hero in the works. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fateslaying) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
edens2013-12-20 12:10 pm
fateslaying) wrote in edens2013-12-20 12:10 pm
Entry tags:
i think i'm actually insane
forget 1k tHIS IS FUCKING
8616K WORTH OF SHIT
I'M JUST GLAD IT DIDN'T ACTUALLY REACH 10K
come and rest your bones with me
Minako disappears.
It’s not like they see each other everyday or anything, even after they start going out (something he still can hardly believe, if he’s being honest, because really, how did a guy like him catch the eye of a girl like her), but it’s on the day they’d agreed to hang out together. Y’know, go out on an actual date, and you better believe Josuke was pumped for that. He’d been waiting by the entrance of the park, nervous and anxious but mostly excited, because this was going to be his first actual date, his first date with Minako, and if that didn’t make it special than nothing would.
So he stands there, waiting—for a while, even. Five minutes turns to ten and he thinks to himself ‘Hey, no problem, she’s probably just running late from something, maybe work.’ The excuse works for the next ten minutes before the anxiety turns heavy, worried, and once he realizes he’s been waiting for thirty minutes he takes out the mirror and tries giving her a call.
She doesn’t pick up.
He races back to the apartments, heart hammering in his ears even as his muscles ache in protest from how sudden and how hard he’s running. With his focus narrowed down to just finding Minako, he doesn’t even notice, and he only starts feeling it when he throws open the door to Minako’s apartment only to see her two cats and hamster. They all look up at him, alarmed but confused, as if they too are searching for the girl. For all he knows, they could be; one of the cats even looks a little worried, if that’s possible for animals.
When he contacts the network, asks if anyone has seen her, all that meets him is the reluctant, somewhat sad replies of her having most likely been returned home. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d gone off somewhere, right? And Minako was a tough girl, she could take care of herself—everyone knew that. The most likely answer was that she went back home. He doesn’t want to believe it.
Josuke heads back to his apartment, flops onto his bed. He tosses the bouquet of flowers he’d gotten—sunflowers and gerbera, her favorites she’d said—onto the ground, glaring angrily at them. It’s not like he’d want Minako to stay here forever, but he couldn’t even go on a date with his first (best, greatest, dearest) girlfriend. What kind of a joke was that?
After a few minutes, he picks up the bouquet, gets a container and fills it with water before plopping the flowers into it. She’d complain about him wasting something pretty, if she knew. The thought would make him smile if he hadn’t felt so bitter, and he flops back onto bed with his face buried in the pillow.
He doesn’t sleep well that night.
●
Minako comes back.
It’s late afternoon the next day when there’s a knock on the door, and the only reason Josuke goes to answer it is because he’d been lying in bed for ten minutes already, hoping that the person on the other side would either say something or give up. When he opens the door, his hair’s a mess and his clothes are wrinkled but he couldn’t care less, an irritated swear already on his tongue until he actually sees who it is.
“Hi,” Minako says quietly, smile small and a little sheepish as she holds up her own bouquet of flowers. “Sorry about our date yesterday. Can we try again?”
It’s a good thing he saved his bouquet because Minako’s is crushed between them when he pulls her close in what’s nearly a bone-crushing hug. There’s a small sound of surprise before she laughs in his ear, light and breathy like it always is, and she tries to hug him back as best she can when her arms are more or less trapped under his. He’ll loosen up (though only barely) in a second, but right now he wants to make sure that she’s warm, she’s real, she’s here back with him.
“Jeez, where the hell’ve you been? I was worried sick!” he tells her, nearly yells even, but he’s smiling and there’s a laugh in his voice. He knows she can tell he doesn’t mean anything bad by it, and she smiles when he lets go of her to usher her into his apartment.
It turns out that she had gone home, like that time before when everyone changed, but this one was a lot longer on both sides—especially in Minako’s world. One day here had been months back there apparently. She skips around on most of the details—because he wouldn’t understand it or because she just doesn’t want to talk about it, he’s not sure—but from what he can tell, a lot must have happened. A lot.
Minako sighs, idly playing with a strand of his messed-up hair, his head in her lap. “It’s just hard to believe so much happened when no time at all passed here, y’know?”
He wants to tell her that yesterday was probably one of the longest days of his life, and not in a good way, but instead he brightly exclaims, “Well hey, you said that it’s all over now, right? It sucks that you came back here again, but at least now you don’t have to worry about home anymore!”
“Yeah, I’m glad. Really glad.” She smiles down at him, faintly and sort of crookedly as she swallows. “Besides, it’s not so bad honestly. Now I get to see you again.”
Maybe it’s the angle or maybe it’s the light in the room, but there’s this sort of—heaviness, in Minako’s eyes. He doesn’t recognize it, and the more he thinks about it, the more he can’t help but feel that there’s something a little off about it. Something weird. But then she leans down to brush her lips against his forehead, and he’s convinced he’s probably just imagining things. Or maybe she’s just tired, yeah, it’s probably a weird feeling to spend months in one place then wake up and see it was only a day.
She’s back now, and there’s nothing more to worry about.
●
She doesn’t stay up past midnight anymore.
It’s not like they always spend the night with each other, so it takes him a bit of a while to realize it. The first time he notices is when he spends the night at her place one day, playing cards. Josuke is a gambling man through and through, something he’s long since accepted and enjoyed, but Minako has a mean poker face that even he has trouble reading. They go through more than just a few games, betting cookies and crackers in lieu of money, long into the night. He yawns, having stayed up later than what’s normal for him too, and blinks out of surprise when he takes a look at the clock on Minako’s nightstand, 3:07 illuminated in bright red.
“Shit, it’s past three already?” he half-yawns, says out of surprise more than anything else “It’s been a while since I stayed up this late.”
Unexpectedly, Minako turns to look at the clock with widened eyes as well. “Wow, I hadn’t realized at all! Actually, it’s been a while for me, too.”
He raises an eyebrow, biting into one of his saved cookies. Last time he checked, Minako always stayed up till at least past twelve to see if the—what did she call it, the Dark Hour?—happened, and sometimes much later just because. “Yeah? Thought you always stayed up late.”
“Well,” she starts, trails off as she puts her cards back in the deck. It’s unusual for her, really unusual honestly, and he can’t help but raise his eyebrow higher as he watches her. “You know I did that to make sure there was no Dark Hour, right? With it gone back home, it seems doubly silly to keep watch for it here. There’s nothing to worry about after all.”
It makes sense, it does really, but that same heaviness from when she first came back is creeping into her eyes, a weariness that makes her look like she could drop dead from how tired she is any second. While it still unsettled him, it had been a look in her eyes that came every now and then. He didn’t care to ask about everything that happened back home if she didn’t want to share, but it bothered him. Worried him, even. Just like every other time it happened though, she’d smile brightly before long. Now is no exception, and he knows just what to do to make that smile even sunnier. Scooting forward, Josuke takes her hands in his and leans his forehead against hers, blowing a bit of air in her face. She laughs, closes her eyes as she smiles wider and playfully knocks her forehead against his, trying to fake mad; just as he thought, it works like a charm.
“Damn straight there isn’t! Besides, it’d probably do you some good to get more sleep. I dunno how you managed to stay up that late then work in the mornings the first place.”
Pouting, she tries to sound offended instead of amused. It doesn’t work all that well. “Hey, how I sleep is my business! It’s not like you’re much better than me.”
“Remember that time you said the sun came up by the time you went to bed? Yeah, I don’t do that.” He has to lean back to avoid the now serious headbutt Minako tries to give him, but she smiles fondly despite herself.
They end up climbing together into her bed after taking care of the cards and food, and she falls asleep quickly in his arms, breath evening out and tickling his skin. He thinks back to earlier, to the shadows in her eyes that seem to linger that much longer before he chases them out, and wonders if maybe he should ask about what happened at home. There must’ve been something for it to still be weighing on her mind, but as Josuke looks at her sleeping face, he decides against it. Everything was over now, just like she’d said, and there was nothing to worry about. If there is, well, he’d just protect her from it, easy. Whatever it might be, he’d protect her.
It’s as simple as that.
●
She keeps track of time now, closely and oddly specific.
Maybe she always had really, and he’d just never noticed, but there’s something odd about the way she keeps track. As if she’s waiting for something, counting down the hours and the minutes. It starts off innocuously enough that he doesn’t think anything of it, but the more it happens the more he wonders.
“What’s the date today?” she might ask, staring down at the yawn working between her knitting needles. He’s already gotten a scarf, a pair of gloves, and a dog-eared hat from her knitting projects. Frankly, he has no idea what she even does with all the stuff she makes. It seems unlikely that someone would happily accept a five foot long scarf adorned with the face of what she calls “Jack Frost”.
“The date? Uhh... Thursday, October 1st. Why?” he might reply. It’s the same question every time, but he sometimes thinks that her answer might change.
“Just wondering,” is all she’ll say, going back to whatever she’s working on while he thinks of trying to ask about it again. Before he can though, she’ll ask him a question of her own, or mention something mundane and normal but distracting, and it won’t be until later that he’ll realize he lost the opportunity. She’s good at keeping his thoughts elsewhere, he thinks, but he also knows that he’s never had the sharpest mind out there. It’s probably going to get him in trouble someday, but he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t mind as long as it’s Minako.
It’s some time in December though when he remembers to keep that all in mind. She asks for the date, he replies, and she’s just about to talk about something else when Josuke asks, “Is there something you’re waiting for, Minako? You ask about the date a lot.”
She stiffens against his side, just barely a second but enough to tell him that something has to be up. When she looks up at him, she’s smiling in a way that tries to look cheerful (and probably would be just that to anyone else), meaning there’s definitely something she isn’t so cheerful about. He’s probably catalogued all her smiles by now, from smug to angry to ecstatic to fake.
