[Persona 4/3 | Saki Seta + Akihiko Sanada] The Emergency Kisses
Title: The Emergency Kisses
Author: buongiornodaisy
Fandom: Persona 4/Persona 3 with mentions of the plot and characters of Persona -trinity soul-
Characters: fem!Souji (Saki Seta) and Akihiko Sanada, featuring DJ Minty Fresh (that's Minato Arisato to you) and Rise Kujikawa
Pairings: Sakihiko Saki/Akihiko
Labels: An AU, genderbending crossover son of a gun.
Warning: Spoilers for Persona 3 FES, Persona 4 and -trinity soul- just to be safe
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,926
Summary: Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back. Standard fare for a couple of ordinary people.
Thank You: qfisher for the beta ♥
Author's Notes This is part of the Puella Aeterna series and is a bridge between "Billie Jean" and the next multichapter. It'd probably help if you read "Billie Jean". Title comes from a song by Stereolab.
Disclaimer: If I had an original bone in my body I'd be writing profic, not fanfic!
Ayanagi, summer.
The bar went mad, and he thought about Minato.
He was always listening to those damn headphones. Plug 'em in to the MP3 player and tune out the world. Akihiko was too old for that. But with all the ruckus going on in the bar, tuning out the world sounded pretty swell. Some washed-up idol named Rise Kujikawa had walked in with a friend, the source of the imbroglio to his right. She picked a bad night to show up. All he wanted was to drink in peace and not think about the gang wars and the victims struck down by "mysterious causes". At least the corpses weren't inverted this time.
Regardless, tonight was not the night he wanted to deal with an old celebrity. He kicked back the rest of his drink, flagging the tender for a refill. As he watched the tender dart across the room his eyes turned to the center of the Kujikawa storm. She had moved, leaving her date in view. He was a four-eyed guy, a few years younger than Akihiko with thick hair the same lack of color as Akihiko's. Good-looking guy.
The tender set the glass down loud enough to grab Akihiko's attention. He reached for his glass, eyes remaining on Rise's date--who turned to talk to the old idol, revealing a slight bump in the chest.
Good-looking woman.
He turned towards the bar counter, taking a sip of his drink. He grimaced. A grown woman was giggling and squealing. “He was totally checking you out.” Risette.
“Who?” Wasn't Risette. Sounded like a teenage boy. Or a woman with a deep voice.
“That man over there. The one with the white hair.”
Akihiko's head whipped in the direction of the voices. Rise and her “date”. Had to be Rise and her “date”, because Rise started waving at him and her “date” was leaning over the counter, peering at him. Academically. Like he was a specimen under a microscope. He looked away, keeping his eyes on the bar surface. He was 30 years old and still didn't know how to react to an attractive woman. Pathetic.
“You should go talk to him,” said Rise.
“He looks like he wants to be left alone,” replied her “date”.
“He's in a bar! And he's hot! What did he expect?”
“Privacy?” he muttered under his breath.
“Privacy,” Rise's “date” replied at the same time. Akihiko looked to her with a grateful expression.
“See!” squealed Rise. “He's totally checking you out, Saki.” Saki met his gaze and offered an apologetic wave. He nodded his thanks. Rise squealed again. “Oooh, I'm gonna leave you two alone so you can get to know each other better! Hey, you!” she shouted to some random man on the dance floor, and promptly left Saki behind to stare at Akihiko more apologetically than before.
Perhaps that would've been the end hadn't this very same Saki relocated herself next to Akihiko.
“Hey,” she said cautiously. “Sorry about Rise. She's an old friend.”
“Interesting friend,” Akihiko replied, amused. He hoped the split second it took to look at her didn't show; but then maintaining eye contact with her was hard. It made him feel as if he were being scanned by an x-ray. But she grinned, the analytical element in her eyes vanished, a genuine kindness there in its stead. It put him at ease.
She extended a hand. “My name is Saki Seta,” she said.
