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“Aigis, hey, are you listening?” Aigis sits up straighter on the sofa where she was sitting, finding herself looking at Ryoji. Ryoji? This was to her, something that had already happened. What day was it…
What happened?
She realizes that Yukari’s hand is on her shoulder. Yukari had asked her if she was listening. It fills Aigis with a sort of icy dread, since mere moments ago Yukari had callously bested her in a fight…right. Aigis remembers watching as she ripped the final key from Fuuka’s hands. They were here because of Yukari’s own selfish actions, here a month before New Year’s Eve at her grieving behest.
“Can we step outside for a moment, Aigis?” Yukari asks her.
Looking around at the others for any recognition of their memories, of any reason there could possibly be to say no. To keep Yukari trapped here and allow all of them to live with and merely silently acknowledge her mistakes. Junpei and Fuuka both barely spare her a passing glance. She looks to Makoto to save her, even knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s entirely out of the loop here.
Damningly, he gives her a gentle smile and a nod to send her off. With no other option then, she stands up to humor Yukari. Watching as Yukari’s hand slips down to hold her own hand, dragging her like a child to the door that leads outside of the observation room to the dim hallways. That same door creaks slowly on its hinges, crying out as it shuts behind Aigis.
Yukari lets go, and it’s almost more uncomfortable than the forceful heat of her hand gently keeping Aigis tethered to her. Stepping away, she faces Aigis with a miserably blank expression.
“What’s bothering you?” Almost daring Aigis to point out what had…what had the possibility to occur again.
And who knows what the consequences would be of admitting it outright. “I think that I was dreaming.” She says instead. It had become something normal for her, however it wasn’t something that she had really discussed with the rest of them until the future. Until after Makoto was gone.
Yukari tilts her head to the side, like a confused predator. She could always be as cunning as a fox if she really desired to be. “Dreaming about what?” It’s still a mind game.Goading Aigis into being angry with her, and in this dim light it’s all the more tempting and more menacing.
Aigis really has no other choice that she sees. “I think I was dreaming about the future. When we defeat Nyx…I dreamt that Makoto he…died. I dreamt that we fought over whether or not we would go back and try to save him and you…” Aigis doesn’t dare admit that Yukari fought the rest of them and took the keys.
Yukari hums about that like she remembers. Instead of doing anything concrete about it, she takes several steps forward. Aigis wonders for a moment if Yukari is going to attack her. Tensing up as she approaches, Aigis realizes how her shoulders are almost reaching her ears when Yukari wraps her arms around her. A gentle, kind embrace. One that Aigis guesses at the intent of, even as Yukari’s hand brushes through her blonde hair.
“Oh Aigis, that sounds terrible.” It’s sweet. It’s saccharine. It’s malice. “I’m here for you, and I promise you it was only a dream.”
Aigis knows she can’t believe that, or anything that Yukari says for that matter. And yet…she finds herself melting into that embrace. It’s so much easier to let herself submit to that comfort, even when it doesn’t have her best interests at heart.
“I promise that I’ll never let anything bad happen to Makoto, or to you sweetheart.” She can picture the glare that Yukari is giving the door, knowing that Aigis had to live with the memory of what she’d done to all of them. Of the fact that she can’t do anything to Aigis about it.
All Aigis has the strength to do is bury her face in Yukari’s shoulder, and breathe her in. Take part in the perfect world and the perfect comfort that Yukari was offering her, no matter how plastic it was.