“What? No, I’m not waiting for anything really,” she pauses, eyes closed as she tries to sort out words. “Just that... It’s weird. The new year’s passed now, but back home it was the year 2009 for a while. Being here in Death City, in 2009 specifically, it’s almost like I’m living my life over.”
“Huh. Well, it’s not like it’s all that similar, right? What were you doing around this time back home anyways?” It’s the closest he’s come to asking about everything that happened in her months back home.
Minako closes her eyes again, humming in thought as she snuggles up next to him. Her feet get really cold in the winter as far as he can tell, and it’s kind of uncomfortable, but he’s not going to be pushing her away anytime soon. He wraps an arm around her shoulders, holding her close.
“December, December... I was probably wondering if everyone was going to die.”
“WHAT?!”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” she laughs, giving him a consoling pat on his hand around her shoulder. When it comes to that smile though, he never knows if she’s joking or telling the truth. “You said it’s the 15th, right? I think I was hanging out with my friend Junpei at Hagakure that day.”
“You have weird ideas when it comes to jokes...” he mutters, still staring wide-eyed at her smiling face. Yeah, she was way too comfortable with saying something that crazy.
Giggling, she turns to face him and leans so close that her lips are right on his jawline. “Well, I think you’ve had more than enough time to get used to my jokes.”
He ends up buying a calendar later, saying that she can keep track of time easier with it. She still asks him the date every now and then, but it’s with a wry smile and teasing tone that makes it sound like she’s telling a joke. He always replies the same way, laughing and smiling brightly.
One day he flips through the calendar out of idle curiosity, looking at birthdays she has written down, her previous work schedules, even the dates of all their old missions. When he flips to 2010 though, there’s a date with more marks than the rest. March 5th, circled in bright red a few times. It looks like something big.
“That’s the day we decided to meet up,” Minako says, noticing him looking at it. He looks back at her, still confused, but she just smiles fondly and half-laughs, “It’s a long story. Come on though, enough of that. If we stay here any longer, we’re going to miss the movie!”
Pulling him by the hand, Minako drags him out of the room, leaving March 5th alone for the time being.
●
She gets tired more easily, and more often than that.
Her energy is still the same as always, bubbly and cheerful and bright, but Josuke thinks most of her strength must be going into that if running up a few flights of stairs has her leaning against the wall to catch her breath at one point. It’s a far cry from the girl who’d start races with him for fun, and he knows she knows it too if the way she starts training is any indication. While she’d gone to morning training frequently, she starts going every day. Even when she’s not going to training, he catches her jogging more often than not, having to stop frequently just to breathe, heaving in huge, gasping breaths before she takes off again. Like she’s trying to build up the endurance and strength she used to have.
When he asks, she says it’s exactly that.
“Well, when I said that everything was over back home, they’d actually been over for a little while,” she tells him, half-laughing and half-whispering as she sits down against a tree. Thirty minutes into morning practice and she’s already winded. “I haven’t been doing serious physical activity like this for more than a month.”
Handing her a water bottle, he watches her gulp all of it down in one go, coughing once she finishes but still looking dead tired. “Is that really long enough to make you... y’know, like this? I thought you said you were in a tennis club too, so wouldn’t you have gone to practice for that?”
Minako shakes her head, looking pointedly down at the water bottle in her hands. “Tennis season was over already, so I didn’t go to practice so much for it. I guess it’s kinda weird, but it’s the only way to explain this, right? It’s not like there’s anything else that happened.”
There’s something about it that bugs him still. How does one month of not beating up monsters turn Minako from a near inexhaustible supply of energy into panting after a light jog? She’s not sick as far as he can tell, and he’s sure she would’ve told him if she’d actually gotten sick. In the end, her explanation really is the only explanation they have.
“In that case,” he starts, standing back up and pulling her along with him, “we just gotta whip you back into shape! I’m sure you’ll be back to normal in no time.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I figured that part out,” she huffs, rolling her eyes but smiling up at him anyways. Despite the energy in her expression, she’s still breathing harshly, her brow starting to glisten with perspiration despite the chill in the air. She’s definitely done training for today, no matter what she might say. If he just says that though, she’s sure to try and argue about it.
So he does what seems like the simplest solution.
Leaning down, Josuke easily scoops Minako into his arms in one smooth motion, holding her bridal style. A noise of surprise escapes her lips before her arms automatically move to wrap around his neck, hoisting herself up as she pouts at him.
“Josuke! What are you doing?”
“Taking you out to lunch obviously. You’re probably hungry by now, right?” Whatever protest she might have had dies immediately once her stomach lets out a loud grumble. She stays silent, but she still looks up at him in a half-glare half-pout. “Come on, don’t sweat it!”
“You can’t just go carrying me around like this, can you? People are gonna stare,” she sighs, but the ire is already fading away from her voice.
He grins, cheesy but honest. “If someone really wanna asks, I’ll just tell ‘em the truth. After a hard day’s work of training, you deserved to get some rest before you ate lunch!”
She rolls her eyes, tells him that’s hardly an excuse, but settles comfortably into his arms regardless. While the walk to the ramen place is a bit far off, Josuke doesn’t mind carrying her the entire way. He likes the weight of her, solid and real in his arms. His muscles start to protest towards the end of the walk, but he can’t bear to put her down just yet; she actually managed to fall asleep along the way, and it feels like it’d be a crime to wake her up. Once he reaches the ramen shop, he puts her down as gently as he can on a bench nearby. He sits down with her, putting an arm around her shoulders as she rests her head on the crook between his neck and shoulder.
He thinks she’s been falling asleep more often in general, honestly, might even be part of why she heads to bed so much earlier. The other day he caught her nodding off at around 9 PM, way earlier than her usual time, but she laughed it off and said she’d had a long day at work. While he couldn’t be completely sure, he had thought that her shift at work that day was supposed to have been short.
Yeah, there’s definitely something up with how quickly she gets tired. What that might, he doesn’t have the slightest idea, but he’s determined to find out, somehow. After all, he’d be doing a real shoddy job if he couldn’t even protect her from getting tired.
He’ll figure it out. For now though, Josuke brushes Minako’s bangs out of her face. At the very least, he wants to let her rest while she can.
●
She doesn’t like taking missions so much anymore.
It’s not just weird, it’s almost wrong. While neither of them had really been intent on becoming the strongest Meister and Weapon around, she’d never shied away from a mission. More often than not, she’d reply with an excited, “Yeah, let’s do it!” Especially after their first disastrous mission, she greeted every challenge with a determined yet energetic smile. He doesn’t understand what could possibly cause a near 180 in attitude. Some of her explanations make sense (“I’m still not back up to speed, I’d only slow you down”) and some of them don’t (“I have a dentist appointment that day—actually, I have a lot of appointments coming up, for the next foreseeable while”). The longer it goes on, the more it feels like they’re excuses, if not outright lies.
Josuke has no idea why on earth she would lie to him, but he doesn’t like the idea one bit.
At his apartment one day after finishing a game of Mario Kart, he puts his controller down and looks over at Minako. “I really think we should take on a mission. It’s been a while, and we can’t just sit here not helping out.”
Minako looks at him, eyes not even blinking as she looks for a long, long time. He can’t tell what she’s thinking with the look in her eyes, and while she definitely likes to keep him guessing at what she might be thinking, he can usually at least get something of an idea from looking at her. It freaks him out, not being able to tell what might be going on in her head when they’re supposed to know each other so well.
“Yeah,” she says eventually, with this sort of finality that startles him. “We should go on a mission, huh? It’s about time.”
“... are you okay, Minako?”
She says nothing again, only looking down before she reaches out, taking his hand in hers. When she looks up at him, she smiles—almost a little sadly. “I’m okay, really. Just... Sorry I’ve been holding you back for so long, y’know? We should’ve been going on missions a lot earlier.”
“Hey, don’t sweat it! I don’t want you to wear yourself out either, yeah?” He leans forward, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You haven’t been holding me back at all, I just... I feel like you’ve been avoiding this.”
Minako lets go of his hand, and he feels more than sees her scoot closer until she leaning back against his chest. “—I have been, honestly. But not anymore. Let’s go on a mission soon.”
They go on a mission to Brazil two days later, a simple one-star mission that should be more than easy enough for the two of them. Josuke wants to get a feel for how Minako holds up before they take on anything more difficult. The mission is simple, find a weird ape-looking thing that’s been terrorizing the local fields, and the two of them take their time enjoying the sights on the way to finding it. She keeps her hand in his the whole time, pointing at whatever’s caught her eye and smiles, cheeks flushed. It’s a look that suits her honestly, bright and sunny and alive.
When they finally find the monster, they stop a bit away from it. Minako looks over at him, hand squeezing his, her expression just a little nervous. “Okay, this is it. Can you change now, Josuke?”
“Of course! Don’t worry so much about it though, alright? Everything’ll go fine like always,” he yell-whispers, confident as he squeezes her hand back. At her small smile and nod, he nods back, his soul seeking out her own so he can change, just like always. It’s... different though. He has a hard time finding it, even though he’s done the same thing a dozen times before.
“Ugh, sorry, just give me a sec. I dunno what’s up right now. Maybe ‘cause we haven’t done this in a while...?”
“It’s fine. You’ll find it,” she murmurs, the nervousness fading from her eyes. Her smile doesn’t widen exactly, but it looks a little more firm. Knowing, almost.
And he does, changing into his usual brass knuckle form on her hand not a moment after. But now he knows why it was taking him so long to change; her soul, it’s barely even—
“Josuke,” she says evenly, looking down at her first—at him—with a calm, focused expression. When she smiles, it’s apologetic. “I’ll tell you everything after this, okay? I promise. Let’s just get through this first.”
