(but i don't want to) stay in the middle, like you a little

by blackjack_15

Summary:

Rise's only been in Inaba for a few days, but she's got a target: city transfer student and man of her dreams, Yu Narukami. But she's going to need a little help getting to know him beyond his aloof exterior, so she appeals to his best friend for a little help.

 

Even while battling shadows, serial killers, minor gods, and Izanami herself, Rise gets a little more than she bargained for in the romance department.

Notes:

"...but I don’t want to/stay in the middle/like you a little/don’t want no riddle/say it, say it back/oh, say it: ditto/can’t wait till the morning/so say it: ditto." -- Ditto, NewJeans

It’s not that Rise’s not used to this kind of attention — from middle school boys who are shy and blushing as they ask for an autograph; from middle-aged men with polite hands and leering eyes; from college students who are a little ashamed of the whole liking-an-idol thing (but not ashamed enough to avoid taking a picture with her, their hand dwarfing her shoulder); especially from her fellow high schoolers, who are young enough to be excited about her and old enough to, well, be excited about her.

 

That’s the category she slots Yosuke Hanamura in, especially at first. He’s another Risette fan, and that’s about it; he’s not super gross about, even though he’s not not gross about it, but it’s hard to even pay attention to Yosuke Hanamura when his friend walks into the classroom beside him and her jaw hits the floor.

 

Yosuke Hanamura’s friend — Yu Narukami, she overhears — is tall, gorgeous, and enticingly aloof. His uniform stretches across his broad shoulders in a way that makes her throat dry, his hair somehow looks both perfectly coiffed and intensely touchable, and the fleeting grin that he offers Yosuke Hanamura when the two of them are talking?

 

It’s love. It’s 100% love. Here, in this tiny town that she’s landed back in after giving up her dream — her job? Her something, anyway — is a boy from the city who looks like every hero on a white horse she’s ever wanted to sing about. It’s definitely, completely, foot-popping heart-racing spine-tingling love. And destiny. Can’t forget destiny.

 

Sure, he doesn’t seem to really care about Risette or Rise right now, but that just means that she can get to know him on her own terms. Or his terms. Whatever works better. She’s got a school life and a part time job here in foggy Inaba, but now she’s got a goal.

 

___________

 

The goal kinda gets disrupted once she’s kidnapped and shut inside the TV world, trapped with a skankified version of herself who’s promising to bare it all to anyone and everyone who wants to see it.

 

It’s like something out of her worst nightmares, especially since not-Rise keeps insisting that they’re the same person. It’s so obviously false that she shouldn’t feel the need to shout at it, to deny it every time not-Rise brings it up, her golden eyes glowing with disgusting mirth and self-satisfaction.

 

It’s not her. She doesn’t want people to look at her, to see everything about her, she doesn’t want to show off, she doesn’t get a thrill from people watching her. It’s not her at all.

 

Seeing Yu Narukami show up in the TV world, sword in hand and ready to fight for her honor doesn’t shock her as much as it probably should. A niggling voice in the back of her head tells her that’s the sleep deprivation and frustration talking, but somehow it seems right that he’d be the Knight in Shining Armor that she’d hoped he was, ready to sweep her off her feet.

 

Seeing his friend group with him — the kung-fu enthusiast, the heiress to the local inn, the delinquent first-year she’s constantly hearing about, and Yosuke Hanamura, plus what looks like a giant stuffed teddy bear — is a little more surprising, but she handles it. She’s even useful in the fight — not when they’re fighting her shadow self, true, but in the fight afterwards, when the bear mascot thing goes crazy and horrific and evil.

 

Of course, she nearly passes out after that, but she’s been through a lot, okay? She was hoping that Yu-senpai would be the one to carry her, but that job goes to the delinquent — Kanji-kun, as the tallest and the strongest. He could at least have the decency to blush when he threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but nothing about this experience is going the way she wants it to, so she’s not surprised.

 

“You did good,” Yosuke Hanamura says to her as she’s being carried out. Everyone else is in front of her — Kanji-kun seems to be deep in conversation with Yu-senpai, and the two girls are chattering with each other — but Yosuke-senpai is walking at the heel of the pack, watching their backs for Shadows.

 

She doesn’t look up. “I’m being carried out.”

 

He shrugs, voice light and almost laughing. “Like I said, you did good. Saved our asses back there with Teddie, too.”

 

“Has anyone else had to be carried out?” She doesn’t know why it bothers her that much. She’s had a long day — or days, she’s not sure how long she’s been in here, she hasn’t had to eat or sleep or anything, but it had to have at least been a few hours.

 

“Nah,” he says, shrugging again. “Yukiko-san was close, but Chie kinda helped her hobble out. It’s a good thing Kanji was fine, or else we would have been screwed — he’s way too big to carry.”

 

She sighs. So she’s the only useless one. Great.

 

“Cheer up. At least you didn’t faint when your shadow transformed.” His laugh is still easy, but he’s not meeting her eyes anymore. “That would be embarrassing.”

 

Rise doesn’t have the energy to reply, but she feels a little better. Maybe being part of this team is the thing that’ll get Yu-senpai to notice her. Maybe Yosuke-senpai could even help.

 

___________

 

All the help in the world that Yosuke-senpai gives doesn’t seem to make a dent with Yu-senpai, however. He’s still charming, still competent, still has shoulders that make her drool, and still frustratingly aloof. She’s talked to him about her dreams, about her fears, about being Risette and not being Risette and they’re midway through summer break and it hasn’t meant a damn thing to him.

 

Yosuke-senpai’s no help finding his weak point, either. He tells her that Yu-senpai likes bad puns, outrageously weird statements, committing to the bit (which was a phrase she had to have explained, obnoxiously enough), and — once she offered to help at Junes every day for two weeks — was at least a fan of boobs, if not a total boob guy.

 

The last point was the only thing she could work with, and even that wasn’t helping her, her cute bikini going un-complimented in the wake of Kanji-kun’s (admittedly egregious) swimsuit choice.

 

She’d stamp her foot, but her swimsuit isn’t that supportive, and it feels like inertia is gonna be a bitch if she does.

 

The day at the beach is a lot of fun — the whole thing with Kanji-kun aside — and she feels like she’s bonding with Chie-senpai and Yukiko-senpai more than ever. That kind of camaraderie isn’t exactly familiar to her, since she’s not competing with them for ad space, but it’s nice all the same.

 

And Yu-senpai hasn’t said one word about her swimsuit.

 

Chie-senpai and Yukiko-senpai both complimented her. Teddie had gotten halfway into a comment about her ass before Chie-senpai had kicked him hard enough to launch him into the surf. Yosuke-senpai’s ears had gone pink and he’d turned away from her, which was oddly gratifying. Kanji-kun hadn’t said anything — or gotten a nosebleed, which, after getting the story about the school trip, she was a little offended by — but she didn’t really need attention from Kanji-kun.

 

Not that she needs attention in general. Attention about her body, anyway. That would make her too much like Shadow Rise, willing to bare it all to anyone who’d watch. Sure, her shadow was a part of her, she’d accepted that, but that doesn’t make her needy or an attention whore. People paying attention to her brain or her words was just as important as people appreciating her face or her body.

 

More important. More important than her face or body.

 

Yu-senpai could have at least appreciated the color. That would have been the perfect compliment — tasteful, appropriate, with just a hint of attraction underneath.

 

“Thinking heavy thoughts?”

 

The bench next to her dips slightly as Yosuke-senpai plops down, drinking from a half-full water bottle. He’s got a t-shirt on with his swim trunks, the fabric darker across his shoulders and down his spine like he’d put it on before he was completely dry.

 

They’re not the shoulders she’s been focused on for the last few months, but she feels a pull in her gut regardless before the moment passes.

 

“Rise-chan? You alive in there?”

 

She sighs, nodding. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

 

“Operation: Seduce Our Fearless Leader isn’t going as smoothly as you hoped, huh.”

 

“Is it that obvious?” She hangs her head, another gusty sigh blowing the loose strands of hair around her head towards the horizon.

 

He laughs, but it sounds almost pitying. “Nah, I can tell because I’m psychic, not because of the kicked-puppy vibes you send out every time he talks to literally any girl but you.”

 

Her neck pops as she whips her head up to meet his eyes. “That makes me sound pathetic! I’m an idol — or I was, anyway! I’m Rise Kujikawa, I am not pathetic!”

 

There’s something in his gaze that’s different from normal. His mouth is still stretched in that goofy grin he walks around with, his body posture is relaxed and open, his fingers tapping out an irregular staccato along the back of the bench behind her. But his eyes are almost cold, a bit calculating, a touch bored and caustic and something else she can’t place.

 

It’s something that she’s only seen a few times on him, when they’re in the TV world facing down Shadows. She’s not sure she likes it.

 

She’s not sure she doesn’t.

 

“What?” she asks defensively, standing to place her hands on her hips. “Nothing to say back? No tips or tricks for getting a guy to fall at my feet and swear his eternal affection?”

 

Yosuke-senpai stands as well, the thin plastic of the water bottle crinkling in his grasp, that odd look still settled in his eyes. Instead of saying anything, he sweeps his gaze up and down her body languidly, the polar opposite of his quick glance and pink ears from the beginning of the day. “It’s a good color on you,” he says evenly, and walks past her, the fabric of his sleeve brushing the top of her shoulder as he passes.

