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Description
The Dark Hour and everything within it, Akihiko thinks, is and forever will be an enigma.

The way its mysterious origin was born years ago only to produce a seemingly interminable trickle of Shadows into the halls of Tartarus. The way in which only a select handful of possibly random individuals are chosen to face its horrors despite the burden the extra hour weighs on the human body's stamina attempting to prevent any person's survival during the supernatural sixty minutes. The way those unable to feel their way into the Dark Hour morph into coffins, as if already dead but ready to chatter, slumber, and laugh on when the clock hits 12:01. The way electricity circuits to a death as if broken and vandalized for the entirety of the hour, only to be restored at the Dark Hour's end to complete restoration. All of it, no matter which aspect Akihiko ruminates over with more precision than the other, is outright strange.

Shinjiro Aragaki, however, Akihiko thinks is stranger.

He's known the boy since the ugly stages of adolescence were rearing their heads in awakening in the orphanage, when Shinjiro was nothing more than a boy with the loitering bitterness of his lack of a family looming in the shadow of his eyes and the hang of his stance. He was much simpler then, with nothing to decipher but the blooming portions of his personality Akihiko himself was able to witness develop.

By now, things have changed. Aside from the bitterness and guilt that hung with Shinjiro like a permanent raincloud determined to cast its gloom over him ever since their childhood, he's different, and with it, more complex than any physics problem Akihiko has ever had to help Junpei understand.

Shinjiro's lived the life of a vagabond and a recluse for years in dank, dusty corners of streets littered with graffiti, crushed soda cans, and stray punks with smuggled bottles of gin and knives in their socks, years in which Akihiko could only bear to spy on his friend when he felt mentally up to the task of watching his childhood comrade belittle himself to living with rodents and delinquents in back alleys. He wears a heavy coat with a hem that licks his knees even in the heat of a muggy July summer and sometimes, falls asleep with his hat haphazardly clinging to his hair despite its superfluous presence during slumber. And sometimes, despite his history of aggression and formidable barriers of distance built up around him to keep out anyone potentially interested in befriending him, a habit most surely formed due to a life of losses and shame, Shinjiro has a knack for cuddling.

Akihiko is positive that were he to confront him with this fact that he has been able to experience firsthand after enough fatigued nights after Tartarus to provide him with solid evidence, Shinjiro would scoff, whirl the accusation around into an offense regarding Akihiko's effeminate nature for him to even think up such an idea of two boys snuggling in bed, and walk out of sight with his coat swaying after him before Akihiko could commence any possible teasing. Akihiko knows Shinjiro's reflexes better than anyone else who has been in his presence long enough to pick up on his mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, and because of this, he knows to keep his mouth shut when it comes to mentioning any instances of nuzzling into each other's hair.

It happens especially on nights when they've returned from Tartarus, bodies sore, muscles aching from the sting of too many right arm hooks, and the coppery smell of blood and Shadows on their skin as all of them wordlessly congratulate each other for yet another night of fighting with triumph without the party sustaining any major lacerations as souvenirs. They trudge up to the dorm, Junpei whining about early morning tests he hasn't crammed for, Yukari promptly halting any more of his bemoaning by insulting his intelligence, followed by Mitsuru marshaling all of them off to bed to catch enough sleep to stay concentrated in school. The Dark Hour lingers for what feels like hours under Akihiko's skin, the moon tinted with tones of green staring down at him from the framework of his window as he shucks off his vest and slides into his sheets. It takes Shinjiro two minutes and forty-two seconds every night to remember that the Dark Hour ceases the functioning of electrically powered machines, including heaters. And on the two minutes and forty-two second mark, Akihiko's door creaks open to reveal the shadowy silhouette in the shape of a hunched boy with tired eyes shining out in the darkness of the night eclipsing his face and the unspoken request of Shinjiro trying to retain his dignity without relinquishing his body warmth hits the crisp night air.

