Title: Holding Patterns
Rating: pretty SFW (teenagers talking about sex and getting it on off-screen; sadtimes ahoy!)
Wordcount: 9144
Summary: Bros come through for each other, even when that means spending an increasingly melancholy afternoon with an overprotective robot. Junpei's December is off to a weird start.

Note: I went with the Japanese fandom name for FeMC instead of "Minako," because "Hamuko" is delightfully silly and also the kind of dumb kanji joke I enjoy.

Also, while I was pleasantly surprised by how few of the special characters FFnet stripped this time, it still took out enough to interfere with the texting bits, specifically FeMC's emoticons and Ryoji's excessive punctuation. In the former case I tried to sub in similar accepted characters; in the latter I replaced double and triple punctuation marks with tildes. Not sure how well this works, but, well, compromise! The versions on my DW and AO3 accounts have the punctuation intact.

Funny thing about life: sometimes you got to be the hero, sometimes you lay in bed for days and wondered if this was how your dad felt when he started drinking, and sometimes you found out that the light at the end of the tunnel was the flickering movie screen you were using to distract an overprotective robot while your best friends boned.

Sometimes Junpei had trouble remembering what "normal" had been like.

"Two for, uh—" he scanned the list of showings behind the clerk, focusing on the durations— "Ten Thousand Summers?" The poster looked boring, but anything that ran for two and half hours and had "summer" in the title probably found time for bikini shots.

Aigis accepted the ticket he gave her and turned it over in her hand. "Junpei-san, what is this movie about?"

About keeping her away from the dorm, mostly, but he studied the poster and speculated: "Well, there's this guy and this girl, and a baby, and, uh, and the important part is summer! Summer was pretty great this year, huh? Remember Yakushima?"

"My memories from July twenty-first onward are fully accessible." Aigis glanced at her ticket. "So there will not be any ninjas?"

The only action movie was barely an hour long. "Sorry, Ai-chan. Maybe next time?"

She nodded and headed toward the theater. "I'm gonna get some popcorn," Junpei called after her. "You want any—never mind." Lately it was getting easier to forget that she didn't eat.

As he waited in line at the concession stand, he slipped his phone out of his pocket to investigate its earlier buzzing.

Hamuko had texted, "enjoy ur movie, U R THE BEST! (^_-)- *"

"damn right i am!" he replied. "plz remember no details." Reminders were important; her default mode was over-sharing.

There was also a message from Ryoji: "hey junpei~! i owe u one~! u are dangerous would srsly kill the mood... how am i dangerous ne way~?" A followup had arrived shortly afterward, reading, "hey junpei~! do u think shes worried i wont take good care of hamuchan~? i could take pix of how good nvm hamuchan says no"

Ryoji punctuated like he had a bad case of sticky fingers. He'd been even worse since Ms. Toriumi handed back an essay with the comment "Punctuation marks don't get lonely," which made him laugh, then earnestly muse, "But what if they do? They'd have no way to tell us."

Junpei replied to the only portion of the message that merited a response with "good luck man" before slipping his phone into his pocket. Popcorn and soda in hand, he went to join Aigis.

She had located their assigned seats near the center of the theater and now sat with one arm blocking the seat to her left and the other raised like a beacon. When Junpei approached, she tucked both back to her torso and said, "These seats provide a near-optimal viewing angle. They are acceptable."

"Oh, uh, thanks?" Every time he thought she was getting the hang of conversations, she'd go all living weapon on him again.

He settled in, taking note of how sparsely occupied the theater was. There was a definite lack of anyone in Junpei's demographic. Little chance, then, that Ten Thousand Summers would end up as Ten Thousand Bikini Babes. Why couldn't the Detonator sequel have been longer than ninety minutes?

When the first preview turned out to be for a black-and-white French film, Junpei slumped low in his seat, angled his hat down, and prepared for a two-hour nap. Aigis sat perfectly straight, giving the screen her full attention. It was impossible to tell whether she was enjoying herself.

As the camera lingered interminably on the fateful meeting of two children, Junpei munched handfuls of popcorn and tried to zone out. From the looks of things, the movie was going to focus heavily on a love story. Just his luck. It wasn't like the universe had to put romance on indefinite hold while Junpei Iori got his shit together, but hanging around Hamuko and Ryoji was about all he could handle; he didn't need to watch a couple of dumb movie characters make kissy faces at each other all afternoon.

The background music had a lot of violins in it, which probably meant this was the kind of movie where someone died. If the girl died, and he had to sit through some actor pretending to grieve, he was going to walk out.

The characters had moved away, grown up, met again, and married by the time Junpei exhausted his popcorn supply. He dozed off somewhere in the middle of a long slice-of-life segment as the newlyweds set up their new home. When he came to, they had a school-age child, and Junpei came to the horrifying realization that the movie intended to cover multiple generations' worth of meaningful conversations and long shots of bikini-less landscapes. With an aggrieved sigh that briefly drew Aigis's attention, he slumped lower in his seat and set to work sucking the remnants of butter and salt from the kernels.

Now the kid was in love, too. Great. It was getting harder not to let his mind wander places he didn't want it to go.

Shortly after the main characters welcomed their first grandchild into the world, Junpei's phone vibrated in his pants. He hunched over to block the light from the screen as he read a text from Hamuko: "hey call me b4 u leave ok? ^^;"

Which could have meant anything from "I am overflowing with TMI" to "Something is seriously wrong" to "Please run an errand for me as long as you're out." It was also a perfect excuse to escape the latest schlocky love story, so Junpei gestured vague explanations at Aigis before slipping out into the lobby. Violin music swelled as the doors closed behind him.

He called Hamuko and greeted her with, "'Sup?"

"Heeey, Junpei!" Her voice sounded throatier than usual, and Junpei found himself dwelling uncomfortably on the memory of how she'd looked in the hot springs, bare skin flushed and damp hair clinging to her neck. She solved the problem for him when she continued, "It's okay if we eat your ramen, right?"

