Inspiration drabble

cross-posted at deviantART

This one isn't really a dump, but it is too short to do much of anything with. It was inspired by Rukitella's oh-so-darling

"Persona 4: Yosuke x Chie" piece. Take a look, leave a comment, and Favorite it (just like I did)!

I've always loved this kind of "surprise" declaration of affection, as Rukitella does so well here...
...although, why do I get the feeling that the seconds immediately following this would be comprised of something like:

Despite his arm around her waist, Chie yanks herself away as though pulling her hand from a fire.

"Mm-wha-?" Yousuke starts, and the next second later she nearly takes his head off, with a stinging slap across his cheek that he can feel is already leaving its hot imprint on his skin.

He whirls back to her, in an instant capturing and memorizing the look of her: amber eyes wide and staring, snub nose twitching, and her face flaring bright and beautifully pink, like a colorful beacon in the fog.

"What the hell-?!" he starts to say, but she cuts him off again...when she grabs him by the collar and wrenches his shoulders down to hers, pressing her suddenly-seeking lips to his.

Like chocolate left on a windowsill in summer, he melts in that kiss, humming and sighing against her mouth. He puts his arms around her again and tilts his head just slightly to the side, to get a better taste of her, when she abruptly - inexplicably - maddeningly - shoves him away again.

Another slap stings his cheek (in the exact same place, damn it; her aim is uncanny), and this time he turns back to her slowly, wary of what crazy thing she might do next.

"No tongues," she tells him in firm declaration. Then she gives a little shake of her head, straightening her hair, and smirks at him.

Yousuke touches his fingers to his cheek, and, despite the ringing in his ear, smiles wickedly at her. "Yes, ma'am," he murmurs, and the next time that they step away from each other, the only pain that he feels is the delightfully lingering tingling in his lips, from the sweet press of hers.

Not really worthy of a story posting, but this is just further proof that the art around places like deviantART can really inspire me...or you!

Thanks again to Rukitella for the sweet pic!

Long goodbyes

Here's one of the many scenes that I took out of Chapter 60 ("Futures Imperfect"), in order to cut down the wordcount, and to make the story just plain flow better.

“Thanks for coming to see us off,” Souji said, shrugging against the strap of his over-the-shoulder bag; the rest of their luggage was settled next to their families, waiting a little further down the platform, closer to the departure berth.

“I can't believe you're going to Tokyo,” Chie muttered, as she gave Yukiko another long hug.

The new bride chuckled as she pushed away. “Just for a few days,” she reminded Chie. “I can't be away from the ryokan for very long-”

“-And this is the start of the new term,” Souji finished with a smile. “I've got my classes to teach!”

“Well,” Chie said, dropping to her high heels again with a little bounce. “I want to hear all about it when you get back!”

“You realize they're going to spend most of their time in their hotel room,” Yousuke told her, and she replied with a quick and silencing jab in his ribs.

Souji shook his head and smiled at Yousuke, but Rise was more blasé:

“Tokyo's like Inaba, really,” the idol said. “Just bigger. And smoggier.”

“A lot bigger,” Souji muttered.

“A lot smoggier,” Yousuke said with a snicker.

There was chuckling around the group of friends, and then Naoto nodded to Souji.
“We shall make certain to check up on your apartment while you are away,” the detective said.

“Somebody's gotta be the responsible ones 'round here,” Kanji added with a teasing smirk.

Yukiko raised her hand. “Speaking of which,” she said. “If anything should...happen...while we're away-”

“-Don't call us,” Souji finished for her, and both Yousuke and Rise laughed, while the rest of them giggled softly.

Yukiko smiled. “But, seriously-” she began, and once again Souji cut her off:

“-Don't...call us,” he repeated with a grin.

“Understood,” Naoto said, chuckling gently.

Yukiko clicked her tongue while Souji continued to grin, but then he gazed around at them, softening to a friendly smile. “We should say goodbye to our folks,” he said. But he didn't move right away, instead measuring each of them in turn with a look of grateful kindness. “Thank you. For everything,” he told them.