He shook her hand as firmly as she shook his. “Akihiko Sanada,” he replied.
He couldn't figure out why, but something about her name rang a bell.
---
No smoking allowed in the cafe. She stood outside, leaning against the wall, watching as the train of smoke blew out from her lips. It had been fifteen minutes since she called Akihiko the second time and ten minutes after he said he would be there. If he wasn't here in ten minutes, she would cancel and go about her day.
She had no back-up plan. She was new to this city, still staying in a hotel, searching countless classified ads for an apartment. The only acquaintance she had made was Akihiko. If she canceled she would have no one to spend time with. Minato was too busy feeling bedsheets and flowers and air to think about hanging out with anyone. In the pit of her stomach was a growing concern that he would wander into or down or in front of something dangerous. She took a heavy drag of her cigarette and tried to keep her doubts at bay. Someone newly alive wouldn't commit suicide, would they?
Two minutes later--Akihiko had eight minutes left--the cigarette was smoldering too close to her fingertips. She watched without flinching as the cinders burned her skin. She flicked the butt to the sidewalk, observing it roll to the edge of some man's polished black shoes. He rubbed it out under the sole. “You should quit,” he said, half-serious, half-amused. Saki raised her eyes up the pressed tan trousers, the tailored tan blazer, the burgundy shirt and tan tie, the hands, as always, covered by a pair of gloves--
“I get that all the time,” she said, her voice purposefully thick and husky. She kept a friendly grin on her face as she watched Akihiko scratch the back of his neck with one of his gloved hands. He had been this way in the bar, yes; then he had hidden behind the mask of an officer and a gentleman to avoid thinking about the resurrection of his dead friend. She liked both aspects of him. The awkwardness, however, appealed to the devil within her, the one who liked to play with people just to see how they reacted. The one who sometimes liked to be sultry just to fluster someone who couldn't quite handle it.
She meant no harm. She was only flirting.
---
He couldn't believe that piece of shit dating advice book was here of all places, in this bookstore and in this city, as if it were reminding him of his failures. Akihiko could count on one hand the number of girlfriends he had in the past ten years and still have fingers left over, even when he included his high school years. Clearly that book hadn't helped him when he last saw it, and it wouldn't help him here, standing next to a woman he had no idea how to talk to. Say hello to? Yes. Ask out for coffee? Yes. Have a deep conversation with? Yes. Ask out on a date? Impossible. But he wanted that more than anything.
So many of the women who threw themselves at him were shallow. There were women like that in the station, starry-eyed hopefuls bickering over who'd be the one to talk to him, who'd be the one to give him his food, who'd be the one to peer into his still-unadorned office. Women like that, he could talk to - and tell to go away. Women like Saki, who were beautiful, sexy and smart? He wasn't an idiot, but he feared whatever he said would sound stupid to her ears.
“It's just a book,” Saki said, looking at him with furrowed brows and curious eyes.
“I know,” he said, and would have walked away hadn't she grabbed the book and examined the cover.
“Trying to talk to girls?” she asked.
“No. I...someone gave me that book when I was in high school.”
“Why? Have problems talking to girls?”
“That book was bullshit.”
She grinned. “You didn't answer my question.” She opened the book, flipping and skimming through the pages. “Did it help?”
“No.”
“Hmm. These books aren't helpful. The guidelines don't work for everyone. Some women like humor. Some don't. Some want empathy, some don't. Others are looking for authenticity and others don't care as long as you seem perfect.”
“You learned all this from therapy?”
“No...” She closed the book, staring in Minato's direction. “Anyway, the best quality to have is patience.”
“Patience?”
“Yes.” She darted a quick look around the bookstore, then leaned forward, pressing her lips against his. “Patience,” she whispered into his ear. And he stood still as a statue, the concepts of patience and speaking far from him. All he knew was that Saki had kissed him and was breathing into his ear, and he didn't want her to move.
Ayanagi, fall.
