[OPEN] fastforwarded to december 1. open house!!

[overstrain]

[ On December 1st, Hirajiro's residential district goes through a minor change, which is having Terry's two-story house appear right next to the Black Cat house. With Orien's help, Terry bought the land that the house sits on. Anyway, the house has two floors. The entire first floor has a living room, kitchen, and a bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower. When you climb up the stairs, you'll reach the second floor, which has four bedrooms with a bathroom connecting two bedrooms together. The bathrooms can be locked from the inside only. There is no master bedroom nor bathroom in this house. One of the rooms are soundproof, but Terry is not telling anyone which one it is. You'll have to find that out for yourself. AC and heater are fully functional.

Terry sent out a message to all the Guests. For those who don't have phones, Orien personally delivered the message to those people himself. The message is as follows:

We solved the housing situation. Terry will not ask anyone to pay rent, but the house isn't furnished at all except for a refrigerator and a fireplace. You'll have to buy supplies and furniture on your own. There are several conditions you need to accept if you choose to live here:

1) Please do not destroy the house or cause property damage. If you do, you're paying for the damages.
2) Clean up after yourselves. A clean house means no bugs and good standard of living.
3) Do not steal/take anything from the Black Cat house. (this needs to be mentioned because he had several door stealing incidents)

The address/general directions to the location has been mentioned, which is basically next door to the Black Cat house.

Feel free to make your own top levels and stuff. ]

Comments

[compendiem]

[ Welcome back, Persona kohai. So this is how they're going to meet, Akira not being himself, while pressing Espeon's body against Minato's face. He turns his head Akira's way in an effort to dump Espeon off his face, but the Pokemon just takes a step on his cheek and flops back down. ]

...He's cool, right?

[ Whoever this Espeon lover is, they've gotta agree. ]

[infiltrationtools]

He's the bestest boy!

[The skritching continues. Espeon makes a warning "eeehhhhh" sound. He can already tell what's going on with Akira; his main concern is being petted so vigorously.]

Aw, don't be like that, Espeon! I love youuu.

[compendiem]

Yeah, the bestest boy.

[ If this keeps up any longer, Minato's going to get scratched in the face, so he decides to bite the bullet and lift Espeon off his face— getting scratched in the process— and plop him down on Akira's chest instead so he can better love the Pokemon. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[Absolutely fucking not.]

[Espeon is trying to get off as soon as his paws touch down on Akira's chest. He wiggles a bit to try and get back onto Minato, psychically pushing Akira a foot or two away. He was having a great time! So inconsiderate!]

[Akira whines, but does nothing to move back as Espeon curls back up on Minato's chest instead, tail wrapped around his body. At least Minato can breathe now.]

I can't believe he likes you more than me! What's up with that?

[Espeon just lowers his head and looks at Minato with an exas-purr-ated look in his eyes.]

[compendiem]

[ Maybe because Minato doesn't treat him like a rack of ribs being dry rubbed. The weight is comforting and Espeon is warm, so Minato's content to lie there with his hands folded over his stomach again. ]

Personas won't listen if your level's below theirs. Maybe it's like that. Espeon thinks you're weak.

[ Or maybe Espeon has preferences for people, just like anybody else does. ]

[infiltrationtools]

[So mean, so mean... Akira continues to be flummoxed as to why selfishly overstepping others' boundaries and personal space is having negative consequences for him.]

Espeon thinks I'm weak?

[He looks at the cat again. Espeon is looking at a spot on the wall. Well, if Akira is weak... there's not much to be done about that.]

Do you think I'm weak too, Minato?

[compendiem]

Yeah.

[ lmao

He's very mean. But comparatively... yeah. Akira is weak, if he compares himself to the outliers, and Minato recognizes that must sting when he came from a position that required him to be strong enough to pull his team forward. Being a leader sucks; 0/10, Minato would not recommend. ]

All you guys are weak, but that's not bad. It's easier to get stronger when you're weak.

[infiltrationtools]

But I've been trying to get better...

[It's probably a good thing that they're having this conversation now and not when Akira's in his right mind, because if he was, he absolutely would have taken full offense to that and the conversation would have gone south fast. But right now he can readily accept that Minato's right, compared to people like Terry and Kido, he and the others are useless and in a state of catch-up.]

That's what Arsène is always telling me to do, anyway. I don't know why he's so worked up about it, but I guess if it matters to people like him and Espeon, it's probably important.

[compendiem]

[ Minato is saved by the 180 bonus... It's very sad that everybody is so much more agreeable when they're 180 not themselves, but 45 also warned Minato that probably nobody else would take his honestly criticism very well. ]

It's sorta important. When everyone's strong, you don't have to worry about one another. Not that you don't care about each other, but more like... the trust is stronger. I had that problem before. Everybody was weak, so I left them behind and fought by myself. So it was harder at the end.

[infiltrationtools]

[Most of the time he's good about it... but when it comes to things like pointing out his weakness, Akira gets touchy. He's very acutely aware of his weaknesses and is trying to compensate for them, and he has been having a lot of growth breakthroughs lately, finally... but since this is 180, he lacks a lot of that self-awareness and has no shame in the fact that some people could wipe the floor with him.]

Oh, is that's why you died to the bird? Because you thought you could do it all by yourself?

[He's also missing any attempts at tact or consideration.]

[compendiem]

[ Conversations are much easier without tact or consideration. ]

Yeah. I got brainwashed into killing everyone, and... I dunno, died, I guess. Felt like my head was splitting open... But if everybody was strong, they could've fended each other off long enough for it to wear off. You already know: the power imbalance in your group is very dangerous.