"What? Eat your own!"

"I'm all out."

"Dude, didn't you buy like a crate of cup noodles?"

"I get really hungry after volleyball practice. C'mon, please?"

"You're gonna be a real porker someday."

"So are you! We'll just have to get old and fat together."

He laughed. "Okay, okay. You owe me, though."

"I know." Her grin came through in her voice. "Two Beef Bowl Alliance meetings, a jumbo pack of ramen, and my undying gratitude."

Junpei's phone buzzed. "Hang on," he said, "I got a text."

From Ryoji, it turned out: "hey junpei~! will she get mad if i try on her clothes~?"

"dude wtf! DONT." Hoping that would shut down any followup questions, he switched back to his call and said, "You sure you got time to eat? The movie's gonna get out any minute now."

"Yeahhh, about that." The microwave beeped in the background as Hamuko tried to sound cute. "Could you talk Aigis into a double feature? Pretty please?"

"What, seriously? How are you guys not done yet?"

Plastic ripped. "Everything's gotten really—ah, what's the right word—intense. Emotionally, I mean. He says things that don't make sense, but they feel true, so who knows? Sometimes when I'm with him, I feel like... I don't know. Like we're getting away with something."

"Well, ya are kinda sneaking around."

"I don't think that's it. It's more like we're forgetting ignoring really important."

Junpei snorted. "Like that math quiz?"

"Ha, ha." She was quiet for a moment, during which the only sound was pouring water. It occurred to Junpei that the huskiness in her voice might have been caused at least in part by crying. With abrupt brightness, she continued, "So, yeah, I guess we're both a little crazy. That's not really news to you, though, huh?"

This was not a couple that Junpei had expected to turn designated sexy time into talk-about-feelings time. It sat uneasily with him, like a pinprick hollow in his chest. He shook his head and pushed the feeling down. "Wait, so have you guys even, uh..."

She laughed. "We've 'uh'ed. He's so gentle, it's really sweet. Now he just needs to get the hang of what's fun about not being gentle—"

"Details! Too many details!"

"Hey, you asked!"

Junpei sent a loud breath vibrating out between his lips. "Man, you're gonna owe me food and laundry for a week. Hell, at this rate, you're gonna owe me a girlfriend."

All kitchen noises ceased. "Um, are you really okay joking about that already?"

"Thought I'd try." He focused on breathing, on the pattern of the carpet around his feet. "Kinda wish I hadn't."

Hamuko was silent for a moment longer before saying, "How about I bake you something?"

The tightness in his chest began to ease. "Heh, I'd never turn down—hang on again."

Junpei clicked through to another text from Ryoji: "hey junpei~! why would she have this maid outfit if she didnt want me to wear it~?"

Because it was surprisingly effective armor, somehow, but that was beside the point. "dude just get the hell out of her closet!"

Ryoji responded with an inscrutable emoticon.

When Junpei resumed his phone call, rustling noises greeted him. "Whose senbei are these?" Hamuko asked.

"I dunno, maybe Fuuka's? Isn't there a name on them?"

"I can't find one, so they're fair game, right?"

"Them's the rules."

Loud crunching carried through the phone. "How's Aigis doing?"

Junpei shrugged. "Eh, hard to say. She's watching the movie like it's gonna be on the exams."

"So it's good?"

"Hell no. I picked it 'cuz it was long."

"Maybe Aigis is enjoying it, though." From the sound of it, Hamuko had shoved half a dozen senbei into her mouth. That he could still understand her probably counted as a superpower. "I hope she is. I'm worried about her lately."

Junpei peered through the door at the movie, which appeared to be meandering its way to an epilogue. "Look, I gotta get back. I'll buy you guys another hour, so just, uh, finish 'uh'ing."

Hamuko cheered. "You're awesome!"

"Yeah, yeah, say it with cupcakes."

His phone buzzed with a picture from Ryoji. Junpei's finger was still hovering warily when a textual addendum came in: "hey junpei~! sry that was for hamuchan~!"

Junpei shuddered and drummed his thumb on "DELETE."

As he slid back into his seat in the theater, Aigis glanced at him, then returned her attention to the screen. The main characters, who had been unconvincingly made up to look elderly, relaxed on a porch as small children ran wild in the grass, their laughter rising over the drone of cicadas.

Propping his legs on the seat in front of him, Junpei ran a finger inside his popcorn bucket in search of stray salt and butter. He needed something to keep his brain busy; otherwise it kept wondering what it would have been like to grow old and fat with Chidori, and what exactly Hamuko and Ryoji were doing together. There was so much wrong with his brain lately. And there was always the danger, where wonderings intersected, of falling into a what-if where he'd worked up the nerve to lean in when Chidori looked at him with her eyelids low and her lips parted.

It might have only made things more painful, but he still dreamed about it sometimes—how her skin would have felt, how his name would have caught in her throat, how they would have clung together afterward, breathing in sync. He always felt like a creep when he woke up. Selfish and petty as it was, he'd spent time alone in the dark resenting Hamuko for not having to worry about dying a virgin.

To distract himself, he began systematically shredding the rim of his popcorn tub.

What felt like hours later, the protagonists went to bed and the credits rolled. Junpei got up, noticed that Aigis was watching the text scroll with the same apparent level of interest with which she'd watched the movie itself, and sat back down. Might as well kill a few extra minutes, if she was offering.

When the lights came up, Aigis turned to him and said, "I have questions."

"If they're about what a 'key grip' is, I got nothin'."

"Understood. I will skip that question." She sounded worrisomely serious, but then again, that was her default tone. "Junpei-san, would it be correct to say that this movie was about the purpose of life?"

Suddenly the empty theater felt like literature class, only without Hamuko around to whisper the right answers. Junpei bit his lip. "Uh. Sure?"

"The characters seemed to take comfort primarily in the existence of their descendants. If the purpose of their lives was to create more lives, and the purpose of the lives they created is to produce their own offspring, is there any meaning to life beyond reproduction?"