“...fine,” comes his muttered reply, his voice angrier-sounding than even thought it would be. She presses a kiss to the brass knuckles, eyes heavy and sorry, but it does nothing to soothe him. For god’s sake, he’s angry, he’s been worried and concerned and all those months of thinking something was a little weird, something must have been off, but he always brushed aside those concerns thinking everything would be fine, and—
Minako’s soul barely makes a ghost of a presence.
They fight the monster, their punches hitting a little harder than normal, whether it’s because he’s mad or she’s putting in that much more effort though he doesn’t know. It goes down easily as expected, although Minako really is panting by the end of it, hands planted firmly against her thighs as she leans over to try to catch her breath. All those months of exercising and training, and it hasn’t done much.
At least now he has a good idea why.
He changes back, not even bothering to get the kishin egg when he grabs Minako by the shoulders, looking her dead in the eye and yelling before he can even think not to, “What the hell is going on?!”
She doesn’t look away when he shouts. He almost wishes she would, just to show that she hadn’t known this was coming all along.
“What did my soul look like? You could tell, right?”
“It was like—” he cuts himself off, not wanting to say the words. Not wanting to think about what that meant. “Like you were, I don’t even know, like a god damn ghost or something.”
“Like I wasn’t even here, huh,” she explains, taking the words he hadn’t even dared to think. When he doesn’t reply, she continues, smile soft but still apologetic, as if there’s a thousand apologies just waiting to spill out. “Most of this is a guess... But that’s probably because my soul’s not supposed to be here. It should be—or is being, I’m not entirely sure how it’s working—used for something else right now. So even though I’m here, it’s only barely.”
He stares, swallows. In a way, he doesn’t want to know the answer to his next question. He has a feeling he already knows it. “Used... How can you even use a soul for something?”
She reaches out, cupping his cheek with her hand. Her thumb moves to swipe over his cheekbone, like she’s wiping away tears. She’s the one who looks like she wants to cry though. “You’d have to die, to use something like a soul... And that’s what I’m saying. I’m dead, Josuke. I’m dead.”
●
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
Her explanation for not telling him. For not telling him about everything, the senpai in the hospital, the betrayal from what was supposed to be a trustworthy guiding figure, the fact that death lived and breathed inside her for ten years before piecing itself back together to drag the rest of the world into it, that she and her friends had chosen to fight to live in the face of it. For not telling him that in the end, she walked to her death with a smile to defy what was supposed to be inevitable.
He glares at her, mad because this isn’t the kind of shit you’re supposed to keep to yourself, something you tell other people—but he’s mad at himself, too, because this is exactly the kind of thing Minako does. She’d rather shoulder the weight of the world itself on her shoulders than let share it with her. It’s so like her, and he can’t believe that he didn’t realize sooner.
He’s been in love with a dead girl walking the entire time.
“You still should’ve told me!” he shouts, hurt and upset as Minako watches him without flinching. She shouldn’t be looking at him so calm and expectant, like she knew this would happen. It makes everything all—too final. “Yeah I would’ve worried, but I’m worrying now anyways, and all those months I felt like something weird was up, I could’ve—We could’ve thought of something, done something!”
“Done what?” she asks, exhaustion creeping into her voice, like she’s thought this over a thousand times before, a thousand choices she might’ve done differently. If only you could undo the past. “Everything’s already—it’s already happened, you know? Even if I told you earlier, there’s nothing that can be done about what happened in the past, let alone in a different world.”
Josuke bites back a swear, looking off to the side. He’s known loss, sure, like his grandfather and Shigecchi, but this tastes like defeat. He’s beaten Stand user after Stand user, some not even human, and he even stopped Kira from continuing a decade long serial killing spree. He never gave up against any of those people, because that’s how it’s supposed to be, right? You don’t give up, you keep trying, and you win. You’re victorious. This should be the same.
It’s not.
“The hell’s with that? You can’t just give up so easily, it’s like—like you’re okay with dying!”
“Of course not!” Minako yells, voice cracking. She sounds angry and upset, and when his head snaps up to look at her, she’s crying. “How can you even think that?! It’s not I wanted this, I’d never want this, but I—what other choice was there?! Even if I didn’t we all would have died, all of us.”
She trails off, hiccupping a sob as she cries silently. He feels like the biggest jackass in the world. They’ve argued before, from Mario Party games to taking the blame for a wound in a mission, but they’re always heated and short, done before it can get worse. This feels like it’s been going on for hours—looking at the clock, it has been—and he reaches over to pull her close, feeling more than seeing her cry against his chest as he tucks her head underneath his chin.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry,” he murmurs softly, gently rubbing her back as she sniffles. His shirt’s getting wrecked like this, but he doesn’t even care. “I didn’t mean that, I just... I really wish you’d told me. Bet we wouldn’t have shouted like this if you did.”
She’s quiet for a long time, mostly trying to reign in her breathing after all the crying. When she finally speaks up again, quietly and little tired, but he thinks he hears a smile in her voice. “I dunno. Knowing us, we probably would’ve yelled no matter what.”
He laughs quietly, the sound rumbling through his chest, and Minako laughs from the feeling. They stay quiet like that for a while after, him holding her tight and her drying off her tears. He can feel her heartbeat like this, clear and firm, and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to think she’s actually—gone. Been dead this entire time, living on borrowed borrowed time. He’s not sure if he can.
They stay quiet for so long he almost thinks she’s fallen asleep, breathing even and relaxed unlike earlier until she mentions, “I remembered you, actually.”
“What?” he asks, mildly confused.
“Back home, I remembered you. For a while, I forgot—I think that’s just what happens when you go back home—but when I... When I did what I did, I remembered you. And that was when I knew that I had to do it. I couldn’t just let you die, too.”
She snuggles closer, pressing her ear right over his heart, as if she’s making sure he’s alive and well. “I don’t think I ever really forgot though, you know? It sounds silly, but even though I forgot, I don’t think my heart ever did. Even though I had a feeling Shinjiro-senpai felt like that, even though I felt like—no, really did—know Ryoji-kun my whole life, even with all that... I always knew my heart belonged to someone else.”
He’s not gonna cry, he’s not gonna cry—aw to hell with it, he’s definitely choking up at least and he doesn’t even care anymore. She loves him enough to keep loving him without even knowing who he was at all, and he knows in his bones that he loves her just as much. He never would’ve thought it possible, to love someone so much he physically aches, but when it’s Minako it’s like it’s all normal, natural. He loves her so, so much.
And all he can do is hold her until her time is up.
“Aw, come on, you don’t have to say things like that! You’re gonna make me cry,” he half-laughs and half-chokes, never mind that he’s practically already crying. He sniffles loudly and without a bit of grace; getting snot on Minako’s hair would just be even more embarrassing. “You, y’know... You got my heart, too. Always will.”
Minako shakes her head, leaning back a bit to look up at him instead. “You don’t know that for sure.”
Near pouting, he insists, “I do!”
“No, you don’t, Josuke,” she tells him, eyes heavy but smile genuine. “That’s the way the future is, yeah? You never know what might happen. So... Even when I’m gone, you have to keep living. Not for things that happened in the past, but for the present, the future. Can you promise me that, Josuke?”
“... that’s seriously unfair of you to ask,” he mutters, a little angry again but mostly unsure. He doesn’t know how to answer that yes. He’s not sure he’ll ever know.
Her smile is apologetic, but she speaks as if telling a bad joke. “I’m sorry, I know it’s a selfish request. But I never said I played fair either, did I?”
The issue’s been put away for now, but he knows it’ll come up again. If Minako is anything, she’s stubborn, and she’ll do whatever it takes for him to agree to her promise, even if that’s annoying him half to death. He’ll have time to figure a way around that.
Time...
“So what’s March 5th, really?” he asks, voice composed this time as he wipes the tears from the corners of his eyes. Getting mad or upset again wouldn’t do either of them any good right now.
“... March 5, 2010. I fell asleep after the graduation ceremony then, and I don’t remember waking up from it,” she explains. Her voice is soft, nearly a whisper. When he checks the clock, it’s a bright 12:47. She must’ve been sleepy. “That’s how long I borrowed to live. Since the exact same date is coming up, I was thinking it might be the same limit.”
He frowns, holding her just a little tighter. “But you don’t know for sure, right?”
“Not really, no. It’s just a guess at best.” She leans into him again, her weight against him heavy with sleepiness.
“Well, then that’s that! We’ll figure that out—together this time though, alright?”
His voice is boisterous and loud, a little louder than he’d actually meant for it, but honestly he’s... He’s scared. March 5th isn’t that far away at all. Her borrowed time is running out. But as Minako simply nods, drifting off into sleep already. He presses a kiss to the top of her head, gently lying her down on her bed despite not wanting to let go. Forgoing sleep, he sits by her bedside, keeping watch. What he’s keeping watch for, he doesn’t know, but he feels better being able to see her.
If he can see her, she’s real. If he can see her, she’s not dead, not dying—she’s alive.
He’s not sure what’ll happen when he can’t.
●
They spend as much time together as possible after that.
Forget the missions, forget the withes, forget all of that shit, because if Minako only has a limited amount of time left then he’s making every second of it worth it. They go to parks, amusement parks, out of the state towards the beach, across the country on a motorcycle he required through less-than-honest means. She’d raised an eyebrow at him when he showed it to her, doubtful and wary, but she’d screamed with delight the first time he took her through the city on it. It was worth it.
She knows what all of it is for, even if Josuke laughs and says that he’d always wanted to do these things, it was nothing special. It’s true that he’d always wanted to do these things
He just thought he’d have more time to do them with her.
Somewhere in the country—New Mexico? somewhere in the desert that’s not Nevada—the two have stopped for the night, making an impromptu camp site on the ground. The area’s as empty as far as the eye can see, and the air is cool but warm enough to not need blankets. He figures it’s because it’s a desert, because back home he’d be freezing this time of month. There are some perks, being here.
