antisocial
To rejoin SEES… he must have been crazy.
Shinjiro Aragaki grimaced and settled further into the dark corner he had claimed as his own. Tugging his hat low over his brow, he glared out at the approaching blue-haired figure and vanished further into his overcoat. "What do you want?"
The young man shrugged and blew his hair out of his eyes with one puff of breath. "You feeling okay?" he said, and Shinji was almost surprised; for a leader, the guy really didn't speak much. "You got hit pretty hard by that Shadow last night…"
"I'm fine," the upperclassman bit out, waving the other away. An uncomfortable silence fell but the boy refused to leave, so finally Shinji said, grudgingly, "You like it here?"
He shrugged. "I could take it or leave it."
Shinjiro felt a smirk slip across his features. Kid's a bad liar, he thought, but all he said was, "That's cool, man."
At this, the great and wonderful (and quite puny, Shinji thought, but he kept that to himself) leader seemed to get the hint. He slouched away with his hands in his pockets and disappeared up the stairs. Shinjiro sighed in blatant relief at being by himself again, only to have a low and all too familiar chuckle interrupt his alone-time. Shinji's eyes narrowed and glared up at the newcomer as he plopped himself in a chair.
Akihiko sipped a glass of water and got more comfortable, leaning back against the bar and looking up at his friend with his eyebrows raised. "Friendly as ever," he commented dryly. When Shinji shrugged, the silver-haired young man made sure to add, "It wouldn't kill you to be nice to the kid, you know. He's new. And he's good, too."
Shinjiro grimaced. "How would you know?" he snarled with unnecessary venom. "Maybe it would kill me."
Aki shook his head in exasperation. "I don't think I've ever seen you be nice to anybody."
"So, you can't be sure," the dark-haired punk replied. "It could kill me, for all we know."
Akihiko fell silent and sipped at his drink, thinking hard. "Actually," he said finally, "you liked Miki. You were nice to Miki. I've never seen you act that way around anybody since."
Shinji shifted his footing and pressed himself against the wall, looking anywhere but into his friend's eyes. "Yeah, so what?" he said listlessly. "She was a nice girl."
"Did you like her?"
Shinjiro's head whipped around and he glared down at Akihiko so furiously that the boxing champ wilted under his gaze. "Is that supposed to be a joke?" he seethed. "I thought you, Aki, of all people, wouldn't fuck around with a subject like that!"
The tiny, rarely seen smile that had slipped across the other Persona-users face vanished in an instant. "No, Shinji, I—"
"Fuck, Aki, I can't say two words to you without you turning it into something it's not!" Shinjiro was yelling now, but he didn't care that everybody in downstairs could hear him and was turning to stare. He felt Mitsuru's eyes burning into the back of his head, but didn't do anything to quiet his shouts. "First you frickin' guilt-trip me into doing this, and now you—"
Akihiko shot to his feet, angry now. "Oh, don't give me that," he said. "Don't pretend like you didn't—"
"I didn't do anything!" Shinjiro shouted. "It's you! You're always putting words in my mouth, forcing me into situations I don't want to be in! Maybe if you just left me the fuck alone, Aki, we'd both be better off!"
He didn't see the fist until it was too late, and it smashed into his face. Shinji reeled back with the force of the blow. He just managed to catch himself on the wall and look up as Akihiko stormed out of the dorm, Mitsuru hot on his heels.
"Damn it," he swore under his breath. Stomping past the Takeba girl, who flinched away, and pushing the fumbling idiot Iori out of his way, Shinjiro caught the Student Council President by the shoulder and spun her around before she was out the door. "Stop. I'll go."
Mitsuru's eyes were narrowed and filled with utter exasperation. "I thought you two were above this level of fighting," she sighed. "Apparently, I was wrong. I had to endure so many arguments like these before… Shinjiro, tell me this will be the last one."
"Oh, yeah," he said with a sarcastic grimace. "For sure." With that, the punk pulled his coat closer around him and strode out onto the street, making sure to slam the door as loud as possible behind him. Shinji didn't have to think twice to know where Akihiko was headed, so he just hurried down the street, eyes trained on the almost full moon overhead. It's gonna be time for an operation any day now, he thought as he shielded himself from the cool October air with one arm. I can't wait.
