In all honesty, Mitsuru was willing to admit to paying less attention to Akihiko than she should have been. While she was used to everyone being wary of her, that should never have included her dearest friend.
It had been some time, now, since he'd admitted to that fear, but she still felt it as a failure. Surely, she could have taken time at some point to assure him- or everyone, really, it explained a good bit of Ken's wariness as well- that of course she would never use her offensively-oriented powers on them unless she had to.
And even in Mikage-Cho, the use of one Marin Karin to reverse the effects of another was still purely theoretical, so odds were that was never going to happen.
Friends don't use friends as test subjects.
And while that particular case of fear had been unfortunate, that wasn't even the only thing she'd overlooked. She hadn't noticed him getting worked up enough to run off to Tartarus, and that had almost ended with her being, once again, the only Persona User at her school. She hadn't noticed how he knew things about Mikage-Cho, even though, looking back, the hints had clearly been there.
She hadn't even noticed his resolution until some time had passed since it happened. And according to everyone she'd asked, when it came to Persona Users, that was a big milestone.
Admittedly, she'd only asked three people. And Akihiko himself didn't seem to think it was that big a deal, so maybe it was okay?
It's not. It's not okay. We should have noticed.
Still, even that had been months ago. It shouldn't have been bothering her anymore. Except that, apparently, there was another thing she hadn't noticed.
This one, at least, had been kept hidden deeper than her basic mental probes could reach, had been at least since Polydeuces became Caesar to mark the first of their number finally beginning to figure himself out. And it wasn't like she'd ever claimed to be qualified to look for that sort of thing.
But there were things that a mind reader should not have been blindsided by, and being asked out by someone she'd known for years was definitely one of them. Surely, there had to have been something to see, right?
Except, if there had been, she hadn't seen it. And now she'd been standing there without saying anything for almost a full minute.
That probably wasn't helping anything.
Just say something! I don't care what! ...Actually, say yes. There are much worse ways to spend an evening.
Well, she supposed if there was anyone she could trust in these matters, it would be herself. Even if it was her less productive side. "That- I think- I would like that." That was the sort of thing she was supposed to say, right?
Akihiko accepted her answer, at least, seeming more relieved than he should have been, and it never crossed Mitsuru's mind that maybe he could be just as bad at this as she was.
"I don't see what you're in such a fuss about," Shinji commented, like he had absolutely nothing to do with Akihiko putting himself in that situation to begin with. The only one with a more immediate connection to this was Ken. Or maybe Koromaru. And even they wouldn't have been able to do anything without Shinji pointing out the possibility that he liked Mitsuru to begin with. "I mean, it's not like it's anything serious, right?"
Right. Nothing serious. Only the first date he'd ever managed to work up the courage to go on. "Oh, really? If you think it's so simple, why don't you go ask out Yamagishi?" With the teal-haired girl, the worst that could happen was that she'd say no, right?
"What, and paint an even bigger target on her back?" Right, the fangirls still hadn't fully abated. They just weren't acting as overtly anymore.
Hopefully, if things with Mitsuru worked out, they'd figure that it wasn't worth harassing Shinji's friends anymore. If Akihiko had known this sort of thing could happen, he would probably have spent first year hiding under his desk or something and let some other guy deal with them.
Not that whoever it was would deserve it. And if it ended up being Aniki, we'd be right back here again.
"You're the one who keeps wanting to pick fights with them." Not that he was giving his brother permission or anything- or, at least, that was what he'd tell anyone who asked- but maybe it would have made things easier.
He didn't get a proper response to that. In all honesty, he hadn't really been expecting one, either. "...Look, Mitsuru has enough money to buy anything she wants. Don't worry about impressing her, just try and relax."
Easy for him to say. He didn't have any stake in this. "And how do you expect me to do that?"
"Oh, you know... breathe, talk about whatever you want to... try not to think about how she could freeze you solid without even trying..."
"Shinji!"
It was a grand total of fifteen minutes in that the two of them realized that the other had no idea what they were doing, either.
In hindsight, Mitsuru supposed she should have expected it, since, for a while, Akihiko had had the social skills of a brick on a good day and the only people he really spent time around were herself and Shinjiro. But this would make things difficult.
We're going to stand out even worse than we do already...
Then again, it wasn't as if this was ever going to be simple. So maybe it didn't change as much as she thought it would. "Have you... ever been here at this time of year before?" Maybe not the best question to ask.
"Last year. You... remember how it is we figured out Ken could Channel?" Six months ago, she would have been upset with him for freely talking about magic in public. Now that she'd seen a place where nobody bothered all that much with keeping it secret, and everything worked out regardless, it didn't seem that big a deal.
"Yes. I've always wondered just what possessed the chairman to show it to us." She had a few theories, of course. Not that she could confirm them. Asking after the fate of the other timeline's Shinjiro was one of those things she'd decided against doing.
If certain of those theories were right... Mitsuru definitely did not want to know.
There's not a lot of things you want to go without learning... is it really for the best, this way?