Each night, Akihiko shifts just enough for the sound of a bouncing mattress and rustling sheets to reach Shinjiro's ears as a speechless yes. The thanks from Shinji's silent mouth reaches Akihiko as well, as if the years of close-knit teamwork has fused them a telepathic link even after the months of little to no interaction when Shinjiro deemed his Persona more trouble than it was worth and let shame accompany him in replacement of human camaraderie during his time on the streets.

With a grunt and a nod of thanks, Shinjiro settles into Akihiko's bed. It's a small bed, meant for strictly one party and not two, but no matter how far apart their nights begin where their bodies are stuffed shoulder to shoulder with hardly a fraction of skin brushing, their limbs find each other as if magnetized together through a scientific gravitational pull and lines are crossed that are hardly ever open for discussion come sunrise due to Shinjiro's firm belief in avoiding sentiments when fists and kicks are much easier routes of communication.

Sometimes, Shinjiro is braver than on other nights and clambers in to instantly wind an arm around Akihiko's torso and touch his toes to his ankle. And sometimes, Akihiko considers Shinjiro's intentions to be entirely self-preservation-oriented in which the cold has simply racked his organs to a point of frozen quivering and, as childhood friends battling through orphanage mishaps, Akihiko would be considerate to his friend's needs. Then there are nights when Shinjiro's skin is as warm as a layer of the sun, yet he still slides under Akihiko's covers and secures an arm around his waist as if intent on being there whether or not the steady beading of sweat will hamper his comfort. He should know by now, really, after weeks of this wordless agreement to stand by this ordeal side-by-side and hand-to-hand, that this isn't about broken heaters.

Rarely ever are there roaming hands eagerly groping and feeling along prominent hipbones and shivering flesh eager to arch into ginger fingers and plead for more. This is the bit, really, that Akihiko is most astonished at. When they do manage to fall onto the same note, whether it be at a peak of exasperation, despondence, or even the highest level of contentment one can manage when each night is full of swiveling fists and Shadows hissing after them and oozing blood on Tartarus floors, and their lips rub and their teeth crash and bite, there are no hands marred with apprehension or tongue licking at the seam of another mouth to beg for tender entrance. There is rolling, tumbling, a desperate fight for the top almost as aggressive as a fight in Tartarus would be minus the sharp weaponry but with the same ardency to finish a job well, hands squeezing at wrists, teeth nipping at earlobes, and fingers yanking at the very roots of hair until the hiss of submission breaks the air. Sex is animalistic and both of them are animals, touches and thrusts a mere instinct that Shinjiro and Akihiko can relate to as if they're wild wolves under their first layer of flesh seeking out survival. The roughness is something Akihiko tolerates and embraces – in what Mitsuru constantly seeks to label as an attempt to prove his lack of delicacy despite the haunting of his memories that would shatter almost any individual's mental, physical, and emotional state – and when it's mysteriously missing from Shinjiro's palms, Akihiko can't help but contemplate it. There are the soft inhales of both of them finding solace in the familiar smell of the skin on each other's necks and the strands of hair curling over ears. There is the routine, as cemented in the core of their very bones as much as it would be in the bodies of elderly married couples, of arms around torsos and heads pillowed on shoulders alongside the gentle stroking of forearms right before both of them succumb into the arms of slumber. There are kisses, wet and dry, soft and rough, where Shinjiro tugs on Akihiko's bottom lip with his teeth and Akihiko tangles his hands into the mess of Shinjiro's locks to yank him closer and rub their cheeks after the afternoon stubble makes itself present on their chins. Never would Shinjiro be caught with his fingers intertwined with Akihiko's gloved ones in bright daylight at Port Island Station, nor would he go through the trouble of relationship etiquette of remembering anniversaries or gifting his boyfriend with bright flowers and chocolate packaged with bows, but sometimes, even Shinjiro has a possessive streak that morphs into outright romance once his rampant jealousy is quelled.