Saki had learned a long time ago never to let anyone cook for her. Convincing her otherwise was nigh-on impossible. Akihiko learned this the hard way. He had to be pre-screened for his cooking abilities, fixing up a quick meal at his place with Saki by his side, staring over his shoulder and watching every ingredient he used.
While Saki agreed she wouldn't do that tonight, she kept an eye on him from the table. The sample he had cooked the previous night was sufficient. Not enough to keep her from feeling disappointed, but that had nothing to do with the food. Minato hadn't come with her to the “pre-screening”. She had thought, with them being alone, that he'd... But he didn't. He didn't do anything more than cook and promise her he'd neither poison her and Minato nor burn down their new apartment. She believed him well enough not to be as observant as she had been last night. She didn't think she could be as vigilant, not with all the things in her mind.
Dinner was set, eaten in relative silence. Sometimes Saki would ask a question-like why are you wearing your gloves?-and Akihiko would answer with his mouth full. She'd narrow her eyes and ram her foot into his shin. Minato would laugh, she would laugh, but inside she would wonder if she was being too physical, too playful. After all, he had her to himself and didn't do a thing. Patience was a virtue for only so long.
Dinner was finished, and she and Akihiko were washing the dishes later. Minato had wandered off somewhere. As long as it wasn't to his second death, she didn't much care. Her mind was in the same place it had been all night: wondering if Akihiko was as much a lost cause as he was a decent cook. “Thanks for cooking today,” she said, voice more distant than she intended.
“You're welcome,” he replied, then nudged her arm with his elbow. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine.” She looked up to him, as if to reassure him, but only wound up upsetting herself. God, he was handsome. Incredibly so. In spite of her better senses, she wanted to throw herself at him the way other women did; but she knew he didn't like desperate and shallow women, knew he was attracted to her looks and intelligence and loved that she treated him like a human rather than a piece of meat. He just had a damn funny way of not showing it. She looked away from him, scrubbing away the dirt on the dish as if she were scrubbing thoughts from her mind. “Did I ever tell you about the time Rise cooked an omelet for me?”
“Wait, what?” He sounded as if he were being drawn from his own thoughts. She didn't check to see if he looked that way, too.
“Not for me, technically. My cousin. We were all cooking omelets. It was a competition, and I won. Rise's omelet... Unfortunately, then, she had quit her day job.”
“...you don't say.”
She shrugged, rinsing off the plate and dipping her hand in for a dirty cup. The same time Akihiko dipped his hand in for the last plate. Their hands collided. She looked at him again, stupidly surprised, her eyes meeting his. She considered leaning in. They were close enough, and she wanted to. But this would be her making a move again. It was time he made his.
One second, two seconds, three. No move. She grabbed the last dish in the sink, looking away. She could feel his eyes on her, see, from the corner of her eye, that he was not moving. She continued wiping the plate. Rinsed it. Placed in the dish rack, her arm crossing his path. Set her hand on the edge of the sink. Now would be the time if he was going to do it, and if he didn't do it now, she'd stop being patient. So she gave him the count of one, two, three...
She turned to him. “Akihiko, I think...”
He caught her face in his hands and moved in for a kiss.
Didn't matter what she thought. What mattered was how he reacted, and he reacted exactly the way she wanted him to. Whether she gave her pretenses away by throwing herself into the kiss, she didn't care. It wasn't purely his move, but then she had not deliberately goaded him into doing this. Didn't matter. This was the moment she'd been patiently waiting for him to take, and it was as glorious as that moment in the hotel room without the threat of...well. He could walk in here and interrupt them anytime, couldn't he?
Best not to think about that.
---
She was going to burn the whole place down and he didn't give a damn. He was going to choke from all that smoke she was blowing in his face and he didn't give a damn. He was just going to lay on top of her on the couch, kissing her cheek and her jaw and her neck as she enjoyed a cigarette that was either post-coital or habitual. Maybe both.
