Two Guys, a Girl, and a Date

[helenchanted]

Who: Shinjiro Aragaki, Akihiko Sanada, Minako Arisato, Miki Sanada, Minato Arisato
Where: DUAL LOG of Apartment snooping and Dateos
Summary: Aki asks Minato to distract Miki while him, Shinjiro (and Minako because she'll find a way anyway) snoop around her apartment for Christmas presents. But have they found more than they bargained for?
Warnings: Derps.

[MIKI'S APARTMENT]
Well Minato was true to his word, and Miki is currently not here and will not be for a good while. She thankfully has left the air conditioner running since the weather is unusually hot outside and...a bunch of stuff streamed on her bed. It seems that she had been trying on a bunch of clothing to pick the right one, then grabbed what she needed. It wasn't a mess, but there were things scattered around and left in a hurry. Not like anyone would come into her apartment, right?

Right.

[DATE]
Miki is still confused as to what is happening. Why did she accept in the first place? Well...she has an idea, but she isn't sure how she feels about that at all. Regardless, she had spent way too much time wasting to pick out an outfit that fit the weather and wasn't too casual or too fancy, considering they'd be going swimming at one point, but finally settled on a simple shirt and a jean skirt. Her backpack had everything she needs for later.

As a bonus that allows her easy movement should anything happen! ...If they should get attacked. A Sanada was never unprepared, after all.

Meeting Minato outside, she gives him a wave. It is...still rather unreal to talk with the Arisato and realizing it's not the one who monologues about how the entire world sucked and how death was the only thing unifying all of them.

"Sorry about the wait! I'm ready!" She is...surprisingly cheerful?

Comments

[greatseal]

"Through the door. Which you could have used, too."

But she sees Shinji has disappeared from view behind him, which means there's someone better suited to be giving Akihiko a lecture. She's okay with handing off the duty. "Come on, let's go inside."

[risetocaesar]

Akihiko gave her a withering look in reply.

"That's not sneaky at all. You two are trying to take all of the excitement out of this." Regardless, he stepped through the open door and into Miki's apartment, tilting his head at the heap of clothes on the bed.

Girls were messy.

[themortalhalf]

It's probably best Shinjiro wasn't around to bear witness to that comment.

He leaves the vacant apartment, his body a mess of rigid, tense lines, jaw tightly clenched. He feels the anger simmering underneath his skin as he walks down the hall, opening the door to Miki's room and pulling it closed with more force than he intended to. But even that isn't much of an outlet. He hates how familiar this situation is—watching him do questionable, asinine things without thinking twice about it. It had happened all the time back home, both in Tartarus and outside it. It made Shinjiro postulate that stupidity wasn't something that vanished on its own once the moment was over, just accumulated until an event tipped it over to the breaking point, and there wasn't much that Shinjiro could do about Aki's actions until it did. Even when they were kids he'd pull this kind of stupid shit. Except he had been a kid then. Now he wasn't. He just insisted on acting like one and listening like one.

It would almost be too easy to say nothing. Just turn the lights on and stew in his own silence. But he can't.

"That was one of the stupidest things I've seen you do," he says, voice still an excellent imitation of a growl, once he enters Miki's room and spots the two of them. He barely notices the mess of clothes strewn around her room; it's something his mind processes but doesn't read into yet, because that's not what his focus is on. He feels like yelling at him—feels almost like hitting him, really—but yelling would be pointless and so would be starting a physical fight. Lecturing him is probably pretty damn pointless, too, but there are some things he can't help doing. Shinjiro can keep himself from yelling, keep his voice level enough that it sounds more like sheathed steel instead of uncontrolled fire, but he can't keep himself from saying nothing at all.

"I don't know how many damn lives you think you have, but most people only have one, and they're smart enough to not try risking it on stupid reckless shit because they think they've got something to prove." He looks towards the balcony then, pausing for a shallow split-second. "The door was open, Aki."

[greatseal]

She doesn't think Akihiko's thought process was entirely wrong... after all, she'd done essentially the same thing to break into Shinjiro's apartment. The difference is, she'd taken precautions (as much a precaution as using a Persona was.) It had also been the only choice at the time. She was justified. Akihiko, however, hadn't been cautious and hadn't checked for alternate solutions first. His actions were reckless despite her knowing he'd been completely confident in his ability to jump before he did.

But with the way the mood is brewing, she's even more sure she doesn't want to get involved. Commenting would only get Shinji to remember her own past transgression and get even more agitated. So instead she keeps silent (for once) and focuses very intently on checking out the closet for possibilities. The boys shouldn't be allowed to look in the closet and dresser, anyway. Some things girls really don't need even their brothers to see.