He took it back; this was way worse than literature class. Mr. Ekoda was many terrible things, but none of those things was a sad robot. "Uhhh," Junpei began. "That's. Uh. Important, I guess? But that's not all there is. 'Cuz Chidori never had kids or anything, but..."

The moment he said her name, he knew he shouldn't have; his chest felt like it was caught in a steel band. He took a deep breath. It helped, a little, to imagine Trismegistus burning inside him, expanding against everything cold and tight. "But her life mattered, okay?" he continued, more loudly than he should have. "Dammit, she was smiling when she..."

He stared at his hand, curled tight over the armrest, until he got his breaths steady. When he looked up, Aigis had turned away from him.

"I apologize for my questions," she said. "I did not intend to upset you."

"Hey, it's not your fault I'm still kinda fucked up." Junpei scratched his neck and tried to laugh. "And all that life and death and babies and gettin' old—man, it's not like you even care about any of that stuff, right?" She didn't respond, so he continued, "Anyway, that movie sucked. Let's watch a better one."

Aigis frowned. "If we watch another movie of equal length, it will be very late when we return to the dorm."

"Nah, we'll watch something shorter. Ninjas?"

It was always hard to read Aigis; she didn't smile quite right, she sounded upset only when she sensed danger (or Ryoji) near Hamuko, and she still had no sense of when a pause became awkward. But Junpei thought there might have been something enthusiastic in her nod.

Shinobi Squad Z: Time Vortex Sengoku Showdown! promised to be sixty-seven blissfully thought-free minutes of ninjas destroying both alien invaders and historical accuracy. As Junpei purchased tickets, Aigis stood just a little too close to him and said, "I viewed a similar movie with Hamuko-san. You were correct in your assessment that ninjas are 'the coolest of the cool.'"

"Yeah, she told me about it." He passed her a ticket and waved for her to follow him to the theater. "Weren't you gonna start callin' her 'Hamuko-ninja'?"

"I was informed that such an honorific would be inappropriate."

"Lemme guess, Mitsuru-senpai? Man, she is such a killjoy." He wagged his eyebrows as he added, "But if you wanna call me Junpei-ninja, that'd be totally appropriate."

Aigis shook her head. "It would not suit you."

"Ouch, Ai-chan. Just... ouch."

The previews were already wrapping up by the time they made it to their seats, squeezing past a group of guys Junpei vaguely recognized from school. He and Aigis probably looked like they were on a date. For a moment he debated taking her hand or sliding his arm around her waist, but he still felt too raw inside to try, even in jest. It wasn't like Aigis would have gotten the joke, anyway. He wasn't even sure what the joke was.

Luckily the movie opened with a wormhole dropping alien spies into sixteenth-century Kyoto, which was his brain's cue to suspend operations.

Shortly after the Shinobi Squad rescued Masamune Date from a high-tech outpost and swore to defeat the invaders at any cost, his phone vibrated. Hoping for something he could ignore, Junpei slid his phone out of pocket just far enough to see that Ryoji had texted, "hey junpei~! help~!"

Which could have meant anything from "The condom broke" to "We're out of snacks again" to "Guess who I accidentally sexted this time?" There were no good options today.

Junpei gazed wistfully at the screen, where alien warships were amassing above Kyoto, and heaved a sigh before sneaking out into the lobby. He called Ryoji and opened with, "What kind of help?"

"I'm trapped in the girls' bathroom," Ryoji whispered.

After a few false starts, Junpei settled on, "Dude, why are you in the girls' bathroom?"

"Like you've never been in here."

"The one on the boys' floor, yeah, but only when Akihiko-senpai's makin' weird noises in the shower! The one on the girls' floor is just askin' for trouble!"

"Seriously, never?" Ryoji hummed. "There's a tissue cozy."

"Yeah?" Junpei lowered his voice to ask, "So are there, like, panties everywhere?"

"You'd think, right? But it's mostly tiny towels and—"

Scuffling noises suggested the phone was being wrested away, which probably meant Yukari had caught him; Fuuka wouldn't have gone on the offensive, and Mitsuru would have gone straight for the execution. But it was Hamuko's voice that said, "Hey, that's enough! The point is, he followed me in here, and now everyone's camped out in the hallway."

"'Everyone'?"

"Mitsuru-san's out there!" Ryoji whispered urgently, at a muffled angle to the phone. "I didn't think I'd mind being punished by her, but geez, sometimes I still feel like there's ice on my—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, we all agreed not to talk about that!" Junpei still had nightmares about frostbite in delicate places, and the reminder probably ensured they'd put in an appearance tonight.

"I hope you're not expecting me to feel sorry for you," Hamuko said briskly, "because you both completely deserved it." Over Ryoji's low whine, she continued, "Anyway, if it was just Fuuka and Yukari out there, it'd be a little awkward, but not a huge deal. Mitsuru-senpai would probably want to have a serious talk about visiting rules right now, though, and Ken's out there. That's a conversation I do not want to have."

"Oh, I've got an idea!" Ryoji announced, in exactly the same tones that had kicked off the hot springs misadventure. "Since my hair's wet, I can comb it forward like this, and no one will recognize me!"

"Even if that worked, how would that solve anything?" Hamuko's voice softened as she added, "Aww, but you do look cute..."

Junpei cleared his throat. "Why are you wet?"

Hamuko laughed sheepishly. "I made him wait in the shower while I... needed privacy, and the next thing I know, he's got the water on, and, well, the shower's actually pretty roomy..."

Junpei whistled. "Yuka-tan's gonna make you bleach the hell outta that stall."

"I don't see why," said Ryoji. "Isn't the whole point of a shower to be dirty in it?"

"That is so not gonna fly with her, man."

"So that's where we are," Hamuko said. "We have my robe, Ryoji's phone, and no fire alarm to pull—I checked. Any ideas?"

"The fire alarm was a pretty good one." Junpei waited until a couple with a small child had walked out of earshot before adding, "But ya wanna hear a great one? Crack the door open and say you forgot your towel."

