Chapter Text
Dec 11 2011
Somehow, he’s not entirely surprised when he’s called to the Velvet Room that first night.
He’s on a train he doesn’t remember boarding, sitting in an enclosed compartment upholstered entirely in soft blue fabric. There’s a small table standing a foot away from him in the centre of the compartment, and on the other side of that, two figures on the other seat - directly opposite him, a small man with bulging, bloodshot eyes and a long nose, and closer to the compartment window, a pale boy in a blue-and-black conductor’s uniform with an open book in his lap and his head bowed low toward it.
“Welcome to the Velvet Room,” says Igor with a smile that treads on sinister, and Yosuke has one last precious second to enjoy playing his comfortable role of trusted lieutenant before Souji’s responsibility becomes his.
He signs a contract. Igor explains, about Personas, about bonds, about the thread that’s been severed but has now been replaced precisely because of the strength of those bonds. Yosuke sits quietly and stares at his hands, and listens, to him and to his borrowed destiny and to the constant, rhythmic clack of wheels on the tracks outside. He feels out of place. He’s not the one who should be sitting here, and he knows that - but he also knows the choice is out of his hands.
He has to do this. He’s made a promise.
“You will find, however, that you do not need to bear the burden of your responsibilities entirely on your own,” says Igor. With a sweep of his hand, he indicates the youth seated near the window. “Allow me to introduce my assistant.”
His eyes flicker again to the boy seated in the corner, who in turn looks up from his book and offers him a small, polite smile from under the brim of his uniform hat. It’s the gentlest possible gesture, but Yosuke jerks backward at the sight of it like he’s been kicked hard in the chest, eyes wide and mouth gaping.
It can’t be.
“Hello,” says Souji with a perfunctory nod. Yosuke chokes; speechless, for once in his life, and at the worst possible time. It’s him. It’s him. He’s done it, he’s found him, he’s notgone, and damn if that isn’t the brightest thought he’s had since it happened. He starts to smile, the corners of his mouth just beginning to creep upward, a laugh halfway to his lips - but Souji abruptly cuts him off, utterly heedless of his teetering on the cusp of a messy emotional outburst. “My name is Sebastian. Pleased to meet you.”
His half-formed smile falters. The room swims for a moment; the figures sitting opposite him sway absurdly in his line of sight. Suddenly, there’s no air to breathe at all in that tiny compartment.
“Sebastian’s role is to assist you during your coming trials,” says Igor. “I suggest you avail yourself of his help while you-”
“What... what the hell is this?” His hands have started trembling. He curls them into tight fists at his sides to still them, knuckles whitening, bitten-down nails pressing jagged marks into his palms. “Souji... what are you doing?”
Souji’s brow furrows beneath the brim of his cap, and he glances uncertainly at Igor, who laces his spidery fingers together under his long nose and offers him no assistance. When he turns back to Yosuke, it’s with a hesitant tinge to his eyes and his voice. “I’m sorry. Are you speaking to me?”
Yosuke exhales sharply, a hard, rasping breath that rattles his lungs. No. No, this isn’t real. This isn’t happening, this can’t be happening. He tries to inhale again and can’t catch his breath. A cold, clammy hand flies up to his chest and feels it nonetheless heaving, feels his heart starting to pound faster behind his ribcage.
“Are you all right?” asks the boy with Souji’s face, but Yosuke can’t answer. The window is shrinking and the compartment interior suddenly feels like it’s cramping down around him, and this - this isn’t happening. He’s going crazy, he’s losing it.
Souji’s dead.
Souji’s dead, he’s just making all this up, just to torture himself, it’s just a stupid dream because of the funeral and he’s shutting his eyes and driving the heels of his palms into his sockets and his chest is going to burst if he can’t - breathe -
He wakes up gasping in the dark of his bedroom, cold but sweating and half-tangled in his bedsheets. His chest heaves for air, over and over until finally he’s sure that this is reality and not just an extension of his nightmare, and then his wheezing hitches into a hard, creaking sob that he can’t suppress. He rolls over and stifles the rest of it into his sweat-dampened pillow. He doesn’t want to hold it in anymore, all this frustration and grief, but he also doesn’t want to wake Teddie, asleep in a futon on the other side of the room. Teddie needs a good night’s sleep. Yosuke does too -- but he’s not so desperate yet that he dares close his eyes again to get it.