angevon

Fandom: Persona 4
Pairing: Yu/Yosuke
Rating: General
Category: M/M
Summary: Minato is observant.
Author's notes: This is a crosspost from AO3 and ffnet. It was written for Souyoweek2019 on tumblr.

---

There were too many people in the labyrinth. The more the merrier, a more positive-minded person would think, but to Minato it was all a bit overwhelming.

He managed to slink away from the crowd surrounding Rei as she rambled on about takoyaki for whatever reason--the takoyaki here surely couldn't match the weird stuff they sold near Iwatodai--but honestly wherever you turned in this tiny little school there was another teammate. He was really starting to miss his private dorm and its relaxed atmosphere.

This hallway was no exception, as it turned out. That boy with dyed brown hair from the other team was playing ring toss at one of the festival booths. His back was to Minato as he focused on his next throw. He wasn't too bad at the game--Minato spied two rings already around bottlenecks--but it was too bad Minato couldn't remember his name at all. Hanamora? Huniemura? No, Hanamura, yeah, that was it.

Vaguely curious, Minato approached to watch him play.

"Check this out, partner!" Hanamura said without looking at him.

He threw the ring with an over-the-top flourish. It caught on the tip one of the bottles and twirled around the edge several times. After a nail-biting moment where it looked like it was going to fall off, it finally settled neatly around the bottle's neck.

Grinning smugly, Hanamura turned to Minato and then immediately jumped back in surprise. "Oh dude, you aren't my partner!" Calming down, he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "You snuck up on me just like he does... You're pretty quiet."

"Your 'partner,'" Minato said, and racked his mind to remember everyone on the other team. It didn't take long to figure out who it had to be. "Oh, Sub-leader?"

"Yep, that's him!"

Minato cocked his head to the side. Despite the new angle, his bangs stayed over his right eye. "Why do you call him that?"

"Call him what?"

"Partner."

Hanamura blinked a few times before grinning again. "Because that's what he is to me. Back home, we're investigating some murders together. So, we're a team."

"A team of two," Minato mused. "Or a partnership."

"Exactly!" Hanamura was nodding. "We look out for each other, you know? When we're fighting Shadows, I watch his back, and he's got mine."

Minato had noticed. Hanamura did not like being separated from Sub-leader whenever he had to decide on team composition. His pout when Minato had selected Sub-leader without him on their last trip into the labyrinth had been hilarious.

"And not just in battle," Hanamura added. "He saved my ass once by helping out at Junes when we were short-staffed. And it was on really short notice. He's a lifesaver."

Minato shrugged agreeably.

Hanamura then sighed a long and dreamy sigh. "You know what else? He's so smart. He's always in the top ten. He helped me study for exams before summer and I did way better than I normally do. It was totally awesome."

Studying with other people wasn't something Minato had thought of doing. Though he vaguely remembered Yukari suggesting it once. Then Junpei had said something dumb, and she'd taken the offer back. Something like that.

"And he's so popular," Hanamura went on. "Even though he's a bit spacey and weird. Did you know, he put his shirt on backwards once? I don't know how he managed that, considering it had buttons... What a goof..."

Hanamura was smiling now. His eyes were unfocused as he apparently thought of fond memories of his 'partner.'

"He loves animals too, you know," Hanamura continued. "Cats mostly, but dogs are okay in his book too. He was really excited to meet Koromaru. I saw him petting him earlier and it was adorable. His smile was like, this big." He motioned with his hand and then put it down. "Uh, I mean... Not adorable-adorable but, uh..."

"A partnership," Minato mused. "Or a couple."

"Just kind of, I don't know, appealing--" Minato's words caught up with him, and Hanamura immediately began to wave his arms. "No, no, no, it's not like that!"

"It's not?"

"No way, dude. He's got all these girls after him." Hanamura grimaced at the word 'girls' and Minato was fascinated. He'd assumed Hanamura would get defensive in an 'I'm not like that' way, but instead he was focusing on the other party. "I mean, he's gotta like one of them back. If not all of them..."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," Minato said. "He approved when I told that robot voice that gender didn't matter."

"Huh," said Hanamura. "Well, that doesn't really mean anything."

"And he said that he wished you were there when we were exploring the labyrinth."

"Well, yeah, because we work well together--" Hanamura tried.

"He also said you're cute," Minato finished evenly.

"C-cute!?"

Sub-leader has good taste, Minato thought, because the way Hanamura spluttered and blushed then was definitely attractive. His cocky grin at winning ring-toss had been appealing too, in its own way. And he liked music, which Minato always considered a plus.

"Yup," Minato said.

