Hi. -waves- Ever wondered what the lovely kids of Iwatodai Dorm would have turned out like if they didn't have their Personas, yet were still all thrown together in the same dorm? That little idea kept poking at me until (with the help of the song XO by Fall Out Boy) this kinda came tumbling out. Eventually, I wanna have a one-shot for everyone in the dorm, but Hamuko comes first. (Aside: I like the name Minako better, but with Minato in here too that would just be...wrong.) When I first thought of this, I didn't intend for it to come out the way it did, but hopefully you'll all be satisfied with the way I characterized her and everyone else.

If anything confuses you, it should be cleared up in later chapters, but I made Aigis human...I couldn't justify a robot without the Dark Hour. ^.^;

WARNINGS: I'm not sure it's still considered a spoiler, but it'd be a hell of a hint if you haven't played the whole game before. And there are mature themes, I suppose. And foul language.

"It never calls me when I'm down
Love never wanted me.
But I took it anyway.
Put your ear to the speaker, and choose love or sympathy...
But never both."

-XO, Fall Out Boy

They fit.

She always loved how her head rested perfectly on her twin's shoulder when he hugged her. They were opposites, in looks and personality, and it always amused Hamuko how people assumed they were dating before they knew they were related. But she couldn't blame them for the assumption; it was almost like the cosmos were playing a joke on them. They were even opposites on the color wheel, with her defined by reds and oranges and him strictly by blues. But they understood each other.

Sometimes she wished they weren't related.

"What do you think it would have been like if we met under different circumstances?" she asked one night when they were in his bed, one of their last nights before they moved yet again. This time to Iwatodai, where they lived before their parents died. Her memories of then were only vague expositions, ones she might have made up herself to feel remotely normal.

"What do you mean?" Their heads were close, and his hair had fallen out of his face and onto the pillow. It was rare that she could see his whole face, and she appreciated it for once.

"Would we be close? Would things between us be different?" She didn't allow her mind to complete the thought.

"I don't know," he said, his hand finding hers under the blankets. "We probably wouldn't be allowed to sleep in the same bed, though."

"Probably not."

There was a moment of silence.

"I'm not a virgin."

Minato blinked, confused. "I know."

"But we've never talked about it," Hamuko pointed out, not sure where she was going with this.

"Okay. Me neither."

"I know."

They blinked at each other. Wordlessly, Minato reached to turn off the lamp, but she could still see his eyes shining at her. She wished she could remember the same eyes on their mother, but that memory had long faded.

"How many?" he asked.

"Four."

"One."

The conversation ended.

She had adjusted to dorm life easily. It was a small dorm, nothing like she expected when the letter and brochure came to their aunt's house. Mitsuru was a matron, it seemed, always looking out for everyone in her weird way. Yukari was easy to get along with, but her crush on Minato was painfully obvious. She burned with jealously, but covered it by trying to push them together every chance she got. She didn't want him for herself, not even she was that fucked up, but he was still her brother and understood her and he never did tell her who that one girl he fucked was.

Anyway.

Akihiko was a bit of an enigma. She noted how fine he was immediately and wondered if he would notice her (or fuck her, either would do), but Yukari warned her straightaway that he was either asexual or in love with Mitsuru. After a month, she had to agree. She'd worn her infamous shorts one day (that Minato actually hated because they were basically non-existent, but desperate times call for desperate measures) and he didn't even give her the usual double take. She gave up and decided to label him the patron.

Junpei was different.

They were fast friends, meeting after he spoke to her and Minato on a whim after school one day. He wasn't as outwardly attractive as Akihiko or even as her brother, but he was cute and he had a ridiculous charm about him that most people would find annoying. Hamuko thought it was endearing. He was like an open book, and it was clear he was enchanted by her. She noticed more than once that he seemed hurt and he even missed school a few days, but it wasn't until he was ushered in by Akihiko (still looking good in jogging shorts, damn boy) with a black eye that Hamuko understood.

She hugged him and he shook in her arms.

"Why didn't you tell me, you idiot?" she asked.

Junpei swallowed hard, looking like he was trying to keep his dignity but failing as his eyes filled with tears. "I didn't wanna worry you. It was…no big deal."

"You're an idiot, Junpei." She squeezed him, the sudden rush of affection startling her. She hadn't ever felt that much for a person, not besides her brother and she decided in that moment that she wanted to take care of him.

