~*Some Place High*~

With him, she could be herself.

~*X*~

Idiot! What an idiot!

Naoto Shirogane was just about ready to pull her hair out. Maybe she was halfway there as it was, since her hat was clenched tightly in her hands like a life-preserver. She had her head tilted back as far as it could go, promising her a painful crick in the morning, as she struggled to make out the shape of her senpai through the dense fog that shrouded everything.

"It's like being above the clouds," laughed Souji Seta somewhere far above her.

"Senpai! Get down from there!" She retreated a few steps in an attempt to see him better.

"Come on, you like high places, right? I'll help you get up here if you want!"

Naoto applied her palm to her face and dragged it down slowly. Her silly b-b-boyfriend was up in the highest tree that grew on the riverbank, the very same tree that had been involved in the whole Phantom Thief affair. She could hear his laughter as the branches of the tree rustled. Was he pulling himself higher? With a jolt she remembered her glasses and hastily put them on, thanking God for the existence of a teddy bear-esque creature from the T.V. World. Everything instantly became crystal-clear, and she could easily espy her senpai as he clambered ever higher into the foliage.

She couldn't believe he had taken her so seriously. They had been wandering near the water, chatting with each other after school as they prepared for the inevitable fight with Adachi tomorrow. They had gotten onto the topic of their respective childhoods, and she had ended up telling him that she used to climb trees often due to the fact that she loved high places.

Cue her idiotic boyfriend admitting he had never climbed trees before, but he had always wanted to try, so why not now? Especially since he could end up dead tomorrow or else a Shadow in a world of fog.

Souji was balancing on a thick limb quite some distance above her, if her watch was anything to go by. She grimaced at the display screen and met his gray eyes as he beckoned her. Gray like storm clouds. "Come on, Princess. Need any help?"

She couldn't believe this silly senpai had the highest I.Q. in the school—rivaled only by her own. She would have expected something like this from Kanji or even Yosuke and Teddie, but Souji? And she had told him not to call her Princess, damn it. "Senpai, climbing in this fog is both dangerous and foolish. Please, come down."

"Relax, I've got my glasses." He brandished them at her.

"Yes but you're not wearing them."

Souji sighed and placed them on slowly for emphasis. "Happy?" He slid down the tree with surprising agility—or maybe not surprising since he was good at everything—coming to a halt near the bottom. He extended his hand towards her. "Come on, please?"

She approached him but folded her arms. "Why are you so insistent on such a thing as this?"

"I wanted to see what the allure was of high places." His open, frank expression promised that he was telling the truth. "I can see why you love them. This tree is even better than the hill! So let's go, I promise I won't let you fall."

"I'm more worried about you falling," she muttered, but she was drawn to his gray gaze despite herself. She sighed, smiling through her annoyance, placing her hand in his. He closed his fingers securely around hers, twining them together, the warmth he sent through her system causing her heart to flutter like the wings of a bird.

"Okay, but only step where I step, okay? If it can support my weight it can support yours."

Naoto's eyes gleamed teasingly. "Who's first time is it climbing trees…? Surely not mine…"

Souji made a face, laughing good-naturedly after a moment. "Alright, you win. Lead the way Princess, I'll follow."

Hmm. That was intriguing. Leading was a traditional trait associated with males in a relationship, so the fact that he would pass it over to her without any qualms…Speaking of relationships, just who was the dominant one here? Every relationship had a "dominant" and "submissive" member, but she didn't consider herself the "submissive" one…was she? Souji seemed to be insinuating that this would all be cleared up on their Christmas Eve date, assuming that they all survived—

He touched the side of her face, brushing the fingers of his free hand through her hair before tucking it behind her ears. "Hey, before you go off into your own world, let's reach the top." He chuckled, but she could sense his concern.

She shot him a look that she hoped read it's nothing before placing her foot down on a branch and levering herself up, fighting off a traitorous blush as she did so. True to his earlier words, Souji contented himself with following behind her. She was suddenly more glad than usual that she wasn't wearing a skirt like Rise and Yukiko did all the time. However, even though she didn't feel nervous to begin with when it came to climbing trees, it still felt…nice, knowing he was there to catch her if she slipped. Maybe he had been counting on that since the beginning.

It took a few minutes, but they scaled the old pine as far as they dared before the branches became too thin to safely bear their combined weight. Souji abruptly removed her glasses, and the reappearance of the fog was startling.

"Like I said, it's as if we're above the clouds…don't you think?" Souji remarked calmly, clearly not afraid of heights at all. The river was only a dark smudge in an otherwise undefined world of roiling off-yellow fog. If they didn't stop Adachi tomorrow…No, they would stop him. It was simple as that.

"It's quite beautiful," she murmured. "In its own way. However, a world without fog is much more so."

"I agree." He placed her glasses back on delicately. "This is the world we're fighting for, right?"