Yukiko nodded. “If there's ever anything we can do, please don't hesitate to ask.”

“Actually,” Yousuke spoke up with another snicker. “There's this music shop in the Ginza-”

“Shut up,” Chie told him with a roll of her eyes, causing Souji and Yukiko to chuckle again.

Then Kuma hopped forward, tossing her arms around Souji's neck. “Be happy, Sensei,” she said, and then she did the same for Yukiko. “Yuki-chan, too, kuma.”

Souji nodded. “We'll see you when we get back,” he said, and then he took Yukiko by the hand, leading her over to the cluster of his family and hers.

I enjoyed the interactions between the friends, here, but - once again - it didn't really do anything to advance the plot. I thought that the recap given in the chapter as posted covers this well enough. And, I was having trouble transitioning from this scene at the train platform to the one that occurs in the apartment.

I'd also already done a goodbye scene at the train in the previous chapter (Chapter 59, "A Little Night Music") that more appropriately fit into the characterizations of Chie and Kuma and Yousuke (and the Terrible Trio).

I've found that the more I write Yukiko and Souji as a couple, the more I enjoy their interactions - and their relationships with the other characters. Yukiko has in many ways become quite like Souji, in the role she's taken with the other women in the story. Much like Souji is a guiding force for the team in general, Yukiko has become the same for the female contingent, though in a particularly womanly way. It's been an important friendship and relationship for Chie to have, and I'm glad that I've been able to showcase it to some degree.

"1 More Chance!" is winding down to a close very quickly (though perhaps not as quickly as some readers would like), but I'm looking forward to examining the (changed) relationships between the characters in more stories.

Over the phone

Here's a "scene" that I tried so hard to make work in the finished edit...but sometimes we have to just suck it up and admit that - as much as we may enjoy something we write - it simply does not fit with the story we're trying to tell.

It would have occurred in the first scene of Chapter 58 ("Dance of Fools"), right after Chie wakes up and finds her phone...

The faceplate blinked at her with an alert of a new text message, and no less than four new voice messages, which made her swallow thickly. Avoiding Yousuke was one thing; that was for his own good. But ignoring him was a different matter entirely, one that didn't sit well with her...and that she knew she wouldn't be able to do for long, if at all.

She missed him too much for that.

So she flipped open her phone and dialed for her voicemail, preparing herself for a tirade of furious and hateful epithets.

Yousuke was more than capable of verbally cutting her to the quick; she'd had enough arguments with him in her day to know that much. But as she listened to the start of the first message – time-stamped at seven forty-four, not long after she would have run out of the apartment – she found that she couldn't hear any of the venom in his voice that she had been expecting. Rather, he sounded flustered, and confused, and decidedly very scared:

“Chie, I'm sorry,” he said, his voice quiet and only half-enunciating, as though the words were being swallowed by his throat. “I know I'm an idiot. And whatever it is that I did, I'm sorry. Please, just...come back. Come back, and we can talk about this. Please.” He gave a low breath, injured by a sudden sniff. “Call me back, okay?”

She pressed her lips together, feeling a low, burning shame heat her cheeks. But her Persona's words echoed in her inner ear (Continuing, hard), and she knew that if he was going to be free, then she was going to have to be strong. So she deleted this message and went on to the next, which had come in an hour later, at nearly nine o'clock. He sounded much less lost, now, his tone clipped and more decisive:

“This is ridiculous...! I can't just sit around here waiting for you anymore.” She heard the scraping sound of something moving against the mouthpiece, as if he were shifting the phone from one ear to the other. And below that, the echoey sound of his steps on metal stairs. “Listen, I'm gonna get my bike. If you get this message, please, call me right back. And if you get home before I do, don't-don't leave! All right? Chie? ...Fuck.”

She could hear the brewing anger and frustration in his voice now, and it wasn't a message she wanted to listen to again, so she deleted that one, too.