It is, he believes, yet another enigma, as Shinjiro's arm snakes its way around Akihiko's hipbones underneath the warm nest of his bedspread. His fingers, two of them, rough and calloused with the strength of holding up rusty axes in battle, hitch up Akihiko's shirt just enough to slide over a sliver of skin and settle there over the hill of Akihiko's hipbones. He makes a noise, sleepy and discontent of his position, before Akihiko feels a nose tickling the nape of his neck where the hem of his hair bristles into short strands and the expanse of a bare chest steadily rising and falling with halcyon breaths of air presses up against Akihiko's clothed back. Every part of him is warm and borderline sticky in the nicest way Akihiko has ever felt it to be, not in a manner that makes him feel filthy and ready to wipe his legs off on the bathroom towels, but sticky in a fashion that reminds him of summer nights in Japan, the slightest sheen of sweat forming on his skin like a layer of peanut butter. Tasty, sticky. That's how Shinjiro's legs feel like pressed up against the underside of his knees.

Through the flimsy curtains, the barest of a yellow sunrise meets Akihiko's eyes, still blurred with his vestiges of slumber. The tip of the sun is greeting him at the end of the horizon, tickling the branches of the outermost trees, slowly spreading color through the gray sky of the morning. It's turning into autumn faster than summer seemed to have faded, and before long, Akihiko will be reaching on the top of his dresser to retrieve the heavy, frayed blanket reserved only for chilly nights in the depths of winter. He wonders if, with Shinjiro's body pressed up against his and his breath fanning out over the length of his shoulder, if he'll need the extra protection from the brisk air of the fall night.

He knows that soon, the telltale sound of Mitsuru's early riser habits will make themselves known in the sound of faint footsteps wafting down the steps, followed by Junpei's noisy stumbling into the hall without bothering to comb his hair, efficiently bedraggled and ravished by his pillow, proceeded by Minato's rhythmic footsteps down the hall while Yukari chatters with him. The walls are thin, thin enough for Akihiko to hear all of them. He wonders if sometimes, any of them hear him and Shinjiro padding across the hall in the ghastly hours of the night to share beds or sometimes, in worse scenarios, if they overhear the poorly stifled sounds of both boys moaning into the caverns of each other's mouths while their hands wander down past the waistband of boxers.

These moments, these simple moments before dawn where any traces of a morbid Dark Hour are completely wiped from the sky and the streets and for a fleeting moment, beneath the layers of concern preceding full moons and the stress of tightly organized training schedules, Akihiko feels like a boy in Shinji's arms. Not a Persona user, a warrior, or a savior whose outcome of the entire world is waiting to be accepted with full responsibility, but a boy. A teenage boy in a Japanese town who likes to fix his boxing gloves on Tuesday nights and cuddle with his boyfriend on weeknights despite his boyfriend's refusals to accept their snuggling as strictly, snuggling. It's the feeling he was supposed to have a surplus of in the innocence of his youth, in which his times of begging his mother for leftover cookie dough and watching his father mow the lawn were cut abruptly short. It's the feeling that he knows is short-lived, whether it be for the day or for his lifetime.

Shinjiro stirs behind him and slips his hand higher up Akihiko's sides to ghost over the faintly defined muscles of his chest. His fingertip falls into the dip of his abdomen, content there, and his leg squeezes between two of Akihiko's knees. The fact that he does all of this in the routine of his sleep, the steady pump of his heartbeat thumping against Akihiko's backside, manages to reassure him. He reaches over, cocoons Shinjiro's knuckles with his palm, and pulls their hands to twine together by his stomach.

The Dark Hour is over. The steady whisper of the heaters wafts into Akihiko's ears if he drowns out the twitter of birds and the ticking of the clock overhead his bed. It's cozy under the shield of the sheets, warmer than necessary wrapped up in Shinjiro's arms, and they aren't moving away. It reassures Akihiko too.