"No good," Hamuko replied. "Someone'll just offer to get one for me."

"No, no, you gotta say you forgot your towel and you're comin' out right now. Yell 'Charge!' You don't need to clear the hall as long as you make 'em close their eyes."

"A nudity blitzkrieg, huh?" The gleam in her eyes was practically audible. "Hmm, but the footsteps would be a dead giveaway. Ryoji, get on my back."

He sounded a bit put out: "Shouldn't I carry you? It's much more romantic if I sweep you up in my arms."

"No offense, but we won't get very far like that. Just hop on now and I'll ride you later, okay?"

Junpei's eyebrows pulled together in a futile attempt to block the mental image. "I'll just, uh, let you do your thing," he said, and hung up. Funny thing about Hamuko: she'd get upset about Peeping Toms in the hot springs or strangers snapping fully clothed creepshots, but then she'd run around in the Battle Panties and talk about sex without the slightest hint of embarrassment. The trick had been to realize that she cared less about what she shared than whether she was the one who chose to share it.

As Junpei picked his way back into his seat, just in time for the heroes' infiltration of the mothership, his phone buzzed again. A glance revealed a message from Yukari: "I know this is your fault somehow so FESS UP!"

Probably best to pretend he never saw that one. Just because a guy's best pal employed the same tactic he'd used to get across the second floor hallway a couple weeks ago didn't mean there'd been a collaboration.

On-screen, the Shinobi Squad leader flung explosive shuriken while backflipping through a laser defense grid, and Junpei found himself bouncing a little in his seat. He sneaked a glance at Aigis and found her watching intently but without any unambiguous sign of enjoyment.

The great thing about Shinobi Squad movies was that all the heroes were righteous badasses, all the villains were unrepentant monsters, and all the plots were excuses for epic fight scenes. All they asked was that you relax and not care about physics. Junpei could handle that.

With the mothership's defenses down, Masamune Date launched Fushimi Castle at it with the Megapult. In the greatest CGI extravaganza since the Shinobi Squad took down a sentient island possessed by an army of ghosts, the heroes dashed to sky-diving safety just before castle met spaceship.

The explosion cross-faded into the credits. Those would probably last a while, given all the special effects, and they held Aigis's full attention. Junpei took a moment to bask in the glory of it all, then shuffled out into the lobby with the rest of the patrons who didn't care about key grips.

Hamuko's phone rang until his call went to voicemail. Midway between annoyance and concern, Junpei tried twice more before she finally picked up. Hip-hop blared through the phone's speaker, then swiftly faded.

"Sorry!" This time Hamuko sounded breathless and a little hoarse. Junpei's libido wobbled. "We had to turn the music up pretty high."

He didn't quite catch what Ryoji added to that in the background, though Hamuko's snort suggested that he wouldn't have wanted to.

"Anyway," she went on, breaths evening, "we're kinda in the middle of—"

Wary of details, Junpei blurted, "Movie's getting out! Figured you'd want a heads-up."

"Already?" Her pout came through in her voice. "Hey, can you stop for dinner on the way back?"

"Oh, come on! You already ate my ramen!"

"I mean with Aigis."

"How are you not done yet? I mean, don't tell me, but how?"

Hamuko's laugh was broken by what sounded like knocking. "Aww, geez," she muttered. "Keep Ryoji company."

Fumbling slaps and a soft thump suggested that Ryoji botched the phone catch. He panted his way through, "Your timing's terrible."

"You're tellin' me!"

In the background, Hamuko raised her voice to carry through the closed door: "Sorry, Akihiko-senpai, didn't mean to bother you! I was really training hard and... huh? Yeah, sure, I can make you a copy. ...Yeah, it's great for practicing all kinds of moves!"

Junpei grimaced. "She's doin' that on purpose."

"Yeah, she's got a real knack for double entendres." Ryoji chuckled fondly. "Earlier, when she was—"

"Don't make me hang up on you, man." As Hamuko continued deflecting her unwanted visitor, Junpei added, "Hey, your parents work a lot, right? Wouldn't it have been a hell of a lot easier to go to your place?"

"Well, I'm sure they'll come home sooner or later." Before Junpei could follow up on the oddness of that, Ryoji continued, "And I really wanted to visit Hamu-chan's room. I don't know why, but something about it feels so nostalgic. I guess it's because everything about her makes me feel like I've come home. Is that strange? Every time she invites me into more of her world, I'm so happy I can hardly stand it. I want to be anywhere she'll let me."

Hamuko's voice grew louder as she moved back toward phone: "Hey, dummy, don't start crying again! You're right here with me, okay? Touch me."

Junpei coughed loudly. "Still on the phone, here!"

"Ah, sorry!" After what sounded like a quick kissy noise, Hamuko said, "Here, you're on speaker now. So! You. Aigis. Dinner. How's she doing now, by the way?"

"Still weird. I mean, she's always weird, but... depressed? Can she be depressed?" Junpei scratched under the band of his hat. "I'm trying, but man, I dunno if ninjas are doing the trick. And she freakin' loves ninjas."

"Maybe dinner would make her happy," Ryoji said slyly.

Junpei sighed. "Dude, she doesn't even eat."

"She doesn't eat fast food," Hamuko hurried to add, and Junpei winced; it was easy to forget that for all Ryoji's fast attachment to them, he wasn't part of SEES and wasn't supposed to know about the weirdness wedged into the world. "She's a real health nut."

"And anyway," Junpei said without leaving space for followup questions, "she's gotta be wondering what's up with all the movies. How'm I supposed to get her to go for dinner?"

"Charm her," said Ryoji, as if this were obvious. "You're supposed to be cheering her up anyway, right? Lower your eyelashes and tell her how captivated you are by her exotic beauty and how much better food tastes when she's with you."

Junpei snorted. "Yeah, right! C'mon, dude, she's a ro-o-o—" the sound bounced around his mouth like a pachinko ball— "ro-eally not interested in guys?"

