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.

It's midnight, and there's no rain. That's a good thing, but tonight, the clear skies make Yousuke feel lonely.

His phone sits beside him, its luminous face staring up at him. On rainy nights, there's always a number ready, to be dialed at the first sign of trouble: Souji's number, because Souji is their leader and Souji always knows what to do, even when the rain makes the people on the television do strange things that shouldn't be seen.

(And he wonders: Did anyone see that other-him, the one who said that he didn't care about Saki-senpai at all in the end, that all he'd wanted was an excuse to be somebody who was powerful, somebody who was special, somebody who was...somebody...?)

Yousuke shakes his head and sniffs, wiping at his too-tired-to-sleep eyes.

The clock reads 11:56 – too late to do anything except lie in his bed and stare at the ceiling waiting for something to happen, his fingers tapping a presto signature on the hardwood.

He shouldn't have taken the pill, he decides. Should have left it in the bottle, with the others. They don't do much of anything for him anymore, anyway, except make him jittery and keep sleep away. That's what Sertraline Hydrochloride really means, he thinks – spastic insomniac; the treatment worse than the anxiety it was prescribed for.... At least when he would get nervous around other people (girls), that feeling would go away when they went away, and he didn't have to deal with any of these stupid side effects.

With a defeated sigh, he reaches under his futon with one hand and pulls out a glossy magazine from a short stack of favorites, because he knows that will help him sleep. He picks it up, and it falls open to a double-page spread of beautiful airbrushed illusion, one he's looked at probably a million times before with pleasurable intent (nice tits, nice ass, nice legs) and then he has to stop himself. Because just as he's got his hand in his shorts he realizes that he's looking at a picture of giddy, giggly, sexy Risette, and that makes the illusion shatter.

It's the thought of Rise's limp body, weak from confronting her Shadow, that makes him stuff the magazine back under his futon. He'll throw it away tomorrow, because if he's really Rise's friend he won't think about her that way, won't use her for his own needs...even if it's not really Rise that he thinks about when he does those things. But it's still wrong (that's what Souji would say), and he shouldn't do it.

And a tiny part of him – the part that knows that Rise isn't Risette, that Rise's the real one, not the Shadow – doesn't want to do it anymore, anyhow. So he pulls his hand back out of his shorts and sighs, closing his eyes to think about the real girl, the one that matters.

Chie was the one who said that Rise needed rest, because she'd been pretty out of it when they'd saved her. So had Kuma, of course, but Yousuke didn't worry so much about the bear – no pretty smile there, no possibility of a hero's thank-you kiss or maybe even something more if he could somehow make it to Rise before Souji did. And while he had seen some pretty fucked-up stuff over there (just the memory of Kanji's Shadow still made him shudder), he'd never wanted to protect somebody so much as he'd wanted to protect Rise when they'd come out from the TV.

Liar, Jiraiya suddenly snickers at him.

Yousuke starts up at the sound of the now-familiar voice that needles and wheedles and that's been getting louder in his head after every time he talks to Souji, like Souji's somehow capable of breaking down the barriers between him and his Persona. (Souji is his friend, but sometimes he wishes that Souji would just leave him alone, if only to keep the voice in his head quiet.)

"Shut up," Yousuke mutters.

But the Persona enjoys badgering him: Short skirts are easier to see up than long ones, he chuckles, especially when the girl in question is always throwing her leg up for you, anyway.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yousuke asks, at the same time wondering if anyone else on the team has to deal with a nosey, horny, smart-ass Persona who won't mind his own business or be quiet when he's told.

You can lie to everyone except me, Jiraiya snickers again, the playful rhythm of his voice at odds with his words. I am thou, remember? And thou art I.

"Yeah, well," Yousuke grumbles. "Thou art a douchebag."

Fine, Jiraiya laughs. You'll learn, little kero. I may not be the one to teach you...but you'll learn.

Yousuke waits a second, then another, but the Persona doesn't say anything else, which is good. But the silence is almost worse.

So he does what he always does on late nights like this when he can't sleep and wants – needs – somebody to talk to: He picks up his phone and taps in the second-most-dialed number in his memory, the one that comes after Souji and before the number of the Junes payroll office.

The other end rings three times, and then she picks up:

"Hullo...?"

"Hey, Satonaka!"

"Hanamura...? What time is-? What are you doing calling me at midnight?!"

"I couldn't sleep...."

He pauses, and there's more silence, and he worries maybe she's left him:

"Satonaka?"

She replies, awake but disgruntled: "...What?"

He pauses again, then grins. "So, there's this businessman," he says, "and he says to his wife, If you want to have sex with me, let me know by pulling on my penis one time-"

"Oh, shut up!" she shouts, and the line goes dead.

"Satonaka?" he asks, glancing at his phone. "Hello...?"

Learned yet? Jiraiya snickers.

"Shut up."