrapped around his mouth so tightly he can feel the outline of his teeth through his skin.

There is someone’s hand between his shoulder blades he realizes after a time, rubbing small circles as he unconsciously rocks a couple inches forward and then a couple inches back. Like a pendulum. Or a broken chain.

“You think he’s gonna be okay?” says a voice off to his right.

The hand on his back pauses and he feels a thumb swipe along one of the knobs of his spine a few times, like the person the hand belongs to is loathe to stop entirely. Someone on his left – seated next to him, it seems – leans into the side of his vision just enough to cast a shadow in his peripherals. “Souji-senpai?” comes a different voice – higher, lighter, blue. “Are you back with us now?”

He takes in a deep breath through his nose and holds it, only releasing it when it starts to hurt. He exhales slowly through his teeth. “Yeah,” he mumbles into his knees. He has no idea if anyone can actually hear him. He doesn’t suppose it really matters. “Yeah, I’m here. I’m alright.” He gives himself a second to assess. “…I think,” he amends. Someone sighs in relief beside him.

“You had us worried, Senpai,” says the blue voice from before, the one with the hand on his back. He thinks it might be Naoto. (He’s pretty sure it’s Naoto.)

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. He turns his head towards the blue voice but doesn’t actually raise it from between his knees. “I keep doing this to you.”

“Senpai, don’t… please stop apologizing.” The blue voice is sad, remorseful. He doesn’t like it. It should never have to sound that way.

He tries to shrug noncommittally, which is hard with his arms pinned down by his own thighs. “I don’t know how to do anything else,” he whispers.

He hadn’t really meant to say it, definitely didn’t mean for anyone else to hear it, but they did. He’s beginning to realize that they’re more attuned to him that he’d first wanted to allow.

Someone crouches next to him on his other side. It’s a warm presence, bigger than the other one, and it blots out the thin trail of sunlight that’s been soaking into his hair. “You didn’t have to do all’a that,” says the first voice, the one ringed in bleach-blond gold, rough and soft all at the same time. Like a hug when you weren’t expecting one.

Souji lets out a shaky laugh – a quiet huff of breath that makes his shoulders tremble. “Maybe I didn’t,” he whispers, “but I also kind of did.” He hopes his inflection gets his meaning across; he isn’t sure he could try for anything more eloquent just now.

Kanji lets out a sound that might be a disbelieving snort. “You really are somethin’ else.” He lowers himself entirely, coming out of his crouch to sit directly on the ground beside him. There is a long moment of silence, one that feels like two people making eye contact over the top of his head. Finally, Kanji murmurs, “Thanks, Senpai, that… meant a lot.”

He shakes his head. Slowly, he pulls his hands away from his mouth and lets them drop. He doesn’t sit up just yet though, perfectly content to stare at the dirt between his shoes. He’s too exhausted still for much of anything else. “You shouldn’t thank me for doing what I should have done forever ago.”

“Hey. You said you knew how hard it must’a been for me to come out to you, yeah? I get it, too.”

Souji starts to shake his head again, ready to protest that he’s the Leader, it’s his job as their commander and as their friend to stand up for them, to do the things too unsafe for them to do, to have their backs like they protect his in the TV world, but a large, gentle hand comes down on his shoulder – long and calloused fingers brushing along the sliver of his neck exposed past his collar. He shivers.

“No,” says Kanji, voice firm but kind. “Naoto’s right, you need to stop thinking everything’s your responsibility.” There is another pause, and a slight shift on both sides of him, the rustle of fabric quiet in his ears. The hand that Naoto already has on his back starts to move again.

It’s Naoto’s turn to sigh. “I think we all tend to forget just how human you are,” they murmur, and it’s still that sad, hushed tone from before – the one he hates because it hurts. “Including you, Senpai; you try to do everything, and we, like idiots, believe that you can, and that you don’t need our help, too, sometimes.”

He lets out another shivery exhale – it nearly comes out like a sob.

Kanji fidgets. “Naoto said they’ve seen you like this before.”

Souji nods.

“…Is it always like this? This bad, I mean.”

Souji sucks in a long breath. He nods again. “Usually,” he croaks.

“Well shit…”

Silently, the fingers at the base of his skull press into his skin, pushing tiny little spirals into the knot he already knows is there. No one says anything more for a few moments until, “That’s what happened at the cultural festival, isn’t it? After the pageant?”