The times from the orphanage when Miki would do handstands in the grass and topple over her arms when her skirt would fall over her eyes are long gone. Competing with Shinjiro by the notches of sundry heights marked into the door by the bathroom for years on end is gone. Practicing proper punches on each other's shoulders when nightmares infiltrated their peaceful dreams are gone. They're adults now, whether or not anyone else knows, and just the fact that Shinji, the same Shinji that pushed him into the orphanage lake and gave him a black eye when he was thirteen for breaking his wrist after falling into said lake that managed to break the composed façade Shinjiro painted on his face even in his childhood thanks to pure worry, is holding onto him and holding him afloat in what is this time a strictly imaginary lake threatening to snatch him under is more heartening to Akihiko than jabbing a fist into an opponent right at the weak point.

"You awake, Aki?" Shinjiro's grumbling voice, thick with an edge of lazy exhaustion even with the hours of sleep they both just awoke from, murmurs from aside Akihiko's ear.

"Mmm," he says, and nothing else, before the slightest hint of a smile tugs at the phlegmatic line of his lips as Shinjiro's warm mouth parts and plants a breath of a kiss on the groove of his neck. Good morning it says, and thanks for letting me stay here and don't mention this or I'll kick your ass all the way to Tartarus. He leaves another lingering kiss in the wake of his previous one on the sensitive skin under Akihiko's ear for emphasis. Akihiko squeezes Shinjiro's hand and it says come back tonight and you couldn't kick my ass if you tried.

It will never not be strange, the same way that Shinjiro won't ever not be either. He shows jealousy by sulking and burying his face in the collar of his coat and denies any confessions of envy when Akihiko returns from lunch with Mitsuru or an attempted interrogation of Chidori. He wrinkles his nose and claims his superiority over Akihiko's instant ramen bowls, only to steal forkfuls of noodles with he's too lazy to make his own dinner. He wraps Akihiko's legs around his waist and slams into walls to ravage his neck with his mouth and tear off any offending garments keeping him from the heat radiating from Akihiko's bare skin, only to resort to hand holding under bedspreads and closed-mouthed kisses on bottom lips in the security of the nighttime when all the fight seems to drain out of him like leaking blood.

"You're all warm," Shinjiro says against the shell of Akihiko's ear and shifts against his backside. His hips press into Akihiko's behind and his knees knock into the backside of Akihiko's thighs. They don't fit like fairytale puzzle pieces, but rather like awkward teenage boys with cumbersome bones and limbs do. Akihiko wouldn't feel right any other way.

"Your fault," says Akihiko, ignoring the huff of indignation gusted out over the back of his neck, "you always get so close."

"Tch," Shinjiro huffs, and as if to prove a point, he tugs Akihiko's body further into the curve of his and lets his teeth graze the sliver of Akihiko's spine revealed on his back, "You're an idiot."

It finishes the conversation, and Akihiko doesn't mind. It's early in the morning, early enough to even halt their banter for dominance over whatever matter merits an altercation or battle in opinion. He has the rest of the day to resist the quelling of his rebuttal reflex, and only a matter of hours in the warm cocoon that is Shinjiro's arms when he thinks of the crawling Shadows awaiting him in the imminent Dark Hour, the full moon speeding through the calendar and ever closer to now, and what will surely be more close calls and bleeding scratches in Tartarus that will only continue to tarnish his equipment. This thing with him and Shinjiro, it will never be as solid as the nefarious atmosphere in the Tower of Demise or the blood trickling from his injuries, but it's the best thing he has. He's fond of it, fonder than he wishes to admit in a world where things he displays affection for are cruelly swiped out from underneath him by invisible hands of omniscience, whether it be his family or the S.E.E.S. group.

But the loitering promise of potential morning sex is swimming in the air, enough to put to rest any thoughts disturbing his ephemeral peace, and with that, he neglects any contemplations concerning how enigmatic Shinjiro Aragaki is, because despite his abnormality, he still manages to be pretty damn wonderful.