[risetocaesar]

Akihiko folded his arms over his chest, content to listen until Shinji was finished with his lecture -- at least for the time being.

"I knew I wasn't going to fall," he said plainly, though there was a distinctly defensive edge to his voice. Still, he stated it with such conviction that he may as well have been informing Shinjiro that the sky was blue, or snow was cold. "I didn't ask Minato to make sure the door stayed unlocked because it seemed too suspicious. There was nothing wrong with the original plan. I may not be invincible, but I know what I can and can't do."

[themortalhalf]

And this is why he hates it. It's like arguing with a wall: very little gives. It's hard to pit two different brands of stubbornness against each other and come out with anything changed.

"I know what you think you can do." And, again, is also pretty sure about what Aki can do. But just because you can probably accomplish something doesn't mean you should just abandon caution in favor of immortal self-confidence. "Doesn't mean you couldn't've waited for two damn minutes while we checked the door, because I did ask."

And even if Shinjiro hadn't, he would've checked the door anyway. He could see Miki forgetting to lock the door. She had probably been nervous. And if it had been locked? Then they could have worked out something else. Maybe it would have included the balcony, but they could have made it safer.

[greatseal]

Shinjiro and Akihiko have both stated their sides of the argument and it's clear that neither one is going to budge. Minako considers this as safe a place as any to interject.

"We don't want to spend more time here than we have to, it's rude to Miki. Akihiko-senpai, why don't you start over there?" She points to the other side of the room. "And Shinjiro-senpai, you can start there." Pointing to the exact opposite corner from Akihiko, on her side. "I'll check the closet."

[risetocaesar]

The look he shot Shinjiro in reply was nothing short of reproachful, but he was glad when Minako cut in and began giving directions. Wordless, he turned to the indicated corner and began snooping, taking some measure of care not to knock things over, though he probably could have taken more.

The black tarp in the corner, however, was awfully suspicious. He lifted the edge of it gingerly, as though whatever was underneath might leap out and bite him. Leaning in, he began to examine the cabinet underneath.

"I didn't realize she had so many Featherman figures."

[themortalhalf]

Shinjiro's response is equally wordless, weathering Akihiko's look of reproach with a long, unyielding stare of his own that flickers over to Minako briefly before he eventually makes his way over to the opposite side, walking over Miki's meditation mat and taking care to not step on any of her clothes as he looks around.

When he hears Aki speak again, his mouth thins, the frustration not something that's about to dissipate in a matter of minutes, but he restrains it, keeping it under sullen, unamused wrappings that might as well be business as fucking usual. He sighs, and looks over his shoulder then, spotting the black tarp he's sure he's seen in passing before when he's been inside Miki's apartment, and then at the cabinet underneath.

Featherman figurines, huh?

"If she feels like she's got to cover it up, she probably doesn't want anyone knowin' about it."

[greatseal]

"It wouldn't be good to give her a present she'd be embarrassed about, even if it's something she likes."

...Minako doesn't see what the big deal is with liking to watch Featherman, but she also dealt with Ken and his complex about it. Kids have strange fears, sometimes.

Meanwhile, she's still looking through the closet. There aren't that many clothes in here, no doubt because they're scattered through the room instead. But the space reveals a tool kit on the floor along the left side. The top shelf is also filled with trophies. Minako takes one down and examines it. The inscription shows that it's from a martial arts exhibition.

[risetocaesar]

"Yeah," Akihiko admitted, frowning to himself. His voice betrayed his disappointment. It may have been something she liked, but if she felt like she had to keep it covered up, it wasn't the right route as far as gift-giving went. Letting the tarp fall back over the cabinet, he went back to searching, making an effort not to leave things out of place and actually managing to succeed, to a degree.

[themortalhalf]

Figuring that Minako had claimed the closet, Shinjiro finishes looking over his side of the room, finding little of note except what her taste in clothes seemed to be. That, of course, might be something actually worth knowing, but he wouldn't trust Aki within five feet of a woman's clothing rack. Buying a gift like that required more sense and a finer eye to detail than Aki probably possessed. You let girls buy their own clothing anyway, didn't you? Unless you were pretty damn sure about what the hell you were buying. That was just common sense talking.

"I know she has a big toolkit somewhere. She likes to work with mechanical stuff, I guess. Said she worked on Mitsuru's motorcycle a lot back home."

Not that he knew much about those kinds of things. Or if she even needed anything like that anyway. Especially here where some things were pretty backwards.