He tenses. Oh please no, I don’t want to talk about that right now.

But Naoto comes to his rescue. “He was having a panic attack, yes.” They change their pattern and start smoothing their hand – much smaller than Kanji’s, with just as gentle of a touch – up and down the length of his back. Souji feels himself relax a little further.

There is a faint, tender thrum along the pair of bonds he shares with these two particular friends. He feels it vibrate along the line and into his own body, but also, strangely, he can feel it reverberating back outwards, too. He lets himself follow it, just to see, and it echoes across the Emperor and Wheel of Fortune towards one another as well as back to him. Well, he thinks, at least something good came out of this mess.

“How often do you get them?” Kanji asks. There is worry there, something a little guilty, and nononono, that’s not something that should be there. Souji is the only one that should shoulder the weight of worry; his friends don’t deserve something that heavy across their backs.

But the way Kanji asks is too genuine for Souji not to answer, so he swallows down his discomfort at being fretted over and says, more honestly than he’s accustomed to, “Too often.”

“Fuck.”

There is a long stretch of silence after that. It isn’t uncomfortable; in fact it’s relatively easy – no one is saying anything because nothing more really needs to be said right now. Souji finds he likes it this way.

There are birds chirping in the distance, despite the thin layer of fog that has been obscuring the horizon for several days now. The far-off sound of cars from the roads closer to town is there, too; all ambient noise, real and unobtrusive. It’s grounding, and blessedly calm. Eventually though, as is what happens to even the most serene pockets of time, the silence is broken.

“Hey… Naoto?” Kanji murmurs around Souji’s hunched form. There is a soft rustle from Souji’s left and a barely there, “hmm?” to which Kanji responds, “I’m uh. I’m bi.”

A beat. Then, “Oh. Well.... Thank you for trusting me with this information, Kanji-kun.” They go quiet again for a moment, contemplative. “I personally am not sure what my sexuality is, only that my gender is quite fluid.” There is a breathy chuckle near Souji’s left ear and he can practically hear the blush across Naoto’s nose. There is a smile in their voice when they add, “But you already knew that about me.”

Souji grins to himself where the others can’t see. This is progress – even if it’s on the back of something awful like yet another of his attacks. He’d gladly have a hundred more if it meant he could inadvertently make his friends happy.

One of the fingers still kneading gingerly at his neck taps against his vertebrae, like a half-hearted poke. “Senpai,” Kanji says, and Souji can’t help shifting a little to peek out at his friend from between his own knees. It’s the first clear view of either of them he’s had since his brain shut down at the riverbank.

Kanji is frowning at him, brow creased in concentration like he’s still figuring out what he wants to say. “You outed yourself,” he finally settles on, and there is a question hiding in the tone of his voice.

Souji sighs and uncurls his spine, sitting up at last. Several things pop back into place as he goes.

He watches the world in front of him, vision focusing on the middle distance as he gives his friend a tired, resigned shrug. “I did,” he admits. “I didn’t exactly plan to do that, but… I did.”

Naoto leans over a bit into Souji’s peripherals; he can see them watching his face as they say, “Perhaps it was for the best?”

Souji tilts his chin in their direction, listening without turning to look.

They take it for the sign to continue that it is. “What I mean to say is that, of course we support you, and maybe it’s one less burden to bear now.” They glance upwards to where Souji can only assume Kanji is. “Don’t you think?”

From the angle they’re all at, Souji can just barely make out the movement of Kanji nodding.

Naoto continues, “It might not have been ideal, but if it’s enough to get Yosuke-senpai to rethink his mentality, then maybe it was a good thing in disguise?” They sound unsure (which is something Souji is starting to see is a side-effect of Naoto being comfortable around someone,) as if they want to be helpful but aren’t convinced they’re doing it correctly. It’s still sweet – and Souji does understand what they’re trying to say.

He huffs, knowing Naoto will hear it for the (albeit humorless) laugh that it is. “Maybe,” he says, watching them through the edge of his line of sight. “I guess if I lose him as a friend over this then he wasn’t the kind of friend I needed in the first place.”