Description
The Dark Hour and everything within it, Akihiko thinks, is and forever will be an enigma.

The way its mysterious origin was born years ago only to produce a seemingly interminable trickle of Shadows into the halls of Tartarus. The way in which only a select handful of possibly random individuals are chosen to face its horrors despite the burden the extra hour weighs on the human body's stamina attempting to prevent any person's survival during the supernatural sixty minutes. The way those unable to feel their way into the Dark Hour morph into coffins, as if already dead but ready to chatter, slumber, and laugh on when the clock hits 12:01. The way electricity circuits to a death as if broken and vandalized for the entirety of the hour, only to be restored at the Dark Hour's end to complete restoration. All of it, no matter which aspect Akihiko ruminates over with more precision than the other, is outright strange.

Shinjiro Aragaki, however, Akihiko thinks is stranger.

He's known the boy since the ugly stages of adolescence were rearing their heads in awakening in the orphanage, when Shinjiro was nothing more than a boy with the loitering bitterness of his lack of a family looming in the shadow of his eyes and the hang of his stance. He was much simpler then, with nothing to decipher but the blooming portions of his personality Akihiko himself was able to witness develop.

By now, things have changed. Aside from the bitterness and guilt that hung with Shinjiro like a permanent raincloud determined to cast its gloom over him ever since their childhood, he's different, and with it, more complex than any physics problem Akihiko has ever had to help Junpei understand.

Shinjiro's lived the life of a vagabond and a recluse for years in dank, dusty corners of streets littered with graffiti, crushed soda cans, and stray punks with smuggled bottles of gin and knives in their socks, years in which Akihiko could only bear to spy on his friend when he felt mentally up to the task of watching his childhood comrade belittle himself to living with rodents and delinquents in back alleys. He wears a heavy coat with a hem that licks his knees even in the heat of a muggy July summer and sometimes, falls asleep with his hat haphazardly clinging to his hair despite its superfluous presence during slumber. And sometimes, despite his history of aggression and formidable barriers of distance built up around him to keep out anyone potentially interested in befriending him, a habit most surely formed due to a life of losses and shame, Shinjiro has a knack for cuddling.

Akihiko is positive that were he to confront him with this fact that he has been able to experience firsthand after enough fatigued nights after Tartarus to provide him with solid evidence, Shinjiro would scoff, whirl the accusation around into an offense regarding Akihiko's effeminate nature for him to even think up such an idea of two boys snuggling in bed, and walk out of sight with his coat swaying after him before Akihiko could commence any possible teasing. Akihiko knows Shinjiro's reflexes better than anyone else who has been in his presence long enough to pick up on his mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, and because of this, he knows to keep his mouth shut when it comes to mentioning any instances of nuzzling into each other's hair.

It happens especially on nights when they've returned from Tartarus, bodies sore, muscles aching from the sting of too many right arm hooks, and the coppery smell of blood and Shadows on their skin as all of them wordlessly congratulate each other for yet another night of fighting with triumph without the party sustaining any major lacerations as souvenirs. They trudge up to the dorm, Junpei whining about early morning tests he hasn't crammed for, Yukari promptly halting any more of his bemoaning by insulting his intelligence, followed by Mitsuru marshaling all of them off to bed to catch enough sleep to stay concentrated in school. The Dark Hour lingers for what feels like hours under Akihiko's skin, the moon tinted with tones of green staring down at him from the framework of his window as he shucks off his vest and slides into his sheets. It takes Shinjiro two minutes and forty-two seconds every night to remember that the Dark Hour ceases the functioning of electrically powered machines, including heaters. And on the two minutes and forty-two second mark, Akihiko's door creaks open to reveal the shadowy silhouette in the shape of a hunched boy with tired eyes shining out in the darkness of the night eclipsing his face and the unspoken request of Shinjiro trying to retain his dignity without relinquishing his body warmth hits the crisp night air.