Minako’s leaning against him, looking up at the stars. He’s not sure what she’s looking for there, if anything at all, but eventually she grins and looks over at him.
“What, having fun?” he asks teasingly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. The air’s warm enough, but Minako’s a heatseeker through and through. She’s always ready to cuddle up.
“Of course!” she laughs, in that breathless sort of way she always does when she’s beyond happy. Josuke thinks it’s become his favorite sound in the entire world. “I always have fun when I’m with you.”
He grins wider, flushing a little even when Minako leans up to kiss him on the cheek. “Well good! Things are just getting started after all, yeah? There’s still a lot of fun we’re gonna have together.”
Looking up at the stars with Minako, Josuke listens to her as she tries to point out constellations, gives up and starts making up her own. There’s still a lot to do, too much even. He just hopes they have the time to do it.
He’ll make the time, somehow, if he has to.
●
Things end. The witches are defeated, BREW is under control, and they’re all being sent back home. They’re gathered together in the room they all first opened their eyes to as the machine whirs to life, power itself thrumming in the air. There’s not much time left.
Minako has no time left at all.
“I’ll see you again,” he cries, holding onto her even as the power of the worlds themselves drags them apart, “I won’t live in the past, but I’ll see you again, I swear!”
Minako nods, tears welling in the corner of her eyes, but smile bright and honest. There’s no heaviness left in her gaze, her fingertips just barely holding onto his. “I know! You never give up when you make a promise!”
“Damn straight!” Josuke laughs, reaching out to her still with a smile even as tears spill down his face. “Just you wait, I’ll see you again! I’ll see you—”
Josuke wakes up, hand outstretched as he pants harshly, as if he was launched out of a dream. The summer heat has yet to let up in Morioh, cicadas droning outside as the sunlight streams through his window. It’s hot, humid even. He hears his mom downstairs, yelling for him to wake up already. When he brings back his hand and touches his face, the tears are still there, fresh.
It’s 1999 again.
Lying his arm across his eyes, Josuke doesn’t get up for a long, long time, until he finally does.
●
—Harajuku. April 7, 2009.
someday it’ll bring me back to you
Of course the train is late.
Josuke yawns, scratching the side of his face as he looks at his watch. 8:47 stares back at him, the seconds hand slowly ticking away the time, and he groans. At this rate he won’t get back home to Morioh till way late, maybe even early morning. So much for making it back home in time for dinner... His mom is going to yell at him for sure, and he even has half a thought to take out his cellphone and text her that he’ll be late. He actually would if not for the shitty service in the subway area here. For the street fashion capital of Tokyo, he doesn’t get how the service there can be so bad.
He’s not sure why at 25 he still has to make it home on time for dinner either, but that’s a question he feels is better not to answer.
Ten years is a long time, and in that time Josuke’s grown up a little, grown wiser even less, and still has no idea if he’s growing into the person he should be. Morioh’s been safe for a long while now—he’s made damn sure of it, anyone could tell you that—but for a while he hadn’t the faintest idea what else to do. He spent most of high school passing by the skin of his teeth, and by the time career papers came up he’d blanked out entirely.
Looking down at his shoes, he can’t help but crack a smile. Red hightops from the Fall/Winter 2001 Armani collection. They were faded and a little worn, but he couldn’t bear to replace them for something else. The day they came in the mail (and set him back a god 35k yen), he’d cheered so loudly Okuyasu could hear him from his own house.
“Dude, if you’re that excited about expensive shoes, why not just make your own expensive shit?”
Before he knew it, Josuke was attending the local university for fashion design.
While he’d always stuck out around town, his new shoes made an even bigger impression on the people there. When they’d ask why red of all colors, he’d shrugged and told them it made a good contrast with the rest of his clothes, color theory was important to keep in mind when it came to fashion after all.
In truth, it was because he’d remembered.
He doesn’t know if it was a mistake or that’s how it was meant to work when it was final, but he remembered everything. Waking up in Death City, fighting witches, the friends he’d made there—and Minako. Training with Minako, eating with Minako, carrying Minako, kissing Minako. He remembered her most of all.
And she’d always liked red.
Ten years is a long time, and even though Josuke remembers when he hadn’t expected to, he keeps his promise to Minako and lives everyday thinking about what he had to do that day, and the day after that, and the next and the next. He’s not counting down the days until he’ll see her again—even if he doesn’t know how that’ll happen. She had faith that he’d keep his promise though, and he never breaks a promise. Especially if it’s a promise he made to her.
He loves her, still. He’s not entirely sure if he’s in love with her anymore, ten years too long to keep memories fresh and pristine as much as he wanted to, and there’s a lot he knows he’s missing. More than he’d like, but he’s had longer to get used to loss now. He even surprised himself when he’d cried at the news of Mr. Joestar passing away, but like with his grandfather and even Shigecchi, he carried the ache with him along with the rest of his emotions. Minako was the same, even if it was a little larger compared to the rest. While Josuke doesn’t know if he’s really still in love with a girl from ten years ago, he knows there’s a part of his heart that she laid claim over and won’t be letting go of anytime soon.
Truth be told though, he wouldn’t have it either way. The only weird thing is that he’s been carrying this ache for a girl who wasn’t even dead. Not yet, at the very least.
He lets out a sigh, the air unusually chilly for spring in the city. April 7th was her birthday, she’d said, but they’d never gotten the chance to celebrate it properly. He hopes she’s having a good one this year, wherever she is.
“Train 6, departing for Shinjuku, will arrive in ten minutes. We thank you for your patience and apologize for the delay,” an announcement from overhead signals, and Josuke groans again. Okay, ten minutes wasn’t that long in hindsight, but still. He almost closes his eyes in exhaustion when a teenager comes in his field of vision, waving slightly to get his attention.
“Excuse me, mister? I’m real sorry to bother you like this, but could I ask for some directions?”
“Huh? Oh, sure, where do you—”
It’s her.
Minako looks at him, red eyes blinking as she gives him a small, cheerful smile. Her face is a little rounder, and her eyes not as sharp as he’s used to, but she has the same XXII pinned in her hair, one of her earphones draped around her neck as she pulls the other one off her ear. He stares at her for so long, with an expression he can only guess must be unnerving, that her smile shrinks a little, concern washing over. She’s already worried about a complete stranger; it’s so familiar it actually hurts.
“Mister...? Are you alright?”
“You—” he starts, bites his tongue, and stops himself. There was another promise Minako made him swear, telling him that he couldn’t go looking for her if they were really in the same world. Her choice to become the Great Seal was her own, and she didn’t want to let anything that shouldn’t affect it come into the picture. It was hard sometimes, to not run to the bus stop at Morioh with all the cash he had in his pocket and take off, but he’d kept it. He couldn’t break it now.
He laughs, a little embarrassed and smiling jokingly. The concern on Minako’s face recedes, and she’s back to a friendly smile. “It’s alright, I’m fine! Sorry about that, it’s just... You look a lot like someone I used to know. It’s nothing though, don’t worry about it.”
She raises an eyebrow, almost challenging, when she teasingly replies, “I’ll say. It looked like you’d seen a ghost!”
Josuke has to keep himself from jumping at how apt the simile is. Instead, he awkwardly scratches the back of his head, cheeks a little flushed. He’s 25 going on 26, but one chance meeting with Minako and he feels like he’s 16 again, getting flustered every time she teases him. ‘You’re an adult and she’s a friggin’ teenager, get yourself together man,’ he thinks to himself, but it’s hard when it’s like she hasn’t changed in ten years. In reality, he knows he’s the one who’s changed. Minako just finally caught up to what he knew.
“Yeah, I bet... But enough about that. Where were you heading?”
She brightens up immediately. “Oh, right! Do you know where the platform is for the train leading to Minato-ku? I need to take a connecting train from there to get to Tatsumi Port Island, but it figures the day I actually set out—on my birthday no less—I lose the directions on my last train.”
Tatsumi Port Island... The name’s familiar, and immediately afterwards he gets a sinking realization why. It’s already that time, and Minako has no idea what she’s heading into. The Dark Hour, Shadows... maybe even Death City and witches too, if everything played out the same. Still, he’d promised he wouldn’t interfere.
The least he can do is send her off with a smile.
“Yeah, sure thing. Just head to the platform below this one and wait for train 9. That one should lead you straight to Minato-ku,” he explains, pointing over at the stairs that lead below with a kind smile. “... and happy birthday, too.”
Almost impossibly, Minako manages to grin even wider, painfully honest and sincere. It makes his chest tight, and all the memories he’d tried to keep in perfect detail are nothing compared to the real deal. “Thanks, for the directions and the greeting! I gotta get going now, so later, and thanks again!”
She waves him goodbye, luggage trailing behind her as she heads for the stairs. Just like that, his first (best, greatest, dearest) love is walking out of his life. It’s too quick, and already he’s thinking about how he’ll forget parts of this day, the details that made it everything he wanted to remember forever.
It’s borrowed time, but just a little longer should be fine.
“Hey!” he calls out, and she turns around just at the steps. “What’s the XXII mean?”
Okay, not his best question to make the moment last. He never did find out though, and he’d always meant to.
The girl stares at him, a little startled, but once she realizes what he’s talking about, she laughs, bright and sunny like he remembers. That, at least, he still recalls as clear as day.
“It’s the end and the beginning! See you later mister!” she yells back, her waving hand the last thing he sees before she disappears beneath the stairs.
His chest hurts, and there’s a wetness in his eyes that he knows means he’s actually about to cry. Just his luck, his train finally arrives too. Rubbing at his eyes as discreetly as he can, Josuke tries to dry his eyes before anything starts. Crying on a train in public would be too much.
As he steps inside, eyes dry and smile wide, it’s a smile from the bottom of his heart. He met her again, juts like he said he would.
He’ll always keep his promises, if it’s to her.