The third message was marked as incoming another hour later – at ten twenty-one – and if she'd thought he was starting to brew in the last message, he was positively boiling in this one:

“Gah-! Dammit! How fucking hard is it for you to answer your fucking phone?! I've been riding around this stupid town for the last hour-and-a-half looking for your sorry ass!” He growled then, sharply, like a verbal swing at her guts. “I swear, you'd better be lying in a ditch somewhere-!”

Chie hit the DELETE button nearly before he'd finished speaking, at the same time biting down on her bottom lip. There was the anger she'd been expecting, in spades. Not that she didn't deserve it (she did), but hearing him actually say those words with such fury made her flinch. She considered just getting rid of the last of the messages, too, except she automatically pressed the NEXT button, and it started up before she could stop it.

This fourth one was time-stamped not two minutes after the previous, but where she was ready for another denunciation, she found his tone now to be markedly different – frightened, distressed, regretful – and it made her pause:

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry; I didn't mean that. Chie, I'm so sorry...!” He gave a muffled and sucking breath into the phone, and she could almost hear the anxious, terrified spit bubbling over his lips. “Look, if-if you don't want to talk to me, that's...that's fine. But at least let me know where you are? Please? I just want to know that you're okay. I don't want this to be....” Another break, and another breath, while he seemed to swallow that left-unspoken thought. “I just want you to be okay,” he muttered again, and she had to close her eyes as she actually heard his voice crack. “Please be okay. Just...please...let me know you're okay.” He paused then, the rambling utterances of frustration and sadness coming to a stop with a long and audible breath in her ear, something like a sigh. And as his voice trailed off and was replaced by a deafening and deadening electronic click, she cupped her hand over her mouth, as her tears started afresh.

Damn it, why was he doing this? Why didn't he just let her go? Why did he have to make this so much harder for both of them by fighting against her like this, when he'd already seen, already felt, what she'd done?

Why couldn't he see that he was better off without her?

She wiped at her eyes with the back of her free hand, just as her phone buzzed again in the other. She looked down at it, blinking through her tears as she focused on the display. She had thought that these new text messages would be from Yousuke, too...but they weren't. They were from Yukiko.

I really liked the progression of emotion for Yousuke's character, here, which I considered realistic, given the situation. And I liked Chie's reactions a lot, too. I spent a big chunk of effort and time trying to make those messages come out just right for the scene....

The problem was that it presented a very different Yousuke than the one who appears in the later scene, and I needed for him to be take-charge and determined and desperate in that moment when he comes to her door. He needed to confront her as an equal (almost as a dominant), refusing to accept any of her excuses; the Yousuke that leaves the messages on her phone didn't convey that properly, in the end.

This was an example of a moment that took me a long time to write to the point where I was happy with it...only to edit it out because it didn't match what was going on in the rest of the chapter. Unfortunately, that happens a lot with stories that are as long as "1 More Chance!" has turned out to be. I've had this baby plotted to the end nearly since the beginning, and I know where I'm going, but sometimes it's the little moments that make us stumble.

For those of you still waiting for Chapter 60 at this time, maybe this will help give a little bit of insight into why it's taking so long. (There were about a half-dozen moments like the one above that I wrote, rewrote, and then ended up editing out from the final version. Those might still pop up elsewhere, though, so I think I'll leave them out of the dump for now.)

Animosity

Boy, here's a scene from Chapter 56, "Where Shadows Dwell," that I'm really glad now I took out....

A minute passed like this, and then Kanji raised his head and looked at the three of them, the faint light from the now-clear, starry sky outside the window reflecting off of his glasses. “So what do we do now?” he asked softly.

Chie pressed her lips together, as she rose from the clustered embrace of Yousuke and Kuma. “We get Yukiko-chan out of there and bring her home. No matter what.”

“Yeah, but what about Seta?” Kanji said, a light sigh escaping him. “How do we fight him without our Personas?”

Chie snorted angrily through her nostrils, recalling all-too easily the way that Souji's golden eyes had targeted her specifically, and the way that he'd raised that terrible spear at her, and at Yousuke. “I don't know,” she muttered, as she turned, briefly, to glare at the television screen. “But Yukiko-chan's the only one that matters,” she said, and when she looked back at them again, Kanji, Kuma and Yousuke were all staring at her.