Each night, Akihiko shifts just enough for the sound of a bouncing mattress and rustling sheets to reach Shinjiro's ears as a speechless yes. The thanks from Shinji's silent mouth reaches Akihiko as well, as if the years of close-knit teamwork has fused them a telepathic link even after the months of little to no interaction when Shinjiro deemed his Persona more trouble than it was worth and let shame accompany him in replacement of human camaraderie during his time on the streets.

With a grunt and a nod of thanks, Shinjiro settles into Akihiko's bed. It's a small bed, meant for strictly one party and not two, but no matter how far apart their nights begin where their bodies are stuffed shoulder to shoulder with hardly a fraction of skin brushing, their limbs find each other as if magnetized together through a scientific gravitational pull and lines are crossed that are hardly ever open for discussion come sunrise due to Shinjiro's firm belief in avoiding sentiments when fists and kicks are much easier routes of communication.

Sometimes, Shinjiro is braver than on other nights and clambers in to instantly wind an arm around Akihiko's torso and touch his toes to his ankle. And sometimes, Akihiko considers Shinjiro's intentions to be entirely self-preservation-oriented in which the cold has simply racked his organs to a point of frozen quivering and, as childhood friends battling through orphanage mishaps, Akihiko would be considerate to his friend's needs. Then there are nights when Shinjiro's skin is as warm as a layer of the sun, yet he still slides under Akihiko's covers and secures an arm around his waist as if intent on being there whether or not the steady beading of sweat will hamper his comfort. He should know by now, really, after weeks of this wordless agreement to stand by this ordeal side-by-side and hand-to-hand, that this isn't about broken heaters.

Rarely ever are there roaming hands eagerly groping and feeling along prominent hipbones and shivering flesh eager to arch into ginger fingers and plead for more. This is the bit, really, that Akihiko is most astonished at. When they do manage to fall onto the same note, whether it be at a peak of exasperation, despondence, or even the highest level of contentment one can manage when each night is full of swiveling fists and Shadows hissing after them and oozing blood on Tartarus floors, and their lips rub and their teeth crash and bite, there are no hands marred with apprehension or tongue licking at the seam of another mouth to beg for tender entrance. There is rolling, tumbling, a desperate fight for the top almost as aggressive as a fight in Tartarus would be minus the sharp weaponry but with the same ardency to finish a job well, hands squeezing at wrists, teeth nipping at earlobes, and fingers yanking at the very roots of hair until the hiss of submission breaks the air. Sex is animalistic and both of them are animals, touches and thrusts a mere instinct that Shinjiro and Akihiko can relate to as if they're wild wolves under their first layer of flesh seeking out survival. The roughness is something Akihiko tolerates and embraces – in what Mitsuru constantly seeks to label as an attempt to prove his lack of delicacy despite the haunting of his memories that would shatter almost any individual's mental, physical, and emotional state – and when it's mysteriously missing from Shinjiro's palms, Akihiko can't help but contemplate it. There are the soft inhales of both of them finding solace in the familiar smell of the skin on each other's necks and the strands of hair curling over ears. There is the routine, as cemented in the core of their very bones as much as it would be in the bodies of elderly married couples, of arms around torsos and heads pillowed on shoulders alongside the gentle stroking of forearms right before both of them succumb into the arms of slumber. There are kisses, wet and dry, soft and rough, where Shinjiro tugs on Akihiko's bottom lip with his teeth and Akihiko tangles his hands into the mess of Shinjiro's locks to yank him closer and rub their cheeks after the afternoon stubble makes itself present on their chins. Never would Shinjiro be caught with his fingers intertwined with Akihiko's gloved ones in bright daylight at Port Island Station, nor would he go through the trouble of relationship etiquette of remembering anniversaries or gifting his boyfriend with bright flowers and chocolate packaged with bows, but sometimes, even Shinjiro has a possessive streak that morphs into outright romance once his rampant jealousy is quelled.