8616K WORTH OF SHIT
I'M JUST GLAD IT DIDN'T ACTUALLY REACH 10K
Minako disappears.
It’s not like they see each other everyday or anything, even after they start going out (something he still can hardly believe, if he’s being honest, because really, how did a guy like him catch the eye of a girl like her), but it’s on the day they’d agreed to hang out together. Y’know, go out on an actual date, and you better believe Josuke was pumped for that. He’d been waiting by the entrance of the park, nervous and anxious but mostly excited, because this was going to be his first actual date, his first date with Minako, and if that didn’t make it special than nothing would.
So he stands there, waiting—for a while, even. Five minutes turns to ten and he thinks to himself ‘Hey, no problem, she’s probably just running late from something, maybe work.’ The excuse works for the next ten minutes before the anxiety turns heavy, worried, and once he realizes he’s been waiting for thirty minutes he takes out the mirror and tries giving her a call.
She doesn’t pick up.
He races back to the apartments, heart hammering in his ears even as his muscles ache in protest from how sudden and how hard he’s running. With his focus narrowed down to just finding Minako, he doesn’t even notice, and he only starts feeling it when he throws open the door to Minako’s apartment only to see her two cats and hamster. They all look up at him, alarmed but confused, as if they too are searching for the girl. For all he knows, they could be; one of the cats even looks a little worried, if that’s possible for animals.
When he contacts the network, asks if anyone has seen her, all that meets him is the reluctant, somewhat sad replies of her having most likely been returned home. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d gone off somewhere, right? And Minako was a tough girl, she could take care of herself—everyone knew that. The most likely answer was that she went back home. He doesn’t want to believe it.
Josuke heads back to his apartment, flops onto his bed. He tosses the bouquet of flowers he’d gotten—sunflowers and gerbera, her favorites she’d said—onto the ground, glaring angrily at them. It’s not like he’d want Minako to stay here forever, but he couldn’t even go on a date with his first (best, greatest, dearest) girlfriend. What kind of a joke was that?
After a few minutes, he picks up the bouquet, gets a container and fills it with water before plopping the flowers into it. She’d complain about him wasting something pretty, if she knew. The thought would make him smile if he hadn’t felt so bitter, and he flops back onto bed with his face buried in the pillow.
He doesn’t sleep well that night.
Minako comes back.
It’s late afternoon the next day when there’s a knock on the door, and the only reason Josuke goes to answer it is because he’d been lying in bed for ten minutes already, hoping that the person on the other side would either say something or give up. When he opens the door, his hair’s a mess and his clothes are wrinkled but he couldn’t care less, an irritated swear already on his tongue until he actually sees who it is.
“Hi,” Minako says quietly, smile small and a little sheepish as she holds up her own bouquet of flowers. “Sorry about our date yesterday. Can we try again?”
It’s a good thing he saved his bouquet because Minako’s is crushed between them when he pulls her close in what’s nearly a bone-crushing hug. There’s a small sound of surprise before she laughs in his ear, light and breathy like it always is, and she tries to hug him back as best she can when her arms are more or less trapped under his. He’ll loosen up (though only barely) in a second, but right now he wants to make sure that she’s warm, she’s real, she’s here back with him.
“Jeez, where the hell’ve you been? I was worried sick!” he tells her, nearly yells even, but he’s smiling and there’s a laugh in his voice. He knows she can tell he doesn’t mean anything bad by it, and she smiles when he lets go of her to usher her into his apartment.
It turns out that she had gone home, like that time before when everyone changed, but this one was a lot longer on both sides—especially in Minako’s world. One day here had been months back there apparently. She skips around on most of the details—because he wouldn’t understand it or because she just doesn’t want to talk about it, he’s not sure—but from what he can tell, a lot must have happened. A lot.
Minako sighs, idly playing with a strand of his messed-up hair, his head in her lap. “It’s just hard to believe so much happened when no time at all passed here, y’know?”
He wants to tell her that yesterday was probably one of the longest days of his life, and not in a good way, but instead he brightly exclaims, “Well hey, you said that it’s all over now, right? It sucks that you came back here again, but at least now you don’t have to worry about home anymore!”
“Yeah, I’m glad. Really glad.” She smiles down at him, faintly and sort of crookedly as she swallows. “Besides, it’s not so bad honestly. Now I get to see you again.”
Maybe it’s the angle or maybe it’s the light in the room, but there’s this sort of—heaviness, in Minako’s eyes. He doesn’t recognize it, and the more he thinks about it, the more he can’t help but feel that there’s something a little off about it. Something weird. But then she leans down to brush her lips against his forehead, and he’s convinced he’s probably just imagining things. Or maybe she’s just tired, yeah, it’s probably a weird feeling to spend months in one place then wake up and see it was only a day.
She’s back now, and there’s nothing more to worry about.
She doesn’t stay up past midnight anymore.
It’s not like they always spend the night with each other, so it takes him a bit of a while to realize it. The first time he notices is when he spends the night at her place one day, playing cards. Josuke is a gambling man through and through, something he’s long since accepted and enjoyed, but Minako has a mean poker face that even he has trouble reading. They go through more than just a few games, betting cookies and crackers in lieu of money, long into the night. He yawns, having stayed up later than what’s normal for him too, and blinks out of surprise when he takes a look at the clock on Minako’s nightstand, 3:07 illuminated in bright red.
“Shit, it’s past three already?” he half-yawns, says out of surprise more than anything else “It’s been a while since I stayed up this late.”
Unexpectedly, Minako turns to look at the clock with widened eyes as well. “Wow, I hadn’t realized at all! Actually, it’s been a while for me, too.”
He raises an eyebrow, biting into one of his saved cookies. Last time he checked, Minako always stayed up till at least past twelve to see if the—what did she call it, the Dark Hour?—happened, and sometimes much later just because. “Yeah? Thought you always stayed up late.”
“Well,” she starts, trails off as she puts her cards back in the deck. It’s unusual for her, really unusual honestly, and he can’t help but raise his eyebrow higher as he watches her. “You know I did that to make sure there was no Dark Hour, right? With it gone back home, it seems doubly silly to keep watch for it here. There’s nothing to worry about after all.”
It makes sense, it does really, but that same heaviness from when she first came back is creeping into her eyes, a weariness that makes her look like she could drop dead from how tired she is any second. While it still unsettled him, it had been a look in her eyes that came every now and then. He didn’t care to ask about everything that happened back home if she didn’t want to share, but it bothered him. Worried him, even. Just like every other time it happened though, she’d smile brightly before long. Now is no exception, and he knows just what to do to make that smile even sunnier. Scooting forward, Josuke takes her hands in his and leans his forehead against hers, blowing a bit of air in her face. She laughs, closes her eyes as she smiles wider and playfully knocks her forehead against his, trying to fake mad; just as he thought, it works like a charm.
“Damn straight there isn’t! Besides, it’d probably do you some good to get more sleep. I dunno how you managed to stay up that late then work in the mornings the first place.”
Pouting, she tries to sound offended instead of amused. It doesn’t work all that well. “Hey, how I sleep is my business! It’s not like you’re much better than me.”
“Remember that time you said the sun came up by the time you went to bed? Yeah, I don’t do that.” He has to lean back to avoid the now serious headbutt Minako tries to give him, but she smiles fondly despite herself.
They end up climbing together into her bed after taking care of the cards and food, and she falls asleep quickly in his arms, breath evening out and tickling his skin. He thinks back to earlier, to the shadows in her eyes that seem to linger that much longer before he chases them out, and wonders if maybe he should ask about what happened at home. There must’ve been something for it to still be weighing on her mind, but as Josuke looks at her sleeping face, he decides against it. Everything was over now, just like she’d said, and there was nothing to worry about. If there is, well, he’d just protect her from it, easy. Whatever it might be, he’d protect her.
It’s as simple as that.
She keeps track of time now, closely and oddly specific.
Maybe she always had really, and he’d just never noticed, but there’s something odd about the way she keeps track. As if she’s waiting for something, counting down the hours and the minutes. It starts off innocuously enough that he doesn’t think anything of it, but the more it happens the more he wonders.
“What’s the date today?” she might ask, staring down at the yawn working between her knitting needles. He’s already gotten a scarf, a pair of gloves, and a dog-eared hat from her knitting projects. Frankly, he has no idea what she even does with all the stuff she makes. It seems unlikely that someone would happily accept a five foot long scarf adorned with the face of what she calls “Jack Frost”.
“The date? Uhh... Thursday, October 1st. Why?” he might reply. It’s the same question every time, but he sometimes thinks that her answer might change.
“Just wondering,” is all she’ll say, going back to whatever she’s working on while he thinks of trying to ask about it again. Before he can though, she’ll ask him a question of her own, or mention something mundane and normal but distracting, and it won’t be until later that he’ll realize he lost the opportunity. She’s good at keeping his thoughts elsewhere, he thinks, but he also knows that he’s never had the sharpest mind out there. It’s probably going to get him in trouble someday, but he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t mind as long as it’s Minako.
It’s some time in December though when he remembers to keep that all in mind. She asks for the date, he replies, and she’s just about to talk about something else when Josuke asks, “Is there something you’re waiting for, Minako? You ask about the date a lot.”
She stiffens against his side, just barely a second but enough to tell him that something has to be up. When she looks up at him, she’s smiling in a way that tries to look cheerful (and probably would be just that to anyone else), meaning there’s definitely something she isn’t so cheerful about. He’s probably catalogued all her smiles by now, from smug to angry to ecstatic to fake.
“What? No, I’m not waiting for anything really,” she pauses, eyes closed as she tries to sort out words. “Just that... It’s weird. The new year’s passed now, but back home it was the year 2009 for a while. Being here in Death City, in 2009 specifically, it’s almost like I’m living my life over.”