It hurts to say aloud; he desperately does not want to lose his best friend, his partner, but he’s worn out. If it comes to that then it will hurt, (he can already recognize the beginnings of another thorny ball of pain taking root inside his heart, as well as the emptiness that creeps in along with it,) but he was hurting before, too, every time something homophobic came dripping from Yosuke’s oblivious mouth. Every time his friend had made a comment or a statement that attacked Kanji, Souji had felt it, leaking in like rain against a battered roof, bringing the guilt of his own silence with it. He’s already in pain, but he’s tired of letting himself be hurt, tired of letting others like him be hurt, and, by proxy, tired of hurting himself. He doesn’t care so much about his own wounds anymore, though, as familiar as they are. They’re exhausting, yes, but the thing that had tipped him over the edge was the way his friends, his teammates, those that look to him for direction were being treated.

Souji can count the number of people that have ever stood up for him and this deeply-rooted piece of himself on one hand – he refuses to let that fleeting kindness stop at him.

He sees his kohai sharing a glance, though he can’t make out their facial expressions from where he’s sitting. He can tell there is a silent conversation happening around him, and while he’s curious, he also doesn’t want to pry. So he waits, confident that someone will speak up in a moment.

He’s right. Naoto gently clears their throat – an oddly nervous gesture – and mumbles, “I don’t think you’ll lose him completely, Senpai. Yosuke-senpai is a bit obtuse, yes, but your outburst may have been exactly what he needed to fix his own mistakes.”

Kanji appears to nod. “Y-yeah, what they said.” He glances around Souji’s shoulders towards Naoto again, more wordless dialogue taking place while Souji waits. Kanji leans back around again after a few seconds. “And, I mean, I dunno if you’ve noticed, Senpai, but Yosuke-senpai is kind of glued to you half the time, so…”

Souji ticks his gaze over as Kanji trails off; left curious once more, but not quite ready to look at anyone dead on.

“He seems to adore you,” Naoto concludes, and Souji shifts so that his attention switches back over to them as they speak. “It is my honest belief that he’ll come around eventually. It might just… take some time.”

I don’t really have time, Souji wants to say, but bites his tongue instead. November isn’t all that far away from March in the long run, and if he’s going to permanently lose the closest friendship he’s had since childhood then he’d rather be given the chance to grieve properly. If not, then any time spent in limbo is a waste. He doesn’t think he can win, either way.

It’s less draining just to relinquish his grip on hope.

Simultaneously, because despite him sitting up, neither Kanji nor Naoto has removed their grounding touch, the hands on his back slide inward, mirroring each other, and there is a moment where it feels like Souji is being hugged from either side. He stiffens, purely on instinct, for only the briefest flash of time, before leaning in to the awkward, three-person embrace and letting the rest of the tension bleed out of his bones.

He isn’t falling this time. There are hands to catch him.

“Thanks, Senpai,” Kanji murmurs, and Souji lets this one wash over him, letting go of his eternal need to shrug off words of gratitude. He’s not going to dismiss his friend’s feelings this time. “For all of that back there.” Kanji sighs. “I wish you hadn’t had to do that, though, cuz that’s a pretty shitty way to be forced outta the closet.”

Soui hums and the beginnings of a smile tug at one corner of his mouth. “No one forced me,” he says, and it’s lighter than he expected, truer. Like a stone has been lifted from his neck – only one out of several dozen, but even one less is still one less. He chuckles softly. “I think I just got tired of holding it in, too.”

There is a pause as Kanji looks at him; Souji can feel his friend’s eyes on the side of his face. And then Kanji laughs.

It’s low and calm, seeming slightly out-of-place when compared to Kanji’s usually much more intense demeanor, but somehow it fits him. A side that only appears around certain people – like Naoto and their lowered guard; like Souji and his genuine smiles. “Yeah,” Kanji agrees, “yeah, I know what you mean.”

From over on his left, Naoto squeezes their arm tighter around his ribs and lets out a quiet, wordless sound, breathy like a vocal exhalation. “It will be alright in the end, I think,” they say with a note of hopeful positivity.

Somewhere deep in the back of his mind, Souji tentatively allows himself to believe they could be right.

 ---

           24 hours later, there is a letter.

24 hours later, and Souji is deathly cold in every way possible, standing in an interrogation room with Kanji, Teddie, and Yosuke, listening from somewhere far away as Dojima-san tries and fails to keep the desperation from his voice when he shouts an order back at Adachi.

24 hours later, and Souji feels the cracked, damaged pieces of his soul utterly and completely break.

Because it’s only 24 hours later, and Nanako has disappeared.