 

She can hear Chie-senpai calling her name, saying they’ve gotta go before the light leaves the beach entirely. She lets her glance rest on the bench for just a second, then brushes the lingering salt crystals off of her skin and lets it go.

 

Maybe Yosuke-senpai is wrong. Maybe Yu-senpai isn’t a boob guy.

 

She’ll try a miniskirt and thigh-highs next. And maybe a book of puns from the store down the street from the tofu shop.

 

___________

 

Four books of puns later, Rise’s no closer to figuring out what makes Yu-senpai tick. She spends most nights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays helping Yosuke-senpai out at Junes, earning pocket money for new clothes and the occasional sweet treat. She’d try out new puns on him (“Rise-chan, I’m pretty sure that one would be a turn off even for Yu.”), shows him pictures of outfits she’s thinking about for her next accidentally-bumped-into-Yu-senpai-encounter (“Outside his house? Either you’re a better liar than I thought or he’s 100% getting suspicious. Aren’t you worried about Dojima-san arresting you for loitering?”), and asks what Yu-senpai's favorite foods are (“If you step near a kitchen, I’m going to perform a citizen’s arrest. Not even joking. We need him in fighting shape”).

 

She learns a handful of things about Yosuke-senpai in the process as well. His habit of flipping around his knives in the TV world crosses over to the real world — he’s getting pretty good at juggling they day’s delivery of daikon before putting it on the grocery shelf, though the carrots still give him trouble. He’s quick to offer a joke or an encouraging comment when she makes a mistake, and a hand up when she inevitably collides with a display while in her own head and ends up on the floor. He’s good at charming customers — the little old ladies seem to be especially fond of him, but he’s good with kids and harried parents as well — and wheedling them into buying a little more than they came for, though never more than they can afford. He’s relentlessly kind, covering shifts, making up excuses, and offering to go to bat for disgruntled coworkers, no matter if they appreciate it or not.

 

Sometimes, when they’ve been there for a while and it’s been super busy, or a few workers just haven’t shown up for their shifts, or customers have been incredibly rude, that sharp look in his eyes comes back, and the comments he mutters under his breath become caustic and cutting, rather than goofy and light-hearted. He’ll apologize when she catches him saying something shockingly rude (and usually incredibly vulgar), waving a hand and laughing it off, but his laugh sounds hollow, and she catches herself wishing he wouldn’t pretend for her sake.

 

“You know I’ve heard worse, right?” she blurts out one night, fifteen minutes to closing after a rush sale thanks to a bumper crop delivery. “I was in show business. Nothing you can say will shock me.”

 

Yosuke-senpai snorts, knuckles white on the broom he’s using to sweep up corn silk from the produce section. “We both know that’s not true, Rise-chan. You’re a delicate maiden, remember? Isn’t that your new tack with Yu?”

 

She flinches. “You don’t have to say it like that. It’s not like I’m pretending to be something I’m not.”

 

“Benefit of being an idol – you really can be anything you want. Or anything he wants, I guess.”

 

Her temper flares. It shouldn’t, but it’s hot outside — still hot, even though it’s nearly October, and Yu-senpai is spending all his time with Naoto-kun since they rescued her from the TV World, and she definitely still counts as a girl, no matter what school uniform she wears, and you know what? She’s allowed to be a little and ENTIRELY JUSTIFIABLY upset. “Are you seriously gonna be like this?”

 

“I thought you’ve heard worse than anything I could —"

 

“What, are you still mad about your eye?” A customer, rushing to grab everything they needed before picking their kid up from soccer practice, had collided with Yosuke-senpai an hour earlier, offering hurried excuses and not even bothering with an apology for elbowing him in the face and knocking him to the floor. He deserves to be upset, she doesn’t need to taunt him about it, a voice that sounds like her grandmother’s echoes in her head. She ignores it. “Poor Yosuke-senpai’s got a boo-boo and no one to kiss it better.”

 

She swears the plastic handle of the broom cracks in his grip. “Big words from the girl who spends 18 hours a day whining that her crush doesn’t like her back.”

 

“It is not 18 hours — I don’t do that! Besides you’re getting something out of it too!”

 

Yosuke-senpai’s ears go red. “Yeah, lucky me. Might as well go stand on the corner since I’m already prostituting myself.”

 

Her grandmother’s voice in her head is gone, replaced with Yosuke-senpai’s sunny tone, telling her that she’s doing great, that she’s picked up on stocking quicker than anyone else, that they need to stop goofing off because his stomach hurts from laughing so much. That being stuck in Junes until after the sun goes down sucks, but he couldn’t ask for better company.

 

To her horror, her eyes are stinging, and the tiled floor of Junes looks a little blurry and wobbly. She tries to hold back the tears, but all she manages is a pathetic-sounding sniff and a half-strangled sound in the back of her throat.

 

Maybe she is pathetic, letting some idiot she fights shadows with and watches over in battle and makes risqué jokes about radishes with make her cry.

 

“Shit,” she hears from either right next to her or a thousand miles away. “Rise-chan, I —"

 

She doesn’t let him finish, spinning on her heel and running out of Junes. It’s not like she ever officially clocked in, so she wasn’t causing problems for anyone else, and if she had to stand under those fluorescent lights for one more second she was going to scream. Or cry. Probably cry, since she was sniffing and coughing and wiping at her face even now.

 

Rise doesn’t even realize where she is until she looks up at the lit window at the top of the Dojima’s house, feet hurting from her impromptu run, hands shaking and kind of sweaty.

 

Her phone beeps. “You okay?” the text reads, and she glances back up to see Yu-senpai standing in the lit window, pointing to the garden beside the house. The next message just says “Garden?”, and she waves her phone in response, trudging over to the box of dirt and sitting down next to it.

 

Her pants are going to get dirty. Great.

 

It’s less than a minute later that she hears the front door open and then close again, and Yu-senpai rounds the corner, bucket of gardening equipment in hand. He raises his other arm, waving to her in greeting, and she feels fresh tears track down her cheeks.

 

He’s going to see her when she’s out of breath and sweaty and covered in dirt and crying with her nose running and it’s all Yosuke-senpai’s fault.

 

“Yosuke-senpai’s an asshole” is what comes out of her mouth, entirely without her permission, and Yu-senpai’s wave freezes for a moment.

 

Then he laughs. A full-body laugh, not like the grins he shoots everyone’s way when they do well in the TV verse, or even the smile he has when he’s hanging around Yosuke-senpai. She waits for the familiar cottony feeling that surrounds her when she’s around Yu-senpai, but it doesn’t come.

 

She loves the sound of his voice when he’s being serious, commanding, confident. Shouldn’t she love his joy too?

 

“That’s an amazing greeting,” he says once he’s near enough to sit on the street in front of her. “I almost don’t want to spoil it by asking what’s wrong.”

 

She looks up at him, painfully aware that her eyes are swollen and her mouth has twisted into the most pathetic pout imaginable. “Nothing’s wrong.”

 

“I can see that,” Yu-senpai says gently, leaning back on his hands. “If nothing’s wrong, why are you outside my house on a Wednesday night? I thought you’d be helping out at Junes.”

 

Rise winces. She can’t possibly tell Yu-senpai what Yosuke had said, not without embarrassing herself even further. “He was mean to me.”

 

Yu-senpai nods slowly, like he’s understanding something she didn’t mean to say. “He’s like that sometimes. So instead of insulting him back like normal, you ran off?”

 

“That makes me sound pathetic,” she grumbles. “I’m not pathetic.”

 

“There’s nothing pathetic about getting your feelings hurt by a friend,” he says, turning his head down the street to give her privacy as she wipes at her nose for the billionth time tonight. “He made fun of something you’re sensitive about?”

 

There’s that righteous anger she’d been feeling. “He knows I’m — everyone knows, everyone saw me in the Striptease. Everything bad about me, laid out for the world to laugh at.” It’s humiliating, but at least she can taste iron on her tongue again, rather than just feeling incredibly small.

 

“Your bad traits aren’t all you are. And believe me, you have plenty more vices — and virtues — than just wanting a bit of attention.”

 

“Gee, thanks.” It’s the shortest she’s been with him, and for some reason it makes the corner of his mouth quirk up.

 

Yu-senpai looks at her, considering. It’s like he both sees her and sees right through her, like he’s weighing a matter more weighty than a few tears. He must come to a conclusion, because his next words are soft, barely audible above the distant noise of cars and bugs. “Did Yosuke tell you about how he got his Persona?”

 

That gets her attention. She sits up straighter, her focus sharpening. “No. Chie-senpai and Yukiko-senpai said that they weren’t there for it, that by the time they joined up you two already had yours.”

 

“I was the only one there — other than Teddie, but Teddie’s shockingly good at keeping secrets when he doesn’t know they’re secrets.” He considers her again, then goes on. “It was our second time in the TV world and the first time we went in there on purpose. We wound up in the TV world’s version of the shopping district, in front of Konishi Liquor.”

 

“Konishi…like Saki Konishi-senpai,” she says. “The second victim. Yosuke-senpai had a crush on her, right? Whenever he talks about her he — he sounds different.”

 

“He was different around her,” Yu-senpai says, and Rise feels a dull pain in her chest for just a moment. If Yu-senpai notices her wince, he doesn’t acknowledge it. “I met her once, at the Junes food court, right before she went missing. I was there with Yosuke and Chie right after we met, and she was there taking a break. As soon as she showed up, Yosuke ran over to go talk to her. It was like…like the ten thousand layers of bullshit he was putting up fell off him when he was talking to her.”