"C'mon," Hanamura said, looking skeptical. "There's no way he would've just said that." He frowned as he thought it over more. "Then again... He does say stuff without thinking..." Hanamura opened and closed his mouth a few times before asking, "You sure he meant me...?"

"Yup," Minato said again.

"He thinks I'm cute," Hanamura said, awed. He looked at Minato. "Do you think... you think I have a chance then?"

"Yup," Minato said again.

"Me and partner. I can't even imagine." By the return of his blush, he was totally imagining it. "So you think I should... what, just tell him?"

"Yep," Minato said, just to be different.

"I guess it wouldn't be too weird, since we're dealing with the Group Date Cafe and its theme of romance anyway. I can tell him, and, if he's not interested in me, I could just play it off as a joke. Like, oh, it's the aftereffect of one of those FOEs... Yeah, I could do it! I'll go tell him right now!"

Hanamura was fist pumping the air.

Minato watched him scuttle away with detached amusement. It didn't matter to him if they became a couple or not.

Or so he thought. When he saw them hours later holding hands, he couldn't help but think it was pretty cute.

---

Author's notes: Please leave comments/kudos/likes/reviews on AO3 or ffnet! Reblogs welcome on tumblr and pillowfort too :)

Fandom: Persona Q
Pairing: -
Rating: G
Category: General
Summary: Kanji just wants to be friends with Koromaru. Is that so much to ask for?
Author's notes: This is a crosspost from AO3 and ffnet.
This takes place in the Persona Q universe, I guess around the fourth dungeon. No real spoilers, though. Every time Koromaru backs away from Kanji in PQ, it makes me really sad. I haven't finished the game yet, so I don't know if they do eventually become friends. But as it is, I just had to write this!

---

Ken Amada walked down the third years' hall of this pseudo-Yasogami High School and stopped in his tracks. He hadn't expected to see Kanji up here. The bleached-blond boy had his back turned to him; he seemed to be looking at the prizes for one of the game booths. They were a bunch of stuffed animals.

Ken was about to offer to play the game with him when he heard the older boy sniffle and wipe his nose on his sleeve. He frowned, because Kanji was too tall to have any real reason to cry. "What's the matter?" he asked.

Kanji jumped in surprise. Then he turned away quickly to hide the tears he was wiping away. "Nothin'," he answered, his voice dry. "It's nothin'. You wouldn't understand."

"Oh, an adult problem, huh?" Ken asked, his tone bitter. He was being treated like a kid, once again...

"Nah, it's not that, but..." Kanji sighed heavily. "You're friends with Koromaru, so..."

Ken's brow knit in puzzlement. "Huh?"

"When an animal doesn't like you," Kanji said, "you can't help but feel like maybe something's wrong with you."

"Kanji-san...?"

Kanji avoided Ken's eyes, and his shoulders were hunched over. He wiped his eyes one more time and took a long moment to continue in a voice so unexpectedly subdued that Ken had to strain to hear him. "I thought, after meetin' Senpai and joining his team, that I was starting to get everything together, but then Koromaru ran away from me like that earlier when I offered to walk him, and damn, it really hurt. Set me back a bit."

"You want to be friends with Koromaru?" Ken asked.

"Y-yeah," Kanji admitted. "But I guess I'm too big an' scary, huh?" He looked down at his feet, dejected. "It's all well and good to tell me, 'He just needs to get used to you,' but how is that gonna happen when I never get any chance to be near him?"

Ken looked up at him. "Listen, Kanji-san. Koromaru is a very special dog, and sometimes he seems like he's human, but he really is a dog. You'll have to befriend him like you would any other animal."

"H-how?" Kanji asked.

"With treats!" Ken declared. He pulled some out of his pocket and handed them to Kanji. "Here, these are some of the treats Shinjiro-san uses. Oh, but just having them isn't enough. Even with them, he might not come up to you immediately. You'll have to be patient."

"I can be patient, yeah," Kanji said, his expression brightening. "You can't knit a sweater overnight."

"Listen, then," Ken told him. "Here's the plan!"

---

Kanji was so nervous while waiting for Ken to fetch Koromaru that he accidentally snapped one of the dog treats that he was fidgeting with in half. They were little bone-shaped cookies and he had a suspicion that Shinjiro had made them himself.

It wasn't long before Ken returned with the dog in tow. However, the dog stopped several feet away from Kanji. Kanji bit his lip. Yeah, this was going well already. He should probably give up while he was ahead.

And the sympathy in the kid's eyes wasn't doing anything for his self-esteem. "Err," Ken said. "Koro! Kanji-san has something for you."

"Y-yeah," said Kanji. "You're such a good boy, so, err, here's a treat." Kanji held out one of the cookies in the tips of his fingers and offered it to the dog.

