#mona and ruby were definitely a couple right?

[literaryspinster]

I kinda wish I could talk about the gay subtext in this movie with someone but nobody freaking remembers it 😅

[auncyen]

Ruby Red and the Rain

Kasumi had been walking home with her father, each of them carrying a bucket of fried chicken--one just for her so her parents could get a piece, her father joked--when a drop of rain splashed on her nose.  The redhead looked up to the sky, blinking as drops started to fall faster, a couple plopping on her face.

Her chest grew tight.

Christmas Eve was a time for white snow, if anything...what did red rain mean?

“What’s wrong?”

“D-don’t you see it, Dad?” Kasumi asked him, taking one hand away from her cargo to point up to the sky.  “I didn’t even know rain could be red...”

“See what?” Her father looked up, then back at her, his face the picture of confusion behind his red glasses.  “Skies look normal to me.”

Kasumi gaped at him.  How did her father not see the rain when it was coming down so fast?  It was raining so hard--oh no, it was raining so hard that the path was already covered in a sheen of crimson that splashed as she shifted her feet.  She gulped.  It looked so much like blood...like the pool of blood that had formed when Sumire died.

No, no.  She closed her eyes, trying to block out the sight and think.  Ignore the liquid soaking through her shoes.  Something strange was going on, and, and...lately, when she’d seen strange things, it’d all been in...the Metaverse?  She reached out in her mind for Cendrillon, relieved when her Persona answered readily, but also wary.  Had she and her father accidentally entered the Metaverse somehow?  She didn’t have her rebel’s clothes, though.  What had Mona-senpai said about that again?

Wait.  Even if they were in the Metaverse, why wasn’t her father seeing this?

“██████, are you not feeling well?”

“I’m okay, I think,” Kasumi said, forcing her eyes open to look at her father.  Was she seeing things, or was he...not?  She didn’t want to worry him--he’d been worrying so much about her in her slump, after Sumire died-- “Wait.  What did you call me?”

Her father looked even more confused.  More concerned.  “Your name?  ████re.”

It was like she was hearing him from deep underwater, and for a moment she wondered if the blood rain was swallowing her up.

No.   It was still around her ankles.  If it was even there.  “Dad,” she said, her voice wavering.  “I’m Kasumi.”

Her father’s lips parted in shock, but she didn’t know why that should be so surprising.  He’d just--he’d slipped up names.  It happened.  He was getting older.  He needed reading glasses now.  Messing up names every once in a while was normal for someone his age, right?

She was Kasumi Yoshizawa, and she reached for her inner confidence, for Cendrillon again.

But now Cendrillon had vanished.

In Shibuya’s scramble, the Phantom Thieves were discovering the power of the public’s cognition as it was impressed upon them, dreadful, inescapable, that they did not exist.

Kasumi’s brush with the public’s cognition was not as painful.  Not physically, at least.

But the public knew that Kasumi Yoshizawa was dead, and that scraped against her thoughts, peeling away her perception, her sense of self.

Her father looked so, so terribly pained.  “That--that explains some things,” he said.  “Please, Su--”  He stopped himself, then continued in a gentle voice.  “Let’s get home quickly, and we can eat, and you can get some rest.”

His daughter pursed her lips.  The last time his voice had sounded so gentle, almost like he was afraid of setting her off somehow, was after ████mi’s death--

After ██su██--██████--Ka--

Nononononononothatwasn’trightitwas Sumire!  Sumire had died!  It had been raining and she had been stupid and run into traffic without looking!  It was still sad she’d died but she’d brought it on herself!  There was no good reason for Kasumi to be the one who got hurt and every reason for it to be Sumire, so the blood at her feet had to be ██sumi’s--

The food she’d been carrying dropped to the ground as her hands flew up to cover her eyes, her shoulders hunching as though they could block out her father’s panicked voice.  Why...why was there so much blood?  It had come down so fast, like it wanted to flood the earth and swallow her up, but her father and everyone else were moving around like it’d always been there--

Oh.  It must have always been there.  If everyone else was behaving like it was normal, then that was just obvious.

