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[CLOSED] ▫ ใต้ต้นไม้ที่ไม่มีร่มเงา กิ่งก้านมันไม่ได้สูงสักเท่าไร ... ▫

Who: Seta Souji [

eatsyourscience] and Arisato Minato [

jivitadana]
Where: Sixth Floor, Room 100
When: Thursday, August 31
Rating: PG for conversations about the past and home
Summary: Minato and Souji attempt to write down all the potential words or phrases Wonderland might consume from their memories. Should one of them lose a memory, the other should be able to remember it instead.
The Story:

The issue should have come up sooner, or at least, Minato had thought about it, but only now finally had time to get around to doing something about it. All he really needed was a place to keep notes, whether digital or physical, time, and then someone who would be able to remember when Minato had forgotten. He had to keep track of all of his memories since he was the only one from his home and his time period. It didn't seem to matter to Wonderland if he originated from the same world as some of his companions here: If he hadn't existed at that time in the future, then he wouldn't experience the consequences of losing something they did. But if he had lost something, then it might've been gone forever. (Or something like forever. He wondered about lost memories, especially after this past Christmas. Something to think about.)

Thus he set up a meeting with Souji in their room at the table, laptop out and on and ready, notebooks and all sorts of writing utensils of an assortment of colors laid out before them, and a few snacks and sodas just in case. He had a feeling this meeting would take a while, but it really should take all the time it needed. Souji was already missing more than enough memories at this rate and they had to log everything they could before anymore could get taken away.

He glanced at the mirror for a second, wondering if he should also consult with someone on the other side about it as well, but again, perhaps that was for a later day or later conversation.

"I need to tell you everything."

Minato had told Souji so much already. But it wasn't everything, he realized, if Wonderland was also going to take something seemingly so trivial such as words they used every day. That bothered Minato, but not as much as losing names to places or maybe even people if it came to that eventually. He needed to drill down and tell Souji every little detail, anything that might be of interest to Wonderland.

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For Souji's part, he was realizing just how few of Minato's teammates were linked to him. He wasn't sure what to think about that, though part of him felt sad at the thought. What did that mean? Were they not able to be as close as Souji had been to his teammates? What did that mean for Minato?

"Ebihara Ai was my Moon link. She was the manager of the soccer team, though she never showed up. She only did it to keep from being kicked out of school--she had an issue with truancy. She was pretty, but no one liked her much. She told me later she wanted attention so badly that she had changed everything about herself, even down to her appearance to get it. She gave me her compact mirror."

Ai had been a piece of work, though he only thought that affectionately. He could understand her thirst for attention and admiration, even if he'd never sought it out as actively as she had.

"My sun link was Matsunaga Ayane. She played the trombone in the band, but wasn't very confident. She worked hard on that, though, and in the end she gave me a handmade ticket to come hear her play someday."

There were a lot of people who relied on Souji to help them with so many parts of their lives. They were changed because of Souji. Souji was always so good at that.

"My Sun Link was Kamiki Akinari. I met him at Naganaki Shrine on Sundays. He was a little older than us, 19 years old, but had an incurable, genetic disease. He knew his life was going to end and he almost didn't want to talk to me, but eventually he started to tell me about a story he wrote about a pink alligator and his bird friend. He realized that he should live his life to the fullest while he could."

Minato paused, thinking about his last meeting with Akinari.

"When my Link maxed with him, he left me his notebook with the story in it. He disappeared into the sunlight and that was the last time I saw him."

It was so fitting then that Akinari was his Sun Link.

"Later on, I met his mother. She told me she would live her life to the fullest too and would tell him all the things she's done whenever they meet again. He would've been twenty that day."

And it was also so fitting too since his Sun Link was number 19, the same age Akinari had passed away. Minato missed him, perhaps understanding him so much more now, now that he had the chance to look back at his own life and death.

"I know that book. Nanako read it to me once."

It was like Minato's story had been tailor-made for Souji to follow after him.

"I know Judgment and Universe." It was so different and so similar to his own "World." "What about Aeon?"

It wasn't a traditional part of the tarot deck, so he wasn't sure if Minato would have one, too.

Then somehow Akinari's dream had come true too, to have his work published. One of Minato's friends had to have done something with the notebook he received to make that even possible. Minato smiled a little to himself, thinking about that kind of legacy and what that meant.

Then his expression smoothed out a bit as he explained more.

"Aeon was Aigis, the Anti-Shadow Weapon who sealed Death in me. She had Palladion as her Persona and then Athena. She was a robot, but eventually became more human and gained the will to live when we spent more time with her. She gave me a charred screw."

It was almost like it was coming full circle.

"She was very protective. We remembered everything after the Dark Hour vanished, and she was there on the rooftop with me."

So at the very end. Like Ryoji, almost. They were there at the beginning and at the end, though Ryoji had been there the entire time.

"That's all I have. What about you?"