"Really? Huh! That explains a lot, actually." Ryoji sounded thoughtful. "Still, she goes a little far for a rival..."

Hamuko sighed. "She never does anything halfway."

Junpei peeked through the theater door and watched the last of the credits scroll off the top of screen. "Shit, guys, I gotta get back. I'll ask her to stop at Wuck with me, but no promises, okay?" He caught a chorus of cheerful thank-yous as he ended the call.

The lights came up as he jogged across the now-empty theater to where Aigis remained seated. "Sorry, had to pee," he said. "So what was your favorite part?"

She turned to him with a level of intensity he wasn't used to seeing outside of Tartarus. "The escape from the alien mothership was most impressive. Did you see how fluidly the members of the Shinobi Squad contorted their bodies to avoid traps? The ninja must be the most flexible type of human being."

"Like when Ichiro jumped between the spike missiles and cut off that guy's arm at the same time?" Junpei swung his hand to demonstrate. "That was so friggin' cool!"

Aigis nodded rapidly. "I was not aware the human spine could bend that way."

"Didja know they do all their own stunts? I mean, there's a lot of green screen, but when Manzo does the Reverse Screw Attack, it's totally legit. And Miyoko's actress has this whole series of extreme yoga videos."

"I did not know," Aigis replied. "I have revised my understanding of the limits of the human body. In addition, I have updated my information about the Sengoku period."

"Guess I won't be the only one bombing the history exam." Junpei laughed and added, "Hey, d'ya think Mr. Odo's a secret fan? Maybe he'll have mercy if we answer everything with catch phrases."

"I have never observed merciful behavior from him."

Junpei sighed. "Yeah, me neither."

Aigis cocked her head. "Should we return to the dorm and study?"

"Nah, I'm too hungry to study. Mind if we stop for dinner on the way back?" Junpei Iori, master of segues.

Head still tilted, she regarded him in silence. "Junpei-san," she said at length, "why are you spending time with me?"

"Well, I, uh..." He scratched the back of his neck, then ducked his head and tried batting his eyelashes. "Because I'm, uh, captivated by your... Aw, screw it. I just wanna get to know you better."

Her impassive expression didn't flicker. "Shall I print a copy of my technical specifications?"

"That's not what I meant. I just wanna hang out."

"I am a machine. My functionality is who I am."

Every time they started to have something like a real conversation, this happened. It was stupid. "C'mon, don't give me that bullshit. You keep sayin' you're not alive, but who the hell cares? You're still a person."

She was quiet again, until a theater worker entered and began cleaning the floor. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"Can't go wrong with Wuck."

Outside, the sun had long since set, and the temperature had dropped well south of autumn. Junpei tucked his hands into his pockets and walked alongside Aigis to the monorail station, listening to snatches of conversation of other departing movie patrons. A group of girls in tight dresses giggled past; if Ryoji had been with him, they would have elbowed each other and blessed the inventor of Spandex. A few months ago, Junpei would have wolf-whistled. A couple weeks ago, Ryoji would have made a pass at each of them, one by one; now he'd be more likely to go off on a tangent about Hamuko. Funny how much had changed, and how quickly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Aigis following his gaze. "I'm not bein' a perv," he said in preemptive defense. "I'm a guy. Guys look."

"I did not accuse you of being a 'perv.'" Aigis kept her eyes on the girls until they disappeared around the corner of the station. "However, Yukari-san has assured me that you are one."

"Man, don't even get me started on what Yuka-tan is." She was still staring at the space where the girls had been. "You okay?" he asked.

Her head turned far enough to make eye contact with him. "Although I believe that I understand what it means to lose someone, I do not understand the process of grief. After losing her father, Mitsuru-san become close to Yukari-san; is that the way of human hearts? After losing someone precious, does it become necessary to seek a replacement?"

"No!" The word came out like a bark; Junpei took a breath and softened his voice to continue, "It doesn't work like that. You can't replace people. I mean, you find other people, but it's never the same. It never should be. You don't—nothing ever fits in the hole."

His hands had balled up tight inside his pockets. Making a conscious effort to relax them, he added, "Sorry I yelled."

Aigis was quiet for several seconds before asking, "Are you all right, Junpei-san?"

"I'm fine" rolled automatically off his tongue. He swallowed the sour taste it left behind. "I'll feel better with a burger in me. C'mon."

Lately he gave everyone half-truths, because those were the best he had. With ten thousand options that were all not-quite-right, why not pick the one that wouldn't kick up a fuss? "I'm happy for you," he could tell Hamuko, because she didn't need to know that part of him couldn't stand to see her move on. "I'm really okay now," he could tell Yukari, because he felt worse when she tiptoed around his feelings. "Life's too short not to seize the moment," he could tell anyone, without specifying gunshots in the eerie light of the Dark Hour.

Funny thing about trying to face your feelings: the deeper you went, the harder it was to find anything solid in the funhouse mirror maze of your heart.

The monorail filled with the overlapping conversations of some groups ending their evenings out and others just beginning them. Aigis remained silent; if she had been human, Junpei supposed she would have been fidgeting and otherwise expressively awkward. He was beginning to suspect that he'd been the worst possible choice for cheering her up.

Wuck was quieter, deep in the lull between the dinner crowd and the late-night drunks. Junpei settled into a corner booth with his Double Duck Set and caught himself automatically turning the fries halfway toward Aigis; he and Hamuko always shared an extra order. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been here without her.

"Man," he said as he unwrapped his burger, "the fries look even soggier than usual today. They might as well call 'em potato noodles."

"That name would not fit on the menu." Aigis watched him as he swallowed his first bite, her gaze just a little too intense to be comfortable. He was about to ask if he had something on his face when she said, "Junpei-san, I apologize for upsetting you twice today."

He took a sip of soda to clear his throat. "Seriously, don't worry about it. Like I said, it ain't your fault."

"Understood." Her gaze fell to the table between them, and Junpei wondered when she'd learned how to lie.