 

Her chest throbs again. “What do you mean? He wasn’t — himself?”

 

He shakes his head. “More like he was more himself. Less bored, less angry, less resentful, less caustic; more sincere, more playful. Confident, but almost bashful.”

 

Rise thinks of the times she’s seen Yosuke-senpai’s eyes dull and his voice sharpen, then shakes them away. “So he — he definitely liked her. And he met his Shadow in Konishi Liquor?”

 

“It was terrifying, honestly” Yu-senpai says. “All of a sudden we started hearing Saki-senpai’s voice talk about how much she hated Junes for ruining her family’s business, for making people resent her. How Yosuke was a pain in her ass, hovering around her when she was just nice to him because he was the manager’s son.”

 

She can’t stop the quiet gasp, raising her hands to her mouth. “That’s horrible. She’s horrible.”

 

Yu-senpai looks at her sharply. “Was everything your shadow said the absolute truth? Or did it exaggerate and twist what you were feeling to make it sound worse?”

 

She knows it’s true, but the dull pain in her heart has turned sharp, and she hates the wavy-haired girl she’s only seen in pictures just a little. “I know it wasn’t her. That it was her shadow. But still, that’s —"

 

Yu-senpai waits for her to continue. When she doesn’t, he leans forward off his hands, tucking them in his lap. “Anyway, that’s when Yosuke’s shadow appeared. Started talking about how he was the one who thought everything was a pain in the ass, how he was pissed off that he was stuck out here in the sticks, how wanting to investigate Saki-senpai’s murder was just an excuse for him to get some excitement and play the hero.”

 

The pain turns to nausea. Yosuke-senpai didn’t bring up Saki-senpai very much, but when someone else did, or when they passed the liquor store, or sometimes when he was quiet walking her back home after work, she could feel loss and guilt bleeding out of him like an open wound. “That’s not true at all. He’s not like that.”

 

For some reason Yu-senpai grins at that, teeth flashing in the light from the streetlamp. “He isn’t. And he is. That’s how a Shadow works. It’s everything you hate about yourself, everything you refuse to accept. No matter how anyone else feels about it. It was going to be especially strong after hearing Saki-senpai’s shadow, too.”

 

“Has anyone else had to deal with that?” she asks tentatively. “A shadow besides their own taunting them?”

 

“Nope. Just Yosuke.”

 

She shoots up, suddenly angry. “That’s not fair. That’s why he fainted, not because he was weak or anything.”

 

“I didn’t mention that he fainted. Who told you that?”

 

She flushes. “When Kanji-kun was carrying me out and I was — grumpy about it, I guess. In the Striptease. He didn’t say it was him, he just — he said it could have been worse, I could have fainted when I saw my shadow. That at least I wasn’t that pathetic.”

 

Yu-senpai nods slowly, leaning forward to grab the gloves out of the gardening bucket and pick a few stray weeds that were in the soil. “He’s kind like that.”

 

“Not tonight he wasn’t.” It flies out of her mouth before she can stop it, but her shoulders feel lighter once it’s out.

 

He grabs the trowel and some fresh barrier corn seedlings. “Who picked the fight?”

 

She feels like a kid, getting scolded. “He — I — we both did. He was having a bad day, so he took it out on me, so I took it out on him, and — yeah.”

 

“Are you gonna apologize?”

 

“He started it.”

 

Yu-senpai laughs again. It bothers her, back in the part of her brain that’s worrying about her dirty pants and her swollen face, that his laugh doesn’t make her head spin, that seeing him gardening isn’t drawing her eyes to his strong fingers and broad palms. That this is the most intimate conversation they’ve ever had and she’s not even batting her eyelashes or casually touching him. That she doesn’t even want to.

 

Before she can spiral out, though, Yu-senpai’s phone rings. She can’t see who called, but he raises it to his ear quickly, voice quiet. “Yeah. Yeah,  she’s with me. I will. Get home safe.” He flips the phone closed, stowing it in his back pocket.

 

She has to ask. She knows who it could have been, who it probably was. But she has to ask anyway. “Who was that?”

 

“Wrong number,” Yu-senpai says, his eyes glinting in the dark up at her.

 

Rise huffs in frustration. “Now you’re going to tell me that I should —"

 

“—get home safe,” Yu-senpai finishes, standing up and pulling the gardening gloves off. “You’re not gonna run to his house and apologize, it’s all the way across town and you’ve already been kidnapped once. Besides, you know what will happen if you do.”

 

And she does know. She’d knock on the door, offer a charming smile to his dad or mom — whoever opens it, maybe even Teddie — and Yosuke-senpai would appear at the door. He’d close it behind him and face her, and he’d apologize. He’d been trying to before she’d run out of Junes. He’d say he was tired and grumpy and that it’s no excuse and that he’s sorry, and she wouldn’t be able to apologize after that, and all she’d be able to think about is how she made fun of him for getting hit in the face, for being alone, and how he’d lost the girl he liked to a murderer, that the last thing he’d heard her say is that she hated him.

 

“My grandmother will worry,” she says instead, and has the horrible feeling that Yu-senpai knows everything that went through her brain just then. “You’re right, I should head home.”

 

“Text us when you get there,” Yu-senpai says, raising his hand to wave at her.

 

She pretends she didn’t hear the plural.

 

___________

 

Rise doesn’t hear from him apart from a “good” when she texts the group to say she’s home safe and didn’t see anyone suspicious. She’s stupidly nervous walking into Junes the next Tuesday afternoon, meeting Yosuke exactly where he normally is, chatting with one of the neighborhood ladies who’s always talking about her dog.

 

She waits until Yoshinaka-san leaves, waving to her sunnily, before stepping into Yosuke-senpai’s line of sight, Junes apron tied around her waist. His eyes crinkle when he sees her, a bright grin exploding onto his face.

 

“Rise-chan!”

 

The world shifts underneath her, everything the same and yet drastically different. The lights look brighter but softer, her hands and cheeks feel warm but not hot, and she can feel her mouth stretching into a smile to match his.

 

“Did Yoshinaka-san get another dog?” she manages.

 

Yosuke-senpai starts in on a fondly exasperated explanation, and just like that, the world is back to normal.

 

__________

 

Things are going fine, for once — it’s been a month, it’s nearly the end of October, and no one’s been kidnapped. It’s not too foggy outside, with the sun peeking through the clouds for most of the day before sinking beneath the horizon, and everyone is more relaxed than they’ve been for a while.

 

And now everything’s gone to shit.

 

She’d been wandering down the street towards the shrine, hoping to catch a glimpse of their fox friend in their natural habitat, when she’d spotted them: Yu-senpai and that Marie girl, walking towards the Samegawa flood plain, laughing and chatting.

 

And holding hands.

 

She’d rubbed at her eyes to make sure she wasn’t just seeing things, but no, they were definitely holding hands, his fingers laced through hers, their palms touching indecently, the whole nine yards.

 

She swears her heart cracked in half. They were getting closer, everything was going well, she didn’t even have to pressure him into spending time with her — she’d even gotten a new Persona the last time they’d hung out.

 

But he was holding another girl’s hand. Dating another girl, if the kiss he’d snuck onto her cheek was anything to go by.

 

And she’d known. She’d known he didn’t like her like that, that he didn’t see her as a romantic partner. Didn’t look at her the same way she looked at him.

 

The same way? that voice in her head questions, sounding sly and far too much like Shadow Rise for her comfort. You haven’t looked at him like that in a while. Not really.

 

Even if her crush had faded into — into general appreciation, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

 

And it does hurt. Once again, she’s not someone that people want to be around, to be with.

 

She doesn’t realize that she’s made it to the top of the hill in town until her calves are burning and she’s collapsed on the grass. She doesn’t realize that she’s called for help until her phone is already at her ear. And she doesn’t realize she’s crying until she hears her voice, crackling against the speaker.

 

“He’s — Marie-chan — he’s dating her.”

 

Yosuke-senpai doesn’t respond for a moment. When he does speak, his voice is low, comforting, and a little cautious. “Where are you?”

 

She gasps past another sob. “Top — top of the hill.”

 

“I’ll be right there.”

 

The line goes dead, but she doesn’t bother to put her phone away, tossing it to the side and curling in on herself. Everything is too much — the rising moon, the stars, the grass against her cheek, the hard line of her ponytail wrapper pressed between her head and the ground.

 

She rolls onto her back, tugging out the ponytail wrappers, not bothering with where they end up. Let her hair be a mess. It can match how she feels.

 

She’s not sure how long she lays there, tears running down from her eyes to her ears to the ground, before she hears familiar footsteps coming near her.

 

“Rise-chan? Are you —"

 

He doesn’t finish his sentence, and she sits up, drawing her knees to her chest. She knows she has to look more pathetic than he’s ever seen her, more pathetic than she’s ever felt in her life. Maybe it’ll scare him away.

 

Yosuke-senpai sits next to her, groaning slightly as he settles onto the grass. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

A fresh sob chokes its way out of her mouth.

 

He rubs the back of his neck. “Okay, probably not. I get it.”

 

She’s already too pathetic for words, so it can’t hurt to just do what she wants to do.

 

She leans into his side, settling into the space below his still-raised arm without a word. She can feel him go rigid and panic sets in for a split second before he relaxes again, the hand that was on the back of his neck settling onto her shoulder, keeping her steady.

