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.

“Here,” she says, glancing quickly about before shoving something into his hand.

Yousuke looks down, feeling his eyes go wide – unable to speak, unable to move, unable to believe his luck – as he stares into his palm, his fingers itching both thrillingly and timidly around the soft plaid cotton laying there.

It's her panties that she's pressed so decisively into his grip, and now he can't even swallow for the excitement clutching at his innards.

Then he thinks: This is impossible. Just impossible.

There's no way, even in his wildest dreams, that any girl would give him her panties, the ones that she steps her tight, strong legs into, that she pulls up over her pale, perfect ass, that cups and covers her little pussy that he's always thought must smell like tart apples plucked fresh from the branch. Because that's how her hair smells whenever she stands next to him in the elevator they take to the Junes food court, and that's so hard to get out of his head until he's gasping steam in the privacy of a bath, or lying on his bedroom floor, a box of tissues beside him. And even then it doesn't completely goes away, because he knows that in his head is the only way he'll ever really get close to her, the only way he'll ever get into her pants.

Yet, here he is, and here they are: beautiful, adorable, and sexy as hell. The only way they could be more delectable, in fact, is if she were still in them.

And as he stares into the criss-crossing pattern of yellow and black – just like her old powerful Persona (and like her frightening, seductive Shadow) – he can picture her, standing in front of him, her feet spread wide like always, dressed in these panties and nothing else: the tiny bow on the waist tickling her toned belly, the edges curling up between the milky skin of her thighs, and the lacy embellishments riding over the luscious curves of her ass.

Would he pull them off of her then, he wonders, as he's often dreamed of doing when he's thought about her, alone, in the sweaty dark?

Would he lay his hands upon the slopes of her hips – those firm, rounded hips that have gotten more womanly over the last half-year, almost without his realizing it – and curl his fingers under the lip of the waist, and pull them gently – oh, so gently – down, past her thighs that she shows off whenever she kicks, past her knees that she scrapes whenever she falls to them in a fight, and past her calves that tense and pop whenever she rises on her toes to see over the counter at Daidara's?

And would he then leave a trail of kisses along her skin, to press his face between her legs, like he's watched all of those bold celluloid rogues do whenever he's opened his laptop instead of his textbooks, to study what he really wants to know rather than all of the names and dates that his teachers and parents think are so important but that wouldn't in a million years ever make him more attractive to the opposite sex?

Or would he lift her up and lay her out on one of these desks, to writhe and blush and whine his name while he moves on top of her, like girls always do in the ero manga that he keeps shoved in a plastic bag under the loose sill plate in the second floor storage room of his house, for fear of being caught (again) and having to suffer through the embarrassment of having his secrets announced at the family dinner table?

Or maybe he would leave them on her, he thinks, to savor that sweet image of soft, fresh, tender femininity. Jiraiya chucklingly called it “girl-flesh”; Susanoo is more subtle, whistling in dulcet tones (when the Persona isn't roaring at him about how to be a man, that is) whenever any girl walks past about “Woman's wiles”. Neither comforts Yousuke, though; no matter how resolved he's gotten about his life, having a Persona – no matter which one it is – hasn't gotten him any closer to finding out what it's like to get in a girl's panties.

It takes Yousuke all of perhaps two seconds to think all of this, but in that time, Chie has already said his name three times.

“What are you waiting for?” she snaps. “Put those on!”

He looks up from the precious cloth in his hands, at last. “Wait- What?!”

She grabs the hem of the skirt around his waist. “I can totally see your underpants!”

“Hey, quit it!” he squeaks, shoving her hand away. Then he straightens up, fighting the urge to cover his boys. “I am not wearing girls' underwear!” he hisses.

“Look, this is your fault!” she snarls, jabbing her finger in the bow on his chest. “But now that we're in it, I wanna win, and you're not gonna do that if everybody can see those stupid orange shorts under your skirt! So you put those on, or I will make sure that you can't sit down for a week!” And her right leg shudders, as though itching to start swinging.

So he backs away from her, and heads to the boys' lavatory, glowering at Kanji fixing his wig in the mirror.

“I can see your shorts,” Kanji mutters.

“Shut up,” Yousuke growls. And he slams the stall door closed while he takes back every wishful, hungry, short-sighted thought he's had about Satonaka Chie and her panties.

Until it's all over, of course – the humiliation of standing in front of the school in a miniskirt and makeup – and he climbs back into his comfortable, familiar gakuran, and he realizes that she never said he had to give them back.