[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]

Yeah I can. I'm breaking up with you unless you say sorry.

[ Has Minato been nice??? He doubts it. ]

[overstrain]

Sorry...

[ ... ]

... that I didn't do this sooner, nya.

[ He pinches his cheeks and pulls on them. ]

[compendiem]

[ Worst friend, 0/10, would not befriend again.

Minato's face is also soft and squishy, so this is probably fun. He can't talk like this, though, so he just lies on his back and endures it. ]

[overstrain]

[ Soft and squishy face... Terry will enjoy himself by continuously squishing Minato's face. My Destructive Attendant Can't be This Squishy, a new oneshot light novel coming to you in the nearest Hirajiro's bookstores. ]

I'm glad you're here, even if you're not gonna be living here, nya. It's good to get out of the Velvet Room when you can, nya.

[compendiem]

[ Minato puffs his cheeks instead of responding, because anything he mumbles will be unintelligible anyways with his cheeks being pulled and squished like that.

Regardless of what Terry says, it still feels weird to Minato to be here. Like he's a stray cat off the streets and he's clearly not supposed to be here, but he's a cat and cats don't care, so he's lying in the middle of this bedroom anyways. ]

[overstrain]

[ Yeah, since when do stray cats give a fuck. Terry lets go of Minato's face. ]

Did you know that it was possible to magically get a house?

[compendiem]

[ Freedom... Minato rubs his hands on his cheeks for a moment, and then shrugs. ]

Anything's possible.

[ Yeah. But if he means whether the Kotengu can bring stuff like this over... Minato's answer would still be a shrug. ]

No one in my team got a house. I never got any gifts, probably because I didn't own anything. Or maybe I came with everything I needed already.

[overstrain]

[ Terry thinks... if Minato was super strong (he still is) and he didn't get much from the Kotengu, then maybe the Kotengu isn't trying to give him stuff because he's relatively strong. Maybe it's for a different reason...?

... ]

Minyato... do you think you were ever happy with your team, nya?

[compendiem]

[ Minato stares up at the ceiling. Was he happy with his team...? He doesn't remember much about them. Names and faces, general things like how his core group were Persona users in the past and they'd quickly banded together upon realizing that. But they weren't... friends. Like he isn't friends with people here— he's not a member of the team, anyways, so he wouldn't count either way. But during his time before Hirajiro, he had a team he wasn't friends with either.

You don't need to be friends to be happy. But how do you be happy otherwise...?

It's hard. The best answer Minato can give is another nondescript shrug. ]

I liked them. I think I cared about them. But it wasn't really a team I laughed and joked around— not all of them were weirdly friendly like you and Souji. [ He's looking at you, Tatsuya. ] I was content, I guess. They were a good team. And they're good people.

[ But he wasn't happy. ]

[overstrain]

But you weren't happy, nya?

[ Terry echoes that as a question. He understands not having to be friendly to work together, since he was in a similar situation before. Even Jiro flatly told him that to his face. ]

Even with Souji, nya?

[compendiem]

I dunno. I asked you what happiness felt like once... It's 'cause of stuff like this.

[ He has no idea what happiness is, whether that's what he felt back then, when he thinks he was just content with things not going straight to hell. ]

It's different here, where there's nothing to do, so I just screw around with Souji all day. Back then, all I did was fight. Practically lived in the dungeons.

[overstrain]

[ When Minato brings that up, Terry feels tired, so he'll lie down on the floor on his back too. The exhaustion seeps into the core of his being once more... ]

I wish I could just mindlessly kill stuff every night and not worry about anything else for a good while, nya.

[ That would be his vacation without having to worry about anyone else for a good while. ]

[compendiem]

[ Yep. Minato sure enjoyed the nice leisure murder life back then. The Kotengu must have become hella strong because of him. ]

You could do it. If you wanted to.

[ Terry can do whatever he wants, even if that's blowing up the world. But he cares about people and so he doesn't, and that's why it sucks for him. ]

[overstrain]

I have responsibilities now, nya... I would if I could just ditch those, but I can't do that anymore, nya.

[ Minato is the devil on his shoulder... Terry stretches and just lies down limp on the floor while staring at the ceiling. ]

[compendiem]

You've grown up and become responsible.

[ Ah, maturity. Minato looks over at Terry when he lies down, and then goes back to staring at the ceiling because that's easier on his neck. ]

Weren't you and Souji going to fight sometime? You won't win, so you can keep coming back.

[overstrain]

Maybe I can take another paid leave and spend an entire week in a Dungeon, nya...

[ Maybe not even a week because everything would die before it even reaches that point. Terry sighs. ]

There was that, huh... I guess I'll ask him some time when I'm not feeling so tired, nya. Maybe we can duke it out in a Dungeon or something so I won't have to worry about blowing up the town, nya.

[compendiem]

Dungeons are going to be boring for you soon.

[ School's a breeze and the shrine doesn't have Shadows unless you get lucky with somebody's fear floor, so it's really just the lake dungeon. ]

Dunno if you have time to spend in the dungeon that long anyways. You always look busy here. I can't imagine living like that.

[overstrain]

It's been a while since I can clear the entire school dungeon on my own, even without a Persona, nya...

[ He remembers the time when Minato kept his omamori, so. Yeah. Not much has changed since. He could still wipe the school Dungeon back then too. The lake one is just annoying to deal with. ]

It feels really weird if I don't have anything to do anymore, nya. Even back home, I just read books when I had nothing to do, nya. I always need to do something productive, or I get the jitters or something, nya. Talking is fine though, nya.

[compendiem]

If you get really desperate, you can always come to me for homework. I'll make something up and, I dunno, give you a can of soda for your trouble or whatever.

[ Whatever a good prize is. Soda. Some sort of food— ]

Oh.

[ Minato sits up, and looks over at Terry. ]

Blood pancakes.

[overstrain]

[ Oh. Right. He still owes Minato breakfast tacos and blood pancakes. He ponders on this for a moment. ]

Would you make Vassago stronger for that, nya?

[ He has this eternal rivalry with Nekogami. It's hideous, especially since Nekogami can null phys and is resistant to everything under the sun now... ]

[compendiem]

[ Nekogami got really damn lucky with all those resistances... And now he has no skills to learn again so it's just stat boosts again. ]

What were we talking about to get to the topic of blood pancakes in the first place...? Did I already promise you something for it?

[ He's made too many unofficial requests with Terry, he can't remember anymore. Something about coffee and tacos, but Terry's already made him coffee, and Minato was supposed to learn how to make hash(???). He was supposed to make something. He can't remember. ]

[overstrain]

... I don't remember either, nya.

[ He probably would if he pinpointed the memories, but he can't really remember with everything that's been going on. ]

I just remember saying that I'd make you the best breakfast, nya.

[compendiem]

[ Minato squints at him. ]

What did I do to make you promise that...?

[ Terry sort of does this, offering to cook for people, but it must have been in response to something. The Kotengu doesn't even need to steal Minato's memories; he just tosses unimportant stuff out of his brain anyways. Past Minato didn't care what the reason was, as long as he got food out of the deal. ]

[overstrain]

... All I remember is that we talked about it before we went water skiing, nya.

[ Rio needs a moment to remember names from two years back. Don't expect Terry to remember things from 40k years, please........ ]

[compendiem]

Huh...

[ Nobody should expect Minato to remember something from two months ago... He really should, since there's not much else going on in his life. All he knows is that if he promised Terry he was going to work on something, he did not do it. Never touched the stove to practice cooking or any of it. He sort of just treated it as a request with no end date, so he can put it off forever. ]

I really pissed you off that day. That's all I remember about it. We talked about dying...