"So anyway," he said, dragging a sad limp fry through his ketchup, "you sick of talking about me yet? 'Cuz I sure am. What's eatin' you lately, Ai-chan?" She cocked her head, and he hastened to add, "Not literally. I mean you seem kinda down. What's up with that?"

"Please don't worry about me," she replied without looking up.

"C'mon, you should know as well as anyone that doesn't work. I'm gonna worry if I don't know what's wrong."

Her chin tipped back to horizontal. For a long she just looked at him, motionless except for her eyelids, like she was sorting through her own half-truths. She'd been blinking more lately, he'd noticed. The lidless cobra stare only came out now in combat and proximity to Ryoji.

At length she said, "I haven't seen our leader or Ryoji Mochizuki in five hours and seventeen minutes. Although I have been unable to observe them, I have also been unable to stop thinking about them. The more I think about them, the more I worry that I will overheat."

Junpei frowned around a mouthful of fries. "Sheesh, sometimes I think you are carryin' a torch."

Aigis cocked her head. "I'm sorry, I could not understand you."

"Forget about it," he said once he'd swallowed. "Anyway, I really don't get your problem with Ryoji, but—"

"He is dangerous."

"Yeah, see, that's the part I don't get." Junpei waited a moment to see if she'd try explaining it to him, but she set her chin and offered all the elaboration of a stop sign. "Riiight. So like I was saying, I dunno what's up with that, but Hamuko's prolly asleep by now. She texted me to say it was gonna be an early night for her. So you got nothin' to overheat about, see?"

Aigis did not appear comforted. "She refuses to remain a safe distance from Ryoji Mochizuki. No matter how precious she is to me, I cannot alter her behavior. All that I want is to protect her."

All the protection Hamuko wanted came in little foil wrappers, but Junpei was pretty sure any statement to that effect would activate Orgia Mode. He took a big bite of burger to keep himself quiet.

"I don't understand why she is so precious to me," Aigis continued. "My purpose is to destroy Shadows. I worry that I have begun to malfunction."

"Pfft, whatever. Maybe that used to be your purpose, but now you care about her, so it changed." Junpei drew a fry in circles through the ketchup. "People change each other all the time, right? That's life."

She looked down at the table. "I see. Your purpose can change because you are alive."

"Why the hell do you get so hung up on that?" He wagged his condiment-soaked fry at her. "You're a machine, whoop-de-freakin'-doo. It's not like I ever had a fun day out with the microwave."

It was so hard to tell with Aigis whether her smile was forced. "Have you had fun with me today, Junpei-san?"

"Yeah, actually. I mean, it's great to watch ninja movies with someone who really appreciates 'em." He popped the extra-soggy fry into his mouth, then added, "There's like a dozen Shinobi Squad movies. I've got the DVDs if you wanna watch 'em together sometime."

Her head jerked a little, as if in surprise. "I would... like that," she said, and Junpei wished she had a more flexible face; she hadn't been built for uncertainty or wistfulness or whatever the hell had been hiding in that flicker of a pause. She smiled again, inscrutably, and folded her hands on the table.

Junpei was long past the point of expecting his friends to make sense. "Then consider your weekend plans made!" he said with a wink, before tucking back into his burger. The quiet felt a little more companionable now, a little less heavy. At his invitation, Aigis tested the structural integrity of a french fry. He stuck the longest ones out the sides of his mouth, like walrus tusks, until she humored him with another smile.

When he finished eating, he excused himself to the bathroom and texted to Hamuko, "leavin wuck, u better be done!"

A few seconds later, he got back, "all clear! ^.^v"

That was that, then. Bro duty accomplished. As he slipped his phone back into his pocket, it buzzed with an addendum: "u and aigis ok? 【・_・?】"

This called for an easy, automatic half-truth, because the other half was too slippery to be pinned down with words. He replied, "yeah, hangin out w/ her sunday," turned his phone off, and moved on to walking Aigis home.

Few others passed by them on the way; this was a quieter part of the city, once you got away from the station. Aside from the dorm, it was mostly families who could afford to live away from the train tracks and the dense noise of the island. Nothing like where Junpei's family had ended up nearly four years ago. He caught himself wondering where Chidori had lived, before the hospital.

"Thank you for today, Junpei-san," Aigis said as he unlocked the door to the dorm.

"Yeah, me too." It took Junpei a moment to work out that the response didn't quite align. "Eh, you know what I mean."

He gestured for her to go in ahead of him, and she disappeared in the direction of the stairwell. No one else seemed to be downstairs. He pulled the door shut behind him and flopped down on the living room sofa to stare at the ceiling.

An eager woof came from the direction of the television, which had been left to broadcast the news to no human audience. "Hey, good boy," he said, raising his head long enough to acknowledge Koromaru's presence. Another woof, and the room was silent save for stock reports. Junpei dug the remote out of the cushions and muted those, as well.

"Is that you, Junpei?" Fuuka said from behind him. The girl could sneak up like a cat without even trying.

He stuck his arm up and waved. "Yo, Fuuka-chan!"

Her voice grew closer as she said, "I'm taking a snack break. Can I get you anything?"

He tilted his head farther, neck arching over the back of sofa, until he made upside-down eye contact with her. "Nah, I'm good."

She nodded and headed into the kitchen, and the room fell quiet again. Everyone else was probably studying. Everyone else still somehow cared about exams.

Footsteps came from the direction of the stairs, followed by Yukari's voice: "There you are."

"Didja miss me?"

Yukari hooked her hands into the back of the sofa and loomed forward, giving Junpei a fantastic view of her underboob, somewhat spoiled by her intense glare. "You are the worst influence on Hamuko."

He gave her his best innocent face. "I got no clue what you're talkin' about."

"Riiiight." She glanced around the room, then leaned in to whisper sharply, "She left. A used condom. In our bathroom. Ugh!"

"Okay, first, ewww. Second, how is that my fault?"