 

Her sobs eventually turn to sniffles, and she feels like she’s cried out all the moisture in her body by the time night truly settles around them. Yosuke-senpai hasn’t moved, even though he has to be uncomfortable, sitting on the damp, cold grass, supporting her weight with his body. He’s humming something she vaguely recognizes from some Western film a few years back, fingers tapping out the beat onto her skin.

 

“Sorry,” she manages, hating the way her voice sounds thick and raw, like someone’s taken a cheese grater to her vocal cords. “I’m getting your shirt wet.”

 

“That’s not something to apologize for,” he says gently. She relaxes into him further, feeling his voice rumble through his chest when he speaks again. “Dribbling snot down my shirt, on the other hand…”

 

She jerks away, though not out of the warmth of his arm. “I was not!”

 

Yosuke-senpai grins down at her. “There you are. I knew you were hiding in that mess of hair and self-pity somewhere.”


 

“Jerk,” she says, but there’s no heat behind it. “I think everyone’s allowed a little self-pity once in a while.”

 

“You’re not wrong,” he concedes. “All cried out?”

 

“What if I say no?”

 

“Then I’d say we should find somewhere a little less open for you to continue. I hear there’s a murderer afoot.”

 

She pouts up at him, well aware that it’s kind of ruined by red-rimmed eyes and wild hair. “You wouldn’t protect your adorable underclassman?”

 

“Absolutely not. It’s every man — and underclassman — for themselves out here.” His voice is light, teasing, jokey — all the notes he normally hits. She’s turned towards him again, though, looking at his face, and his eyes are soft and warm, affection shining through them. He looks like someone’s plugged him into the wall and recharged him, powered up and fizzing with light.

 

Her stomach flips.

 

She wants to kiss him.

 

It’s not like when she’d get the urge to kiss Yu-senpai. That usually happened when she wanted to shock him, wanted him to pay attention to her, wanted him to look at her and actually see her. The urge always went away after a few seconds, and she’d get the same rush patting him on the arm or linking her arm in his.

 

It’s been more than a few seconds now, and the urge to kiss Yosuke-senpai isn’t going away — it’s getting stronger so quickly that it almost scares her. It’s like she’s getting tunnel vision in every one of her senses. All she can see is his mouth, grin fading and lips slightly parted. The sounds of the world around them feel muffled, and she can hear her own shallow breathing loudly in her ears. She can feel her hand shaking as she reaches up and places it on his shirt, curling her fingers around the thin material, feeling his heartbeat knock erratically against her knuckles. She flicks her eyes upwards towards his and can’t help the small gasp at how dark his eyes are, heavy-lidded and focused on her lips.

 

Their height difference isn’t so pronounced sitting down, and his arm is still warm around her shoulders. All she has to do is lean up a little, tug him down a little, and…

 

It shocks her how quickly he drops his arm from her shoulders, how easily he dislodges her grip on his shirt just by standing. He clears his throat, body turned away from her. “We should get you home, Rise-chan. It’s been foggier and foggier lately, and you don’t want your grandma to worry.” His voice is as steady as it ever has been.

 

Hers is not. “Okay,” she says and wipes at her face, feels the sticky remnants of tear tracks and the rawness of her nose. It hits her. Of course he didn’t want to kiss her — she looks like a mess, she cried all over his shirt, she’s generally pathetic, whining about another guy to him. No wonder he pulled away. He finds her attractive, she knows that. Her timing was just off. She clears her throat and takes a chance. “You’re not gonna help me up?”

 

His shoulders tense immediately, and she winces. Stupid. Stupid thing to ask, stupid to push. Stupid girl, thirsting for attention no matter what the consequences.

 

“Only because you’re dehydrated from ruining my shirt.”

 

She looks up to see him standing beside her, looking out over the hill, hand outstretched. She wears her heart jumps when she places her hand in his, every nerve in her skin fizzing where it makes contact with his. He tries to pull away once she’s standing, but she holds on tight just for a few seconds longer.

 

“Thank you, Yosuke-senpai.”

 

He nods, still not looking at her. “You can pay me back with something from the vending machine on the way back home.” His hand falls from hers, but she can see even in the dim light from the lamp next to  them that the tops of his ears are pink.

 

“I don’t have my wallet.”

 

Yosuke-senpai groans theatrically, hand pressing against his heart, where hers had been less than a minute ago. “You’re killing me, Rise-chan.”

 

She falls into step beside him as they walk down the hill. She kind of hopes she is.

 

___________

 

The next time she implodes is when things aren’t going too well, only a few days into the new year.

 

They’ve rescued Nanako-chan, which is good. She’s recovered enough to go home with Dojima-san with weekly check-ups, which is also good — especially after she had to be resuscitated. They even figured out that it was Adachi behind everything, rather than Namatame, and turned everything over to the police. Christmas was fun, if a bit somber.

 

But within their group? Everyone’s on edge.

 

Yu-senpai is more withdrawn, solemn, nearly lifeless — not shocking, considering how close he is with Nanako-chan and Dojima-san and how close an eye he’s keeping on them as they recover. He hasn’t said much about it, but Marie-chan is missing, and it’s obvious to anyone looking how worried he is. Teddie’s staying over at Dojima-san’s house with him a few nights a week, keeping him company. Caring for someone seems to be what keeps Yu-senpai going, and Teddie’s just smart enough — and lazy enough — to let himself be cared for.

 

Yukiko-senpai and Chie-senpai have been doing their best to pretend that everything is business as usual, but the inn isn’t doing very well, and Chie-senpai mentions with a strained smile that her parents have been arguing more and more over whether or not to move out of Inaba.

 

Kanji-kun and Naoto-kun are the most normal — not that those two are ever, ever normal — in that they’re still dancing around each other, both embarrassed over something as simple as having feelings, but Naoto-kun gets a look in her eye whenever Chie-senpai says that at least they solved the mystery, like she’s eating something that isn’t quite what it should be. Kanji-kun’s teaching handicrafts on the weekends in the neighborhood, but his temper seems even shorter than usual.

 

And Yosuke-senpai looks exhausted. She knows from the conversations they have while she’s helping at Junes that he’s worried about Yu-senpai, about Marie-chan, about Chie-senpai and Yukiko-senpai and even Teddie. She can see the worry lines on his forehead when someone mentions Nanako-chan and Dojima-san, knows that he often hits the hospital whenever Nanako-chan has a follow-up appointment to chat with them.

 

Sometimes she goes with him. Sometimes she can’t bear to spend one more moment around the sick, the miserable, and the dying.

 

It’s like he’s folding in on himself, losing the confidence and proactiveness she’s come to associate with him over the last six months. He’s unsure when asked his opinion; he hedges and hmms and defers to anyone else.

 

She knows it’s about his speech in Namatame’s room, at least partly. How he’d called for the man’s death, eyes lit up like a cathedral in flames, voice like broken glass and snake venom. It’d taken Yu-senpai yelling to even shift his attention from throwing him in the TV, and — even though Namatame turned out to be mostly innocent in all this — she knows he doesn’t trust himself, and that he’s still angry.

 

He throws himself into stocking and loading at Junes after school, headphones firmly on his ears, movements as quick and powerful as they are in the TV world. She cries in the shower sometimes, letting the hot water and steam and facial scrubs wash away the evidence.

 

Everyone else is doing their part, so she does hers — looking after Yosuke-senpai. He’s busy worrying about everyone else; he deserves to have someone worrying about him.

 

She’s gonna worry about him anyway. She might as well show it.

 

Today, Junes is fully staffed and running smoothly, which is almost a miracle, so they’re sitting in an alleyway in the shopping district, letting the buildings on either side of them act as windbreaks. Without the chilly air blowing over them, it’s an oddly calm January afternoon, and the snacks and warm drinks from the nearby vending machines are enough to keep their teeth from chattering and the chill from settling in their bones.

 

It’s less claustrophobic than being inside, and no one’s loitering around to overhear or bother them.

 

Yosuke-senpai is laughing — almost giggling, she’d say, if it wasn’t so low-pitched — as she plays up her imitation of Kanji-kun and Naoto-kun’s recent embarrassing collision in the hallway.

 

“It’s like he discovers he likes her every day for the first time,” she says, holding her hot tea in her hands. “Like she’s specifically designed to appeal to him.”

 

“He’s an easy dude to appeal to,” Yosuke-senpai says dryly. “Just put on the world’s dumbest detective hat and you’re good to go.”

 

She giggles. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

He raises an eyebrow at her, mouth curled up into a smirk, and she feels it swoop through her gut.

 

Steady, girl. He’s only your friend. No reason to react.

 

“A cowboy hat world be worse,” she adds, appreciating the laughter that the comment inspires. “But if I ever have to persuade Kanji-kun to do something, remind me to borrow her hat.”

 

“Alright,” Yosuke-says, eyes lighting up at a new game for them to play. “You have to appeal to the guys in our group. How do you do it?”

 

“Naoto-kun’s hat for Kanji-kun,” she says automatically, brain spinning through what she’s learned about them over the last half year. “Marie-chan’s striped tights for Yu-senpai — though maybe not right now.”

 

“Prudent,” Yosuke-senpai says, a broad smile on his face. “Might wanna wait for better times. Teddie?”

 

“What wouldn’t appeal to Teddie,” she wonders, and Yosuke-senpai chokes on the chip he’s eating, laughing. “I could wear his mascot costume and the damn bear would still be, like, illegally horny.”

 

Yosuke-senpai laughs harder, repeating “illegally horny” to himself before another loud peal of laughter.