[infiltrationtools]

Ohhhh, and no one could stop you because you were so far past them you turned them into a bloody pulp. I see, I see.

[Yeah... yeah. Even with his personality flipped, that still presents a direct danger to Akira's wellbeing, and at the moment that's all that really matters to him.]

That's why I've been trying, yeah. Because Terry's going to go batshit or Nekogami's going to decide he knows better again, and it'll end like how you killed all your friends.

[ :) ]

So how did you end up so much better than them? Lucky drops, like ours?

[compendiem]

Yeah, exactly.

[ He's a NG+ Minato with level 99 Personas trying to pull along a newly formed team. That's sort of his Persona experience, and he doesn't deny it. ]

We had a lot of members, but we'd split into two groups: a core group, and auxiliary members. The core group, everybody was Persona users before coming here, so we had the experience, and thought we could carry the team because of it.

[ He says it just for context. It wasn't that everybody else was weak. They were strong too, but Minato took it a step further. ]

I wasn't good for much else but fighting, so that's all I did. I stayed in the dungeons and missed a lot of days because of it. Sometimes I'd leave the dungeon, and people say they haven't seen me in a week or two.

[infiltrationtools]

I guess it's good that you offered to cover for them because you were experienced, but... wowie. I couldn't even imagine doing anything like that.

[Someday, and by that I mean in less than 24 hours, Akira is going to look back on this conversation in mounting horror at both sides. This all is going to sound familiar. For now, though, he's kicking his legs a little in the air and saying things like 'wowie', safe in the knowledge that he is Not Like That.]

It really messes with your head if you stay in the dungeons for too long! Where did you sleep? Did you just pack a week's worth of food?

[compendiem]

[ Akira's a Persona kohai; he can't escape being Like That.

For Minato, at least he's had the experience with dungeon runs that make him feel like death after an hour, so the dungeons here are kind of a blessing. It's still draining, though, and he's always taking breaks because he can't keep up sprints for too long. ]

Just a couple hour's worth. Every extra hour in there's like another day outside, so it was only a couple hours at a time for me. It made my time here feel short... But I packed bread. It's light, and okay being squashed. And I like bread.

[infiltrationtools]

Oh, really? They worked in real time back home, so you couldn't lose days... I mean I don't always remember some things that happen in dungeons so it's kinda like losing days, but that's different because it's only me. Anyway, I guess only being in there for a few hours for you makes sense.

[Why anyone would want to stay in there for hours is beyond him anyway, though. Arsène is sooooo annoying.]

But then I guess they weren't really your friends at all, right? If you spent more time in the dungeon and lost weeks of time spent with them.

[compendiem]

[ Wow. Akira's blunt candor makes him smile, because that's exactly how it was and Akira doesn't try to justify the behavior or anything like that. He did what he did, that's it. ]

Yeah. We were teammates, but we weren't able to become friends. We got along and everything, but you don't need to be friends to work well together.

[ Gestures at Rio and Jiro and all these really independent people in their team, who might not be here to make friends and that's alright. ]

[infiltrationtools]

Souji too?

[He was supposed to be in the same group, right? Did Minato just be a dick to him at the start but Souji kept coming back like a stupid puppy?]

[compendiem]

[ y...es... ]

Mm... I got along better with Souji 'cause our experiences were most similar. [ aka the Persona dating sim life, compared to the sheer amount of everything that was P1/2 that made his head hurt listening to ] But I still didn't know him all that long.

After we became Attendants and spent a gazillion years together, that's when we really got to be friends, I think. The only other person on the train was me. There was no escape.

[ There was nobody else to be friends with... so the only option was him. ]

[infiltrationtools]

So you only ever made a real friend because you were trapped so long that you were kinda forced to. And now you like him a lot.

[Hmm. Minato sounds like kind of a dick. Or, at least, he was kind of a dick.]

Do you think you've changed much since back then? Or are you only helping us now because you have to?

[compendiem]

[ Minato nods, because he won't deny that he's a dick. It's the idea of people growing fond of each other because they're kept in close proximity and start to rub off on one another, he thinks. It helps that Souji is a very likable and forgiving person. ]

Back then... there was the feeling that I was needed. Here, it's not the case. I'm helping you guys, but you don't need me. That's what it feels like.

[infiltrationtools]

Because you're not one of us, you're a warden.

[He doesn't even bother to correct himself to Attendant.]

You're doing this because you want to, then?

[compendiem]

[ It's true enough. The fact is, this isn't his story anymore, because his journey is over and all that's left for him is providing bombs and bullets that are so much weaker than Personas anyways. Power of the heart or whatever that nobody wants to rely on. ]

I guess... It's not like anybody's twisting my arm over it. And if you guys all die, it's just... such a waste. I don't want that.

[ Even if it'd be easier, he realizes, if all of them fuck off and die, and then he won't have a job and he can go back to floating around in the void on the train like he was originally. ]

[infiltrationtools]

You sound so indifferent about everything.

[Akira's tone is less accusatory and more... observational. Minato says it's such a waste if they die, but Akira reads it in the same way that letting expensive cheese go moldy is a waste.]

Is there anything you really, really care about, besides being with Souji? Or is that all gone?

[compendiem]

[ LMFAO Akira isn't wrong........... Minato had put in minimal effort into these Guests and them just offing themselves every other week is kind of insulting, actually. Mostly to themselves. ]

...A couple months ago, Sasuke took me to the school rooftop. It was a nice view. I thought maybe I want to keep this town safe. [ He's still kind of iffy about individual people, but life in general is something he can appreciate. He's not sure that counts the same as caring, but it's the closest he's got. ]

But then, you know. Things went to hell.