To Be Worthy of Who You Love

Editor’s note: Spoilers for Persona 3‘s ending to follow.

The final day of the school year. I’m on the rooftop with my friend, Hidetoshi Odagiri. My vision is pink: pink UI, pink tint, pink everything. But of course it is — this is Persona 3 Portable, and I’m the female protagonist. I maxed out Hidetoshi’s Social Link three months ago, and all I have to do now is hear his confession out.

But he doesn’t confess to me. Not quite. He tells me that he treasures the time we spent together, but that he doesn’t believe he’s worthy of me yet. Because I’ve changed his life, who he is, and one day, when he becomes the man who deserves me, the one who is worthy of my love, he’ll confess for real this time.

Except one day will never come. Because we are at the end of the game, and because my character is dying. Closes her eyes and fades away in a few more minutes. But I am here, and I am alive. Alive when I watch the credits. Alive as I grow older and begin to date, wondering to myself if I set my standards too high at sixteen years old, waiting for a man who will become worthy of my love. If it’s too much for people in the real world to be like Hidetoshi, willing to prove that he is deserving of me. If I will spend my whole life waiting for a love that only exists in fanfiction and dreams, of the boy who comes back to me a man to try and confess again.