"Aeon was Marie. I told you about her--she was something like a Velvet Room attendant at first, and she was pretty strange. She thought that she could save us from the fog by giving her own life. She told me..." He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, getting it right before he explained. "She said she was born a long time ago as the unconscious wish shared by all people. Her original role was to protect the world for humanity and fulfill their wish. When people stopped wishing for the truth, she split into two--the one who could protect humanity and the one who could fulfill humanity's wishes. The two parts of her were in conflict--Kunino-Okami wanted to fulfill humanity's wish to be ignorant and Kusumi-no-Okami wanted to protect humanity by getting rid of the fog. She gave me a bamboo comb, which was her only possession before she entered the Velvet Room."

He jotted down a couple of things that Marie made him think of, then hesitated. There was one more, but...

"Most of your team aren't Links." He looked up at Minato. "That seems so..."

Lonely.

Edited 2017-09-18 00:00 (UTC)

The gravity of that last Link reminded Minato of the way Shadows operated, the existence of the mother of all Shadows, the reason her Avatar existed, the fate of humanity. And to have that individual as a Link brought the decision, any decisions about the world, that much... closer, that was the only word Minato could think of it. It meant more.

Minato had also typed in the last of those notes before he turned to Souji, thinking about that. He realized too that all of Souji's team, his peers and his kouhai, were his Links.

"It's just the dynamics of our team. It helps that you're the senpai."

That was one reason for it too, Minato had thought. The chemistry among SEES versus the IT, Minato didn't want to play the comparison game, but he knew that it was different. It wasn't the same and would never be the same.

He thought back to those days in the beginning, what it was like to get to know the others or lack thereof of it. But then again, he wondered too.

He couldn't blame it on the others. It could've just been fate as well, teaching him something about Links in general. If his entire team had been Links, then he wouldn't have been able to meet all of the other people who had entered into his life.

Or maybe it was just him and he hadn't tried hard enough.

Souji looked at Minato for a moment as though he could feel what he was thinking. Not read it, but feel it, as though something in the air between them were vibrating at just the right frequency.

"Things happened the way they did, and for a reason. It was like that for us both."

He hoped that was reassuring or vindicating somehow. It was the only thing he could really offer.

Looking down at his paper, where he'd written down the names of each arcana, he frowned to himself, then wrote down two more words.

"I have one more. Or two, maybe. It started out as Jester and turned into Hunger." Without looking up, he added, "I've told you about Adachi."

Minato couldn't do anything about it now. It was what it was and he couldn't change it. Not that he wanted to change it, not really. Hearing about Souji's Links though did make him think about his own.

When he heard that name, Minato nodded. He wondered why he was coming up again, but if Souji was bringing him up, then he had to be more than what Souji had mentioned before.

He waited for Souji to explain. He didn't want to jump to conclusions.

"Adachi was a Link. Before we found out he was the murderer, he and I spent some time together. There was an old woman who would make him take food she made--but he realized he was just a temporary replacement for her son. Like he wasn't needed, just being used."

He drew a little line on the page and retraced it several times in a slow, small motion.

"He was my uncle's partner. He came over to our house a bunch of times. He ate with us and Nanako read him the book about the pink alligator. He always talked about how things in life were a bother."

He stopped his hand.

"I got a letter he wrote me when he was in prison. He thanked me in it."

A Link. It was like having a Link with Strega. Or Ikutsuki. Minato couldn't imagine it for himself, but he could perhaps see why it was that way for Souji.

"He means something to you."

It was why Souji kept him so close to his heart, like all of his other Links, despite what he had done. All relationships were complicated. This one included.

"Yeah."

He lapsed into silence for a moment before looking up. His smile was a sad one.

"That one was hard."

Minato nodded slightly.

"Tell me why it was. And what it means to have him as a Link."

Because if he had a Link with this person, what did that say about Souji himself?

Souji had wondered that before, too. He had that Hunger inside of him, too, as a mask he wore. He had to have, to relate somehow to Adachi.

He took a breath.

"Because I didn't suspect him for a long time. And I didn't want to think it was him. And then I thought I could appeal to him through that link somehow, even though I knew it wouldn't work."

His expression hardened then as he thought about it.

"Because of him, Nanako almost died."

"You Maxed the Link though since he gave you something for it."

Minato thought about too, what it was like to live and talk and befriend the person who was actually behind all of those horrific murders.

"It might be a way to tell you what you could be, but you know better."

Souji nodded. He'd had the opportunity to keep Adachi from being caught, but even if he'd considered it, he could never have gone through with it. No Link, unbreakable or otherwise, could counteract what he'd done.

Adachi was a bit of a sore spot--a bruise that went deeper than it seemed from the outside, but not one that was so livid in color anymore.

"Still...I wouldn't undo it."

"I wouldn't want you to either since it's a part of you."

Minato was glad too that Souji didn't let Adachi go. That wouldn't be right at all and go against what he should be doing, no matter the Link.

