maskormenacelogs | ( there's no man's land )

When Minato wakes up, it's to a wicked headache.

He's sick. Did they stay too late in Tartarus last night...? It takes a few long minutes for reality to return to him, blinking up at his ceiling. Ah. No. That violin poster... He's in his house in Heropa, his new home. His real home, really, since he'll never be able to go back to the dorm.

Slowly the memories fade back in, like reverse evaporation, and the guilt of attacking Ken is immediate and irrational and so unfamiliar Minato's breath catches. It's like he got the wind knocked out of him, a solid blow. As it all comes back to him, the detritus of that mentality echoes in his mind again, the complete and total despair he'd given into. How he'd let apathy entrench itself further than he ever had in reality, because it was lined and defined with hurt, betrayal, anger, a dark cast to it Minato had never given himself over to before. It's so hard not to feel some trace of that, rooted as it was in things that had actually happened to him. Some small twist, and he was so close to that...

No, that's just the curse talking. Isn't it? Minato had never actually been close to that. ... Was he?

His breath continues to hitch like he's crying, but without tears. Nonetheless he throws an arm over his face, overwhelmed. Ignorant of whether anyone else is in the room.

After the battle with Pan and after watching the jungle disappear, Ken followed Kaneda back to the house in Nonah, then almost immediately left. He couldn't bear the thought of being in that house, watching him limp back to Tetsuo, watching the two of them together. And Maya, where Ken wanted to be. Where he used to be before Crane's attack tore everything apart. When Ken quietly slipped out of the house, he didn't think he saw anybody turn to watch him except for one of the cats.

He's been here ever since, sitting by Minato's bedside and watching him in silence. Maybe it's been days, or maybe it's only been hours; Ken dropped everything he was holding at the front door, and he hasn't gone down to look since. He only moved and ate food when Koromaru needed to be fed, but he didn't pay enough attention to know how often he'd gone through that routine. He sat still in the chair, replaying those moments with Minato in the forest over and over and waiting for him to wake up.

And when he does, it brings Ken back to that memory once again. Was it really almost a year ago that he found Minato in his first house at De Chima, tangled in blankets too big for him and a body even smaller than Ken's. The little Minato back then was utterly quiet and didn't even make the sounds he hears now, but it still fills Ken with the same urge as that time. As that day in May when Jaime asked him if he could find a new purpose to live for. As that day in October when he returned to this world and realized this was his last chance with him. As he had, back in the jungle, when Minato glared at him with deep, dark resentment and showed him the pain he had never exposed before. Maybe not even to himself.

Ken moves, just as quietly as he had been sitting, raising a heavy, aching hand. His entire body aches; every cell in his body seems to be screaming in protest. Kala-Nemi's magic could heal most wounds, but there's nothing she can do about the pain caused by an attack like Megidola. That reached deep into his bones and wore down his mind, and every strike from that left him feeling like he'll be exhausted for years. He couldn't tell if he hated them or Mudo spells more. But he ignores the pain as he slides to his feet and his hand moves closer to Minato, and he's gentle as his small fingers thread through Minato's hair. They tangle, tug, and stroke through the strands, mirroring the motions he learned from all the times other people stroked his own hair, and he waits for Minato to catch his breath again.

He goes silent for a moment, even his breath stilling, at that first unexpected touch. Minato's so used to being alone with his misery, and that's not just from the curse...

Ah. Ken had said that much to him during it, hadn't he? Suddenly, specific words are starting to filter back in. We were a team, but we made you fight alone. There's only one time that'd happened, isn't there.

The cresting realization is too much for him: he keeps his arm pressed to his eyes, blocking out the light and the rest of the world and who obviously must be Ken (he has the irrepressible, wryly fond thought that Jaime probably wouldn't sit in silence for this long) and tries to process it. But it won't, it's all overwhelming, Minato trying to shed the dregs of bleak hopelessness and combat the growing understanding that Ken doesn't just know he's died, but he's lived it. There's no other way he'd know a detail like that, that Minato had faced it alone-- it's not something he's told anyone.

Certain things Minato still finds it hard to give voice to.

Eventually, several minutes later, he speaks without removing his arm. His voice is low and rough. "How long have you known?"

Really he should be asking if Ken's okay-- but he's not okay. Minato knows exactly what he'd done to him, and Ken knows plenty of healers if he himself didn't have the energy for it. Minato asking that question usually preempts an offer to heal; he can't heal right now. He feels hollowed out, empty, his Persona all subdued and shifting uncomfortably beneath his skin. No... it's all he can do to keep a lid on his own problems right now. Asking about Ken's, physical or emotional or otherwise, is for the very first time beyond him. There's too much else.