“Huh. Well, it’s not like it’s all that similar, right? What were you doing around this time back home anyways?” It’s the closest he’s come to asking about everything that happened in her months back home.
Minako closes her eyes again, humming in thought as she snuggles up next to him. Her feet get really cold in the winter as far as he can tell, and it’s kind of uncomfortable, but he’s not going to be pushing her away anytime soon. He wraps an arm around her shoulders, holding her close.
“December, December... I was probably wondering if everyone was going to die.”
“WHAT?!”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” she laughs, giving him a consoling pat on his hand around her shoulder. When it comes to that smile though, he never knows if she’s joking or telling the truth. “You said it’s the 15th, right? I think I was hanging out with my friend Junpei at Hagakure that day.”
“You have weird ideas when it comes to jokes...” he mutters, still staring wide-eyed at her smiling face. Yeah, she was way too comfortable with saying something that crazy.
Giggling, she turns to face him and leans so close that her lips are right on his jawline. “Well, I think you’ve had more than enough time to get used to my jokes.”
He ends up buying a calendar later, saying that she can keep track of time easier with it. She still asks him the date every now and then, but it’s with a wry smile and teasing tone that makes it sound like she’s telling a joke. He always replies the same way, laughing and smiling brightly.
One day he flips through the calendar out of idle curiosity, looking at birthdays she has written down, her previous work schedules, even the dates of all their old missions. When he flips to 2010 though, there’s a date with more marks than the rest. March 5th, circled in bright red a few times. It looks like something big.
“That’s the day we decided to meet up,” Minako says, noticing him looking at it. He looks back at her, still confused, but she just smiles fondly and half-laughs, “It’s a long story. Come on though, enough of that. If we stay here any longer, we’re going to miss the movie!”
Pulling him by the hand, Minako drags him out of the room, leaving March 5th alone for the time being.
She gets tired more easily, and more often than that.
Her energy is still the same as always, bubbly and cheerful and bright, but Josuke thinks most of her strength must be going into that if running up a few flights of stairs has her leaning against the wall to catch her breath at one point. It’s a far cry from the girl who’d start races with him for fun, and he knows she knows it too if the way she starts training is any indication. While she’d gone to morning training frequently, she starts going every day. Even when she’s not going to training, he catches her jogging more often than not, having to stop frequently just to breathe, heaving in huge, gasping breaths before she takes off again. Like she’s trying to build up the endurance and strength she used to have.
When he asks, she says it’s exactly that.
“Well, when I said that everything was over back home, they’d actually been over for a little while,” she tells him, half-laughing and half-whispering as she sits down against a tree. Thirty minutes into morning practice and she’s already winded. “I haven’t been doing serious physical activity like this for more than a month.”
Handing her a water bottle, he watches her gulp all of it down in one go, coughing once she finishes but still looking dead tired. “Is that really long enough to make you... y’know, like this? I thought you said you were in a tennis club too, so wouldn’t you have gone to practice for that?”
Minako shakes her head, looking pointedly down at the water bottle in her hands. “Tennis season was over already, so I didn’t go to practice so much for it. I guess it’s kinda weird, but it’s the only way to explain this, right? It’s not like there’s anything else that happened.”
There’s something about it that bugs him still. How does one month of not beating up monsters turn Minako from a near inexhaustible supply of energy into panting after a light jog? She’s not sick as far as he can tell, and he’s sure she would’ve told him if she’d actually gotten sick. In the end, her explanation really is the only explanation they have.
“In that case,” he starts, standing back up and pulling her along with him, “we just gotta whip you back into shape! I’m sure you’ll be back to normal in no time.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I figured that part out,” she huffs, rolling her eyes but smiling up at him anyways. Despite the energy in her expression, she’s still breathing harshly, her brow starting to glisten with perspiration despite the chill in the air. She’s definitely done training for today, no matter what she might say. If he just says that though, she’s sure to try and argue about it.
So he does what seems like the simplest solution.
Leaning down, Josuke easily scoops Minako into his arms in one smooth motion, holding her bridal style. A noise of surprise escapes her lips before her arms automatically move to wrap around his neck, hoisting herself up as she pouts at him.
“Josuke! What are you doing?”
“Taking you out to lunch obviously. You’re probably hungry by now, right?” Whatever protest she might have had dies immediately once her stomach lets out a loud grumble. She stays silent, but she still looks up at him in a half-glare half-pout. “Come on, don’t sweat it!”
“You can’t just go carrying me around like this, can you? People are gonna stare,” she sighs, but the ire is already fading away from her voice.
He grins, cheesy but honest. “If someone really wanna asks, I’ll just tell ‘em the truth. After a hard day’s work of training, you deserved to get some rest before you ate lunch!”
She rolls her eyes, tells him that’s hardly an excuse, but settles comfortably into his arms regardless. While the walk to the ramen place is a bit far off, Josuke doesn’t mind carrying her the entire way. He likes the weight of her, solid and real in his arms. His muscles start to protest towards the end of the walk, but he can’t bear to put her down just yet; she actually managed to fall asleep along the way, and it feels like it’d be a crime to wake her up. Once he reaches the ramen shop, he puts her down as gently as he can on a bench nearby. He sits down with her, putting an arm around her shoulders as she rests her head on the crook between his neck and shoulder.
He thinks she’s been falling asleep more often in general, honestly, might even be part of why she heads to bed so much earlier. The other day he caught her nodding off at around 9 PM, way earlier than her usual time, but she laughed it off and said she’d had a long day at work. While he couldn’t be completely sure, he had thought that her shift at work that day was supposed to have been short.
Yeah, there’s definitely something up with how quickly she gets tired. What that might, he doesn’t have the slightest idea, but he’s determined to find out, somehow. After all, he’d be doing a real shoddy job if he couldn’t even protect her from getting tired.
He’ll figure it out. For now though, Josuke brushes Minako’s bangs out of her face. At the very least, he wants to let her rest while she can.
She doesn’t like taking missions so much anymore.
It’s not just weird, it’s almost wrong. While neither of them had really been intent on becoming the strongest Meister and Weapon around, she’d never shied away from a mission. More often than not, she’d reply with an excited, “Yeah, let’s do it!” Especially after their first disastrous mission, she greeted every challenge with a determined yet energetic smile. He doesn’t understand what could possibly cause a near 180 in attitude. Some of her explanations make sense (“I’m still not back up to speed, I’d only slow you down”) and some of them don’t (“I have a dentist appointment that day—actually, I have a lot of appointments coming up, for the next foreseeable while”). The longer it goes on, the more it feels like they’re excuses, if not outright lies.
Josuke has no idea why on earth she would lie to him, but he doesn’t like the idea one bit.
At his apartment one day after finishing a game of Mario Kart, he puts his controller down and looks over at Minako. “I really think we should take on a mission. It’s been a while, and we can’t just sit here not helping out.”
Minako looks at him, eyes not even blinking as she looks for a long, long time. He can’t tell what she’s thinking with the look in her eyes, and while she definitely likes to keep him guessing at what she might be thinking, he can usually at least get something of an idea from looking at her. It freaks him out, not being able to tell what might be going on in her head when they’re supposed to know each other so well.
“Yeah,” she says eventually, with this sort of finality that startles him. “We should go on a mission, huh? It’s about time.”
“... are you okay, Minako?”
She says nothing again, only looking down before she reaches out, taking his hand in hers. When she looks up at him, she smiles—almost a little sadly. “I’m okay, really. Just... Sorry I’ve been holding you back for so long, y’know? We should’ve been going on missions a lot earlier.”
“Hey, don’t sweat it! I don’t want you to wear yourself out either, yeah?” He leans forward, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You haven’t been holding me back at all, I just... I feel like you’ve been avoiding this.”
Minako lets go of his hand, and he feels more than sees her scoot closer until she leaning back against his chest. “—I have been, honestly. But not anymore. Let’s go on a mission soon.”
They go on a mission to Brazil two days later, a simple one-star mission that should be more than easy enough for the two of them. Josuke wants to get a feel for how Minako holds up before they take on anything more difficult. The mission is simple, find a weird ape-looking thing that’s been terrorizing the local fields, and the two of them take their time enjoying the sights on the way to finding it. She keeps her hand in his the whole time, pointing at whatever’s caught her eye and smiles, cheeks flushed. It’s a look that suits her honestly, bright and sunny and alive.
When they finally find the monster, they stop a bit away from it. Minako looks over at him, hand squeezing his, her expression just a little nervous. “Okay, this is it. Can you change now, Josuke?”
“Of course! Don’t worry so much about it though, alright? Everything’ll go fine like always,” he yell-whispers, confident as he squeezes her hand back. At her small smile and nod, he nods back, his soul seeking out her own so he can change, just like always. It’s... different though. He has a hard time finding it, even though he’s done the same thing a dozen times before.
“Ugh, sorry, just give me a sec. I dunno what’s up right now. Maybe ‘cause we haven’t done this in a while...?”
“It’s fine. You’ll find it,” she murmurs, the nervousness fading from her eyes. Her smile doesn’t widen exactly, but it looks a little more firm. Knowing, almost.
And he does, changing into his usual brass knuckle form on her hand not a moment after. But now he knows why it was taking him so long to change; her soul, it’s barely even—
“Josuke,” she says evenly, looking down at her first—at him—with a calm, focused expression. When she smiles, it’s apologetic. “I’ll tell you everything after this, okay? I promise. Let’s just get through this first.”
“...fine,” comes his muttered reply, his voice angrier-sounding than even thought it would be. She presses a kiss to the brass knuckles, eyes heavy and sorry, but it does nothing to soothe him. For god’s sake, he’s angry, he’s been worried and concerned and all those months of thinking something was a little weird, something must have been off, but he always brushed aside those concerns thinking everything would be fine, and—
Minako’s soul barely makes a ghost of a presence.