"Why haven't you tried to have sex with me yet?"

The question obviously floored Junpei. He literally dropped his COMPstation Portable and stared at her with wide eyes. "Say WHAT?"

Hamuko moved the player off of his lap and lay her head on it. They were alone in the lounge on a lazy Sunday afternoon and he had the perfect opportunity to get her naked, yet he hadn't. She was confused. "I'm serious. Why haven't you? Most would have tried weeks ago."

He blinked at her. "I know I like to joke around, but I'm a gentleman."

She sat up and grinned at him. "Does that mean you're a virgin?"

Now he blushed. "Um…no!"

"Shut up. You're a bad liar."

He turned an even deeper shade of red. "What's it matter anyway?"

"It doesn't," she said honestly, then leaned forward to kiss him. It took a bit, but Junpei soon kissed her back. It didn't take long before they were lying back in the couch, her hands in his hair and his hand making its way up her thigh. He didn't go very high up, though, and Hamuko couldn't say she was disappointed. This felt weird. Usually she felt nothing during this stage (which kinda failed as that was her general aim with sex…to feel) but it just…was odd. Junpei seemed to think so too, because soon he pulled back and gave her a strange look.

"Was that as weird for you as it was for me?"

Hamuko nodded. Junpei pushed himself off of her and she sat up, straightening her clothes. After a minute, she grinned at him again.

"Okay, nevermind. Let's pretend that didn't happen."

Junpei nodded. "Agreed." He picked up his COMPstation off the floor where it had fallen during their short tryst. Hamuko rested her head back on his lap.

"Does this mean we're just best friends?"

Junpei tore his eyes away from the game system and glanced down at her, then back at it. "Must be. We just friend zoned each other."

They both laughed and he ran an affectionate hand through her hair before focusing on the fight in his game. Hamuko marveled at the bittersweet moment, not quite understanding the bitter part.

Hamuko hated females.

It wasn't for the standard reason that they bitched too much or whatever the new stereotype for chicks was these days, but it was because they were just all…so…damn…predictable. Each time a new girl came around her brother, it took approximately .5 seconds for them to be in love with him. Minato didn't even bask in the attention like a normal male would, but he was never rude. Always smiling, usually humoring them at least for a while. She hated him sometimes too. He wasn't even interested in the lot of them but he still had to be there smiling and doing that goddamn hair flip like a stupid Pantene Pro-V commercial on legs and he still hadn't told her who that one girl was.

Aigis was a special case.

Confusion ensued when Minato returned one night with a beautiful blonde girl in tow. Already feeling resentful of the tender way her brother handled her, it took every ounce of willpower in Hamuko's body to smile and agree to help get her cleaned up. She looked like a deer in the headlights as they helped her into the bath and began washing her hair, and Mitsuru came in and nearly screamed upon seeing the blisters under her feet. Hamuko didn't care about her plight at the moment…amnesia, wandering the town for days, yeah, whatever.

Mitsuru told them to make sure her feet were completely clean to avoid infection while she went and made some necessary phone calls. Hamuko grinned at Aigis and picked up one of her dainty feet, fighting the urge to break every single one of her cute toes. When she gave her a few of her outfits to wear to hold her over before Mitsuru took her shopping, she hoped Minato would at least think of her when she wore them. (She made sure to give her the brightest orange she had, just so it would clash with her gorgeous blonde hair and maybe Minato would think she was ugly.)

She had just gotten used to Aigis and how her brother damn near fawned over her ("You've never had ramen before, Aigis? I'll take you to Hagakure sometime, just say the word." Cue million dollar smile.) but then matters worsened when Fuuka Yamagishi came into the picture. Apparently her twin had a knack for finding females in odd places, because he pulled her out of a locked storage closet. She wasn't as beautiful as Aigis, but she was tiny and cute even if she always looked sad. She didn't talk, like at all and Minato was the only one who seemed to have the patience to deal with her. It wasn't long before she was adopted into the dorm too, when she had been locked in the back closet of the gym for two days straight by some sluts that bullied her and her parents seemed totally unconcerned that their child went missing for that long. (But at least she had some, right?) Mitsuru's bizarre maternal instinct kicked in and Akihiko just seemed agitated that the dorm was becoming a makeshift orphanage.