 

She feels good —powerful, funny, like everything she’s doing is a win. Like they’d both be happy to sit here forever, making fun of their friends, drinking tea, and sharing chips and chocolate.

 

She loves the sound of his joy.

 

So of course she messes it up. She wants him to laugh too badly, wants him to focus on her, wants all of his attention all the time.

 

So much that she can’t ignore it like she has been for much longer.

 

“For Yosuke-senpai…” she trails off, thinking, tapping a finger against her chin. “I could always just part my hair in the center and wear my uniform? My hair’s already wavy.”

 

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

Yosuke-senpai laughs, but it’s a weak sort of chuckle, and he’s looking to the side of her, rather than at her face. “Damn. You’re merciless, Rise-chan.”

 

Her cheeks are hot. “I — senpai, I didn’t —"

 

“I can take a joke, don’t worry,” he says dryly, using the wall to stand up. “I just forgot I have to drop off the keys at Junes to whoever’s managing, since we’re closing early for the snowstorm tonight.”

 

She takes the hand he’s offering, standing up and picking up her drink and the snack bags once she’s on her feet. “I can come with —"

 

“Nah,” he calls, and she realizes he’s already out of the alley, waving as he walks away. “It’d be out of your way anyway, Rise-chan, and it’s getting cold.”

 

Her feet won’t move. She knows he’s hurt, knows she hurt him, but her feet won’t move. “Stay safe!” she offers weakly as he walks out of sight, his broad shoulders drawing her eyes like a magnet.

 

She thinks he replies, but it’s lost in the wind and the first flurries from the dark clouds above them.

 

___________

 

It takes her grandmother less than a second to clock her expression as she walks into the house, and only a few seconds more to put a sign up on the door and take her hand, pulling her inside to sit at the kotatsu.

 

Even with the heat flooding out of the table and the blanket pulled up to her waist, she still feels dumb and chilled, like she’s stepped into a pothole filled with freezing water.

 

“Rise-chan,” her grandmother clucks, worry lines painting her forehead. “What is wrong, my little duck? What happened?”

 

She will not cry. She’s shed enough tears over the last month and a half, some deserved and some not. She will not cry in front of her grandmother over a stupid comment she made to a friend.

 

She might cry over the fact that she’s fairly sure he’s not just a friend to her.

 

“I think I hurt my friend’s feelings,” she says carefully. Her voice is only a little wobbly.

 

Her grandmother has enough tact to not comment on it. “That is not normally not enough to upset you. Did you get in a fight?”

 

“No!” Rise shakes her head vigorously, hunching her shoulders in. “No, I — I don’t think he was even mad, I just — he said he wasn’t hurt, but…”

 

“Ah,” she says, sitting down across from Rise at the kotatsu, placing a few peeled oranges in the center. “This is about the Junes boy.” She takes an orange, separating each segment and setting them down in a star pattern on the table.

 

Rise’s jaw drops. “It’s not — it’s not about him.”

 

Her grandmother fixes her with an almost accusatory look, pinning her in place. “You talk about him all the time. You go out with him nearly every day.”

 

“We’re not — we don’t go out, it’s not like that.”

 

“Yes it is,” her grandmother scoffs. “Two people do not hang around each other constantly and talk on the phone until all hours of the night if it is not like that.”

 

Rise flushes. “We talked late once on the phone, and it was about a — a mutual friend of ours that we were worried about.”

 

“You worry together. You spend time together to feel better. Whenever I see you downcast, you are always back to normal after he knocks on the door and asks for help at his big store.”

 

“It’s not his, and —"

 

“And now you are worried that you have hurt him, and you look as guilty as I have ever seen anyone.” Her grandmother carefully eats the last of her orange, voice level. “So why are you here, little duck?”

 

It stings. “I thought — it was getting late, I didn’t want you to worry.”

 

“Things became hard and confusing, and you ran to Inaba,” her grandmother says, voice mild. “Now things are hard and confusing again. Are you running towards something, or away from something?”

 

Away. Towards.

 

Either way, she’s going to run. She has to.

 

Her body’s moving without her consent; all of a sudden, she’s standing, leaving the blanket puddled at her feet. “I — I’ll be back later. I’ll be safe. I promise.”

 

Her grandmother waves a hand. “This is Inaba. What trouble could you possibly get into?”

 

What trouble could she get into in a town that recently had a wannabe serial killer? Is her grandmother losing it? That would normally worry her. It does worry her, maybe, in the back of her mind. Something to dissect later.

 

For now, she’s gotta grab her coat, jam her arms through the sleeves, and set off towards Yosuke-senpai’s house before the snow starts to pile up.

 

___________

 

It occurs to her when she’s standing outside the Hanamura house, the snow ankle-deep and climbing, that she has no plan. Her plan was to get here, fueled by determination and a little bit of shame and a whole lot of confused feelings swirling in her gut.

 

She’s gotten this far on blind emotion. She might as well keep going.

 

She digs in the snow, fingers freezing while she grabs some pebbles from the side of the road, and looks up to the window she knows is Yosuke-senpai’s.

 

Texting wouldn’t be enough. He’d probably just ignore it. Same with calling.

 

Rise hefts a pebble in her hand, chucking it upwards where it collides with the window with a satisfying tink.

 

Much harder to ignore.

 

She manages to hit the window four times (and is winding up for a fifth) when the front porch light comes on and the door opens.

 

“Rise?”

 

Yosuke-senpai is standing in the weak light of the doorway, rubbing his eyes and staring at her.

 

She ignores the way her heart skips at the sound her name in his voice, no honorific in sight. “Were you asleep?” she blurts out, letting her gaze fall to the plaid pajama pants that are a little short at his ankles.

 

“I fell asleep studying. What are you doing here, Rise-chan?”

 

I wanted to apologize. I felt guilty. I missed you. I wanted to see you.

 

She can’t say any of that. Instead, she waves a frozen hand at him, grinning weakly. “I can’t feel my hands.”

 

Yosuke-senpai swears badly under his breath, opening the door wider. “Come on in, you’ll freeze out here. The snow’s gonna keep piling up.” As she comes towards him, into the light, he stares at her clothes. “Shit, you’re soaked, didn’t you zip up your coat on your way over?”

 

Sure enough, as she enters the warmth of the house, she can feel her cold clothes clinging to her, the snow melting into rivulets of freezing water running down her skin. “I — I didn’t think about it, I wasn’t out there that long, and I was kinda in a hurry. Since it was cold.”

 

He helps her take her coat off, hanging it by the door to dry, still frowning. “You need to put on something dry. Do you —" he breaks off, the tops of his ears going pink, “— do you want to borrow clothes? They’ll be too big — you’re tiny…” He trails off, looking at her a little desperately.

 

Something warm curls in her stomach, and she smiles. “A shirt and some pants would be great. Too big just means more warmth, right?”

 

Yosuke-senpai nods wordlessly, whirling to run up the stairs, and she lets herself look around. The house is neat and modern, decorated sparsely. There’s a moving box half-unpacked in the corner still, even though they’ve been here for a year, and a to-do list on the counter labeled “THINGS TO BUY FOR TOKYO TRIP” has its items mostly crossed out.

 

Right, Yosuke-senpai had mentioned that his mom and dad would be gone this week and half of next at some big Junes corporate meeting.

 

Which means, since Teddie’s with Yu-senpai, that it’s just her and Yosuke-senpai. Alone. In his house. In the middle of a snowstorm that’s only supposed to get worse.

 

She doesn’t think her grandmother was counting on this when she practically threw her out the door.

 

Yosuke-senpai’s footsteps are coming downstairs again, so she turns to face him, fingers playing with the hem of her wet shirt.

 

He clears his throat, mouth hanging open for a moment as he follows the path of her fingers. “Um. I. I grabbed a sweater and an old pair of sweats. They’ll be a bit big on you, but they’re dry and warm, so…” he trails off, looking down at the puddle at her feet. “Oh shit, the floor.”

 

“Sorry,” she says, wincing. “I don’t wanna track water through the house —"

 

“No, that’s fine, I can hang them to dry —"

 

“So maybe I should just change here? And I can dry the floor while you hang my clothes up?” She’s amazed that her voice doesn’t shake at the idea of — well, stripping in Yosuke-senpai’s kitchen.

 

Maybe her shadow wasn’t that far off after all.

 

Yosuke-senpai’s ears have been permanently pink since he offered her his clothes, but his cheeks are stained with it too as he walks towards her, the hand with the clothes in it extended towards her. “Here, you can — on the counter,” he manages, movements jerky. He paces away from her almost immediately once she takes the clothes, putting them on the counter beside her, walking a few steps and turning to face the door. “I won’t peek,” he says, cringing in on himself immediately after.

 

Rise lets herself laugh at that. “I’m not worried about that.”

 

“Right. Right, good.”

 

She turns her attention to her clothes — she really is freezing, and the sooner she gets this over with, the better she’ll feel. It takes a bit of acrobatic work and a few soft grunts of effort, but she manages to wrestle her shirt off, dropping it to the floor with a wet slap. She reaches for the sweater — a soft-looking, faded orange crew neck — and then looks back down at her chest.

 

Specifically, at the soaking wet bra that was still clasped around her chest.

 

“Rise-chan? You okay?”

 

“I’m fine,” she says, voice a little panicked. “Just trying to — figure something out.”

 

His voice goes from nervous to confused. “Figure what out?”

 

“Just a — logistics issue,” she says. “Nothing to worry about.”