She stretched one last time to table by the couch, to the bowl that was doubling as an ash tray, disposed of the cigarette butt and wriggled underneath him, forcing his eyes to be level with hers. “All done,” she said, placing a hand on his face and kissing him. She tasted like ashes, smoke, nicotine. God, he didn't care about the flavor. He wouldn't trade this for all the food in the world--all the food he could've eaten but hadn't, because she agreed to let him have her in his apartment for lunch. No threat of Minato there. Plus, it was cheaper than a hotel, though they might've made it to the bed had they went to a hotel instead. They barely made it to the couch in here.
Saki had broken off the kiss, had pecked his nose, and was now finding bits of flesh on his face and his neck to kiss and gnaw on. He was as accommodating to this endeavor as he was to her bad habit. Speaking of which…
“When did you start smoking?” he asked.
“When I was thirteen,” she replied. “Parents weren't at home. Saw some of dad's cigarettes, thought I'd give them a try.”
“What, no peer pressure?”
“I make my stupid mistakes on my own.” She pressed between her teeth quite a bit of flesh on his neck, then let her head fall back on the pillow, looking up at him. “What about you? What's the story with the gloves?”
“There is none.”
“You just like wearing them.”
“Yeah.”
“Not wearing them now.”
“Want me to?”
She smirked, hand massaging the spot on his neck she had just bitten. “Then you'd be late for work.”
“Don't have to be back for another thirty minutes.”
“Still might be late.” He could feel her hands press hard against his hips. Her legs shifted, one sliding between both of his and and the other shifting between him the back of the couch. He allowed himself to be twisted around, now her laying on top of him. He leaned in and pressed a firm kiss against her lips, soundly returned.
“Is that so?” he asked, pulling away. She bit her lip and nodded.
“Just put on the gloves.”
Ayanagi, winter.
The snow fell on her nose, her cheeks, her glasses. She lowered her face, raised as it was to the sky, and turned towards the man standing next to her.
“Can you see me?” he asked.
“You look wet,” she replied.
He chuckled. “May I?”
“You may.”
He reached forward, pulling the glasses from her face. He became a blur, rubbing her glasses against the inside of his blazer as she waited patiently for him to place them back over her eyes. He did so, his hands lingering at the sides of her face. She closed her eyes, leaned forward, and kissed him tenderly. The smile she made when she pulled away was returned with a nervous one of his own. Didn't have anything to do with her. He just had bad memories of this place.
They were by the bay. He had hinted at the things that happened in this city two years ago through tired complaints about the ongoing gang wars, aggravated in large part by a group of persona users. She didn't try to coax information out of him about that any more more than she had information about his time with SEES. He would tell her eventually. Still, she was bothered by his unhappiness more than she was by anyone else's. She felt it was her responsibility to make - no, she wanted to make him happy. She wanted to eliminate any fear he had of losing her, for he had that fear in spades, and she could relate. She didn't want to lose him, either, because she...
Yet, in the back of her mind, she thought her feelings were unfair. What right did she have falling for him when she had never fought by his side? What right did she have feeling so protective about him and not the person who died for her? What right did she have being in love with Akihiko and not Yosuke?
“Saki?”
“Hmm?”
“You there?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You just seemed...like you were thinking about something.”
“Yeah. I was thinking about you.”
She grinned, and wondered if she was as good at lying with a smile as Yosuke was.
---
She had been sleeping for several minutes, deep enough that she did not notice him get out of bed. He slipped into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt once out of bed, heading towards the dining room to do some thinking.
He'd been doing a lot of thinking about her for a while, from their first meeting until today, when he realized all might not be well in their paradise. Wasn't anything she had said. Not much of anything she had done. Really, all signs pointed to her loving him, too, and that should've overjoyed him. But there were times when he wondered. Times when he'd say something that'd make her frown, complementary things about them seeing eye to eye, throwaway comments about how they'd make a good team. There were times when she went into a thoughtful trance with no prompting, just stared into space with that guilty frown, and she never told him why.