(She had to agree with Akihiko.)

One day she saw them talking on the rooftop, back to back on a bench and her eyes burned because they used to sit back to back and talk. Hamuko knew she was being ridiculous, he was her brother, not her boyfriend, but he was still her twin and she was the one who had a special bond with him and maybe it was that one bitch he was always with in junior high that he fucked.

"Minato-chan, are we drifting apart?" She hadn't used that nickname for him since they were around 7, but she wanted to solidify that she was still the only one allowed to give him that suffix.

He looked over at her from his desk, his desk lamp hitting the back of his head and casting a shadow on his face. It was how she remembered their mother now; just blue hair and a shadow for a face. "What gives you that idea?"

"We never hang out anymore."

Minato frowned. "I suppose not as much as we could. How about we take Sunday? Just you and me?"

Hamuko grinned. "Sounds good!" But just as soon as she said that, her eyes filled with tears. "I miss you."

His frown deepened as he crossed the room to her, and she fell onto his chest and cried some more.

She wished he wasn't her brother so he'd pay her more attention.

"Have you ever wanted to jump off of a really high building? Not even to die, just to…fall. Feel the adrenaline. Get a rush, a high almost. To close your eyes against the wind and hear it whistle in your ears and try to smell it and wonder if you stay in the air long enough, you'll become aerodynamic. Then you don't have to be scared of hitting the ground because you never will." Hamuko turned from the ledge of the Gekkoukan roof to Junpei, who wasn't looking at her like she had grown another head like she expected, but rather had complete understanding in his eyes. "Because you morphed into a pterodactyl," she finished.

He laughed, and soon Hamuko was laughing too. He put a hand on her shoulder and they both looked out at Port Island, admiring the view.

"Yeah, I know just what you mean," he finally answered.

He had kept Chidori a secret from her for only a few weeks, but she knew something had shaken him when she opened the door for him one night in the middle of the summer.

Junpei crossed the room to sit at her desk, an uncharacteristically pensive look on his face. "Hamuko-chan…have you ever known someone in a psych ward?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Can't say I have." Then she smirked. "Are you in love with a loony?"

He smiled. "Shut up."

"I'm only kidding." Hamuko skipped across the room to sit on his lap. "Tell me about her."

"Most people wouldn't even think she's pretty, but I think she's beautiful." Junpei looked out of the window, that pensive look on his face again. "I wanna help her. I wanna take care of her, but…I dunno why. I haven't even known her that long."

She wasn't as jealous as she thought she'd be. Hamuko was mostly shocked at how mature Junpei sounded. "I need to meet this girl. She sounds like a miracle worker."

"I resent that." But he was smiling again.

When Hamuko saw her twin give Aigis a sweet kiss on the cheek, she "accidentally" poured half of the salt container into her bowl of soup she was preparing with Yukari.

Their next adoptee was a little boy, Ken. He was damn near the cutest thing Hamuko had ever seen, but he was withdrawn and silent most of the time, only animated when watching his favorite TV show Featherman R. While in the mall with Junpei one day, Hamuko saw an action figure of Featherman and bought it on a whim. When she gave it to Ken, his eyes lit up and he gave her the first real smile she'd seen from him.

There was a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. She watched as Akihiko walked in, a tall, thin boy with a purple pea coat hanging onto his shoulder. There were huge bags under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept since 1800 or so, his brown hair was messy and covered in an old beanie, and he was shaking. Everyone stared, confused, except for Mitsuru who seemed to be on the verge of tears as she watched Akihiko help the boy upstairs.

"What the hell happened to HIM?" Junpei asked, once everyone got over the collective shock.

"He—" Mitsuru stopped and cleared her throat. "His name is Shinjiro Aragaki. He used to live here with Akihiko and I a long time ago."

Minato stared after him, Hamuko briefly noting how his fingers brushed Aigis's on the chair between them while Fuuka sat comfortably beside him. What, were they having a ménage-a-trois? "He looks like he's lived a lot of life since then."

"Maybe too much," Mitsuru agreed, excusing herself.

Later, when everyone else had gone to bed, Hamuko snuck downstairs and stood at the door of the room Shinjiro was staying in. She almost went in, but then she heard Akihiko's voice on the inside and decided against it.