It definitely isn't Jaime, because until the moment Minato speaks, the silence in the room goes unbroken. Ken is patient as he strokes his hair and waits for him to recover, and he doesn't stop even after Minato's voice reaches his ears. He was waiting for it; the other people who recovered from their time in the jungle remembered what happened then, too. The secret was out.

He doesn't know if he was ready for it, but he's glad that this is the question he gets asked instead. Being asked if he's all right, or getting an offer to heal, would be time and effort wasted on trying to bat away meaningless questions. But it turns out that this elephant in the room is too big for even Minato to brush it off. Too much for even Minato to ask about anything else.

Softly, as not to disturb the stillness of the room, Ken answers, "Since October, when I came back."

That long?

His arm slowly lowers, revealing his dry face and eyes staring at the ceiling. But a moment later Minato turns his head enough to look at Ken, and everything else in him clears away to reveal nothing but sorrow. Minato doesn't grieve for himself; he's sad for what his death must have done to others in his wake. What Ken must have had to live with.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, no longer trying to hide. "I tried to keep you from it, but time marches on..."

He's still reeling from everything; it's the only reason Minato is tired enough to actually say what he's thinking wholesale, without modification.

Ken catches Minato's arm as it's lowered. His smaller hand clasps Minato's larger one, and he holds it after lowering it the rest of the way; Ken's hand is calloused and rough for a twelve-year-old's, but his grip is gentle as he brings down his other hand to envelope Minato's with both of them.

What he doesn't say is that he was aware of Minato's secret. He didn't know the details, but he knew something was going to happen in the future; the way Minato spoke about it, and at times didn't speak about it, let him know that there was something he wanted to protect him from. He would find out anyway, after all. And Ken had.

"You wanted to protect me," he answers in just as quiet a whisper, and he smiles, the expression sincere. "And you did, just like you always did."

He'd keep standing, but with his body still in pain it's hard to. Ken doesn't let go of Minato's hand as he drops back into the chair, and instead he leans closer and holds it more firmly. One hand cradling his hand and wrist, the other placed over it.

"Thank you, Minato-san. You don't have to bear it on your own anymore."

Edited (accidentally hit post...) 2016-01-22 21:48 (UTC)

His hand tightens convulsively on Ken's, and Minato has to close his eyes against the echoes of those words traveling through him.

It had never seemed like he was waiting. Minato had always been fine on his own, because he wasn't really on his own-- his social links were all there inside his head with his Persona, and he knew his friends and especially SEES all cared for him, would grieve him and miss him. Minato hadn't actually felt alone.

So why, hearing this... You don't have to bear it on your own anymore... Does he feel for the first time that he can remember that his eyes are stinging?

"I don't regret it," falls from his mouth. "I'd do it again. But I'm-- I was so happy to see you here. To see everyone again. I lost all of you."

Has he been waiting to say that all this time? Minato had never even thought it so clearly, never put it in so many words. But strung out as he is, all of his defenses scooped out and dismantled, the confession is not so much pulled from him as seeps out like water finding cracks.

Ken nods even if Minato cannot see him do it. He nods again, and he continues to hold Minato's hand with both of his own. Ken's hands are warm, and Minato's is warm. They're both alive, and they're together. They're simple but extraordinary facts for them.

But, Minato says. But he was so happy, like being willing to save them again took away his right to want to see them. Ken can see how those thoughts would connect, though, and he wonders how long Minato had to keep those separate. Giving his life to save the world was one thing, but wanting to see his friends again meant wanting to live to do so -- it would be unbearable, probably, to host those two feelings in one heart.

"I'm glad you're here." He doesn't have any wise words. He doesn't have any answers. But what he can give right now is honesty, he thinks. Honesty and sincerity. "I'm happy to be here with you, Minato-san."

Minato wasn't even sure if he could realistically manage to be the seal and hold longing in his heart for his friends at the same time. He has no idea how it works, had gone on instinct only, letting fate carry him. It'd seemed simpler anyway to face his death without painful yearning for what he couldn't have. But being here, it's brought all of this up in a way Minato had never been forced to face in Iwatodai.

This is the first time he's having a conversation about his death with someone who was there, he can't help but think.

His eyes stay shut, because he's very alarmed to think there might actually be wetness in them if he opens them. But-- no, no, they're still dry, just... stinging. Thankfully. Minato doesn't know how to deal with the physical manifestation of his emotions like this, isn't even sure what he's feeling. It's all a muddle welling up inside him.

In a bare whisper, he confesses, "I want to live here, with all of you. Not just because I can't go back. But because I want to. What I said to you a few days ago-- I'm sorry."