Of course, Koromaru made no move to take it from him, but the dog was eyeing it with interest. He woofed, possibly in complaint.

But Ken had warned him this might happen and had given him a plan of action. Kanji slowly set the treat on the ground, and then backed away several steps.

The dog looked around the hallway, as if sensing some sort of trap, and eventually stepped forward, sniffed the cookie, and then began to eat the cookie.

Kanji let out his breath in relief. At least the dog would accept treats handled by him! It was a start, right?

"Oh, Koro, you're making me hungry!" Ken stated haltingly. "I think I'll go get a snack of my own. I'll be right back, okay?"

Koromaru wagged his tail, but since he was still munching on the cookie, he didn't follow the boy when he left.

Now Kanji was alone with the dog and he wasn't really sure what he should do next. 'Talk to him, quietly!' Ken had stressed.

"Y-you like that, huh?" Kanji tried. "They smell pretty good." Kanji lifted one of the cookies to his nose, but he didn't consider eating it. This Culture Festival had a decent enough variety of food, so he wasn't starving. "Y'know, I thought you might've been the one who took Chie-senpai's meat jelly."

Done with his treat, Koromaru turned around and looked after the hallway Ken had gone down.

"Err, b-but I bet even you have standards, don't'cha? I love meat as much as the next person, but you gotta draw the line somewhere, right?"

Kanji scratched his head and sighed. Koromaru wasn't even listening to him. This clearly wasn't working.

"W-well, I got another treat, so..." He placed it on the ground and stepped away again. Koromaru turned his head and watched him for a moment, then curiously approached the treat and began to eat it.

Kanji leaned against the wall behind him and then slid down it until he was sitting on the floor, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He watched Koromaru eat from the distance. The dog was a beautiful shiba inu, wasn't he? Even with those albino red eyes. His coat looked well taken care of. He probably had Ken to thank for that. A boy and his dog. They made a good duo, that's for sure.

Koromaru finished the cookie and was now looking at Kanji with faint hope. Kanji held out another at arm's length, but Koromaru was still reluctant to approach him, so Kanji set it on the floor and slid it towards him. The dog intercepted it with a paw and then flipped it up and caught it in his mouth.

"Bet you miss having the grass under your feet," Kanji murmured. "Digging in the dirt, and sniffing the breeze. Being trapped in a school, it's no place for a dog. It's the last place I wanna be, too."

Though Koromaru was still eating the cookie with relish, maybe his eyes glanced at Kanji for a second.

"You'd like Inaba," Kanji continued. "We got lots of fields to run through, and lots of cats to chase, though don't tell Senpai that. He's a cat person."

Koromaru wrinkled his nose as if he understood.

"Yeah, I know, right?" Kanji smiled awkwardly, and the dog wagged his tail once. "You know, Chie-senpai has a dog. His name's Muku. I bet you'd be friends. He loves going for walks along the river. Oh, you done? Have another." Kanji slid another cookie towards the dog. "Don't eat it so fast, man, I only got one more."

Koromaru woofed softly in acknowledgment.

Kanji leaned his head back against the wall. "I wonder what's goin' on back home, though. Did we all, like, disappear suddenly? Did time stop or something? I mean, you guys are from two years ago. I don't get it at all, but... I know Senpai's worried about Nanako-chan, and I'm... I'm getting worried about my Ma."

The dog whined, and Kanji continued. "Yeah, my Ma runs a textile shop, and I help her out a lot. Hope she doesn't think I got into any trouble. Well, I guess we did get into trouble, didn't we?" He sighed. "I'm tired of worryin' her so much, y'know? She's worked real hard to raise me on her own, and what thanks do I give her? Nothin' but the police knockin' on her door..."

Kanji closed his eyes with another sigh. "Tch," he said. "I'm a real piece of work, ain't I? It's no wonder you don't wanna hang out with me."

A long moment later, he felt weight on his outstretched leg. He opened an eye to see Koromaru tentatively setting a paw on him. The dog was looking at his face.

"Wh-what? Oh, do you want the other cookie?" Kanji opened his hand and slowly brought the last one up towards Koromaru's snout.

But the dog nosed Kanji's hand away, snubbing the treat completely. Kanji blinked, and the dog pushed forward until he was sitting quite comfortably in Kanji's lap. Kanji raised his arms in alarm, wondering what was going on here. Then the dog looked up at him expectantly.

Kanji's eyes widened in realization. "Oh! You mean... C-can I pet you?"

Koromaru licked Kanji's chin.

Kanji slowly brought his arms down and hugged the dog, careful not to hug him too tightly. And this time, the tears that sneaked out of his eyes were brought on by happiness.