It is, he believes, yet another enigma, as Shinjiro's arm snakes its way around Akihiko's hipbones underneath the warm nest of his bedspread. His fingers, two of them, rough and calloused with the strength of holding up rusty axes in battle, hitch up Akihiko's shirt just enough to slide over a sliver of skin and settle there over the hill of Akihiko's hipbones. He makes a noise, sleepy and discontent of his position, before Akihiko feels a nose tickling the nape of his neck where the hem of his hair bristles into short strands and the expanse of a bare chest steadily rising and falling with halcyon breaths of air presses up against Akihiko's clothed back. Every part of him is warm and borderline sticky in the nicest way Akihiko has ever felt it to be, not in a manner that makes him feel filthy and ready to wipe his legs off on the bathroom towels, but sticky in a fashion that reminds him of summer nights in Japan, the slightest sheen of sweat forming on his skin like a layer of peanut butter. Tasty, sticky. That's how Shinjiro's legs feel like pressed up against the underside of his knees.

Through the flimsy curtains, the barest of a yellow sunrise meets Akihiko's eyes, still blurred with his vestiges of slumber. The tip of the sun is greeting him at the end of the horizon, tickling the branches of the outermost trees, slowly spreading color through the gray sky of the morning. It's turning into autumn faster than summer seemed to have faded, and before long, Akihiko will be reaching on the top of his dresser to retrieve the heavy, frayed blanket reserved only for chilly nights in the depths of winter. He wonders if, with Shinjiro's body pressed up against his and his breath fanning out over the length of his shoulder, if he'll need the extra protection from the brisk air of the fall night.

He knows that soon, the telltale sound of Mitsuru's early riser habits will make themselves known in the sound of faint footsteps wafting down the steps, followed by Junpei's noisy stumbling into the hall without bothering to comb his hair, efficiently bedraggled and ravished by his pillow, proceeded by Minato's rhythmic footsteps down the hall while Yukari chatters with him. The walls are thin, thin enough for Akihiko to hear all of them. He wonders if sometimes, any of them hear him and Shinjiro padding across the hall in the ghastly hours of the night to share beds or sometimes, in worse scenarios, if they overhear the poorly stifled sounds of both boys moaning into the caverns of each other's mouths while their hands wander down past the waistband of boxers.

These moments, these simple moments before dawn where any traces of a morbid Dark Hour are completely wiped from the sky and the streets and for a fleeting moment, beneath the layers of concern preceding full moons and the stress of tightly organized training schedules, Akihiko feels like a boy in Shinji's arms. Not a Persona user, a warrior, or a savior whose outcome of the entire world is waiting to be accepted with full responsibility, but a boy. A teenage boy in a Japanese town who likes to fix his boxing gloves on Tuesday nights and cuddle with his boyfriend on weeknights despite his boyfriend's refusals to accept their snuggling as strictly, snuggling. It's the feeling he was supposed to have a surplus of in the innocence of his youth, in which his times of begging his mother for leftover cookie dough and watching his father mow the lawn were cut abruptly short. It's the feeling that he knows is short-lived, whether it be for the day or for his lifetime.

Shinjiro stirs behind him and slips his hand higher up Akihiko's sides to ghost over the faintly defined muscles of his chest. His fingertip falls into the dip of his abdomen, content there, and his leg squeezes between two of Akihiko's knees. The fact that he does all of this in the routine of his sleep, the steady pump of his heartbeat thumping against Akihiko's backside, manages to reassure him. He reaches over, cocoons Shinjiro's knuckles with his palm, and pulls their hands to twine together by his stomach.

The Dark Hour is over. The steady whisper of the heaters wafts into Akihiko's ears if he drowns out the twitter of birds and the ticking of the clock overhead his bed. It's cozy under the shield of the sheets, warmer than necessary wrapped up in Shinjiro's arms, and they aren't moving away. It reassures Akihiko too.

