fic: lather, rinse, repeat. (oneshot)

[cloudedhues]

title: lather, rinse, repeat.
fandom: persona 3 | akuhamu
stats: 1,107 | general | oneshot
prompt/summary: you'd think you'd be used to this by now. akihiko, after everything.
notes: second person, ahoy!

You’re in love.

The truth of it cracks you open and you are half-afraid that your heart will spill out right then and there for her to see. You fumble your way to something legible in reply and hope she doesn’t notice how much her smile makes your head weak.

So you say this – your only grasp at a chance to keep your shaking hands from giving you away.

Will you be my girl?

Again that smile.

Often, Junpei would joke about the phrase “If looks could kill” in relation to Mitsuru or Takeba and he’d laugh when you shivered at the thought of the ice in their glares. But never do they attribute murder to smiles such as hers. She gives you another one now, her gentle heart in her eyes, and you’ve never loved her lethality more than in this moment. She gives you your death warrant and effectively marks you as hers with one word.

Yes.

(Distantly you realize this:

She is not your other half. She does not complete you.

Because at that moment, even after your sister is nothing but ash in the wind, even after your best friend bleeds on the concrete in the dark, she reminds you of a truth you’ve long forgotten: that absurdly, maybe just maybe, you were already whole enough by yourself to begin with.)

The weeks after that pass by like the wisps of some half-remembered dream. You don’t remember the bigger pieces of the story but you seem to latch on to inane details. The direction her hair parted in. The smell of her baking something for you in the afternoon. The little pleased sound she made when you gave her something in return.

You remember feelings, fabrics of visceral sensations like a blanket in your mind. You remember the uncertainty in having so many firsts. It is tense. It is awkward. It is unforgivable and unfairly damaging to your nerves. Every moment spent with her is like walking at the bare edge of a cliff.

You love every second of it.

You drink in her happiness, her cheerful humor, the way she can tease you out of your shell with a glint in her eye and a cheeky grin.

You don’t even try to think of the events that struck you and your friends and caused it all to crumble.

While Death is an old visitor, you’ve never considered your own before. You refuse to consider hers. The day the choice is presented to you, you realize that there was never one to begin with. Not when you already made it long ago — at the moment you looked at her in the eye and promised to protect everything precious to you.

You are done with running.

Forgetting this never occurred to you.

And yet.

So now you run to the rooftop, the same place you made her yours and she made you hers and you grasp the handle and twist it open and you hope your promise held.

She is there, as if there is no other place she should be.

You breathe in relief even while you gasp and cough and try to get ahold of your lungs. Every breath brings back a wave of nostalgia, so wide you’re sure you’ll drown but she keeps her smile just for you and that keeps your head above for now.

Your words come out in a rush and even while you talk, pieces of memories come back in bits or tenfold and that smile, that smile keeps you at bay and you hold onto it like a lifeline.

You take her in your arms and you wonder how you could ever live without an anchor. She takes a look at you, as if remembering you for later and closes her eyes.

She sleeps.

Starting from now, we’ll never be apart.

Because if you could, you know you’d follow her to her dreams, too.

You are too smart to call Death a thief. It does not take. It does not tear pieces or steal your parts.

You are still whole, just like she taught you. Death did not take that. Instead, it bent you out of shape. It mangled you. After that, nothing that fit before will notch back except for the empty ache in your chest. Death reshaped you into something new and you jokingly wish it could have been more original when it did.

You’ve hashed through this tired old story before and the hollow realization that you’re living it is surprisingly just as striking as the first time around. Death did not steal but it made you forget who you are. You are no longer hers. Instead you become a series of steps. A to-do list dotted and waiting to be checked off.

Your name is now:

Wake up. Exercise. Run. Eat. Work. Train. Run and run and keep on running until the ache in your chest is indistinguishable from the burning in your lungs. Go home. Eat. Sleep.

You repeat.

You move. You wake up and you sleep and wake up. Ignore her. Eat. Train. Just forget her for one second. Sleep and wake. Sleep and wake and realize that she is no longer there with her silly jokes and her feeding you sweet fries every Sunday. Go in the ring and breathe out the remains of who you are — gripping her hand like it was meant to be with yours during ramen dates after school, the way she laughs against your mouth, the bruises on her arms after a night of battles with the shadows following your footsteps — and summon it in your fist and smack and hit it out of you until your knuckles bleed.

Sometimes, sometimes, you break the routine.

At some nights, you wake up too early off schedule, startled out of your dreams with sweat gathering like a collar around your neck. And she is there, crawling out of your chest with every pounding beat of your heart and you wish she would leave you but how could she do something she’d already done?

So you do what you can. You take a breath. Maybe two. You shut your eyes and go back to sleep. You wake. Forget that you love her. Open your eyes. Because you do – you love her, don’t you? You love her with every painful stutter of your heart even if it ends up killing you.

It’s fitting what lived in her. You should’ve expected nothing less than signing your own execution the second you fell in love with Death herself.

So you repeat.

You start over.

As you’ve learned twice before, the world will move on.

Even if you don’t.