“Chie-chan...?” Kuma murmured, her delicate chin puckering beneath a frown.

Yousuke shook his head. “You don't mean that,” he said gently, as if to placate her.

“The hell I don't!” Chie flared in response, rising to her feet.

“Okay, you're upset,” he replied. “I get that. But blaming Seta isn't-”

“You heard those things he said!” she spat back, standing over him. “You saw what he did!”

Yousuke jumped up now, matching her stance and volume. “His Shadow did those things!” he said emphatically.

“Same thing!”

“No, it's not, and you know it! Everybody's got a Shadow, Chie; you think yours was any better?”

“I can't believe you're taking his side in this!” she cried. “After everything he's done-!”

“I'm not taking his side-”

“He has Yukiko!” she shouted, pointing behind her toward the black screen of the television. “He tried to kill us and she is still over there,” she told them, baring her teeth. “And you didn't even stop her!” She ducked her head and thrust the flats of her palms against his chest, shoving him back a step. “Why didn't you stop her?!” she cried.

Yousuke dropped his shoulders, swallowing hard against the onslaught of her anger but otherwise not moving. Behind the rectangular frames of his glasses, his dark eyes narrowed, then blinked, then softened at her. “Because I would have done the same thing,” he muttered. “If it were you.”

Chie looked up at him, the intent and meaning of his words burning in her brain and in her heart, and silencing her more effectively than any shout or reprimand. She shook her head. “Don't say that,” she murmured. “Please don't say that.”

I actually kind of like the anger that Chie displays in this scene, and the hurt that she feels toward being betrayed by Souji. And her concern for Yukiko definitely comes clear. But the flow of the scene just didn't feel right, in the end, and the brief moment of gentleness between her and Yousuke feels like it comes out of left field. It does diffuse the heat of the conversation (and the sentiment that Yousuke expresses is important, both for the moment and for the revelations in the following chapter), but it creates a lot of animosity toward Souji that I decided would go against the plot, after all was said and done.

As it was, even without this scene, most readers had a real problem with the conflict I created with Souji. (My answer to that feedback was that I'd been building this facet of Souji's character since his reappearance in Chapter 39, "Let Go, Hold On"...although it was likely too subtle at that point for most readers. If you don't believe me, go back and read the conversation between Souji and Chie, in the old shopping district, and you'll see what I mean.)

In the end, I wanted Chie to care just as much about Souji as she does about Yukiko. (Well, maybe not just as much, seeing as it is Yukiko, but close.) I had already created Souji to be something of an outsider while he deals with his issues, but I wanted the team to come together for his sake, because they all share a common bond from their past, and from their Shadows.

Still, it was a fun scene to write, and it will never show up anywhere else.

Different directions

In going through my "unused" document of scraps or scenes that I decided to take out for one reason or another, I came across this one, that would have taken place after the initial (sex) scene in Chapter 52, "Thrall." In it, there's a very brief exchange about both protagonists' limited culinary skills, and it would have led to (basically) the same conversation that occurs between Yukiko and Chie over onigiri, only in Junes. I removed it because it took the story out of the apartment, where the chapter kind of needs to stay for the power struggle at the end.

This excerpt also starts to present a more telling explanation of the relationship between Chie, Kuma, and Yousuke as a not-quite-threesome, though I decided that that description would be better served later in the story. It turns out that I needed an additional character (Kanji) to make that conversation really work, and he definitely would have felt out-of-place in this chapter.

“Chie-chan...?” Kuma's voice murmured softly from beyond the door. “Yousuke?”

Chie hummed, feeling Yousuke tighten his embrace around her shoulders. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, wishing for just another few uninterrupted minutes.

“What is it?” Yousuke called hoarsely.

Kuma knocked again, more inquisitive than insistent. “Hungry, kuma,” she muttered. “There's no food.”

He craned his head around toward the door with a sigh. “Oh, that's right,” he said, then looked back toward Chie again with a grimace. “We sort of scavenged the last of the food for dinner last night.”