"Is that all to him? You all caught him and he went to jail?"

"There's always more to it." But Souji had said everything that needed saying. "We did what we had to, and he got what he deserved."

It was the least he deserved.

Minato nodded, thinking that it was good to know about Adachi and what he meant to Souji. The way Links worked were a little more complicated than he had expected, but he figured everyone's journey was different.

He looked at his notes on his laptop, then back at Souji.

"Is there anything else you want to ask me?"

Souji thought, looking at his notes as well.

"...What about your family?"

He hoped it wasn't something he shouldn't bring up.

Minato thought it was a good idea just to have it written down. He told Souji his parents' names and how it was written, that his father was a doctor and his mother was a nurse and they had worked at Tatsumi Memorial Hospital until their deaths.

"There's my other family. Iori Junpei was in my class. He had Hermes who changed into Trismegistus. Koromaru was an albino shiba inu who we adopted from Naganaki Shrine after waiting for his master to return home, but we later found out the monk had passed away about six months prior to that. His Persona was Cerberus. Amada Ken was about eleven when he joined us. His Persona was Nemesis, then Kala-Nemi."

He had others to mention, none of whom were Linked to him.

"Sanada Akihiko was my senpai. He was on the boxing team. He had Polydeuces followed by Caesar. Aragaki Shinjiro was also my senpai who had Castor. His Persona went out of control one night and killed Ken's mother. It was why he ended up taking supplements to suppress his Persona power. He was later killed by Strega."

And Minato had to go into them too. That was where more complications lie.

"But tell me about your parents first."

Souji frowned, but the expression was fleeting. Quietly, he told Minato their names, their occupations, but left out most of his experience with them. He supposed that in some ways his experience with them really was so limited that he could only give their names and occupations. He listed the few places where they'd lived as well, just in case.

"And you already know the rest of my family." His uncle and cousin, his team, the other friends and links he had made.

He wasn't intentionally trying to shift the conversation away from the topic Minato had asked about. There simply wasn't any more to tell.

Minato also made of note of that, looking over those names. They only shared Souji's last name and genes, but that was about it. He had been told about those two people before, and he still couldn't help but feel that it wasn't right. At all. It was beyond unforgivable.

He nodded. It was okay. They could leave it there for now until they finished here. There was still more that they had to take care of before Minato circled back. He quietly wished to himself that he would also be a part of Souji's family, somehow, some way, after they both returned home.

"I need to tell you about Strega. Sakaki Takaya, Shirato Jin, and Yoshino Chidori. They were among a group of orphans experimented upon by the Kirijo Group who made them into artificial Persona users."

It wasn't their fault, but it was because of that upbringing that they turned out the way they had.

"Similar to you and Adachi, but I didn't have a Link with them. Junpei did befriend Yoshino though."

What would it have been like, having a Link with them at all? And what did the lack of said Link say about him, same with lacking a Link with most of SEES?

"Did you want a Link to them?"

Souji had to ask that. He thought it mattered, not so much because it said something about Minato, but because it said something about the nature of Minato's journey. There simply wasn't enough time, not enough of Minato himself to cover all that he might have needed to. Souji thought that those Links Minato had were the most essential, even if it meant not being linked to part of his team.

"What were their Personas?"

Minato wondered about that, if he really did want one or not. Things might have turned out differently if he had.

"They'd understand me more, and I for them."

Although he thought he understood them as much as he could, given that they hadn't been all that withdrawn or shy with showing who they really were. In fact, it was really more like brandishing it and shoving it in their faces, if just to get their way. Did he feel empathetic toward them? Now, probably. What else was he supposed to feel now that it was all said and done?

"They ran a website called 'Revenge Request' and would kill anyone for their client. Yoshino had Medea, who could restore life. When Junpei was killed, she brought him back to life and sacrificed her own. Her Persona melded with Junpei's, transforming his. And Shirato had Moros, son of Nyx, brother to Thanatos and Hypnos, and to the Moirai or Fates. He got eaten by Shadows."

Minato paused for a moment, thinking. He had done his research. It had been a bit startling, but then again, he wasn't exactly surprised.

"Takaya was their leader. His Persona was Hypnos, Thanatos's twin brother and brother to Moros. We assumed that he died at the top of Tartarus, which they called the Tower of Demise."

This was a lot of talking and explaining. He let Souji think about everything he just said as he got up to get a couple of bottles of water for them. He took his seat and took a drink.

Souji wrote down the names, places, anything that stuck out as a key word. But he listened as well, thinking over Minato's words. 'They'd understand me more, and I for them.' But that wouldn't necessarily change anything. It hadn't with Adachi--or at least he thought so. Things would have gone the same way no matter what, he thought.

His and Takaya's Personas were "brothers." Perhaps that was the point of connection. Maybe they didn't need more of a connection that that--perhaps that told them everything they needed to know about each other.

"The took the...what was the medication? Suppressants?"

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