Only when they were talking about her high school friends did he start to have an idea what the issue was. Couldn't say he was surprised. He knew the feeling well enough, wondering about an old friend, but he never felt guilty about being in love with Saki, who, for her part, acted as if she were sinning.
Akihiko stopped apruptly in the living room, looking towards the kitchen table. He didn't expect Minato to be there. He stood where he was for a moment, debating where he should go. Outside to the hallway? Hide in the bathroom?
“If you want me to leave, I can,” Minato said.
“Ah...it's all right,” he replied, remaining where he was. How the hell did Minato know he was there? Akihiko sighed, walking to the dining room and taking a seat across from Minato. “How's that working?” he asked, nodding towards the music player sitting next to Minato's hand.
“It's working fine,” Minato replied.
“Can't sleep?”
“Don't want to. You?” He looked across the table, his eyes a dim imitation of the scrutiny of Saki's.
“Just got a lot on my mind,” said Akihiko.
“Like what?”
Akihiko looked away. “Nothing.”
Minato made a disbelieving noise. Of course. Who would believe Akihiko had a lot of nothing on his mind? He ran a hand through his hair, wondering if he should even bother telling the kid. Minato. He had more experience with relationships. What he had to say might be valuable. He asked, “Does Saki seem...distracted to you?”
Minato blinked. “What?”
“I mean, does she seem like she's...thinking about someone else?”
Minato gave him a very sharp, pointed look, almost patronizing. “Don't do anything stupid,” he said, and left Akihiko to think at the table alone. He wasn't quite sure what Minato meant by “anything stupid” until months later, sitting by himself in his apartment, knowing Saki was too far away to stop by for a visit.
Inaba, spring.
What he didn't know was she hadn't been sleeping.
He didn't know she was laying in bed, eyes closed, wishing she could read his mind. She wasn't sure why he came here to Inaba at her request, much less why he was still here. He made no attempts to reconcile with her, never acted in those stilted moments where she found herself counting down out of desperate hope that he would kiss her, or touch her, or show some sign that he was still interested. And why did he care that she was sick? Why didn't he dump her here and run off with Mitsuru like he wanted to?
But it was remarkable how she didn't freeze up when he brushed the bangs out of her face, kissed her forehead, and whispered his apology. She smiled, knowing she'd give herself away.
“Are you awake?” he said. She opened her eyes just barely and nodded. “I'm not as perceptive as I thought,” he said with a lightly amused tone, then rose from the chair and lay down next to her on the bed. She tried to say something, but it came out as an incoherent murmur, childish babble compared to the monologue he let loose: “I'm sorry I broke up with you,” he said. “I'm sorry I pushed you away. I just thought...well, what I thought was stupid, wasn't it?”
She nodded. He kissed her forehead again. She wondered if his lips were starting to burn off due to her fever.
“If you don't completely hate my guts...can we try this again?”
She closed her eyes and nodded. Wished she could punch him for good measure, but that would come later, when she was healthier and not ready to fall asleep on his chest.
Ayanagi, summer.
This was the favorite part of Etsuko's day: waiting for the food orders to come in and grappling her way into being the one to bring the superintendent his food. She'd been doing this ever since he stepped in to replace the previous superintendent, and she had been successful beating her coworkers to the punch. Sometimes she got rebuffed by one of the guys, who acted as if her interest was frivolous, inconsequential. The superintendent was like that, too, but then he just seem preoccupied. He never acknowledged when she or anyone else brought his food in. She didn't care. As long as she got to look at him, she was fine.
She watched with hungry eyes as the delivery boy walked in with the orders. She rose to her feet, walking quickly to the desk where the delivery boy had placed the food, beating out Kazumi by a hair. “Oh, I see that Sanada-san has ordered some food,” she said, quickly grabbing his order. “I'll just send it to him.”
“That's all right. I'll take it.”