She flicked the bill of his hat. "Because her bad ideas always have 'Stupei' written all over them, and you're pretty much joined at the hip to this one. I won't tattle to our senpai or anything, but geez!"

Junpei made a quick scan for eavesdroppers before saying, "Yeahhh, just between you and me, I don't think they planned Sex Fest 2009 too well."

"Ugh, you make it sound even grosser than it already is!" Yukari stuck her tongue out with an exaggerated shudder. "I don't get it. She could do a lot better than Ryoji-kun..."

With more bite than he intended, Junpei asked, "Whatsa matter, Yuka-tan? Jealous?"

She smacked the back of his head. "That's not funny!"

"Ow! Hey!"

Fuuka's raised voice came from the kitchen: "Um, what happened to my senbei?"

"Wasn't me!" Yukari called back. "Junpei?"

He pressed his hand to his chest and glowered at her. "Hey, I was out with Aigis all day! I have an alibi!"

Yukari eyed him suspiciously before heading toward the kitchen. "Well, Mitsuru-senpai doesn't really eat fingerfood, and Akihiko-senpai doesn't really eat carbs, so that just leaves—"

Fuuka gasped. "Not Ken-kun?"

Yukari's sigh carried from around the corner. "Not exactly where I was going with that."

In a few minutes they'd probably come back out and ask why he wasn't studying, with undertones of worry that he was secretly still too depressed to function. Banter wasn't coming easy tonight, either. Junpei got up and started toward the stairs, then changed his mind and headed back toward the door.

On the way, he stopped to pet Koromaru and say, "So, my sharp-nosed little buddy, did our leader remember to buy your silence?"

Koromaru barked and flashed what Junpei recognized as the canine equivalent of a conspiratorial grin.

"Bet she gave you the pork from her ramen. Heh. Good ol' Junpei saves the day again." He gave Koromaru a quick scratch behind the ears before slipping outside.

It was cold enough now that the streetlight made brief beige ghosts of his breaths. Settling in on the steps, he called Hamuko and said, "You'd better buy Yuka-tan a present."

"Hmm?" She sounded half-asleep. "What for?"

"For not rattin' you out."

"She noticed? ...I guess I'm not surprised. I think she was on to us back in Kyoto, even." Hamuko yawned. "I'll buy her flowers. Lots of flowers. And an extra beef bowl for you, and I guess I should replace those senbei..."

Junpei snorted. "Gettin' a room on Shirakawa Boulevard woulda been cheaper."

She made a sleepy, agreeable noise. "Mmm. Still worth it."

"I'll chip in," added a voice that was unmistakably Ryoji's.

Junpei's hand found his forehead. "What the hell are you still doing there?"

Ryoji's voice came through a little clearer, but quieter and with a rare lack of levity. "I just... haven't felt right lately. When I'm alone, I think about the future, and I get so anxious. I don't know why."

"I didn't want to sleep alone tonight, either," Hamuko said, with a thickness in her voice that made Junpei wonder if she'd been crying again. "I feel better with him here. He just fits." She made a noise halfway between a giggle and a squeak. "Hey, you know that tickles! Don't make me—A-anyway, Junpei! Don't worry about it. He can sneak out after everyone leaves for school tomorrow."

"You'll make up a good excuse for why I'm late, won't you?" added Ryoji, sounding closer to his usual self. "Tell Ms. Toriumi I was up all night conjugating."

If they'd actually wanted to talk about it, they wouldn't have been trying to change the subject. Junpei certainly wasn't going to change it back; what good could come of being sucked into their intense feelings spiral? Instead he rubbed his eyebrows and said, "Dude, remember who has the room right next to yours? The one with all the ammo?"

Ryoji sounded abruptly alert. "Ammo?"

"Toy guns," said Junpei, at the same moment Hamuko said, "Ammonites." They were cautiously silent a moment before venturing, in unison, "Toy ammonites."

"Ah. Aigis-san is an interesting person, isn't she?"

"She ain't the only one," Junpei muttered. "Just... ya know... keep it down in there?"

Hamuko's laugh blossomed into another yawn. "Will do. Hey, let's make tomorrow BFF Day, okay? Game Panic and Hagakure, on me. I'm gonna kick your ass at Featherman Grand Prix."

There was still a heaviness in his chest, but he had no trouble pushing his voice past it: "Heh, you're on. Now get some sleep."

"G'night, Junpei," she replied. "And thanks again. This meant a lot to me."

"Yeah, anytime." As Junpei hung up, sourness lingered in the back of his throat.

Hands tucked into his jacket pockets, he tipped his head back to look at the stars. There weren't many visible from Port Island, even on a clear night. He knew there weren't really more stars out in the country, just fewer lights to hide them, but it was hard not to think of the sky here as empty.

Of course, sometimes what you thought was empty was actually so flooded that you couldn't see inside. The first time he visited the ocean, he'd been fascinated by how the sand kept sloping away under his feet. Thousands of meters down were entire alien worlds, but you'd never know until you drowned in them.

Hamuko had cried on his shoulder, deep shuddering sobs that she didn't want anyone else to hear, after Shinjiro died-but-didn't. (No chance, the doctor said, but she held on to hope like a fistful of ice and salt.) He hadn't known what to do but pat her back and mumble his way into silence. Junpei Iori, master comforter.

When it was his turn to fall apart, he hadn't wanted to; it seemed so important, somehow, to think he'd given her something she couldn't repay. (Funny thing about grief: it made you crazy.) After he finally broke down, she'd held him tight and said nothing at all. There was a crooked comfort in knowing that she could carry so many voices in her head and still not find the right words.

Seeing her bright again, watching her heart open wide enough to be hurt, he didn't know whether to feel hopeful or jealous or resentful or left behind with shadows still thick at his feet. Everything just seemed to come a little easier to her. He felt like a jerk for even thinking that.

"There have to be some parents that their kids would be better off without," he'd told her, like a complete ass. At least she wasn't the one he'd kept lying to: "It's pretty tough being the leader," "I won't let you down," "I'll protect you." So much blood on the ground, and he didn't even have a scar to prove it was his.

