Persona 3: Spring of Rebirth

Distant Dreamer

Hey.

I don't tend to do author's notes at the start of a chapter, and I don't plan on making this a trend, but I wanted to apologize cuz this chapter is really late. It was supposed to be out last month, but for some reason the chapter kept kicking my ass.

Also, I guess I wanted to just leave a sort of warning, cuz the middle section of this one is a bit weird, and writing it was so hard for some reason.

Uh, that's all I needed to say at the start. Enjoy.

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"Are you okay...?" Yukari asked, unsure of what to do, as she stared at Kotone Shiomi lying on the floor, groaning and acting like she had just been ran over.

"I might be dying," was the redhead's response. After somehow managing to not crash the monorail the previous night, and barely making it to her bed before her body gave up on her, she had woken up to a new flood of memories which left her feeling like someone had tried to rip the insides of her brain apart. Thankfully Yukari had noticed she hadn't left her room and came looking for her; otherwise Kotone might have just surrendered and gone back to sleep in that same position she was found in.

"Do you want help...?"

"That would be... nice..." Kotone groaned, stretching her hand to take Yukari's. The auburn haired girl groaned, pulling her to her feet and almost falling back in the process.

Yukari took a moment to breathe — Kotone was surprisingly heavy — before voicing her question, "What happened?"

"...massive headache," the redhead mumbled.

"Did you use too much power yesterday?"

"Nah, I don't think so..." Kotone leaned back, scratching the back of her neck in annoyance and falling down onto her bed, "I think my head just hates me."

Yukari could not keep herself from staring at the redhead with concern, something that Kotone was far from being fond of, as was apparent by her unwillingness to tell anyone about these sorts of things. "Is this like the other day with Hasegawa-san...?" she dared ask. She wasn't expecting an honest answer, after all her classmate had proven to be quite stubborn, and was surprised when she actually received an explanation of sorts.

"Sorta. I've been having these for a while now. They seem to intensify after the full moon," Kotone voiced her thoughts, carefully choosing her words; she couldn't give away the fact that her headaches came from her memories coming back to her. That would mean opening a can of worms she was sure Yukari and the other members of S.E.E.S wouldn't take very well to. "It's fine, though, don't worry. Really, it's probably just stress." That wasn't a lie in its entirety; Kotone had been feeling stressed, truly, though that was because of the headaches and not the other way around.

Yukari parted her lips, wanting to say something, but all she could muster was sigh. "Are you sure?" she asked, hoping a confirmation would ease her mind — part of her wondered why Kotone's well-being mattered so much to her. They hadn't known each other for that long, yet she couldn't bear to see Kotone hurting like this; and it was obvious she wasn't feeling well. Even if her mask was hard to see through most of the time, it would be obvious to anyone who saw her lying on the floor the way she had when Yukari entered the room. That look on her face...

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Once Kotone had, against all odds, managed to convince Yukari that she was okay and that she only needed to rest for a bit, she headed down to the bathroom to fulfill the one mission Minako had entrusted to her before they went to sleep the previous night.