She halted. The person who had spoken was a gray-haired man in glasses, a black suit, and a gray shirt unbuttoned at the top-and in that moment, any lust Etsuko had for Akihiko vanished. Had the two men any features in common besides their lack of hair color and their beauty, she would have thought them related. After all, it only made sense that Sanada-san would have a brother as handsome as this man. If he hadn't taken the food out of her hands, staring at her with those striking gray eyes, she would've dropped it.
“Do you have my order as well?” he asked Itō-san, who was sitting behind her, and whether he did or whether he didn't was irrelevant because she was smitten. The man, now with two bowls of food, nodded at her with a grin and turned towards Sanada-san's office.
“Who was that?” she said dreamily.
“That's Saki.”
She blinked, turned, and stared at him incredulously.
“Who?”
“Saki Seta. The psychologist they brought in to help us deal with...” He waved a hand. “She's Sanada's girlfriend.”
“Sh-she?”
“She'll look like that from time to time. It's a thing.” Itō tore off the cover to his food, stabbing it with his fork. “Sanada's a fool for her,” he added, and Etsuko felt like he was stabbing her heart, as well. Of all the dumb, rotten things she had to learn today, it had to be that Sanada-san was going out with an incredibly handsome woman.
---
Staring out to the sea, Saki could almost forget the insanity going down in Ayanagi. She could forget that people were using the power of persona to prey on the weak, the police offices who were only trying to protect the city. She could forget about all the unhappy people she'd been dealing with and focus on the sea breeze blowing against her face, thinking herself a mere visitor. But that wouldn't be fair.
She wanted to punish the culprits herself. They wanted to show their power? She could show them hers. She could make them regret what they did. The only thing stopping her was Akihiko. While that frustrated her beyond belief, she understood where he came from. The last thing he wanted was her going rogue, becoming as much a thug as the gang members instigating the war.
It felt silly, being nothing more than the person police officers talked to about their problems, but Akihiko insisted her presence worked wonders on the team. Like she was their personal cheerleader. Honestly, dealing with them felt more satisfying than helping her fellow persona users, for all that she often felt silly for doing it. These were just regular people who needed her help and saw nothing different about her.
That, oddly enough, was how Akihiko seemed to see her. He knew what she could do, knew what she was capable of, yet didn't treat her like a goddess. He just treated her like he would anyone else. Of course, it was different - he wasn't in love with everybody else - but the concept was the same. She wasn't some foreign being to him. She was just-
“Saki?”
She peered over her shoulder. She grinned. “Hello.” He was standing behind her and looking oddly nervous. It bemused her. She couldn't think why he was that way. “Are you going to sit?”
“Um. Yes.” He hesitated, then walked forward, seating himself next to her in uneasy movements. It was disconcerting.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“It's just...”
“Will you marry me?”
She stared, certain her mouth was hanging open. She closed it. She frowned. She furrowed her brows, thinking. Yes or no? She'd never imagined she'd be in this situation. She thought about relationships in the short-term: how she was going to get this person in bed, never if that person was worth growing old with. She had taken this relationship for granted without thinking about the long term. She liked it. She liked him. Loved him. For all that she felt guilty about it, they did work well together, in a way more intellectually satisfying than with Yosuke.
Would it be so bad, staying with him forever? She could think of worse situations to be in. Worse people to be with forever. Akihiko wouldn't be bad. Could be a challenge. Could even be wonderful. She certainly didn't feel like going anywhere else anytime soon. Unless something terrible happened between now and next spring, she was fairly certain she was moving back to Ayanagi. With him. So what was the harm in moving back as his fiancee, or his wife? It was just a contract. It could be terminated at any time.
And so her answer was a carefree, “Sure. Why not?”
He laughed, relieved. He hadn't hidden his anxiety at all. The response had caught him off guard. “It's a yes or no question,” he said.
She turned fully towards him, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him just so that her next words should've been obvious: “Yes,” she said, “I'll marry you.”