Feeling what it was like to give up completely, to passively wait for death and roil in his anger and grief over being left alone has made the contrast so stark for Minato that he can't deny it anymore. He does want to live and go on, he just doesn't know where to yet. But surely as Ken had said months ago, sometimes you don't have to know the reason, you just have to keep going. Ironically, repeating Minato's own words back to him.

They've really... come full circle. It's frightening, to be this vulnerable, the one taken care of instead of the one doing the caring.

The whisper is just loud enough to reach Ken's ears, but once it does it's like everything else fades away. It's just the two of them in this room with Minato's quiet confession between them, a truth they both knew somewhere deep down -- perhaps deep down where their Personas rested -- but had never been put into words. They seep into Ken's heart, and he feels the meaning of them run through his veins and make his fingertips tingle.

Minato Arisato wants to live.

He knew that. He knew that, and so did everyone else. But it was these words that Ken was waiting for, telling Jaime that he couldn't ask Minato to live, because he would do it for Ken, and being told by someone else never had the same impact as reaching the answer on your own. Maybe Minato is far from the complete answer, but this is a big first step.

"There's no change to what I told you then," he answers gently. "I will stay by your side. I want to stay with you."

He'll protect him, he thinks to himself, thinking about the people who weren't here, but had gone through the Abyss with him. For himself, and for them... would it be wrong to think it was their turn to protect Minato now?

"... Did you know that there are cherry blossoms in Washington? The capital. They were brought here by Japanese people decades ago. When spring comes, let's go see them together. Aragaki-san and Sanada-san, too."

It makes him think of Aigis. It's heavy and painful to think of how much he misses her. Will he ever see her again? He'd been so convinced she'd disappear like all the rest, and then everyone had... Just because he'd left them willingly didn't make that easier to bear. But here he is, a year later, and this whole time Ken has been here-- Ken and Shinjiro and Akihiko and Jaime. They've been here all this time, with him.

Maybe he's not alone in more ways than just his social links. Maybe... helping someone find their path isn't the only way others can grow to care about him, not the only thing he can do. But that is new and frightening and for now, all Minato can manage is the tentative beginnings of the belief that he is alive here, for good. And he can continue on that way.

He immediately picks up on the real thread here, behind Ken's request. How last year, Minato had made his promise to see everyone again, and had kept it only on technicality, slipping into sleep (into death) there on the rooftop of the school. His eyes had closed, smiling, just as everyone had run up to him in remembrance.

It's a good thing his eyes are closed now, too, because the sting worsens, his throat swelling and twisting up. He has to push the words out, no louder than before. "In March. We'll all go see them together... in March. I promise."

Maybe it weighs on Minato that he was the only person who couldn't stick around that day. He was the first -- or the only -- to remember, and he held on just long enough for them to reach him, but they couldn't see the blossoms together.

Sure, this won't be their first March in this world, but this will be the first one where they're ready to accept it. Winter will be over, and spring is coming. After a long year of struggling with each other and their own feelings, they can stand together again, as they should have. But as close as that day seems to be, it also feels so far away. So much can happen between then. Someone could disappear.

No, he thinks. No, he won't let it. He'll keep holding on to this hand, and he won't let him disappear. Until that day, and after it. He has to believe it. Surely their bonds won't disappear, like they never did, but that didn't change that it was still so much better to be together. And he doesn't let go, though with one hand he starts to stroke his hair again. It just felt necessary, and it comforted him to be able to do this, more than anything.

"And I promise, too. We'll be together. You won't be alone."

Somehow, that manages to ease the stifling emotion clogging up his throat, and after a few long shaky breaths Minato feels it subside. It's a huge relief. He doesn't know how to deal with that-- doesn't want to, isn't prepared, to deal with that. He'd be content to put it off forever if he could. It won't do him any good, to feel these things... It won't change his fate, or what Ken or anyone else endured. There's no use in him letting all those overwhelming feelings rush over him like a torrent. It doesn't get him anything.

So Minato quite literally swallows them down, and shifts his arm away, and opens his eyes and looks at Ken, soft and something in him aching, but pleasantly, like disused muscles getting exercise.

"I wasn't alone. I know I wasn't ever alone. That's... what I held with me, at that time." When he'd faced Nyx. When he'd slipped into a coma. That thought has not lost its wonder for Minato, after so many years of isolation.

Whatever they have now is a fleeting, impermanent thing. Their bonds, their memories, their lives -- one day, they will either be pulled away from this world, or maybe they'll be kept here for the rest of their lives until they grow old. There's no telling what's in store for them, but in that way there's not much different between here and Iwatodai or anywhere else. Some people can survive as many incidents as Ken had, and some people disappear as young as Minato had. All they have is now, no matter where they go.

