DISCLAIMER: "Shin Megami Tensei" and "Persona 4" and all associated characters and likenesses are the exclusive property of Atlus. Used here without permission. This is a fictional story made for purely entertainment purposes. Any relation to events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A faint autumn wind blows in the window above the tofu shop, and as it does it startles the delicate metal furin hanging there, creating a short, tinkling tune. It also wafts her voice to him: lilting and soft, as she sings to herself a light and wordless tune.

Kanji raises his head from his work, briefly, to listen to her. To watch her, too, as she twists back and forth in front of her full-length mirror, her lithe and lissome body framed by streaming sunlight. She pulls one dress to her chest, turning to her side to check its cover and sway, then tosses the hanger aside and lifts another in its place.

Her girlishness makes him smile.

“I like that one,” he says, out of the blue, indicating her latest choice with a brief nod of his head.

Rise turns to him, her dark-rum-colored curls bouncing from one shoulder nearly to the other. “This one?” she echoes, pressing the waist of the draping dress to her flat belly. She pushes her shoulders back, her chest jutting forward; it's easy to see her in the plunging neckline and the flattering taper of the skirt.

“Yeah,” he answers. “It'll look pretty, with your black shoes, and those pearl earrings.”

She giggles and grins, wrinkling her nose up. “You're always so good with clothes!”

“That's my job,” he murmurs with a somewhat distracted smile; he's still imagining her in that dress.

She isn't oblivious to his look. “Should I try it on, just to make sure?” she asks, fluttering her lashes quickly as she sets the hanger to the side.

He's not so dim that he doesn't know what she's suggesting, either. But he plays along, nodding once again. “Sure.”

Rise smiles, bright and white, and giggles again. Then she does a little half-pirouette on her toes, turning her back to him. “Unzip me?” she asks in a hushed voice, glancing at him from over her shoulder.

He gets up from the little table, leaving his work to lay, and crosses to her, slowly and quietly. He settles one hand against the slope of her back and takes hold of the metal slider with the other, pulling it from the height of her shoulders all the way to the small of her back, just above her buttocks.

Kanji pauses for a moment, a little mesmerized by the sight of her naked skin, a lovely, uninterrupted V of smooth flesh, soft as fine-spun silk and pale as the lilies that grow along the river plain in springtime. And then he notices that she is even more naked beneath her dress than he'd at first thought: She's wearing neither bra nor pants, so that when she shakes her shoulders and hips, and lets the dress slip from her arms and fall to her feet, she's left standing there, completely nude, in front of him.

“Um,” he says.

She completes the other half of her turn now, to face him fully, and offers him a coy smile.

Another breeze blows from the open window, brisker than the one before, and she shudders with something like excitement, rising up on her bare toes and cringing her shoulders. A light layer of gooseflesh pops along her skin, making the light, wispy hairs over her belly straighten up and her little brown nipples perk to hard, tiny nubs.

“Oo,” she murmurs, pulling a deep breath that makes her chest rise up, almost touching his. “That's chilly.”

He glances toward the window. “Should I close-” he starts to say, but is stopped by the touch of her cool fingers on his hand.

“No,” she says. “That's okay.” Then she drops her chin and smiles again, no longer the demure, playful idol but the supple, cunning minx that she lets only him see. “I'd much rather you just warm me up,” she murmurs, and now she does step up against him, winding her arms around his neck.

Kanji bows his head, to make it easier for her, and as he does he presses his mouth to hers with skilled care.

Their lips make a quiet clutching sound in the room, and for a long time that's the only noise they make, the only action they take: just a string of kisses of tender feeling. But then he circles his arms around her slender form and pulls her close in to his chest, and lets his mouth drift open, to take her more needy, lapping kisses.

She's soft and smooth, and even the finest fabric is no substitute for the sensation of her flawless skin beneath his fingers. So when he kneads her flesh, it's gently, not pulling or scratching; and when he dips his mouth to her neck and collar and breasts, it's carefully, not biting or sucking too hard. Because – like the furin tinkling every so often in the open window – there's a delicateness to her that he respects and admires and...loves... and that makes him rein in some of the more passionate urges he feels when he takes her in his arms.

Except that, despite his caution, she often just pulls him to her, seizing his hair in her fists and curling her body around his legs and arms and lips, moving up and down against him like she's in a dance. That's what she does now, holding his head to her chest and lifting one slender leg above his hip, nearly around his waist, and hanging off him from his shoulders.

Her hair, falling like a brocade behind her, wafts toward the ground, fanning a light breeze not unlike the one coming from the window with her every movement. And just like the outside wind makes the furin chimes tink and clink, every time she moves, she breathes a gentle sigh that sounds like music in the air.