They fight the monster, their punches hitting a little harder than normal, whether it’s because he’s mad or she’s putting in that much more effort though he doesn’t know. It goes down easily as expected, although Minako really is panting by the end of it, hands planted firmly against her thighs as she leans over to try to catch her breath. All those months of exercising and training, and it hasn’t done much.
At least now he has a good idea why.
He changes back, not even bothering to get the kishin egg when he grabs Minako by the shoulders, looking her dead in the eye and yelling before he can even think not to, “What the hell is going on?!”
She doesn’t look away when he shouts. He almost wishes she would, just to show that she hadn’t known this was coming all along.
“What did my soul look like? You could tell, right?”
“It was like—” he cuts himself off, not wanting to say the words. Not wanting to think about what that meant. “Like you were, I don’t even know, like a god damn ghost or something.”
“Like I wasn’t even here, huh,” she explains, taking the words he hadn’t even dared to think. When he doesn’t reply, she continues, smile soft but still apologetic, as if there’s a thousand apologies just waiting to spill out. “Most of this is a guess... But that’s probably because my soul’s not supposed to be here. It should be—or is being, I’m not entirely sure how it’s working—used for something else right now. So even though I’m here, it’s only barely.”
He stares, swallows. In a way, he doesn’t want to know the answer to his next question. He has a feeling he already knows it. “Used... How can you even use a soul for something?”
She reaches out, cupping his cheek with her hand. Her thumb moves to swipe over his cheekbone, like she’s wiping away tears. She’s the one who looks like she wants to cry though. “You’d have to die, to use something like a soul... And that’s what I’m saying. I’m dead, Josuke. I’m dead.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
Her explanation for not telling him. For not telling him about everything, the senpai in the hospital, the betrayal from what was supposed to be a trustworthy guiding figure, the fact that death lived and breathed inside her for ten years before piecing itself back together to drag the rest of the world into it, that she and her friends had chosen to fight to live in the face of it. For not telling him that in the end, she walked to her death with a smile to defy what was supposed to be inevitable.
He glares at her, mad because this isn’t the kind of shit you’re supposed to keep to yourself, something you tell other people—but he’s mad at himself, too, because this is exactly the kind of thing Minako does. She’d rather shoulder the weight of the world itself on her shoulders than let share it with her. It’s so like her, and he can’t believe that he didn’t realize sooner.
He’s been in love with a dead girl walking the entire time.
“You still should’ve told me!” he shouts, hurt and upset as Minako watches him without flinching. She shouldn’t be looking at him so calm and expectant, like she knew this would happen. It makes everything all—too final. “Yeah I would’ve worried, but I’m worrying now anyways, and all those months I felt like something weird was up, I could’ve—We could’ve thought of something, done something!”
“Done what?” she asks, exhaustion creeping into her voice, like she’s thought this over a thousand times before, a thousand choices she might’ve done differently. If only you could undo the past. “Everything’s already—it’s already happened, you know? Even if I told you earlier, there’s nothing that can be done about what happened in the past, let alone in a different world.”
Josuke bites back a swear, looking off to the side. He’s known loss, sure, like his grandfather and Shigecchi, but this tastes like defeat. He’s beaten Stand user after Stand user, some not even human, and he even stopped Kira from continuing a decade long serial killing spree. He never gave up against any of those people, because that’s how it’s supposed to be, right? You don’t give up, you keep trying, and you win. You’re victorious. This should be the same.
It’s not.
“The hell’s with that? You can’t just give up so easily, it’s like—like you’re okay with dying!”
“Of course not!” Minako yells, voice cracking. She sounds angry and upset, and when his head snaps up to look at her, she’s crying. “How can you even think that?! It’s not I wanted this, I’d never want this, but I—what other choice was there?! Even if I didn’t we all would have died, all of us.”
She trails off, hiccupping a sob as she cries silently. He feels like the biggest jackass in the world. They’ve argued before, from Mario Party games to taking the blame for a wound in a mission, but they’re always heated and short, done before it can get worse. This feels like it’s been going on for hours—looking at the clock, it has been—and he reaches over to pull her close, feeling more than seeing her cry against his chest as he tucks her head underneath his chin.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry,” he murmurs softly, gently rubbing her back as she sniffles. His shirt’s getting wrecked like this, but he doesn’t even care. “I didn’t mean that, I just... I really wish you’d told me. Bet we wouldn’t have shouted like this if you did.”
She’s quiet for a long time, mostly trying to reign in her breathing after all the crying. When she finally speaks up again, quietly and little tired, but he thinks he hears a smile in her voice. “I dunno. Knowing us, we probably would’ve yelled no matter what.”
He laughs quietly, the sound rumbling through his chest, and Minako laughs from the feeling. They stay quiet like that for a while after, him holding her tight and her drying off her tears. He can feel her heartbeat like this, clear and firm, and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to think she’s actually—gone. Been dead this entire time, living on borrowed borrowed time. He’s not sure if he can.
They stay quiet for so long he almost thinks she’s fallen asleep, breathing even and relaxed unlike earlier until she mentions, “I remembered you, actually.”
“What?” he asks, mildly confused.
“Back home, I remembered you. For a while, I forgot—I think that’s just what happens when you go back home—but when I... When I did what I did, I remembered you. And that was when I knew that I had to do it. I couldn’t just let you die, too.”
She snuggles closer, pressing her ear right over his heart, as if she’s making sure he’s alive and well. “I don’t think I ever really forgot though, you know? It sounds silly, but even though I forgot, I don’t think my heart ever did. Even though I had a feeling Shinjiro-senpai felt like that, even though I felt like—no, really did—know Ryoji-kun my whole life, even with all that... I always knew my heart belonged to someone else.”
He’s not gonna cry, he’s not gonna cry—aw to hell with it, he’s definitely choking up at least and he doesn’t even care anymore. She loves him enough to keep loving him without even knowing who he was at all, and he knows in his bones that he loves her just as much. He never would’ve thought it possible, to love someone so much he physically aches, but when it’s Minako it’s like it’s all normal, natural. He loves her so, so much.
And all he can do is hold her until her time is up.
“Aw, come on, you don’t have to say things like that! You’re gonna make me cry,” he half-laughs and half-chokes, never mind that he’s practically already crying. He sniffles loudly and without a bit of grace; getting snot on Minako’s hair would just be even more embarrassing. “You, y’know... You got my heart, too. Always will.”
Minako shakes her head, leaning back a bit to look up at him instead. “You don’t know that for sure.”
Near pouting, he insists, “I do!”
“No, you don’t, Josuke,” she tells him, eyes heavy but smile genuine. “That’s the way the future is, yeah? You never know what might happen. So... Even when I’m gone, you have to keep living. Not for things that happened in the past, but for the present, the future. Can you promise me that, Josuke?”
“... that’s seriously unfair of you to ask,” he mutters, a little angry again but mostly unsure. He doesn’t know how to answer that yes. He’s not sure he’ll ever know.
Her smile is apologetic, but she speaks as if telling a bad joke. “I’m sorry, I know it’s a selfish request. But I never said I played fair either, did I?”
The issue’s been put away for now, but he knows it’ll come up again. If Minako is anything, she’s stubborn, and she’ll do whatever it takes for him to agree to her promise, even if that’s annoying him half to death. He’ll have time to figure a way around that.
Time...
“So what’s March 5th, really?” he asks, voice composed this time as he wipes the tears from the corners of his eyes. Getting mad or upset again wouldn’t do either of them any good right now.
“... March 5, 2010. I fell asleep after the graduation ceremony then, and I don’t remember waking up from it,” she explains. Her voice is soft, nearly a whisper. When he checks the clock, it’s a bright 12:47. She must’ve been sleepy. “That’s how long I borrowed to live. Since the exact same date is coming up, I was thinking it might be the same limit.”
He frowns, holding her just a little tighter. “But you don’t know for sure, right?”
“Not really, no. It’s just a guess at best.” She leans into him again, her weight against him heavy with sleepiness.
“Well, then that’s that! We’ll figure that out—together this time though, alright?”
His voice is boisterous and loud, a little louder than he’d actually meant for it, but honestly he’s... He’s scared. March 5th isn’t that far away at all. Her borrowed time is running out. But as Minako simply nods, drifting off into sleep already. He presses a kiss to the top of her head, gently lying her down on her bed despite not wanting to let go. Forgoing sleep, he sits by her bedside, keeping watch. What he’s keeping watch for, he doesn’t know, but he feels better being able to see her.
If he can see her, she’s real. If he can see her, she’s not dead, not dying—she’s alive.
He’s not sure what’ll happen when he can’t.
They spend as much time together as possible after that.
Forget the missions, forget the withes, forget all of that shit, because if Minako only has a limited amount of time left then he’s making every second of it worth it. They go to parks, amusement parks, out of the state towards the beach, across the country on a motorcycle he required through less-than-honest means. She’d raised an eyebrow at him when he showed it to her, doubtful and wary, but she’d screamed with delight the first time he took her through the city on it. It was worth it.
She knows what all of it is for, even if Josuke laughs and says that he’d always wanted to do these things, it was nothing special. It’s true that he’d always wanted to do these things
He just thought he’d have more time to do them with her.
Somewhere in the country—New Mexico? somewhere in the desert that’s not Nevada—the two have stopped for the night, making an impromptu camp site on the ground. The area’s as empty as far as the eye can see, and the air is cool but warm enough to not need blankets. He figures it’s because it’s a desert, because back home he’d be freezing this time of month. There are some perks, being here.
Minako’s leaning against him, looking up at the stars. He’s not sure what she’s looking for there, if anything at all, but eventually she grins and looks over at him.
“What, having fun?” he asks teasingly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. The air’s warm enough, but Minako’s a heatseeker through and through. She’s always ready to cuddle up.