If she had never known that drugs were bad for you before meeting Shinjiro Aragaki, she knew now. According to Mitsuru, he had been on some pretty hardcore stuff, evidenced by the needle marks up and down his arms. Akihiko had made him go cold turkey, so he was either having hot flashes, cold flashes, throwing up, or all three. He had random fevers, it was impossible for him to keep anything down, and at times he could barely walk from how badly his body shook. Hamuko probably should have been grossed out, but…

She heard him retching in the bathroom. She was originally going down to Minato's room, but before she could think about it, she was in the bathroom and holding his hair back while he finished vomiting into the toilet. (It was a terrible yellow-orange, and Hamuko almost rethought her favorite color.) He gave a few dry heaves before he nearly fell backwards. Hamuko caught him, saddened by how light he was. They sat like that, Shinjiro still breathing heavily and Hamuko still holding his hair.

"Aren't you grossed out?"

"A little."

"Why are you helping, then?"

"I don't know," she said truthfully. "I just wanted to."

"What's your name?"

"Hamuko."

"Shinjiro. Nice to meet you. I've had better days."

Hamuko looked down into his face, and for the first time she could see a shade of what he used to be, underneath the dark circles and the dry lips and red eyes. He was handsome.

The worst of it was over after a little over a week. Akihiko kept trying to get him to go to a doctor, to rehab, something, but Shinjiro flat out refused. Gradually, he began moving around more and interacting (as much as he could, anyway, he was a bit socially inept) with the rest of them. Akihiko kept a close watch on him, not quite trusting him to go out on his own lest he repeated the whole cycle again, so Shinjiro became a permanent staple of the dorm. They were sitting on the couch alone one day (watching a cooking show for some reason) and Hamuko turned to him.

"What did it feel like?"

Shinjiro didn't have to ask what she meant. "Sometimes, I swore I could fly."

He turned back to the television and suddenly it wasn't such a mystery why people did drugs.

"You like him."

Minato said it plainly and without looking up from his homework or even taking out his headphones.

"No, I don't."

But he only smiled and continued working.

Hamuko dwelled on this for a while. She had never had a crush on someone before. Well, maybe the first guy, but after that it was nothing. But it was weird with Shinjiro. She simply liked being around him, and now that he was beginning to gain his weight back, she was becoming more and more attracted to him. It was different from being with Junpei or even Minato.

Putting this theory to the test, she knocked on his door later that night. He grunted from the inside, probably assuming that it was Akihiko since he was the only one that ever demanded entrance that late at night. His eyebrows shot up upon seeing her.

"Yeah?"

Hamuko closed the door behind her, suddenly nervous. Nervous? What? "I just wanted to talk."

"What about?" Shinjiro lay back on his bed, his hands behind his head. His pea coat was off for once, letting her know that yes, his legs really were that long. His beanie was off too, and his hair was sort of falling into his eyes. She wanted to cut it for him, but she also thought it was cute the way it was. She sat on the edge of his bed.

"I'm not sure."

"You okay?"

Since words were failing her, Hamuko chose the route she knew best. In one swift movement, she had turned and crawled up his bed, her legs on either side of him. He seemed to freeze, not quite knowing how to process what had just happened. She took his face in her hands and noted how the dark circles under his eyes were disappearing, but they still seemed dead. There was no light in them, no light in his life at all and she wanted to be that light. She would be, if he'd let her. Everything she had been looking for was suddenly staring her in the face and she had a word vomit.

"I don't know what you've done to me, but I don't even want to fuck you."

He wasn't as confused as he should have been, but he simply brought one of his hands up to cover hers (God, they were huge) and smiled humorlessly. "We aren't that different, you and me. I took one way, you took the other."

Hamuko felt like crying. He understood. She didn't even have to explain, but he just got it and it was too much all of a sudden. She smiled, a real one. "I think my way was a safer."

"Yeah, well…mine was cooler. For a while. I'm glad Akihiko found me."

"I'm glad you found me."

He squeezed her hand. It wouldn't last very long; as soon as they broke eye contact it would be back again, but at least for these few minutes, her world made sense.

Her life had turned into a teen novel. It was too much too fast, but she didn't care. Both Minato and Junpei warned her that they should slow things down (frankly, she wanted to kick Minato in the motherfucking balls when he said that to her; he was one to talk, Mr. I'll-take-you-to-Hagakure-whenever-you-want-Aigis) but she ignored them both.