"Well, Shinji was getting paranoid about the whole thing, so I decided to drag him to follow Ken for the day, and he passed through here. It... didn't help." She'd sort of figured that. "We didn't really look around, either. At that point, Shinji just wanted to leave, and I had to make sure he didn't- That he actually made it back."
Mitsuru thought she had a pretty good idea as to what he was going to say. "You found your resolve shortly after Ken told you about his... unique circumstances. Would I be wrong to assume those facts are related?"
"Probably not." Akihiko gave a short, humorless laugh, and it occurred to Mitsuru that this probably wasn't the sort of thing the various pairs around them were discussing. "But I don't know for sure. Is it strange, if I can't actually remember what my resolution was?"
"I don't think I'm qualified to say." It was approaching ten years now... More than half her life, and she'd still never experienced anything like that.
"I mean, I couldn't tell you when it happened, either. I just know that I left the tower with one Persona, and the next time I really talked to you, I had another. And it didn't really feel strange at the time, but-" Okay, this was getting a bit excessive.
"Akihiko." Now that she knew why, she hated that just saying his name could so easily get his full attention "Do you like the Persona you have now?" A nod. "And are you satisfied with who you are?"
"Isn't that the same basic thing?" Yes. Yes, it was. That was exactly the point she'd been trying to make.
"If you're satisfied with the results, I can't see there being any problems with how you got there." If only because of the kind of person he was. He'd always been the most stable of them, and maybe that was part of why he was the first of their number to reach a resolution. As little as that mattered.
Friends don't use friends as test subjects. Especially not if they happen to be dating them.
Akihiko didn't seem fully convinced, so Mitsuru continued. "If it makes you feel better, I... would never have considered this, with the person you were at this time last year." She'd barely considered it now, but that was mostly because the possibility had never occurred to her. Either way, it would probably be best not to say that part out loud.
"I wouldn't blame you. I was kind of an idiot back then." And, suddenly, all of the remaining tension lifted.
It was... strange. The two of them hadn't really let their guard down around each other before- Mitsuru had been scared of making a fool of herself, and Akihiko, as far as she could tell, had been terrified- but now that they had, everything felt different.
Mitsuru thought it was a bit too early to know if it was love, but whatever it was, she found she liked it quite a bit.
It was impossible to deny things had changed between them. Not that anyone really asked, and Akihiko thought it was better that way, if only because they'd never actually gotten around to working out exactly where they stood now.
Shinji alternated between being supportive and unhelpful. "Look, if this works out, do me a favor and kiss her in front of the whole school, okay? I might be able to attract new club members then."
"...I'm pretty sure the rest of the school would have already noticed if we ever get that far." They both had exactly zero clue how relationships worked, it wasn't like they were going anywhere fast.
Shinji just shook his head. "Yeah, but some people can be really stubborn." Like he had any business saying that.
Not that we're much better.
"Hey, I manage to deal with you, don't I?" He managed to avoid the thrown pillow without really trying- but then, in his case, trying would probably have involved Sukunda, if only because he was looking for an excuse to test it out on something.
Sure, he could probably work out what it did just from the name, but that wasn't quite as interesting.
Things continued in a similar vein for a while. Sometimes, Akihiko and Mitsuru would eat lunch together, or just sit and talk, and one time he'd convinced her to get ramen with him, and she'd had even less idea what she was doing than usual, but somehow she'd managed not to ruin her reputation, even if she'd probably be too embarrassed to set foot in that restaurant again at least for the next several months.
Mitsuru had then spent the next weekend trying to look up fast food etiquette online, and come up empty-handed. Same as when she'd tried to figure out clothing after she had been banned from putting together her own outfits.
She still didn't see what had been so bad about the ensemble she'd put together. SEES' nighttime activities meant lots of physical activity, it was only practical!
We also almost gave Father a heart attack. Though it's not like we would have worn it out in public...
Either way, she didn't think there was much to say about the current situation. Aside from that maybe she should tell her father at some point, but that could wait until she actually had some sort of idea where this whole thing was going.
Shinjiro wasn't making it any easier. But then, the only thing Shinjiro made any easier was convincing people that they didn't need to recruit literally every Persona User in Iwatodai and field them in battle, and she didn't think he wanted to hear about himself being used as an example in that way.
Mitsuru was pretty sure it was usually the male half of a relationship that was threatened by older family members, if the various romantic comedies she'd watched had any sort of grounding in reality, but then, most girls couldn't turn their significant other into a block of ice for stepping out of line, and she didn't have any older relatives in the city anyway.
Takeharu Kirijo sighed as he read the latest complaint from the Nanjo Group about the general state of Iwatodai's Persona Users. Why couldn't his daughter have the normal problems that came with being a teenager?
...Not that she would have wanted their interference if she did. This was something she needed to figure out for herself.
As it was, she thought she might just be getting there.
At the end of their second year in high school, Akihiko Sanada and Mitsuru Kirijo exited Gekkoukan High hand in hand.
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