“Of course!” she laughs, in that breathless sort of way she always does when she’s beyond happy. Josuke thinks it’s become his favorite sound in the entire world. “I always have fun when I’m with you.”
He grins wider, flushing a little even when Minako leans up to kiss him on the cheek. “Well good! Things are just getting started after all, yeah? There’s still a lot of fun we’re gonna have together.”
Looking up at the stars with Minako, Josuke listens to her as she tries to point out constellations, gives up and starts making up her own. There’s still a lot to do, too much even. He just hopes they have the time to do it.
He’ll make the time, somehow, if he has to.
Things end. The witches are defeated, BREW is under control, and they’re all being sent back home. They’re gathered together in the room they all first opened their eyes to as the machine whirs to life, power itself thrumming in the air. There’s not much time left.
Minako has no time left at all.
“I’ll see you again,” he cries, holding onto her even as the power of the worlds themselves drags them apart, “I won’t live in the past, but I’ll see you again, I swear!”
Minako nods, tears welling in the corner of her eyes, but smile bright and honest. There’s no heaviness left in her gaze, her fingertips just barely holding onto his. “I know! You never give up when you make a promise!”
“Damn straight!” Josuke laughs, reaching out to her still with a smile even as tears spill down his face. “Just you wait, I’ll see you again! I’ll see you—”
Josuke wakes up, hand outstretched as he pants harshly, as if he was launched out of a dream. The summer heat has yet to let up in Morioh, cicadas droning outside as the sunlight streams through his window. It’s hot, humid even. He hears his mom downstairs, yelling for him to wake up already. When he brings back his hand and touches his face, the tears are still there, fresh.
It’s 1999 again.
Lying his arm across his eyes, Josuke doesn’t get up for a long, long time, until he finally does.
—Harajuku. April 7, 2009.
someday it’ll bring me back to you
Of course the train is late.
Josuke yawns, scratching the side of his face as he looks at his watch. 8:47 stares back at him, the seconds hand slowly ticking away the time, and he groans. At this rate he won’t get back home to Morioh till way late, maybe even early morning. So much for making it back home in time for dinner... His mom is going to yell at him for sure, and he even has half a thought to take out his cellphone and text her that he’ll be late. He actually would if not for the shitty service in the subway area here. For the street fashion capital of Tokyo, he doesn’t get how the service there can be so bad.
He’s not sure why at 25 he still has to make it home on time for dinner either, but that’s a question he feels is better not to answer.
Ten years is a long time, and in that time Josuke’s grown up a little, grown wiser even less, and still has no idea if he’s growing into the person he should be. Morioh’s been safe for a long while now—he’s made damn sure of it, anyone could tell you that—but for a while he hadn’t the faintest idea what else to do. He spent most of high school passing by the skin of his teeth, and by the time career papers came up he’d blanked out entirely.
Looking down at his shoes, he can’t help but crack a smile. Red hightops from the Fall/Winter 2001 Armani collection. They were faded and a little worn, but he couldn’t bear to replace them for something else. The day they came in the mail (and set him back a god 35k yen), he’d cheered so loudly Okuyasu could hear him from his own house.
“Dude, if you’re that excited about expensive shoes, why not just make your own expensive shit?”
Before he knew it, Josuke was attending the local university for fashion design.
While he’d always stuck out around town, his new shoes made an even bigger impression on the people there. When they’d ask why red of all colors, he’d shrugged and told them it made a good contrast with the rest of his clothes, color theory was important to keep in mind when it came to fashion after all.
In truth, it was because he’d remembered.
He doesn’t know if it was a mistake or that’s how it was meant to work when it was final, but he remembered everything. Waking up in Death City, fighting witches, the friends he’d made there—and Minako. Training with Minako, eating with Minako, carrying Minako, kissing Minako. He remembered her most of all.
And she’d always liked red.
Ten years is a long time, and even though Josuke remembers when he hadn’t expected to, he keeps his promise to Minako and lives everyday thinking about what he had to do that day, and the day after that, and the next and the next. He’s not counting down the days until he’ll see her again—even if he doesn’t know how that’ll happen. She had faith that he’d keep his promise though, and he never breaks a promise. Especially if it’s a promise he made to her.
He loves her, still. He’s not entirely sure if he’s in love with her anymore, ten years too long to keep memories fresh and pristine as much as he wanted to, and there’s a lot he knows he’s missing. More than he’d like, but he’s had longer to get used to loss now. He even surprised himself when he’d cried at the news of Mr. Joestar passing away, but like with his grandfather and even Shigecchi, he carried the ache with him along with the rest of his emotions. Minako was the same, even if it was a little larger compared to the rest. While Josuke doesn’t know if he’s really still in love with a girl from ten years ago, he knows there’s a part of his heart that she laid claim over and won’t be letting go of anytime soon.
Truth be told though, he wouldn’t have it either way. The only weird thing is that he’s been carrying this ache for a girl who wasn’t even dead. Not yet, at the very least.
He lets out a sigh, the air unusually chilly for spring in the city. April 7th was her birthday, she’d said, but they’d never gotten the chance to celebrate it properly. He hopes she’s having a good one this year, wherever she is.
“Train 6, departing for Shinjuku, will arrive in ten minutes. We thank you for your patience and apologize for the delay,” an announcement from overhead signals, and Josuke groans again. Okay, ten minutes wasn’t that long in hindsight, but still. He almost closes his eyes in exhaustion when a teenager comes in his field of vision, waving slightly to get his attention.
“Excuse me, mister? I’m real sorry to bother you like this, but could I ask for some directions?”
“Huh? Oh, sure, where do you—”
It’s her.
Minako looks at him, red eyes blinking as she gives him a small, cheerful smile. Her face is a little rounder, and her eyes not as sharp as he’s used to, but she has the same XXII pinned in her hair, one of her earphones draped around her neck as she pulls the other one off her ear. He stares at her for so long, with an expression he can only guess must be unnerving, that her smile shrinks a little, concern washing over. She’s already worried about a complete stranger; it’s so familiar it actually hurts.
“Mister...? Are you alright?”
“You—” he starts, bites his tongue, and stops himself. There was another promise Minako made him swear, telling him that he couldn’t go looking for her if they were really in the same world. Her choice to become the Great Seal was her own, and she didn’t want to let anything that shouldn’t affect it come into the picture. It was hard sometimes, to not run to the bus stop at Morioh with all the cash he had in his pocket and take off, but he’d kept it. He couldn’t break it now.
He laughs, a little embarrassed and smiling jokingly. The concern on Minako’s face recedes, and she’s back to a friendly smile. “It’s alright, I’m fine! Sorry about that, it’s just... You look a lot like someone I used to know. It’s nothing though, don’t worry about it.”
She raises an eyebrow, almost challenging, when she teasingly replies, “I’ll say. It looked like you’d seen a ghost!”
Josuke has to keep himself from jumping at how apt the simile is. Instead, he awkwardly scratches the back of his head, cheeks a little flushed. He’s 25 going on 26, but one chance meeting with Minako and he feels like he’s 16 again, getting flustered every time she teases him. ‘You’re an adult and she’s a friggin’ teenager, get yourself together man,’ he thinks to himself, but it’s hard when it’s like she hasn’t changed in ten years. In reality, he knows he’s the one who’s changed. Minako just finally caught up to what he knew.
“Yeah, I bet... But enough about that. Where were you heading?”
She brightens up immediately. “Oh, right! Do you know where the platform is for the train leading to Minato-ku? I need to take a connecting train from there to get to Tatsumi Port Island, but it figures the day I actually set out—on my birthday no less—I lose the directions on my last train.”
Tatsumi Port Island... The name’s familiar, and immediately afterwards he gets a sinking realization why. It’s already that time, and Minako has no idea what she’s heading into. The Dark Hour, Shadows... maybe even Death City and witches too, if everything played out the same. Still, he’d promised he wouldn’t interfere.
The least he can do is send her off with a smile.
“Yeah, sure thing. Just head to the platform below this one and wait for train 9. That one should lead you straight to Minato-ku,” he explains, pointing over at the stairs that lead below with a kind smile. “... and happy birthday, too.”
Almost impossibly, Minako manages to grin even wider, painfully honest and sincere. It makes his chest tight, and all the memories he’d tried to keep in perfect detail are nothing compared to the real deal. “Thanks, for the directions and the greeting! I gotta get going now, so later, and thanks again!”
She waves him goodbye, luggage trailing behind her as she heads for the stairs. Just like that, his first (best, greatest, dearest) love is walking out of his life. It’s too quick, and already he’s thinking about how he’ll forget parts of this day, the details that made it everything he wanted to remember forever.
It’s borrowed time, but just a little longer should be fine.
“Hey!” he calls out, and she turns around just at the steps. “What’s the XXII mean?”
Okay, not his best question to make the moment last. He never did find out though, and he’d always meant to.
The girl stares at him, a little startled, but once she realizes what he’s talking about, she laughs, bright and sunny like he remembers. That, at least, he still recalls as clear as day.
“It’s the end and the beginning! See you later mister!” she yells back, her waving hand the last thing he sees before she disappears beneath the stairs.
His chest hurts, and there’s a wetness in his eyes that he knows means he’s actually about to cry. Just his luck, his train finally arrives too. Rubbing at his eyes as discreetly as he can, Josuke tries to dry his eyes before anything starts. Crying on a train in public would be too much.
As he steps inside, eyes dry and smile wide, it’s a smile from the bottom of his heart. He met her again, juts like he said he would.
He’ll always keep his promises, if it’s to her.
- no seriously i looped sunday morning for probably 3/4 of this thing
- if things don't make sense i attribute that to writing from 2-7am every time BETAING IS FOR THE WEAK (and non lazy)
- NEVER AGAIN DO I WANT TO BE POSSESSED INTO WRITING SOMETHING LIKE THIS