compnetwork | 005 - Eclectic, with Minako

[May 16th, action, Aquarius Ward]
[Atsuro's job at Monoceros Community College wasn't exactly stimulating. 90% of the time, computer problems could be attributed to students trying to download things they weren't supposed to be downloading; the other 10 percent were generally students trying to play things they weren't supposed to be playing. Melted motherboards could be replaced, viruses and worms could be purged. This was all pretty run of the mill and he spent the majority of his hours at his job playing gamend s and programming apps for his own amusement. ...He had managed to make a very sleek Solitaire simulation, if he was allowed to brag a little bit.

As he awaits issues in the repair center, Atsuro boots up Solitaire and idly begins to play for no special reason other than to playtest his own creation. His left hand, idle, begins to tap against the tabletop.

...2 of Hearts. Ace of Diamonds, yesss. 2 of Diamonds, whoa. Q of Spades. ...F sharp major chord. 3 of Hearts. ...Didn't he already get the 3 of Hearts? D major 7th chord. Inverted 4th. A7 -- No, Ace of...]

...

What?

[He stares at his left hand for a few moments before abandoning the laptop and placing both hands square on the table top. ...CEGEGCGCECEG holy crap.

...Late that night, the sounds of tortuous piano playing can be heard wafting out of the open-access music room in the college. Anyone who investigates will find Atsuro staring at his fingers as if they're possessed while semi-competently playing what sounds vaguely like a polka.]

[May 20th, text, public]
[By the fifth day or so, it has become patently obvious that something is wrong. I like your hair! It really suits your style. Do you dye it that color? He is quite certain that his grandfather never featured terribly prominently in his life, despite that his parents were never around. Not that he would have minded having some expectations to live up to, but he liked to think he had done a pretty good job of raising himself with minimal assistance. Jet propulsion activate. ...Did he even have grandparents? They were dead, right? ...Pretty certain. ......Vaguely certain. No, there were two sets of grandparents, of course. His mother's had passed away in -- No. No, they were the ones who had ...I'm sorta like you. My dad died an accident when I was little... You're all alone too, right?

...

Persona...?]

Hey, everyone! I've got a question for you all. It's kind of hard to explain, but... anyone else just have this feeling that something's not quite right? I guess the best way to say it is, I'm pretty sure I didn't have three sets of grandparents. ...There's probably nothing to complain about, though! Free family members; there are much worse things that could happen. I'm pretty sure it has to do with those fortunes we got last week, heh; I got the highest one for 'family'! But... let me know if something similar has happened, OK? Don't worry, guys, I don't think it's anything serious! (≧ω≦)ｂ

Oh, and hey, Kazuya... I've gotta talk to you about something. ...I think there might've been something like Persona already in our world.

[May 22nd, private video to Minako Arisato]
Hey, Minako... I think we probably need to talk.

[Shinjiro-senpai...!]

I'm not sure if I have to explain or not, but... We should probably meet up in person.

[No way... why?]

Is that OK with you?

[Wait, please... we've been through too much together...]

Don't worry; we don't have to talk about any specifics or anything. Well. Let me know!

[Don't cry... Minako. This is how it should be...]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A-Ah, yeah, of course. I wouldn't say anything. ...Thanks for talking about this stuff at all.

[Seriously, was it possible for a human being to be any more selfless? Shinjiro was a lucky guy...]

...Do you think you have any questions you'd like to ask me? Just to make it even.

[Atsuro, you may want to reconsider that viewpoint.]

Well... you could tell me about the time that you had a crush on your tutor.

My tu -- M-Miss Mari?

[why]

T-That wasn't a crush! I was... I think I was 13 or something; it doesn't count!

[she has your memory you can't lie to her]

Of course it counts, everyone gets crushes when they're 13.

Was there... a lot of that kind of thing in my memories?

[She would get his embarrassing memories.]

...Not that it happened a lot.

[~~please don't say anything about yuzu please don't say anything about yuzu please don't say anything about yuzu~~]

Don't worry. I don't remember anything else embarrassing... It's mostly normal memories, and then the Lockdown.

Good. ...Er. I didn't see her much after that year, so... it definitely didn't end up being a thing or anything.

[Atsuro pauses for a moment.]

You don't seem very surprised by that. ...The Lockdown, I mean. I guess I kinda explained it before, huh?

Yeah... But now I remember it instead of just knowing it happened. I'm really glad you all made it through safely.

[...] ...You did, right?

Well...

If by 'all', you mean... me and the people I met up with...

[10BIT hadn't made it. Honda probably hadn't. But even amongst his close friends, there must have been some timelines when they had failed to save them...]

Honestly, I'm not actually sure yet! I don't think we're going to fail, but I was pulled here right at the last minute - did you see Babel?

I did... that's what I meant. So you don't know if you win the fight yet?

We're going to! There's no way we'd fail... Not at the last battle. We've put everything we've got into this solution...

...I should probably go home sometime and actually finish that off.

I'm sure you will, too. I can tell you have a good group of friends.

But actually finishing it would be a good idea.

...I'm a little afraid I won't know how to find my way back here, though.

[And a little more afraid that maybe, just maybe, they won't win, after all...]

If you really want to come back, I'm sure Philemon will bring you back...

[Maybe. Probably.

He hasn't brought back Minato.]

Do you think I'll remember it?

...I'm not so sure anymore about the whole 'protecting the city' spiel he gave us, but... it doesn't seem right to just leave it, either, when there's so much going wrong.

I agree. But we aren't doing this for Philemon, anyway... It's for the people here, who need our help.

Right.

...And for all of you guys, too. Some people need this place - I'd rather go back home, all in all, but there are a few with nowhere else to go.

I'll have to go back sometime too... but, I'm not really in a hurry.

Er... Yeah, aha.

[...]

Do you think you'd want to stick around here for a while? I mean... it's probably not going to change anything if you go back when you're fifty or sixty.

...Sorry, you don't have to answer that.

[...]

To be honest, I'm not thinking that far ahead. Nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow or ten years from now.

But whatever is happening here is connected to Persona, just like the problems back home. I made the choice I did because there was no time to look for other options. But there's time here... So maybe that won't have to stay true.

Yeah, right! ...And if Philemon is as powerful as he makes himself out to be, there might be another solution. Maybe all we need to do is go back and encourage people to appreciate their lives a little more. Something along those lines.

[Atsuro didn't actually believe that. ...He highly doubted Minako would, either.]

But either way... We can all appreciate the time we have here.

It definitely couldn't hurt!

[To be honest, she thinks that plan would help her out. Just not in the way Atsuro might hope, involving her not being dead.]

And I agree. Even when it involves memories mixing around...

...When do you think we'll go back to normal, anyway?

[Bizarre occurrences here, he had found, were more of a 'when' than an 'if'. Small blessings.]

No idea.... Hopefully some of the doctors and researchers are looking into this right now.

[She pauses.]

There was one other thing I was wondering about, actually...

Edited 2013-05-27 11:05 (UTC)

Oh, what's that?

[Had she suddenly remembered daydreaming about going on a date with Yuzu]

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