The creak of the door made him jump. "I'm sorry," Aigis said. "I did not mean to startle you."

"It's okay. I was just... thinking, I guess." He hoped his self-deprecating laugh sounded less pathetic to her than it did to him. "Better not make a habit of it, huh?"

She looked away from him. "I don't want to disturb you. I will find somewhere else—"

"It's okay, Ai-chan. I actually kinda want to be disturbed right now." He scooted over against the railing and patted the cement beside him. "C'mon, there's plenty of room."

After a long hesitation, she sat down beside him, back straight and knees bent as if she were being graded on her posture. "I believe that I have exhausted all possible topics of conversation with you today."

"Hey, you don't have to entertain me or anything. You don't even have to talk if you don't want to."

She nodded. The air around her mouth remained perfectly still, while his own released hazy curls of steam. Junpei wondered if she had anything like a pulse, or if he'd feel only the whirring of gears under her wrist. Her Persona was mechanical too, after all. Sometimes he looked at his own veins and expected to see Trismegistus glowing through them.

"It's pretty nice out tonight," he said, looking back at the sky. "A little cold, but you can tell it's not really winter yet. Hey, if we get snow this year, we should have a dorm snowball fight! Betcha got a mean throwin' arm." He chuckled, but she didn't respond. Fair enough; he'd promised that she didn't have to. In the silence, he let his gaze wander over the scattered handful of stars before asking with sudden alarm, "Hey, is that a full moon?"

"No. Maximum illumination will not be achieved until tomorrow."

"Oh." Junpei scratched the back of his neck and sighed. "I kinda lost track since, uh, you know."

Maybe she really did know; he'd heard genuine fear in her voice when Hamuko took a bad hit in battle. She would never feel her world go sharp-numb-white-severed, but she'd been there, watching, when his own had. The bullet scarcely gave him time to suffer; Chidori falling limp in his arms had ripped through him for days. (Funny thing about dying: coming back just made you more aware that death played for keeps.)

"Hey," he said, voice low, "when I said you didn't care about stuff like life and death... that was kind of shitty, wasn't it?"

Aigis glanced sideways at him. "It's all right, Junpei-san."

"No, it's not. I know I say a lot of stupid shit. Don't turn into Yuka-tan or anything, but, y'know, tell me when I'm an asshole. That's what friends are for."

Her head jerked toward him. "Are we friends?"

"The hell kind of question is that? Of course we are!"

It was always hard to read Aigis, but he thought she looked a little sad, especially when she gave him a fleeting smile. She held eye contact with him a moment longer before gazing back out over the street.

In the quiet, a boy walked by with a small dog. Cars growled softly through busier parts of the neighborhood. In the building behind him, Hamuko's room was probably dark and near-silent, save for their breathing. Were they so close now, he wondered, that they breathed in sync?

Junpei fidgeted a bit before saying, "This is gonna sound dumb, but Chidori was asleep one time when I visited her. So I sat down and waited for her to wake up, and she looked real peaceful, like I'd never seen her that peaceful before. She used to tell me dyin' is just like going to sleep, and I started thinking—don't laugh, okay?—I started thinking about how lonely it is going to sleep, and how maybe it should freak everybody out. Then I got worried I was bein' creepy staring at her like that, and then Chidori woke up and I tried to explain it to her. She called me weird." He laughed, but the sound kept trying to slide into something else.

When Aigis said nothing, he added, "She didn't get mad, though. I'm pretty sure most girls would get mad." He paused again and bit his lip. "I didn't fall asleep in class for like a week after that. I started stayin' late at the hospital, too, so she could fall asleep before I left. She said she didn't mind. Sometimes I'd fall asleep in the chair, and the nurse would kick me out. I just... didn't want her to feel alone."

"I understand," Aigis said. "'Sleep' is not the same for me as it is for living things. However, when I watched over our leader in her sleep, I felt... useful."

"Somethin' like that, yeah." It took a moment for the rest of the statement to sink in. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. When did you watch her sleep?"

"Most recently, when she was ill after the typhoon. I was informed that my behavior would be inappropriate in normal situations."

"Uh, yeah." Junpei flicked his glance sideways at her, then tilted his head back to watch the moon.

For a while they were quiet again. Lights flicked on and off in neighboring windows. At length Junpei asked, "Can you see the rabbit?"

Aigis swept her gaze up and down the road. "My sensors detect no wildlife in the area."

"No, I mean in the moon. It's not really there, but if you look at the shadows just right—see the ears?—you can sorta see a rabbit pounding mochi."

Aigis stared down the trajectory of his finger. This close, he could see the parts of her that weren't human—the glass lenses of her eyes, the smoothness where concentration should have wrinkled her skin—at odds with the little frown that tugged at her lips. "What is the purpose of seeing the rabbit?"

"Eh, it's just a thing. Like finding shapes in the clouds."

"I am programmed for pattern recognition in combat. Imposing patterns where none exist would be counter-productive." Aigis lowered her head. "I shouldn't see the rabbit."

"Yeah, well, life's full of 'shouldn't.'" Junpei rested his elbows on his knees and let his hands hang down between them. When he lowered his head, the bill of his hat blocked the entire sky, moon and rabbit and stubborn handful of stars. "Man," he said, so quietly he wasn't sure he wanted to be heard, "when do we get to stop feeling so fucked up?"

Aigis said nothing but scooted closer until the cold metal of her arm pressed against his jacket. He hesitated before shifting his weight against her, letting his cheek touch her shoulder. She wasn't comfortable. He didn't care.

"If you fall asleep here," she said, "I will stay with you. Remaining outside alone during the Dark Hour would be unsafe."

It was cold and late, and the odds of his passing any of his exams dwindled with every minute he didn't spend studying. "I won't," he replied, breath steaming faintly in the dark. It helped, a little, to think that Chidori breathed with him. "But thanks."