The times from the orphanage when Miki would do handstands in the grass and topple over her arms when her skirt would fall over her eyes are long gone. Competing with Shinjiro by the notches of sundry heights marked into the door by the bathroom for years on end is gone. Practicing proper punches on each other's shoulders when nightmares infiltrated their peaceful dreams are gone. They're adults now, whether or not anyone else knows, and just the fact that Shinji, the same Shinji that pushed him into the orphanage lake and gave him a black eye when he was thirteen for breaking his wrist after falling into said lake that managed to break the composed façade Shinjiro painted on his face even in his childhood thanks to pure worry, is holding onto him and holding him afloat in what is this time a strictly imaginary lake threatening to snatch him under is more heartening to Akihiko than jabbing a fist into an opponent right at the weak point.

"You awake, Aki?" Shinjiro's grumbling voice, thick with an edge of lazy exhaustion even with the hours of sleep they both just awoke from, murmurs from aside Akihiko's ear.

"Mmm," he says, and nothing else, before the slightest hint of a smile tugs at the phlegmatic line of his lips as Shinjiro's warm mouth parts and plants a breath of a kiss on the groove of his neck. Good morning it says, and thanks for letting me stay here and don't mention this or I'll kick your ass all the way to Tartarus. He leaves another lingering kiss in the wake of his previous one on the sensitive skin under Akihiko's ear for emphasis. Akihiko squeezes Shinjiro's hand and it says come back tonight and you couldn't kick my ass if you tried.

It will never not be strange, the same way that Shinjiro won't ever not be either. He shows jealousy by sulking and burying his face in the collar of his coat and denies any confessions of envy when Akihiko returns from lunch with Mitsuru or an attempted interrogation of Chidori. He wrinkles his nose and claims his superiority over Akihiko's instant ramen bowls, only to steal forkfuls of noodles with he's too lazy to make his own dinner. He wraps Akihiko's legs around his waist and slams into walls to ravage his neck with his mouth and tear off any offending garments keeping him from the heat radiating from Akihiko's bare skin, only to resort to hand holding under bedspreads and closed-mouthed kisses on bottom lips in the security of the nighttime when all the fight seems to drain out of him like leaking blood.

"You're all warm," Shinjiro says against the shell of Akihiko's ear and shifts against his backside. His hips press into Akihiko's behind and his knees knock into the backside of Akihiko's thighs. They don't fit like fairytale puzzle pieces, but rather like awkward teenage boys with cumbersome bones and limbs do. Akihiko wouldn't feel right any other way.

"Your fault," says Akihiko, ignoring the huff of indignation gusted out over the back of his neck, "you always get so close."

"Tch," Shinjiro huffs, and as if to prove a point, he tugs Akihiko's body further into the curve of his and lets his teeth graze the sliver of Akihiko's spine revealed on his back, "You're an idiot."

It finishes the conversation, and Akihiko doesn't mind. It's early in the morning, early enough to even halt their banter for dominance over whatever matter merits an altercation or battle in opinion. He has the rest of the day to resist the quelling of his rebuttal reflex, and only a matter of hours in the warm cocoon that is Shinjiro's arms when he thinks of the crawling Shadows awaiting him in the imminent Dark Hour, the full moon speeding through the calendar and ever closer to now, and what will surely be more close calls and bleeding scratches in Tartarus that will only continue to tarnish his equipment. This thing with him and Shinjiro, it will never be as solid as the nefarious atmosphere in the Tower of Demise or the blood trickling from his injuries, but it's the best thing he has. He's fond of it, fonder than he wishes to admit in a world where things he displays affection for are cruelly swiped out from underneath him by invisible hands of omniscience, whether it be his family or the S.E.E.S. group.

But the loitering promise of potential morning sex is swimming in the air, enough to put to rest any thoughts disturbing his ephemeral peace, and with that, he neglects any contemplations concerning how enigmatic Shinjiro Aragaki is, because despite his abnormality, he still manages to be pretty damn wonderful.