She snickered, snuggling up to him for another brief moment. “I was wondering why the okonomiyaki had natto in it.”

“Beggars can't be choosers,” he replied with a smirk in his voice. Then he kissed the crown of her head and shifted away from her, the loss of his heat saddening her a bit.
“You want to run to the store with me?” he asked, kicking himself free from the comfy confines of the bed. “We can just get some staples and come home....”

She watched him rise, admiring the lines of his body with a smile. “...And you can get naked again...?”

He grinned at her over his shoulder as he stood. “Only if you do,” he replied, and then stepped toward the wardrobe for some clothes.

They ended up walking to Junes in the drizzling rain, mostly because Kuma insisted on joining them, and Chie had long ago given up arguing outrightly with the girl when she had her naïve mind set on something. Yousuke was a bit more stubborn about not letting Kuma have her way – arguing that they would be able to eat faster if he and Chie alone took his bike, that Kuma would need to get dressed to come with them, that they'd have to walk in the rain if the girl accompanied them – but even he gave up after several minutes, when Kuma simply sparkled and smiled at him, turning on her very best cute-girl charms for him. (Even while she had watched them in amusement, Chie doubted that the sparkling had much to do with Kuma being able to coerce Yousuke; he was simply a soft touch when it came to the girl, despite what he said.)

I do enjoy the description of how Kuma relates to Yousuke in particular, and Chie's estimation of them both. But it turned the scene too sweet, when the undercurrent of "Thrall" is supposed to be one of burbling portent of menace. The minor conflict of domination/submission in this chapter is, after all, a much more overt thrust toward the conflict of character that occurs in Chapter 57, "Nightmare."

Where's Yukiko?

Here's an example of an off-the-cuff paragraph. I wrote this one for the "1000 Words" series of vignettes; it would have gone into "For Just a Second", which is the vignette that takes place in Rise's Opera House/Marukyu Striptease dungeon.

The last chest had a short tunic in it, and while Kanji said that it looked sturdy enough for any of them to use, only Chie's sort-of-girly frame was small enough to wear it. It might have fit Yukiko, as well (though probably not, judging from the way she'd filled out her bikini at the mountain service trip), but Yukiko was working at the inn today and hadn't been able to join them on Souji's let's-all-get-some-practice run. That left Chie the only candidate.

I took it out because I didn't like the way that it delayed getting to the crux of the matter - that Yousuke really wants to see Chie naked - and it didn't flow with the overall "for just a second" phrase that acts as a theme for the piece. (That being that Yousuke really is just living moment to moment, and those moments are filled with desire, envy, shame, and affection.)

It does, though, explain the issue of Yukiko's absence, which more than one person noticed. For the purpose of the vignette in question, I stuck with the idea that it's a 4-person team that goes first into any dungeon; readers will notice that Kuma is not in the vignette, either (because - in the finalized version - he's back at the entrance, with Yukiko).

I did like Yousuke's estimation here of Chie ("sort-of-girly," like she's not quite feminine enough...though it didn't match his thoughts of her later in the piece), and of Yukiko (I think he probably would have checked out who had the bigger bust at that camping trip).

Regardless, the paragraph was dropped, and I think the final product is better for it. But I didn't forget about Yukiko, guys. I just chose not to include her.

Kuma makes a guess

Here's a scene that I enjoyed, but did not make the story cut because it presented the idea of the last Shadow too quickly, and it did not allow for the horrifying revelation that occurs at the end of Chapter 55, "Broken Bonds."

Still, I like the reference to the end of Chapter 51, "Hana to Yari," as well as the minor explanation of what makes Yousuke - and Chie, to a lesser extent - feel uncomfortable at the end of that last scene. But the progression of events that would have followed this scene (Yousuke, Chie, and Kuma going into the TV and finding Souji) created too many instances of TV-jumping, which I thought would slow down the pace of the story unnecessarily, especially at this stage of the plot. So, I dropped it...but that doesn't mean I didn't like it.

