This universe we cannot control.

The title of this one is taken from the 31 Days theme for January 1, 2008.

Minato Arisato should have known that the day would not go well when he woke up and found Aigis lying down beside him – she hadn't really been naked given the fact that she was a robot, but he would have preferred it if she had at least possessed the courtesy to wear something since she had planned to play Creepy Cyborg Stalker to him anyway. Attempting to explain why it was not such a good idea to just crawl into someone else's bed and sleep with them had not been successful, and had only delayed Aigis' departure long enough for Yukari to come around and witness them in that very uncompromising position (read: one bed, two students of the opposite sex). The slap mark did not fade until lunchtime, earning him stares from the girls and catcalls from the boys.

The natural progression of a Bad Day was to snowball into Something Worse, but Minato had been optimistic – that was probably why it annoyed him all the more when things did not work out. Because of the boys in his class (namely Kenji and Junpei), news of his "dalliance" with Aigis spread like wildfire throughout the campus, and Minato wasted every spare moment he had trying to smooth things over with Yuko, Chihiro and – heaven forbid – Bebe. He neglected visiting the temple in order to go home early: dodging Yuko's punches, sitting through Chihiro's stuttering tirade and letting Bebe wail on his shoulder about "the death of samurai love!" had worn him out. He ended up spending three full hours en-route: the trains on Port Island were all delayed due to some random malfunction, the kind that only occurred once in a blue moon.

Mitsuru was out on a late night errand with Akihiko, effectively striking Tartarus out from Minato's distressingly short of list of Things to Do to Let Loose. Minato tried not to let this get to him, took one square meal (not Fuuka's cooking; he could thank kami-sama for small blessings), showered (and nearly slipped on a soap bar left by Junpei, no doubt) and curled up in his bed.

Later, at Dark Hour, Pharos was left to wonder why Minato let out a small, wounded sob when he dropped in to check on him.