"I don't know how to take things slow," she argued to Junpei, hanging by her legs off of the monkey bars. "I'm like the wind and so is he. Strong while it's there, but it's gone just as quickly as it comes."

"The guy doesn't even go to school," Junpei argued.

"I didn't lecture you when you started dating your loony toon. Give it a rest."

Junpei looked hurt, and for a second she felt bad. But it passed.

Her hands gripped the headboard, resorting to stuffing his beanie in her mouth to keep quiet. It was Sunday afternoon and most everyone was out, but the last thing she needed was for Mitsuru to come home early and give them both a lecture. Above her, Shinjiro breathed heavily, his eyes focused on hers. She wasn't sure what made this different. She had been underneath her share of guys before this, just as she was sure Shinji had been on top of his share of girls. Usually her mind drifted somewhere in the middle, somehow channeling what was happening below to her head and using it to create images and pictures in her head of a happier time. But now, she was focused solely on him, on how his eyes changed from brown to green when he was concentrating or horny (or both) and how one hand gripped her thigh tightly and the other held himself up on the bed and how his hair that was getting too long now fell around his face and how his nipples were a bit darker than she would have imagined them and how he threw his head back when he came. She felt full of him, in every sense of the word.

"We didn't use a condom."

His nonchalance amused her and she burst out laughing. "I'm on the pill, don't worry."

Shinjiro turned on his side to look at her while she still stared up at the ceiling, coming down off of the closest thing to a high she'd ever felt.

"Akihiko and I grew up together. We met when we were just four, and his sister was three. Her name was Miki. She died in a fire, then everything fucked up. We left the orphanage and he was suddenly so far ahead of me that I couldn't take it. I left."

She understood. "Do you still hate him sometimes?"

"He wouldn't be my brother if I didn't want to punch that smug look off of his face most of the time."

Their day was spent in Shinjiro's bed. It was around 10 when he finally stood up and got dressed. Hamuko frowned.

"Where are you going?"

"I just want some fresh air. I don't think Aki will mind if I take a short walk if I promise to be a good boy." Shinjiro rolled his eyes.

"Don't be gone too long."

He smiled over his shoulder. "I won't be gone long. You can even stay in my bed."

Hamuko thought about calling after him, but she would see him soon anyway, so it could wait. She closed her eyes and sniffed the pillow, taking in his spicy scent and drifting off.

She was jerked awake sometime past 2am by a frantic Akihiko.

Hamuko lost track of time.

From the moment she watched the ambulance cover Shinjiro's cold, stiff body with the white cloth to when his casket was lowered into the ground, she wasn't aware of anything around her. She didn't go to school; she couldn't. She vaguely recalled both Junpei and Minato trying to talk to her, but she didn't even recall what they said to her. Everything sounded far away and everything felt like a dream. She heard Mitsuru crying into Akihiko's shoulder beside her. He was crying as well, but silently. Aigis hung onto Minato's arm, her eyes rimmed with red while he stood and watched like he couldn't quite believe it was actually happening. Fuuka and Yukari were somewhere behind her, sniffling every so often. Ken was holding Fuuka's hand. Junpei had an arm around her shoulders.

Surely this couldn't be real. He was just with her, just last week. He told her that he didn't want the drugs again, that he didn't need them. She was his drug, she was all he needed.

"You lied to me," she said aloud. Everyone turned to look at her, but she didn't care. "You said you'd be back soon. I didn't even get to tell you I loved you. I didn't even get to tell you I loved you. I didn't even get to tell you that I love you." She just noticed she was crying and that she had a headache. "I love you, you fucking idiot! Why did you…why did you do that? Why did you leave me by myself? Why did you lie to me?"

Junpei was trying to calm her, but she wouldn't hear any of it. It wasn't until Minato came over and hugged her tightly that she finally gave up. She sobbed unabashedly into his shirt. She sobbed until her head pounded and she swore she could hear the blood rushing around in her ears and then she sobbed more.

"How did it work? So quickly, I mean."

Hamuko looked up from the table. Akihiko was sitting across from her, absently fixing his boxing gloves. "Huh?"

"You and Shinji. "

"We both needed something, and we didn't have to look far to find it."