[greatseal]

"That's over here in the closet. It looks pretty complete to me..." Not that she knows all that much about tools, but she doubts Akihiko and Mitsuru do either, unless they've been holding out on her. That's probably not the best avenue to go for a gift, either. "And she has trophies from her competitions."

There don't seem to be any other clues in the closet, so she closes it and heads to the dresser. Maybe there's a brand of makeup or a type of jewelry she likes.

[risetocaesar]

Focused on his own search, Akihiko made his way over towards the bed. Mostly, it was covered with clothes that had been tossed aside carelessly, but one thing managed to catch his eye -- the head of a doll peeking out from beneath a forgotten pair of jeans.

Curious, he reached forward to retrieve the doll, moving the mound of clothes aside to reveal that there were three others much like it left behind on the bedspread, as well. It had a collector's tag tied to its wrist, which he turned over and frowned as he read.

"Hey, Shinji. Do these look familiar to you at all? Looks like they're part of a series."

In fact, they looked a hell of a lot like the doll Shinji had stolen for Miki all those years ago.

[themortalhalf]

Turning away from the desk he had been edging towards, Shinjiro picks his way through the maze of clothing and approaches the bed. His eyes stray to the doll in Aki's hands first, pupils narrowing as he stares at it. It doesn't take long for an old memory to well to the surface, faded at its edges just like a well-used piece of clothing might be, but still one of the more vibrant despite the age and dust.

After a moment of silence, he moves around Aki, reaching for one of the other dolls on the bed. He finds himself wincing involuntarily when he finally gets a good look at it, a sharp sensation of phantom pain racing across his jaw. He evaluates it, turning it over in his hands and feeling the weight there. It takes a second, then another, but a small, wry smile eventually breaks across his face. "Yeah."

It's not the same one—none of them are—but the ache of familiarity's there. Not like it any of them would be the same one anyway. By the time he could've bought her one—or when she could have asked for one herself—the one he had stolen would have probably been long since retired. The tag on the doll in his hands bears both a brand and company name that looks familiar to him.

"They're the same kind," he says after a brief moment of debate. He thinks so, anyway. Could be wrong, but they're similar enough. "The girls at school liked to collect the damn things. Half of why I took that one."

So she could have the kind of doll the rest of the girls had. So she wouldn't feel so different from the rest of them. Just because she was an orphan didn't mean she shouldn't have what other girls had. That's what he thought then, anyway.

[greatseal]

That statement draws Minako over, curious to see this artifact from the past. She peeks at it from around Shinji's back.

"....I thought it would be a rabbit."

But maybe rabbits are just Akihiko's thing? The comment pretty much confirms she knows the story they do, though.

[risetocaesar]

Akihiko looked between the both of them, biting his lower lip in thought. He and Shinjiro had both noticed the same thing -- despite there being numerous dolls, none of them were the same as the one Shinji had stolen for her when they were children.

"You know," he began slowly, still holding onto the doll as though it aided his thought process, "This place has all kinds of things you wouldn't think it did. Makes sense, since people come here from different times and different places. I wonder if we could find her that doll. Or one like it, at least."

He glanced at the dolls remaining on the bed. Some girls Miki's age might have thought they were too old for dolls, but she clearly enjoyed collecting them. They were out in the open and everything, unlike her figurines.

[themortalhalf]

"A rabbit?"

He sends Minako a rather quizzical look—why a rabbit?—before his eyes stray back to Akihiko again, then to the doll, before finally coming to rest on the doll his own hands are holding.

"Maybe," he says finally, with a small shrug of his shoulders as he mulls over the idea. "You can find a lot of odd things in this place. Be worth looking around for."

And maybe actually paying for it this time, if it exists.

[greatseal]

Minako sends Shinji a look back - the 'I'll tell you later' look. Explaining the whole saga of Akihiko using her as Miki's replacement in front of Akihiko doesn't seem like the best idea.

Also, that had better be a 'definitely' paying for it this time. He's too old to get away with theft anymore.

Her curiosity about the doll satisfied, Minako moves on, stepping out into the kitchen. There's a familiar book lying on the table, and it seems like she'd been working on making two copies.

"She likes photography, too... Has she shown you her photo album yet, senpai?"

[risetocaesar]

"I didn't know," Akihiko admitted, unable to keep himself from feeling just a little guilty. There were so many things he didn't know about his sister yet; they had so many lost years to catch up on. He joined Minako by the kitchen table, looking over her shoulder at the photo album.

"Looks like she takes a lot of those..."