 

She thinks she hears him whisper “logistics issue” to himself, questioning, but she can’t think about that right now, she has to solve this little problem.

 

On the one hand, her bra is wet, her bra is cold, and if she keeps it on, she’ll be both wet and cold.

 

On the other hand, if she takes it off, she’ll be braless in Yosuke-senpai’s sweater, and that feels a little dangerous.

 

Why dangerous? that little voice in her head pipes up, smug and knowing. He’s just your friend. He’s helping his friend out. Nothing dangerous about wearing your friend’s clothes without a bra.

 

Okay, so she’s keeping the bra on. She grabs the sweater, then freezes. If she puts the sweater on over her wet bra, and the water seeps through the fabric…

 

Off with the bra it is.

 

She drops it to the floor as well, the metal charm on the gore clinking as it hits the ground, and shoves the sweater on over her head. The neck’s slightly tight as she’s pulling it on, and it pulls out both of her (soaked) ponytail wrappers with it, and she kind of wants to stamp her foot.

 

“Almost done,” she calls out at Yosuke’s back, and starts to deal with the problem of her jeans. Unfortunately, they’re also soaked, and peeling off wet jeans is one of the more miserable things she’s had to do in 16 years on earth.

 

Apparently, the sounds of her struggling are loud enough for Yosuke-senpai to hear. “You still doing okay?”

 

“Yeah,” she says, incredibly annoyed, her jeans not quite down to her knees. “Just my stupid jeans being impossible to take off.”

 

“Cause — cause they’re wet. Right.” His voice is careful, neutral, almost impassive.

 

She wants to see his face so badly she can almost taste it.

 

“Do you  — need help?”

 

Rise’s eyes widen, and she looks down at herself; the sweater hanging around her like a shapeless blob, the jeans halfway down her legs, her panties being the only article of clothing that’s fully on her, and even they've gotten wet from the snow.

 

“No!” She knows she’s almost shrieking, but the thought of Yosuke-senpai turning around when she looks like the world’s weirdest octopus is almost too much to bear.

 

“Sorry, just — just wanted to ask, in case, uh, you got. Stuck.”

 

She laughs, a touch hysterical. “No, no, I’m fine. Almost done.”

 

It takes her rolling down each pant leg, sweater sleeves pushed up to keep them dry, but she manages to get her jeans off, stepping out and to the side of them to a dry part of the floor. She looks down at her bare legs, the tops of her thighs covered by the sweater, and back at Yosuke-senpai’s back, tensed and waiting.

 

The panties are staying on.

 

She has to roll the sweats at the waistband several times to get them to stay up, and the material still sags around her feet, brushing against the ground, but she’s dressed.

 

And she is definitely not letting Yosuke-senpai hang her bra up. Not in this or any other lifetime.

 

“I’ll hang them up,” she says, stooping down to pick her clothes up and tucking her bra out of sight. “You get the floor?”

 

___________

 

Once everything’s hung up and they’ve both forced out their share of nervous giggles, Yosuke-senpai offers her a tour.

 

The rest of the house is much like the front room — modern, sparsely decorated, and with the occasional sign of not quite being moved in. They skip his parents’ room (out of respect) and Teddie’s room (out of fear and self-preservation), and Yosuke-senpai gestures to the remaining door upstairs with a flourish.

 

“This is my room,” he says, and throws it open. “If you make fun of my posters, I’ll cry.”

 

“Don’t tempt me,” she teases back, and walks in, looking at movie posters and record sleeves tacked to the walls. “It’s very you. Maybe a little less orange than I expected.”

 

“Hey, I like other colors.” He grins at her, kicking the blanket over his unmade futon in the corner. “I just prefer bright ones.”

 

Rise holds out her arms, modeling the sweater. “I noticed.”

 

His eyes slide down, looking at her in his sweater, and she feels the distinct urge to cover herself.

 

The sweater is thick and stands away from her body. There’s no way he can see her nipples. She’s not even cold anymore, there’s nothing to see, nothing she should be worrying about. Everything’s fine.

 

Just crack a joke to lighten the mood.

 

“I’m sorry,” is what comes out instead, and his eyes snap back to hers.

 

“For the shirt? It’s not —"

 

“Not the shirt,” she insists, dropping her hands down to her side. “And you never let me apologize, so I’m gonna now. I’m sorry.”

 

His mouth curls up like a cat’s. “For what?”

 

Asshole.

 

“For everything,” she says, looking straight at him. “Anything and everything. I’m sorry.”

 

The smirk softens into a smile, and she feels warmer than ever. “Alright, then you get to come up with an activity.”

 

“An activity?”

 

He shrugs. “You’re stuck here for a bit with the snow, and the power keeps threatening to go out. It’s your job to keep us entertained for the next few hours, so what are we doing?”

 

She bats away the obvious, intrusive suggestion that makes her heart skip a beat and her thighs clench in his sweats.

 

And then it occurs to her.

 

“I saw wine down in the kitchen,” she says slowly, warming to the idea. “What about a drinking game?”

 

Yosuke-senpai blinks a few times. “A…drinking game?”

 

“What, have you never had wine before, senpai?”

 

“I’m more worried that you have, Rise-chan. Aren’t idols supposed to be good examples?”

 

She shrugs. “People aren’t really that careful in my agency. Besides, I was working a full-time job basically. If I’m responsible enough for that, I’m responsible enough to have a drink at a supervised party every now and again.”

 

He laughs a little, shaking his head. “I’m gonna veto the drinking game. Next option.”

 

“Why?” She narrows her eyes, peering up at him. “Don’t tell me you’re a lightweight, Yosuke-senpai.”

 

She’d hoped teasing him would make him give in — that’s how it normally went with them.

 

But Yosuke-senpai just shakes his head, more resolute. “Nope. Not happening.”

 

And for some reason, it makes her frown. Makes her want to push a little harder, makes her want to wheedle him into it.

 

“C’mon,” she says, taking a step closer to him, close enough that she actually has to tilt her neck up to make eye contact. “You’re gonna wimp out on me?”

 

His hand closes on her wrist, fingers flexing on her pulse point, and she can’t hide the small gasp that escapes her mouth. His hand feels like a brand, burning through the sweater and setting her nerves on fire.

 

“I’m not playing a drinking game with you, Rise-chan,” he says quietly, voice low and tense, almost at a whisper. “Not in an empty house.” His eyes drop from hers, stopping for a second on her mouth before going to her body. “Not while you’re wearing my clothes,” he adds quietly, locking his eyes back on hers.

 

They’re so close that she can feel the heat radiating off of him. He feels like a live wire, one specially tuned to her frequency, and her heartbeat is so loud in her ears that there’s no way he can’t hear it.

 

No way he can’t feel it, pulsing in her wrist, telling him what she’s been trying to ignore for months.

 

For a second she thinks he’s going to do it, that he’s going to lean down, close the space between them, and kiss her. She’s had enough dreams about this moment; she knows how she’ll react.

 

And then the air around her chills, and Yosuke-senpai is a few steps away, rifling through the drawer of his desk. He holds up a deck of cards, turning his normal happy-go-lucky grin on her full blast.

 

“How about Speed?”

 

_______________

 

Yosuke-senpai turns out to be as stupidly fast at cards as he is in battle, and she loses 9-1 — with a strong feeling that he let her win that one so she’d stop throwing the cards at him.

 

(“Rise-chan, that hurts. If you’re gonna keep sucking at card games, you’re gonna have to accept your losses with a little dignity.”)

 

“I quit,” she says, tossing her hand on the floor in front of her. “You’re impossible to beat.”

 

“That’s quitter talk,” he says smugly.

 

Rise rolls her eyes. “So I’m a quitter. I could be worse.”

 

“True, you could be a quitter and a bad loser. Someone who throws cards at innocent and humble winners, for example.”

 

“You’re a horrible person,” she deadpans, nearly breaking when he smiles broadly at her.

 

She wants to kiss it off his face.

 

“What next? We could try a game that you’ll suck less at. Go Fish? Or maybe —"

 

The lights go out, and Yosuke-senpai stops, barely visible in the shadows of his room. She can just make out his expression — honest surprise —  from the light from his window, the snow-bright sky giving off a stronger glow than the street lamps.

 

Lightning cracks across the sky, illuminating the room in jagged stripes, and she can’t help it.

 

She shrieks.

 

The sound is wrenched from her throat, and the next thing she knows, she’s grabbed onto Yosuke-senpai, nearly sitting in his lap, her heart racing.

 

He’s tense for a moment, then relaxes, patting her on the back. “It’s okay. Just a warm front meeting a cold one.”

 

“It just startled me,” she says, defensive, but her heart is still going a million miles an hour, and her fingers won’t let go of his shirt sleeves.

 

Yosuke-senpai huffs out a laugh, the air rushing past her cheek. “I can see that.”

 

“Yeah, well, I can’t see a thing after —"

 

The lights come back on, and it only takes a few blinks for her to see just how close she is to him.

 

She’d known she was practically sitting in his lap, her hands holding onto his upper arms, one of his arms curled around her back to comfort her. But sitting that close in the dark because of a freak lightning bolt is one thing.

 

Sitting that close in a room flooded with warm light, staring at his mouth, inches away from her, is quite another.

 

“Senpai,” she chokes out, her voice rough. “I —"

 

Her hands start to shake. Nothing else comes out of her mouth.

 

So she kisses him.

 

She can feel him breathe in sharply as her mouth covers his, his hand flexing against her back, and she worries that he’s going to push her off of him, that he’s going to be nice and polite and apologetic and then she’ll have to run home and lock herself in her room and never ever come out.