She didn't say anymore. Akihiko didn't ask for more than that.

From that point on, she and the boxing captain were friends.

It was strange how one thing could put your whole life into perspective.

Hamuko no longer seethed when she saw Minato and Aigis holding hands, or when he spent time with Fuuka. It hurt, but only because she missed Shinji and not because of any possession she thought she had over her brother. It all seemed a bit silly to her now, how she was about that. She approached Aigis in the kitchen one day.

"Aigis? Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Yes, of course, Hamuko-san."

She wasn't the only one who had changed, she noticed. Aigis was clad in a pair of jeans and a pretty blue blouse, one that complimented her eyes near perfectly. She was still a bit awkward, but the progress she had made was almost inspiring. "I wanted to say…that I'm really happy for you and my brother."

Aigis blushed immediately. "Oh…thank you. I…like him very much."

Hamuko managed a smile. "I know you do. And…I hope you find out everything you've forgotten."

Now Aigis smiled at her. "Thank you, but truthfully I do not even wish to find out anymore."

Her eyebrows raised. "Oh?"

"I cannot have come from far away if I made it to Iwatodai on foot. If anyone were missing me, Mitsuru-san would have found out by now. I don't know what it is I originally wanted from here, but I've found a new home and a new family to appreciate, and I don't long for anything more than such." Aigis smiled. "Although I do wonder if Aigis is truly my name."

Hamuko found herself smiling. Family, huh? "You're right. Thank you."

"For what?"

Hamuko stood and began walking out of the kitchen. "Just for the talk."

That night, she lay beside Minato in his bed, like old times. They stared at each other, their opposite color pallets reflecting in the other's eyes. Minato reached out to poke her nose.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm not sure," Hamuko answered truthfully. "I think my brain is threatening to self-destruct."

Minato seemed to hesitate before asking his next question. "Did you really love him?"

"I did. It's impossible to explain, but…" she shrugged, remembered what she told Junpei one day, about how she and Shinjiro were both like the wind. Irony, much? "I didn't think it was possible to miss someone so much."

"I think he got you in a way that no one else could. I may be your twin, but I can only give you so much," Minato said suddenly. "I might have been jealous, in an odd way."

Although her eyes were once again welling up with tears, she smiled at him. "It's okay, Minato-chan. No matter what, we'll always be together."

He smiled back and kissed her forehead. "Of course."

They were almost asleep when Hamuko remembered something.

"Okay wait. Minato?"

"Huh?"

"Who the hell did you have sex with?"

He laughed, as if he were waiting for her to ask. "Ayumi…remember her? From junior high?"

"I knew it was that bitch!"

"Junpei, why didn't we fall in love?"

The January air was brisk, yet the pair still insisted on being outside on a bench at the shrine. Hamuko's head was resting in Junpei's lap and he looked down at her, puzzled.

"I wondered that too. It would have been perfect, you know. We get along almost too well sometimes." He grinned.

Hamuko closed her eyes. She liked closing her eyes against the sun, because then the inside of her eyelids looked red. "Well, you have Chidori anyway. I just always wondered. Maybe we're soulmates in another life. Or at the very least…some bizarre, alternate universe."

"Where Akihiko-senpai is a high school dropout and Mitsuru-senpai is dirt poor."

"And Minato and I aren't related and Aigis has a memory."

"And Fuuka talks and Yuka-tan is an unpopular dork."

"And Ken is older than us, yet vastly immature."

When she opened her eyes again, Junpei was giving her a sad smile. "And Shinjiro-san is still alive."

"And happy," she finished. "I think he's happy now, though…wherever he happens to be."

"Yeah…I think so too."

They remained silent after that. Hamuko closed her eyes again, against the wind. It picked up and she heard it whistling in her ears, but a gentle one…like the kind that accidentally comes out sometimes when you're trying to say "Shhhh!" She breathed in deeply, so hard that the cold air hurt her nose and it was like a mixture of heaters and snow and candy and burning wood and whatever else people did in the winder. She wanted to spread her arms, to see if she had become either aerodynamic or a pterodactyl, but she didn't have to because she knew she wouldn't hit the ground no matter how fast she fell.

.

Oh. And I obviously don't own Persona. ;) Hope you enjoyed, and congrats on reading that long ass thing.