The Phantom Thieves were erased from the public’s consciousness.  ██████, with her fragile sense of self, was subsumed into it.  When she reopened her eyes to the ruby red pooled around her ankles, she didn’t feel any alarm.  Just disappointment at the overturned bucket already soggy in the low flood.  “Sorry, Dad,” she said, smiling apologetically at him.  “That was really clumsy of me to drop half our dinner.”

Her father had a strange look on his face, and she wondered if he was really upset about it before he shook his head.  “That’s all right, dear.  It doesn’t matter.  Let’s--let’s hurry home.  Hold my hand, okay?”

That was kind of a strange request, especially when he still had his share of chicken to hold, but it was kind of sweet, too.  Maybe he was feeling sentimental since it was Christmas Eve.  ██████ took the hand her father freed from carrying the bucket, and they resumed their walk home.  Along the way, he asked if she would want to try a new therapist, and ██████ reassured him that Maruki was doing a great job.  She liked Maruki.  And really, she was doing a lot better now, with help from both her therapist and her senpai.  Her father worried about her too much.

When the public’s cognition started to unravel, the people finally recognizing the danger they were in, her father reacted first, tugging ██████ into the nearest open shop.  He gripped her hand tighter as others who had crowded into the shop with them vanished in wisps of black smoke.  ██████ roused briefly from the lull she’d fallen into at the increasing distress in her father and the others around her.  She reached for Cendrillon again.  Her Persona still wasn’t there.  Her true self was gone.  She couldn’t even remember what it had been like, and gave up trying soon enough.

If they were all going to die anyway, she should really be focusing on how to say sorry when she saw ██████ again.

She didn’t feel a spark of rebellion until a TV in the store lit up with static and the Phantom Thieves’ logo.  She recognized the voice that declared “We’ll definitely, definitely...take the world!”  It was a struggle to raise her voice loud enough, but she cheered in response:

“Mona-senpai!  Joker-senpai!  You...you can do it!!  Go, Phantom Thieves!”  She believed in them, even if she couldn’t believe in herself.

And then, a little later, her father blinked and looked at her.  “What are we doing in here?”

“Um...”  What were they doing in here?  ██████ couldn’t remember.  “Weren’t you the one who wanted to come in here, Dad?  You must have seen something cool in the window display.”  That would explain why the store was so crowded, though now the other patrons were quickly filing out, looking a little puzzled themselves.  Only some of them had actually made purchases.

Her father laughed.  “Oh, brother.  It was me, wasn’t it?  But I really can’t remember.”

“Uh oh.  Old age is setting in...”

“Kasumi!”

The redhead laughed brightly at her father’s mock indignation, and they set out of the store to finally go home.  Their joined hands separated naturally as they reached the door--they both were carrying a bucket of chicken they needed to mind.

Kasumi and her father walked through a Tokyo that was gradually turning into a winter wonderland with a gentle, pristine snowfall.  They passed by dozens of other happy families, as well as a few couples Kasumi smiled at, hoping she’d be able to have a cute relationship like that once she was through with her gymnastics career.  They got home and ate dinner with Kasumi’s mother.  There was nothing mentioned about a new therapist, because Kasumi was doing so well with Dr. Maruki’s help.  Really, she didn’t even much need to see him anymore, but she was so grateful for all he’d done for her.  They all turned in for the night, Kasumi watching snowflakes drifting lazily outside her window before her eyes drifted shut.

Instead of white snow, she dreamed of red rain

and floods

and the pool of blood her sister had died in.

Kasumi frowned when she woke up from the bad dream, hugging her pillow closer.

She wished Sumire had been more careful.

-

“Sumire should have been able to see what was going on during Christmas Eve because she had a Persona, just like any other PT could even if Joker missed maxing their confidant” vs “ok but her entire cognition is screwed up” go GO GO