[themortalhalf]

Oh, he knows about that photo album. There is a good pile of photos in there that he'd prefer stay hidden from the public eye. His other self seemed to have enjoyed looking like a moron through the camera lens, and it was embarrassing, to look at himself in the photos Miki had managed to take while he hadn't been looking. He may not be that Shinjiro, but he was still him, just without those experiences and memories. He didn't know if that made it better or worse.

He almost immediately follows Aki out, but hesitates, making sure to put the doll back where it belongs, looking at it one final time, before putting some clothes over it and leaving it in as close to the same state it had been in before it had been disturbed.

After that, he quickly crosses the threshold and into the kitchen. He stares at the photo album, expression unreadable. From the mess around the table, however, he can guess at what she was doing, and feels a little bit guilty. Though he had all ready known that she was going to do something like this, in a way.

"She said she was going to show it to you, but wanted to do a few things first. That's why she didn't tell you about it."

She hadn't even intended to tell him about it, but Shinjiro had accidentally stumbled his way into it.

[greatseal]

"...Well if that's the case, maybe we shouldn't ruin her surprise."

She sounds just a little bit disappointed. She wanted to see Akihiko's expression when he got to the pages of Shinji sleeping with marker all over his face. But, a reaction like that would be too hard to fake when Miki showed the book off for real. It's for the best.

She moves to close the book again to leave it as she'd found it, except this time, the movement jostles the mess of papers on the table. Before she can catch them, a small pile slips off the table and scatters on the floor.

Yet another display of brilliant coordination from the leader in front of her senpai.

".....I'll get those." She quickly kneels to gather them up....

and stops when she spots the paper lying on top of the others.

[risetocaesar]

"She did?"

He, too, was disappointed as Minako closed the book, but he supposed it would be worth it to wait. If Miki wanted to surprise him, he couldn't deny her that. He could wait just a little longer, impatient as he was sometimes.

He peered curiously at the paper on top of the stack as Minako gathered them together, raising an eyebrow.

"What's that? She likes drawing umbrellas, too?"

[themortalhalf]

Shinjiro, however, is not disappointed in the least. Relieved, mostly. They can laugh and giggle at his own expense when he's not around to suffer through it.

But that changes quickly enough once the stack of papers escape Minako's guard. He begins to help her gather some of the more audacious strays that aren't immediately within Minako's reach, when he stops mid-reach, freezing at Aki's comment, curious, and looks over, eyes drawn to the paper in question.

He's not at all surprised by what he sees there; he wasn't oblivious to the tiny hints that pointed towards the idea that Miki liked Minato, and this only confirms what he guessed. Shinjiro is, however, surprised by what he hears.

Now he's disappointed.

It's at times like this that Shinjiro remembers that his best friend is a complete moron.

This is just one of the many facts of life that Shinjiro hoped to never have to teach Aki about—maybe because such things were pretty damn confusing in the first place, once you got around to experiencing them first-hand for yourself. Not to mention that talking about feelings with Aki had never quite made it onto Shinjiro's bucket list. Shinjiro had always figured, oblivious as his friend was, that Aki would fall for someone at some point or another, and start to understand that life had more to offer him than adrenaline and protein and the satisfaction of punching someone in the face. Have his moment of profound epiphany, and go through his own period of frazzled personal crisis for a few minutes, mull over it for a day or however long it took him to adjust, and then get the hell on with life.

...Granted, Shinjiro never thought he was this hopeless. Well, maybe Shinjiro did know, deep, deep down. But denial is a beautiful thing, sometimes. Makes Shinjiro worry about him less.

"Aki..." Shinjiro stares up at him with an incredulous, withered expression, almost like a mother who thought her poor dumb kid would knew more about life (and girls) than he did, only to come away from the encounter sorely disappointed, now given a legitimate reason to wonder if she would ever get to have any grandchildren to spoil. "Use your eyes."

[greatseal]

Minako isn't nearly as invested in mothering Akihiko as Shinjiro is, but her eyebrows shoot up as well at his statement. 'Likes drawing umbrellas,' seriously. Then again.... Knowing Akihiko, he was probably never the kind of child who had any need to learn this particular playground ritual.

She's not sure if she should feel bad for him, or admire his single-minded innocence.

In the feeling-bad vein, maybe she should give him a small hint.

"I didn't realize she was actually interested..." It's not like she's going to just give away the answer to the umbrella question, though. Let Akihiko's hamster wheel turn a bit longer.

Her statement, however, is legitimate. Miki has always acted like she's trying very hard not to hate Minato's guts. This put things into an entirely new perspective - and gave her a new character trait.