 

Before she can detach herself, apologize, and try not to cry, something amazing happens. He groans against her mouth, brings his unoccupied hand to her jaw, and kisses her back.

 

Her thoroughly embarrassing dreams have nothing on the real thing.

 

His hands are hot on her back and her neck, holding her to him. She leans forward, pushing her chest to his, and he groans again, deep and a little wild.

 

Before she realizes she’s moving, she’s got her arms wrapped around his shoulders, scratching lightly at his back with her nails, and his hands are both at her lower back, fingers slipping under the hem of her — his — sweater, tapping out his heartbeat against her skin.

 

And then it’s gone.

 

Rise blinks, her hands falling to either side of her hips to keep her balance. She can feel the blanket on top of Yosuke-senpai’s futon between her fingers, but she doesn’t really care how they moved across the room to it when she sees his face.

 

Yosuke-senpai is sitting off-balance, hands thrown back to catch himself on the floor, knees bent and legs spread, feet firmly planted. His chest is rising and falling rapidly — almost in time with her own — and his hair is mussed.

 

She doesn’t remember touching his hair, but she must have.

 

It’s his face that gives her pause, though. His eyes are wide, almost manic, and he’s looking straight at her, mouth agape.

 

“Rise,” he says, hushed, like a prayer.

 

She can’t speak, trying to force air into her lungs.

 

“Rise-chan,” he says, louder, eyes shifting from panic to determination.

 

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

“Yeah?” Her voice sounds small and pathetic, even to her own ears.

 

“I need you,” he wets his lips, frowning, “to get out of my bed.”

 

He’s not being nice, polite, or apologetic. She still wants to run home and hide.

 

“You don’t like me,” she says, feeling like she’s floating out of her body, watching the shitshow that’s about to go down. “I’m — I’m not your type at all, am I?”

 

She’s too loud, too expressive. She yells too much, cries too much, throws herself into things too much. She wants to be noticed. She wants to be seen so badly that everyone she meets knows it immediately.

 

No wonder he pushed her away.

 

Yosuke-senpai stares at her, a frown creasing his forehead and puckering his mouth.

 

His mouth is red and swollen, she notes with a kind of detached hysteria. She did that to him. She raises a shaking hand to her mouth, fingerpads ghosting over her slightly sore lips. He did that to her.

 

And now he’s telling her to get out.

 

“It’s fine,” she says, her voice sounding rough even to her. “I—"

 

“You’re exactly my type,” Yosuke-senpai interrupts her, still frowning. “That’s not the —"

 

“So you like girls like me,” she says, clearing her throat, trying to get rid of the awful, jagged edge breaking it in two, “but not me.”

 

“What? No, that’s not — look, I need you out of my bed for the same reason I’m not gonna get drunk with you.”

 

“Because you don’t like me,” she repeats, climbing to her feet. “You don’t have to explain anymore, I get it.”

 

“That’s not —"

 

“Would you date me? Right here, right now, if I asked, would you?” she challenges, staring down at him, hoping like hell that he couldn’t see her eyes filling with tears from there.

 

Yosuke-senpai shuts his mouth with a click. Drops his head. Hunches his shoulders.

 

It’s enough of an answer. She blinks away the tears, straightens her spine, and lies through her teeth.

 

“It’s fine, senpai. A girl can only get rejected so many times before she gets the hint, anyway.”

 

He still won’t look at her.

 

“I think I’m gonna head out,” she says, trying desperately to sound unconcerned. “Before the snow gets worse.”

 

That does get his attention, and he stands, pacing over to the window to look out at the street. “I don’t think you’ll be able to get there.”

 

“What?” she says, voice a few steps higher than it should be, striding over to look out herself. “It’s only been a little bit — oh.”

 

It’s nearly white-out conditions outside, and the snow’s only falling faster. Based on the lamppost near the window, it’d reach up to her knees.

 

She notices just how close she’s standing to Yosuke-senpai and flushes, taking a few steps back, staring at the ground.

 

“There’s a guest futon in the closet downstairs,” he says carefully. “You’re welcome to wait it out here.”

 

Rise doesn’t respond. She knows it’s the only option, logically, but she can’t bring herself to face an entire night in this house. Not now.

 

“I’ll set it up and I won’t bother you again. You can help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you’re hungry,” he adds, voice quiet.

 

Finally, she nods, fishing her phone out of the pocket of her — his — sweats. “I’ll call my grandmother, then,” she says.

 

Yosuke-senpai walks past her, out to the hallway and down the stairs.

 

Rise lifts her fingers to her mouth. It’s still swollen. Her hands are still shaking.

 

She makes the call.

 

___________

 

The house is quiet, but she can’t get to sleep.

 

The guest futon is comfortable, spread out in the Hanamura’s living room, and her phone is plugged into the wall, charging. The snow falls softly outside, her grandmother was unbothered by her having to stay over, only asking that she come home once she wakes up on Sunday morning, and she’s safe and warm.

 

But she can’t get to sleep.

 

The futon smells like the laundry detergent on Yosuke-senpai’s uniform, and the sweater and sweats she’s borrowed do too. She’s slowly suffocating in his scent, replaying the scene from earlier over and over in her head.

 

He’d kissed her. Kissed her back, technically, but he was a very active member of that kiss.

 

He’d pushed her away. He’d done that very actively too.

 

When she finally drifts off, the night still dark around her, she wonders what she might wake up to.

 

___________

 

She wakes up to a quiet house, light streaming in the windows, and blinks groggily at the clock.

 

11:53am. Sunday morning. Barely.

 

She pulls open the curtains to look outside, wincing as they stick and screech a little. The snow is heaped up everywhere, but the road seems to have been plowed by now — duh, it’s almost noon — which means she can go home.

 

It takes her little time to slip into the side room where her clothes are hanging up and change back into them. Everything’s dry except a few damp patches on her jeans, but it won’t kill her.

 

Staying in this house until they dry completely just might.

 

She folds his sweater and sweats, stacking them on top of each other onto a shelf, and slips back out, hoping that her socked feet are quiet enough not to wake him up.

 

It turns out not to matter.

 

As she’s slipping her arms into her coat, shoes firmly on her feet, she glances up at the stairway to see him sitting there, dressed in the same pajama pants and loose-fitting shirt he was the night before, chin in his hand, watching her solemn-faced and silent.

 

Her instinct is to run.

 

What could she possibly say? Thank you for the hospitality? I’m sorry I kissed you? Why did you kiss me back and then push me away?

 

Why don’t you like me?

 

Why does it hurt so bad that you don’t?

 

They pause for a few moments, just looking at each other. She has no idea what his eyes are trying to tell her. She’s pretty sure that she knows everything that hers are telling him.

 

In the end, she settles for a half-wave as she opens the door and sets out into the Sunday afternoon.

 

She doesn’t look back to see if he returns it. She doesn’t think she could bear to see if he doesn’t.

 

___________

 

The next time they meet, it’s all of them in a group. Yosuke-senpai’s painfully normal, chatting with everyone and her equally — so long as they’re both in the group, that is. They don’t split off to chat, don’t meet after school, don’t fall to the back of the group to walk and talk together.

 

The one time she catches him looking at her — yeah, she’s looking at him, sue her — he looks at her the way her grandmother looked at the dying afternoon sun when winter was starting to threaten.

 

It makes her want to throw something at his head.

 

It makes her want to cry.

 

She turns away, latches onto Yu-senpai’s arm, and halfheartedly invites herself along on his trip to see the fox at the shrine, throwing her biggest, fakest Risette smile on like a Halloween mask.

 

When Yosuke-senpai declines the invitation to come along, Rise pretends not to notice him leave, and Yu-senpai pretends not to notice her fingers tighten painfully around his forearm.

 

___________

 

They save Marie-chan, and Yu-senpai’s back to smiling and laughing like he did before the winter. Nanako-chan and Dojima-san are doing well, with Nanako-chan’s checkups getting more and more infrequent.

 

Valentine’s comes and goes. Her heart isn’t really in it, but she helps Nanako-chan out. She probably shouldn’t have, but she really felt like she could do it that time. For a second, anyway.

 

Yu-senpai notices, of course — he notices everything now that Marie-chan is okay, she thinks rather meanly — but he doesn’t nag at her like she thought he might.

 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asks as they’re walking down the shopping district at night, sipping TaP and warding off the lingering winter chill with kebabs from Aiya.

 

She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Talk about what?”

 

“About what happened with the two of you a month or so ago.”

 

She’d try laughing again, but it just hurts to force it. “I’d tell you if I knew.”

 

Yu-senpai doesn’t say anything, letting the March air fall silent between them.

 

“Aren’t you going to tell me I should talk to him? That I should ask why he — why he does what he does? What he’s thinking and feeling and all that?”

 

He shrugs. “It sounds like you already know how to fix things, Rise.” Stopping on the sidewalk, Yu-senpai turns to her, grey eyes serious. “The question is if you want to fix things, or to let the status quo as it is right now be how it’ll go from now on.”

 

“I can’t show my hand,” she says. “Not again. It’s all I ever do, and I never get to see his in return.”

 

“So don’t show your hand,” he says simply, “just maybe show that you’re still playing.”

 

___________

 

Yu-senpai came into the town with a bang, so it seems only fitting that the day before he was supposed to leave would have one final surprise for them.

 

If you count a vengeful goddess as a final surprise. Yosuke-senpai had referred to it as “a royal shitshow”.