The blonde girl's nostrils flared, briefly, as she sucked a long breath staring into Yousuke's eyes. Then she furrowed her brow and pouted her lips, still peevish but no longer so frustrated. “I saw something on my TV, kuma,” she said, and then she darted her eyes toward the large television, almost accusingly. “I wanted to see it out here, because this screen is bigger, kuma.” She paused, her little pink lips – puckered together tightly – moving back and forth over her teeth, as if she were hedging. Then she leaned in toward Yousuke, with something like desperation. “But it went away, kuma! It went away before I could see what it was! Before I could see, kuma!” she cried, and then she fell into his arms, clutching at him with such sudden force that he staggered.

“Ku-Kumada...!” he muttered. He sent Chie a worried look, and then he gave a low sigh, his shoulders falling as he put his arms around Kuma.

Chie reached out with one hand, rubbing the girl gently on her back, beneath her fall of flaxen hair. “It's all right,” she murmured, stepping closer so that she could stroke at the crown of Kuma's head.

But the girl raised her head at Chie's touch, turning halfway around in Yousuke's loose embrace to shake her head with insistent vehemence. “No, kuma!” she said. “Something's wrong! Something's wrong with the TV, kuma!”

“There's nothing wrong with the TV,” Chie assured her. She reached down for the remote again, and again clicked the television on and scrolled rapidly through the channels. “See?”

Kuma shook her head, shutting her eyes now, too, as a low, groaning whine unraveled from her throat. Then she looked up, beating her fists against Yousuke's chest. “Yousuke-e-e-e...!” she said, as if pleading.

He stared for a long moment into the girl's imploring gaze, and then turned to Chie. “She doesn't mean the TV,” he muttered gravely. “She means the other world.”

Chie took a step back from him, feeling a bubble of bile climb to the top of her throat. But she shook her head and swallowed it back. “No,” she croaked. “No, that can't-”

“She saw something on the TV,” he said, his words slow and measured. “Something she couldn't make out. And then it was gone. Just like-”

“Don't.” Chie told him flatly. “Don't say it.”

“Chie-”

“Yousuke, that's crazy!” she said, shaking her head again. “The Midnight Channel doesn't exist, anymore! We stopped it. Izanami was controlling it, and we defeated her! Just because Kumada-chan thinks she saw something-”

“I saw it, too.”

Chie blinked, feeling that bubble come to the top of her throat again, only this time it didn't go back down. She pressed her fist to her mouth, giving a sick little half-burp that tasted like regurgitated sour meat and made her grimace. “...When?” she said from behind her fist.

“The night of the Culture Festival,” he answered, too readily, which made her drop her fist to her side.

“Why didn't you tell me before now?” she demanded.

He opened his mouth, but no words came. He glanced at Kuma, who was looking up at him, too, as if for help. Finally, he turned back to Chie again, shaking his head. “I-I don't know,” he muttered.

“You don't know-?!”

“I wasn't sure I'd seen anything at all!” he said, taking one arm from around Kuma to gesture toward the television. “I mean, it was...late, and we were...drunk, and I...I didn't....” He looked away, shamefaced. “I didn't want to think I'd seen anything,” he said in a quiet voice.

And she remembered that night, remembered sitting with him on the floor, flushed and fervid in their intoxicated ardor. She remembered that she had been the one staring into the television that night, when it had flickered to life seemingly on its own, a haze of static that should have been a commercial, or a weather report, or a news story at that hour: not static, not blankness. And she remembered, too, that she had forced the evidence from her mind – half-drunk on shochu liquor and lust for him – because she hadn't wanted to face the truth, however impossible, that the past was not so far away as she had thought.

“We stopped it,” Chie said again, hearing her voice tremble. She ran her hands up along her arms, wishing that Yousuke had his arms around her, too, but forcing herself not to run to him.

“There's one way to find out,” he muttered, his gaze falling away again. Then he looked up again, but not at her.

She looked at the television, too, its blank, black surface projecting an eerie and unsettling calm...because beneath that surface she knew what horrors laid in wait, beyond the black.