He pushed past all the bewildered pedestrians he passed on the way to Iwatodai Station, where he hopped on a quick train over to Port Island. Once there, he ignored the suspicious glances he got from everyone around, and headed straight for the shadowy area behind the building itself. Unsurprisingly, the area was clear except for a lone figure, scrunched up on the stone steps. Aki.
Silently, Shinjiro made his way over and plunked himself down next to his silver-haired friend. Neither said anything for a long time, and when Shinji finally made the decision to talk, Akihiko beat him to it:
"I'm leaving you the fuck alone," he said, more to his feet than to the young man beside him. "Isn't that what you—no, we want?"
Shinjiro grimaced and fought the urge to pick at the peeling paint on the wall. "Shit, Aki," he replied with a shrug. "Don't take things so literally." Rubbing his aching jaw, he added, "This is the second time you've sucker-punched me in a week. Next time, you're paying for it."
Akihiko didn't even give the smallest of smiles when Shinji cracked his knuckles threateningly. Instead, he stood up, making as if to leave. "Hey, you know what?" he said, voice dripping malice. "I don't want to bother you. I know that if I stick around, I'll just end up putting words in your mouth and forcing you into situations you don't want to be in. So, I'm outta here."
Shinjiro groaned. Me and my big mouth, he thought, shooting to his feet and catching Akihiko's wrist before the young man could go far. "Don't lump this all on me," he said, trying his hardest to not let annoyance slip into his tone. "You know that those things are true. And—and if you hadn't said that thing we wouldn't be in this situation."
Aki rolled his eyes and pulled away. "I see you're not going to let it go."
Shinji scowled. "Ditto. You're the one who brought it up when I arrived."
"It was a joke," Akihiko said finally, slumping against the grimy wall in defeat. "A joke, Shinji. I didn't mean to—to piss you off. You just… seemed like you were in a bad mood." His voice dropped to an embarrassed whisper. "I wanted to cheer you up."
"You wanted to what?" Shinjiro said, louder than necessary. Aki winced. "You wanted to cheer me up? Since when have you given a fuck about how I felt?"
Akihiko's eyes flashed; he was angry again. Shinji saw this and was tempted to bash his head against the wall, but managed to resist the urge when all other thoughts were driven out of his head with one word:
"Always!" Akihiko shouted, turning to stare his friend in the eye. "I always have. Don't fuck with me, Shinji, you know it's true. Just because we've been denying it doesn't mean—"
Oh, will you just shut up, Shinjiro thought, and proceeded to make sure his friend did just that by shoving him back against the wall, grabbing a fistful of pale hair, and locking their lips together in a hard kiss. The embrace was less than romantic and lasted what must have been only a few seconds, but for both of them, time seemed to slow and stop. But this was cut short as Shinji roughly pushed the bewildered and red-faced silver-haired senior off him. "Is that want you wanted?" he said, a smile forcing its way onto his angry features. "You're fucking desperate, Aki."
Akihiko's face, once a nice reddish colour, rapidly progressed to maroon. "You—but—I—" he sputtered. "I'm not desperate!"
Shinjiro turned on his heel and bit back laughter. "You always have been," he said, headed for the stairs that led back to the station and pointing up at the sky. "Come on, it's getting late. Better train up for the operation. M'sure it'll go fine."
"Y-yeah," said Aki, still pink, as he dashed to catch up with the punk. "Y—uh—keep q-quiet about this, okay?"
Shinji groaned. "Quit stuttering," he said, and added with a tiny smirk, "Don't worry—they'll remain as clueless now as they have since I came back. And even before that. Mitsuru must be a new kind of stupid to not have noticed two faggots making out in the living room every time she turned her back…"
—fin.
to reiterate what i said in coward, i love p3. but i also love shinji/aki. i think that's my otp. it's so cute, it's not even funny. don't get me wrong, i like akihiko/mitsuru too, but aki just screams gay. you know? ditto shinji.
—n a n a
p.s. p3 is shin megami tensei's. i guess. wait. no? well, it's not mine, anyway.