Suddenly, she gasps, as he lays his wet mouth over the firm peak of her left breast, licking careful and meticulous circles around her nipple. Like the feel of her skin is soft, the taste of it is mellow, only just faintly salted from sweat; beneath that he likens her taste to savory lavender. So he closes his eyes and hums, as he imagines lapping citrusy syrup from her breasts, like he did one night in summer when it was too hot to do much of anything beyond lie naked in the path of a fan, cooling each other's skin with spit and sweetener for taste.

Now, he turns his attention to her other breast, to see if it tastes the same as the first, and she moans again, rising up with her legs and hips against his thigh as she pushes her chest toward his face.

“Nnh-!” she hums, as she tries to climb up his torso.

He puts his hand under her leg, cupping the top part of her smooth thigh, and lifts her higher. Her free breast bounces against his cheek, and she leans in and over him, her hair billowing around both of them like a curtain swaying lazily in the breeze; the clean vanilla scent of those soft strands makes him suck in an avid breath through his nose, to fill his senses with her.

She brushes her lips against his temple, kissing softly at the loop of his brow-ring, while he continues to flick his tongue around her nipple. “Kanji-kun,” she breathes, and then she trails off, as though prompting.

He hugs her close to him and steps over to the closest wall, the one with the window and the chimes. He gives her a gentle push then, propping her up, her shoulders and back pressed against the faded pastel of the plaster. He shifts back from her, no more than half a step, to look at her, the focus of his eyes traveling over her nakedness.

A sighing breeze blows again, and this time it makes several locks of her hair drift beneath her chin and across her torso, and he thinks how beautiful she is: from the soft curves of her face, to the symmetrical balance of her shoulders and breasts, to the charmingly feminine but subtle swell of her belly. Then he tells her so – how beautiful she is – in a hushed voice gone hoarse from emotion that he doesn't let go very often.

But it doesn't much matter what he can or can't articulate at the moment, because in the next second he pushes her up against the wall with his chest and locks his lips to hers, inhaling deeply of both the crisp autumn air and the velvety scent of her.

She hums into his mouth, and when his hand slips between her legs, stroking faintly at the coarse, damp hairs there, the hum turns to a ululating moan deep in her throat, and she wraps her arms around his neck, holding him tightly.

She starts to do a light grind against his hand, and very quickly she pushes down on his fingers, her wetness fascinating and marvelous. So he rubs his palm against her, too, tempering her heat with his steady rhythm so she can last, because the sighing, gasping pleasure this gives her is too wonderful to let pass too quickly.

He shifts his knees against the wall now, too, and to one side of them she lets one leg dangle while the other she hooks over his hip. Then she moves more fiercely over his hand, whimpering against his lips; she digs one set of fingers into his shoulder and winds the other behind his back, squeezing him tighter with every seethe of her torso.

She forces her tongue into his mouth, and of a sudden he realizes that she's matching the motion of his fingers with her tongue, thrusting it back and forth the same as he does with his two middle fingers inside of her.

Around her probing kisses she seems to moan something, two broken syllables muffled by her own want and his lips. Then she pulls her tongue back and lifts her mouth from his with a gasp and a clearer whine:

“Kanji...!” she says, and then she presses her mouth to his again with another moan, rocking her hips fiercely, now. She pulls away a second time, with a second gasp, and tells him:

“I'm coming...!”

“Rise-!” is all he can get out before she kisses him again, bucking against his wet fingers until they're nearly lost in her and his palm is tingling from her friction. Even the drifting breeze from the open window beside them can't counter her heat, just as the metal furin – which have begun to chime with the reverb of every swing of her hips against his hand, like staccato applause at her freedom and joy – can't drown the sound of her warm breaths blowing across his cheek.

Then she grabs him by the hair on the back of his head and pushes him away nearly to arms' length, her body stiffening as she kicks out her dangling leg and presses her shoulders to the wall so hard that he can see the color of her skin change from pale pink to stark white. And she shuts her eyes tight and groans between her teeth, her chin dropped nearly to her chest.

“...Don't stop...!” she says, and so he doesn't, still working his fingers inside of her while he watches her face.

A moment later, she tosses her head back and curls her body back against him, pulling herself close again with a puffing grunt; he feels her tighten around his fingers, briefly, and then relax, her wetness soaking his palm.

He doesn't wait for her to say anything more, but instead gathers her in his arms and lifts her away from the wall.

The floor is the easiest place for them to go, so that's where he lowers them, slowly, and as soon as he settles beside her, she cuddles up next to him, there beneath the open window. She wastes no time in snuggling her hands into the draping fold of his work yukata, to move her palms over his chest.

Another breeze blows above their heads, and Kanji winds his arms closer around her. “You gonna be okay?” he asks softly. “I can get us a blanket or somethin'...?”

But Rise gives a contented little hum and shakes her head. “You're fine,” she says, nuzzling his shoulder.

So he just smiles down at her, and wraps as much of himself as he can around her, while the furin chimes a lulling lullaby in the gentle autumn wind.