Persona: A Less-Than Cinematic Tale (Starring Hikari of PQ2)

Apparently, there was a huge mess upstairs, and everyone who lived on the upper floors was struggling to clean it. Hikari, hearing this, was glad that she lived on the ground floor, even if she could do with having a window that was a bit more accessible.

Because of the mess, no one from the lower floors was allowed upstairs at the moment. Nobody Hikari knew who lived on the upper floors was visible downstairs either, though admittedly she only knew two people.

She only caught sight of Nara-san once in the whole morning, and he didn't look pleased, so she made the decision not to approach.

It was implied that none of them were supposed to talk about it, but that clearly wasn't stopping anyone. If Hikari knew rumor mills- and she'd been the victim of them enough times to say she probably did- it would be all over the campus by the end of the day, if there wasn't anything more interesting happening.

Of course, there probably was something more interesting happening. When they weren't even allowed to see what happened... it'd probably deflate once someone who was actually there got to talk about it.

Until then, Hikari would just have to live with all of the talking.

---

Despite her general attempts to avoid the attention of others, Hikari still managed to draw attention in Hirose-sensei's class by being, supposedly, one of the most talented students.

She wasn't entirely sure why she was told that- she certainly didn't think she was anything special- but it... felt sort of nice, to get a compliment like that.

If only she wasn't so worried that people would get jealous and come after her because of that.

She forced herself to breathe deeply, and calm down. Worrying wasn't going to help her with much of anything. It'd just... put her back to where she was, three years ago. And she really, really didn't want to go back to that.

She needed to do something to distract herself. She needed it now.


[ ] She'd go to Cafe Chagall and have a nice, relaxing drink.
-[ ] With Shiyuri Kosono.
-[ ] With Tsukane Akabori.

[ ] She'd try and make friends with the other members of Hirose-sensei's class. They wouldn't be mean to her if they liked her, right?

[ ] She'd go study in the library for a bit.
-[ ] With Shiyuri Kosono.
-[ ] With Tsukane Akabori.
-[ ] By herself.

[ ] She could take one of her friends and see a film at The Blooper Reel.
-[ ] Shiyuri Kosono.
-[ ] Tsukane Akabori.

[ ] The Dreaming Garden was almost definitely dried out by now!

[ ] There were almost certainly parts of Kusoka that she hadn't seen yet... Time to explore!

[ ] It might not have been as long as she was told to wait for... but she wanted to see Shinjiro and Ribbon again.

After the recent storm, it was nice to see that the campus was drying out again. Hikari sat down in the garden, enjoying the sunlight and letting herself forget about the various stressful things that had been happening to her recently.

She had classes to go to, people who she could sort of almost call friends... She even had, effectively, superpowers, now, and a whole world to use them in- a world she'd probably have to explore! Even when she wasn't asking Gullveig for things, she could still feel her offering up information about things she'd never asked about in her life.

Ghosts existed. So did tiny robots that did battle with hourglasses and somehow survived nearly losing an arm, to have their health recovered by stale french fries. Sure, that second one probably wasn't a thing in reality, but it was still jarring enough to be worth consideration.

"Maybe I should have stayed closer to home..." She mumbled. "But... I guess then I wouldn't be able to help them." Shinjiro would be stuck in the cinema forever, and Ribbon... it was hard to figure out what would have happened to Ribbon, but odds were she wouldn't get to go home. Not that Hikari had any idea how to do that at the moment.

But the flowers were nice, and pretty, and listened to her without judging. So at least she had that going for her.

---

Hikari wouldn't say she'd gotten anything productive done, but having time to herself to relax was certainly helpful. At the very least, she now wasn't paranoid that her classmates would turn and attack her at every step, which would probably make it a lot easier to concentrate in class.

Now, however, the sun was sinking in the sky, and there was only so much a person could take of sitting around in a garden. Maybe it would be more interesting if there had been more people... but at the moment, she couldn't think of anyone who would like to spend the afternoon with her like that. Why would they? She was just... there.

On her way past the tunnel by the garden, she paused, Gullveig whispering something to her.

Something's changed.


[ ] If Gullveig was saying this, it must have been important. She's go to the other world.

[ ] Whatever was going on, it could wait. School- and the library, by extension- was more important.
-[ ] There, she would meet with Shiyuri Kosono.
-[ ] There, she would meet with Tsukane Akabori.
-[ ] There, she would study alone.

[ ] Whatever was going on, it could probably wait a day or so. She'd continue relaxing at the cafe, with a warm drink.
-[ ] There, she would meet with Shiyuri Kosono.
-[ ] There, she would meet with Tsukane Akabori.

[ ] She wanted to go to bed early. No amount of messing about with another world was going to stop her from doing so.