The fog once more vanished, as if it had never been. Naoto blinked to orientate herself, as the sunlight, once hidden, materialized again and sparkled off of the water. The river disappeared from sight around a distant bend, and the path near the floodplains was devoid of anyone at the moment besides a lone brown dog wandering the stone road. The trees, along with everything else, seemed smaller and far away. The view, coupled with the chilling wind, made her feel like she was a bird flying somewhere in the winter sky.

"Are you worried?" Naoto asked, turning her head momentarily to look at him. "Momentarily" because after she realized how close their faces were, she hurriedly pivoted her head away, blushing slightly. She increased the strength of her hold on the bark of the tree—and his hand as well.

He returned the pressure. "Not at all. I mean, you, me, and the others have got this covered. When I'm with you, I'm not scared of anything."

"Souji-san…"

"No, that's not true." All hints of mirth in his voice had vanished. "When I'm with you, I'm so scared I can barely think."

Perplexed, she met his gaze the best she could. However it seemed he was staring into space more than at her. "What do you mean?"

Souji spoke slowly. "I feel bad every time you get hit in battle. Every tiny bit of damage you sustain…I would rather suffer it tenfold than make you have to deal with it. I remember you fussing at me once for using healing spells on you when you got even the tiniest of scratches." He laughed, but it seemed halfhearted. "You didn't become a woman to have a man protect you. I know." He finally seemed to notice her staring at him and he returned it. "But…can you blame me, fault me, for trying? It's instinctive. It's not because I think you're weaker than me, it's because…I love you."

Naoto knew she was entirely red in the face now. Her chest felt tight, and it wasn't the bandages there either. She let him pull her closer to him as he rested his weight against the sturdy trunk of the tree, the bough bobbing up and down a little with the movement. "Souji…I appreciate your concern for me."

"But it's unwarranted, right?" He nodded ruefully. "That's fine."

"It's unwarranted," she agreed. "But…it is very kind of you. I'm sorry to know that I instill such a flaw in your armor."

"A flaw? It's the opposite of that." His arms encircled her, pulling her even closer, and the display on his watch read Distance – Less than 1 M. "If you're in danger I'm going to fight like a demon to protect you. You know, assuming you don't fill our opponent with holes first."

Naoto managed a wry smile at his joking tone as he slipped easily back into it. She had never imagined that, after such a short time in Inaba, she'd be up in a tree with the boy she could honestly say she loved. Not only that, but she had friends. Dear friends. On an investigation team involving Personas and mystical worlds inside of televisions…

"No, no, no! Don't go! I don't wanna be alone!"

For some reason it was that particular sentence that echoed in her head, not anything else that her Shadow had said that fateful day in her so-called Secret Laboratory.

She listened to his heartbeat as he spoke. Calm and steady as always. "What's on your mind, Princess?"

She told him, as the reason for her Shadow's voice in her mind became clear. "You're…You're leaving in the spring. March. Correct?"

A sigh. "Yeah. Who knows, maybe Mom and Dad will let me move here for good…"

Naoto closed her eyes, the corners of her lips quirking up. "That's a pleasant thought, Senpai."

"Then I'll do everything in my power to make it happen. That includes hitching a ride to Inaba after running away from 'home'. I'll charge it to Yosuke's account." He winked.

They both shared a quiet laugh before the silence found its way to them again. It circled in place three times before settling down and staying there for a good half an hour.

"All right, let's get down from here before my leg falls asleep and we both plummet to our deaths."

"So morbid, Senpai. You didn't strike me as the sort."

"I'm afraid I'm very fatalistic. But first, a question." Souji grinned in a manner extremely reminiscent of the Fox. "Ever been kissed in a tree, Princess?"

Before she could protest, or even reply, he swooped down and planted a kiss on her lips. Her blush returned with a fiery pink vengeance, and she closed her fingers around the front of his school uniform before she closed her eyes and let him deepen their kiss. It sent an unfamiliar, tingling feeling through her system that her feminine side—nay, both of her sides—fully embraced. Her Shadow-turned-Persona hummed in delight in some corner of her mind,

At last, Souji pulled back to take a breath before saying, "You've made me really love high places, you know."

Naoto was too flustered to get out an eloquent or sarcastic reply, and she blurted something out. She ended up squeaking something in her actual, unchanged voice that made her inwardly cringe. "You've made me really love trees."

Souji spent the better part of the day laughing uproariously at her comment as he walked her home. She, meanwhile, spent the better part of the day thinking about a way to pay him back for causing it.

Still, when all was said and done, he stood outside of the Shirogane Estate with his gray eyes gazing straight into her own dark blue ones as if she were his entire world at the moment.

Something about those eyes was really hard to hate.

Author's Note: This was written at 4:30 AM. For serious. So sorry for any horrible errors, I'll write something better later. My favorite Persona pairing ever...and God insomnia sucks. Review if you want!

Edit: LOL at myself! He shouldn't have the watch yet since Christmas hasn't even come in this story. Please, ignore that, at the time I wrote this I had absolutely no sleep all day and late into the next morning.