Author's Note: This is kinda dark... But I've always wanted to write some good old fashioned angst ^_^ I could not for the life of me think of a decent title, though, so this is the best I could do ;_; Souji's beliefs regarding God and Heaven don't actually reflect my own. Everything is owned by Atlus.

Lost

Souji stares at the picture in his hand, and he smiles at it.

Call him corny, but he truly believes that Chisato Dojima now resides in Heaven, with God and the angels. Watching over Nanako. Watching over his uncle. And maybe, just maybe, she's got a smile from on high to spare for him, too. They're family, after all. He doesn't recall ever meeting the woman, but somehow, through Nanako and Dojima, he feels close to her. Like he's connected to her because they love the same people. The thought warms his heart as he places the picture on his shelf, propped up against a model, so he can see it from the futon.

He turns out the light, yawning, and happily collapses on top of the covers. It's a hot, sticky night. He closes his eyes. He likes the whirr of the fan at the edge of his consciousness.

"Well, are we going to be seeing some grandchildren any time soon, hm?"

"Aw, c'mon Ma, don't start. Chisato and I haven't even moved in together yet! Besides, you've already got Souji."

"Oh, but Mother's right, Ryo-chan. I want a little niece or nephew for Souji to play with!"

"Ugh, please, Sis. Don't call me that."

"Or what? Are you going to haul me off to the station, Officer Ryo-chan?"

There's a bit of a forest of legs. His mother's he recognizes – long and elegant in shiny hose; and he knows his father's straight black trousers. He doesn't know the man his mother is laughing at. He also doesn't know the older lady in the kimono, but he guesses she is the grandmother he was told about so often. He can't really say he particularly likes her, but she leaves him be while he plays with Featherman on the floor, and that's fine with him.

The strange man is arguing with his mother, but they look like they're having fun. Arguments aren't supposed to be fun. Adults are weird.

"Noisy, aren't they?" A smiling face. A lady. He doesn't know her, but he likes that smile. Souji, barely in kindergarten, shyly smiles back but says nothing. It usually upsets grown-ups when he doesn't talk, but it doesn't seem to bother the smiling lady at all. She's on her knees, at his eye level, holding out a hand. She smells like flowers.

"I'm Chisato. You're Souji-kun, yes? You can call me Auntie, if you like." A little laugh, like birdsong.

Her hand is warm and soft, and it feels huge to him when he places his tiny one inside it and she shakes gently, laughing again.

"We'll be good friends, right, Souji-kun?"

He beams at her. There's water dripping from her hair. It's raining. Souji realizes he's cold all over, right down to his bones. It's so cold.

There's a light on the road that makes him squint. Headlights. That's bad, Souji thinks suddenly, and he wonders why he suddenly feels afraid. The car on the wet road is bad, because -

His eyes widen and panic rips through him, colder even than the rain. He cries out to her, but he's voiceless no matter how he screams, and it's too late anyway.

The squeal of tires. The smell of burnt rubber. The sickening crunch of bones and metal.

Her hand is wrenched away, rain-slicked fingers slipping from his grasp as he tries desperately to hold on to her. To keep her here. He begs her to stay, but he can't make a sound. His throat is raw. She laughs her birdsong laugh.

you can call me auntie if you like

Auntie Chisato is still laughing even as she's tossed through the air. It takes forever for her to fall. Souji has time to count the buttons on her raincoat. She lands in a ditch beside the road, limbs stuck out everywhere, eyes open. She's looking right at him. Smiling. He can't breathe.

we'll be good friends

There's blood everywhere. It's on his hand, where she shook it.

right, Souji-kun?

Souji, in his second year of high school, awakens drenched in cold sweat (rain) atop his futon, feeling like he's four years old. He sits up slowly, and in the moonlight his eyes find the picture of the laughing woman and her young family.

We should have gone to her funeral, he suddenly thinks.

(He remembers the day his mother came downstairs looking vaguely troubled and announced: "You remember Chisato, Ryotaro's wife? She passed away yesterday. Hit and run. Isn't it just awful?"

His father did not look up from the morning paper, clicking his tongue as he turned the page.

"Shame."

Souji put on a sympathetic face, sipped his tea, and tried to calculate how much he'd have to study to come out on top in the upcoming mathematics test.

"Tragic, isn't it? Well, the funeral's next week, all the way out at Inaba, you know, so we can't possibly make it. I've let Ryo-chan know and I've sent along our condolences," she paused to sigh. "Terrible thing. I'm thinking about sending flowers..."

"Sounds fine, dear.")

Souji, in his room all the way out at Inaba, is now marveling at how cold-hearted he'd been. But then, he reasons, he couldn't have known at the time how much the death of Chisato Dojima would mean to him now, couldn't have ever guessed that he would one day find himself holding together the ones she left behind. The thought doesn't do much for the seething shame curling around his gut. He stares at the photograph of the woman who had lived under this very roof; the woman who had shared Dojima's bed, had held Nanako when she cried, had been bound up in a million memories. What was this house like, he wonders, when it was full of birdsong and the scent of flowers?

Souji can't stop shaking. He's dimly aware that tears are streaming down his face, and he's not even really sure why he's sobbing so hard, or what he thinks he's lost.