Ken looks back at Minato with eyes just as gentle. If anyone remembered her they might say he looked just like his mother in this moment, but no such person exists here. Still, it's with that warm feeling he received from her that Ken tries to give Minato as he smiles and presses his palm against his. Both of their hands are warm, because they're living.

"When you're hurting - you don't have to say anything - you can come find one of us. To me. You were always there for me, even when I thought I was alone. Now it's my turn."

"I don't have to say anything..."

Hearing that makes it easier to bear. Not just because that is easier for him, but because it proves how well Ken knows him now. They'd never been like this at home. Minato pushes himself upright to sit, somehow managing it without relinquishing Ken's hand. The blankets puddle around him as he looks at him properly.

"I know what it was that I noticed when you came back." The thing that was different that he hadn't been able to figure out at the time. He smiles softly. "You see other people clearly now, don't you? Including me. I was scared..." And the smile fades. "I was scared of what would happen to all of you after I died. I had to believe you would be okay."

Because they patently wouldn't be if he didn't.

Minato sits up, and Ken is the one looking up at him now. Even like this, even so quiet and more subdued than usual, Minato has a presence to him that makes it feel right for him to do so; he wants to look up to him. He wants to be the one below him, supporting him and keeping him up. Just as Minato led them all those nights and kept them together, he was able to lead because they laid the foundation for him to stand on. He wants to believe that that was what SEES was. Perhaps everyone will agree.

And he only looks away briefly, just once, to swallow a lump rising in his throat, to take a breath. Minato's smile faded, and his words weigh heavily. He said he was scared. Scared, that Minato. Ken knows and sees clearly enough, just as he said, to know how much it took for any of them to admit to a feeling like that. Especially Minato.

When he looks up again, his eyes have a slight wet sheen to them, overflowing with the emotions he could never hold back.

"We're alive because you gave us this chance," he says softly. "It hurt, not understanding. Not knowing why we had to lose you too. Even after finding out why, it still hurts. There's a hole there, and there's always going to be."

They're all full of holes. Lost family, estranged family, lost friends, lost homes. They had more holes than they could bother to count, and Minato was a large one that they all shared, that made them all shiver at the cold wind that blew through it. But that's not what he wants Minato to walk away with. It's not this coldness.

"But we're alive because you saved us. We're alive, so wounds will heal, even if they leave behind scars. I promise: We'll be okay." He squeezes his hand again, bringing his own other back up to envelope his friend's one more time. "It's proof that you were with us. You are with us. All of us, we love you, Minato-san."

What is he supposed to say to that? When was the last time he'd been told that? ... Minato doesn't remember. It's been said to him in different words (I'll always be by your side; I'll call you Minato in private) or demonstrated a hundred times over (all of them behind him, always behind him, supporting) but in those precise words...

Minato is not a spontaneous or demonstrative person. He rarely moves quickly. Now he lurches forward, tugging his hands free of Ken's to wrap him in a hug, breathing harshly again, tucking his face in his shoulder. Jaime's right, sometimes. Sometimes you really do just have to hug someone, and it saves him from having to come up with words, from trying to verbalize, which is always the hardest thing for Minato.

He regresses for just a little while, like this. They're alive-- he saved them-- they'll be okay. And they'll remember him, he won't be gone completely, a ghost that drifted through life until finally returning to its proper rest at the end. No. Minato really had been alive. He knows that because they had all seen it, and had felt it when he'd passed. No one would mourn a ghost.

They mourn him because they love him. That means... it's okay, if it hurts them. Because it hurts Minato, too, to be without them, and he wouldn't trade that for anything.

It's only because it's Minato, that his sudden, spontaneous action doesn't cause Ken to run off. But Ken absolutely trusts Minato with everything he's got, and when the other boy is suddenly pressed up close, Ken's instinct is not to pull away but to wrap his own arms around him to hold him in place. Somehow, that felt like the correct thing to do. And it feels right.

He can't help but smile a bit. It's the first time that Minato demonstrated like this for his own sake. He's sure that's what this is. Before when they hugged, it was when Minato thought that Ken needed it, when he could easily excuse it as something he did for him. But this time, it's not, and there's no need to come up with an excuse or explanation because Ken knew, and understood. He would accept Minato for everything he is, everything he wants to be.

Arms draped around Minato's shoulders, he raises one hand to pat the back of his friend's head gently.

"It'll be okay. I promise."

( there's no man's land )

KEN { post Pan plot }

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a thousand years later