 

He was right.

 

The battle wasn’t going badly — she’d stopped a fatal attack coming Yosuke-senpai’s way without thinking about it, flushing with pride when he thanked her — until Naoto-kun pushes Yu-senpai aside and disappears, sinking as Izanami sucks her into Yomi.

 

Kanji-kun yells as he grabs for her, but she’s gone before he can make it over to her. Everyone stops fighting for a second, stupefied, before Izanami attacks again, drawing their focus.

 

Yosuke-senpai starts attacking like he’s possessed, throwing everything he’s got at the rotting form of the goddess, but it doesn’t help. Kanji-kun gets sucked down next, then Yukiko-senpai, then Chie-senpai, then Teddie, all determined to keep Yu-senpai safe.

 

She can hear him yelling at each of them before they shove him, threatening them to stay where they are.

 

No one listens. If she was down in the battle, she wouldn’t either. Yu-senpai is their best hope of defeating Izanami and they all know it.

 

She screams for each one of them anyway, their names catching in her throat.

 

The twisted arms are about to rise out of the ground again. Nothing she does works.

 

“Sorry,” she hears Yosuke-senpai mutter over their comms, and ice-cold fear seizes her spine.

 

Before she can scream out, Yosuke-senpai rushes full-force at Yu-senpai, catching him off-balance, and sinks into the Underworld.

 

“Yosuke-senpai! No!” The scream tears out of her throat, tears starting to fall in earnest.

 

Distantly, she can hear Yu-senpai screaming too.

 

And then the arms wrap around Yu-senpai, dragging him down, and there’s silence.

 

It’s just her left. Her alone, staring at Izanami’s grotesque form, not even worthy of the damnation the goddess has sentenced everyone else to.

 

Rise Kujikawa, all alone again.

 

She normally stays quite a bit far off of the battlefield, helping her to see the big picture and analyze enemies. She knows better than anyone that she doesn’t stand a chance against Izanami. The best she can hope for is a quick death.

 

At least she’ll die standing up and fighting for humanity. For her friends, her family.

 

She’s halfway to the goddess when Yu-senpai reappears. Rise stumbles, tripping over her legs, and watches in horrified delight at Izanami tries to kill him over and over again, to no effect.

 

Yu-senpai counterattacks as she gets her legs under her again, intent on offering him support, and Izanami is finished.

 

She blinks and suddenly everyone’s back — Naoto-kun and Kanji-kun and Chie-senpai and Yukiko-senpai and Teddie. And Yosuke-senpai, standing right next to Yu-senpai, staring up at the goddess with defiance and pride.

 

The goddess praises them, tells them that the fog in both worlds is lifted, and disappears.

 

Rise hears herself choke out a “thank goodness”, and most of the group sound elated to finally have finished their job. Yosuke-senpai cheerily notes that now they’ll have no regrets for tomorrow.

 

Yu-senpai looks at her at that, raises an eyebrow.

 

She rolls her eyes. Not even going to Yomi for a bit could distract him from helping others.

 

Once they get back to the real world, everyone feels the exhaustion set in. Even Rise feels it, like her muscles are melting to her bones.

 

Yosuke-senpai makes his way over to her, looking tired but happy. “Rise-chan. Thanks for blocking that —“

 

She tackles him into a hug, arms looping around his neck, her feet leaving the ground.

 

He stumbles slightly, catching her, bending down a bit so her feet can touch the ground again. “Rise-chan?”

 

“No ‘thank-yous’ on a day I had to watch you die,” she whispers fiercely into his shoulder, squeezing as tight as she can. She can feel his pulse in his neck, hear it in her ears alongside her own, sure and steady and alive.

 

His arms tighten around her, and she feels him nod.

 

When she opens her eyes and looks over his shoulder, Yu-senpai is standing a few feet away, watching with a smile. He gives her a thumbs up, mouthing ‘way to play the game’.

 

She sticks her tongue out at him.

 

___________

 

Yosuke-senpai shows up at her door a week after they send Yu-senpai off until May, grinning sunnily at her grandmother while Rise shoves her feet into her shoes to avoid the knowing look on her face.

 

They’re wandering up and down the shopping district, passing book enthusiasts, a very excitable kid outside the metalworks shop, and turning around to walk towards Aiya and the shrine when Yosuke-senpai clears his throat.

 

“I owe you a lot,” he says.

 

Rise scoffs. “I’ve saved your life way too many times for you to pay it back, senpai. Just let it go.”

 

“Not for that,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck.

 

Oh. He’s nervous. “We’re gonna talk about that now?” she asks, knowing her voice is a step or two higher than it should be

 

“Not if you don’t want to.”

 

She stays silent. Looks ahead.

 

He gets the hint. “I know I’ve hurt you. At least a couple times.”

 

“I’ve hurt you a few times too. As far as the score goes, we’re tied.”

 

“You’re not gonna make this easy on me, huh, Rise-chan?”

 

And she could. She could call for a blank slate, for them to start fresh, no accountability on either side, no more ‘sorry’ or ‘thank you’ passed between them for days long past.

 

Instead, she tells herself to be brave. “I don’t think it should be easy. For either one of us.” She’s still staring straight ahead. Can feel his eyes on her.

 

“I didn’t want to get hurt.”

 

She does turn to look at him at that, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “What?”

 

He stops too, looking her dead in the eye. “At first it was because I didn’t want to get hurt. Even though I wasn’t — I wasn’t dating Saki-senpai or anything, it still hurt when she died. I was angry, and embarrassed, and I wanted to make her killer pay.” He says it with an edge of fury, shoulders tensing for a moment before he relaxes again. “So I ignored how I was starting to feel about you. A dumb little idol crush was fine, but anything beyond that — beyond Risette alone…” He trails off, shaking his head.

 

“I get it,” she says softly. And she does. As relentlessly, stupidly kind as Yosuke-senpai is,  he has a bit of a hero complex. He wants to save everyone; it hurt him that he couldn’t, and especially that he couldn’t save Saki-senpai in particular. “You wanted to avenge her. I understand.”

 

He keeps shaking his head though, more fervently as she speaks. “But that — it’s an excuse. Or, more, it became an excuse. Anytime I —" he breaks off, swallowing nervously, lowering his voice. “Anytime I got your attention — I always wanted it — but every time you laughed at one of my jokes, or helped me out, or — or anything, even stupid stuff, that ugly voice in my head that sounds a whole lot like my Shadow would remind me.”

 

He’s lost her. “Remind you of what?”

 

“That I was second place,” he says simply, a wry grin stretching his mouth. “And then I just felt pathetic — honestly, this whole thing —" he gestured between them “— has been an exercise in feeling pathetic.”

 

She wants to be outraged. To demand who he thought he was second place to. But she knows. She knows how she’s been, how she’s looked, before and after the night of the snowstorm. She knows how he thinks about himself.

 

Instead, she squares her shoulders. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

 

“Because it was pathetic. It is pathetic,” he says, blunt and harsh on himself as always. “And because I couldn’t blame you. Yu’s kinda spacey and has a terrible sense of humor, but he doesn’t really have any faults. He’s the best fighter, best leader, always gets top marks in school, he’s popular, nice, works about a thousand part-time jobs, and he’s friends with everybody.” Yosuke-senpai rattles off his friend’s characteristics with the ease of someone who uses that list to belittle himself on a regular basis.

 

She can feel herself getting mad on his behalf, wanting to slap him for speaking about himself that way. But that won’t fix anything. No amount of pointing out Yu-senpai’s faults will make Yosuke-senpai feel better, feel worthy of attention. No amount of listing his own virtues will make him believe that he’s nothing more and nothing less an exceptional guy with an exceptional best friend.

 

Yosuke-senpai shrugs, kicking a pebble down the sidewalk. “And this isn’t — you’ve been 100% clear about everything. Braver than I could ever be. Honest, and you try — I love that you keep trying and keep going and, yeah, even when you yell at me for being a dumbass.” His head is ducked now, and she can see that the tips of his ears are pink.

 

She can feel something like a balloon swelling in her chest, happy tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

 

“And as much as I wanted — as much as I want,” he corrects himself, finally looking back at her with a mix of sheepish affection and nervous discomfort, “anything and everything about and with you, next to a guy like him…what am I?”

 

His eyes are wide, searching hers, and she knows she should consider carefully to find the perfect thing to say, to stop him from worrying and hedging and to solve every problem he’ll ever have.

 

That’s what the Rise of nearly 10 months ago would have done. Tried to be a cure-all, a panacea for the guy she loved, ignoring her own opinion to mold to his. But she’s grown since then, and all she can try to be is Rise. So she knows what answer she wants to give.

 

“You’re the best thing I’ve ever seen,” she says honestly.

 

He blinks at her a few times, the pink on his ears spreading to his cheeks, traveling down to his neck. She’s sure her cheeks match his, but with the way he’s looking at her right now, it doesn’t matter.

 

“Rise,” he says quietly, stepping close, his shoes touching hers, “is anyone looking?”

 

It’s a stupid question — in a town as small as theirs, everyone’s always watching. “Uh, yeah, like, six people, why?”

 

He’s so close that she nearly goes cross-eyed watching a smirk spread across his face. “Thought I’d ask, since I know you’ve got that thing about being watched.”

 

She can feel her mouth drop open in indignation. He takes advantage, kissing her thoroughly in the middle of the shopping district, on a clear spring day in once-foggy Inaba.