Sympathy Crime
is an Alternate Universe Persona 4 darkfic written by sodomquake. Also available on Archive of Our Own here
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Unmarked game spoilers below.
Sympathy Crime contains examples of the following tropes:
- After-Action Healing Drama: While alone with Souji in the TV World with no idea how far they are from safety, Yosuke suffers a broken leg during a fight against a Shadow. The scene following the battle, where he and Souji are both too exhausted to use healing spells and all they have to treat the injury is a salve that barely helps, is tense because they both know Yosuke is pretty much dead if they get into another fight. And since Souji refuses to leave him, even at Yosuke's insistence, they'll both end up dead.
- Big Damn Heroes: The Investigation Team bursting in on a very tense confrontation between Adachi, Souji and an injured Yosuke.
- Blaming the Victim: Being an unrepentant murderer and abusive Manipulative Bastard, this is a favorite tactic of Adachi's.
- Choke Holds: Adachi strangles Yosuke nearly to death when the latter (accidentally) stays overnight at Souji's.
- Clothing-Concealed Injury: Yosuke takes to wearing turtlenecks and other concealing clothing to hide the bruising around his throat after Adachi strangles him. It doesn't fool Souji, who's immediately suspicious.
- Desperately Craves Affection: One of the reasons Adachi picked Yosuke as his target: the kid is hungry for attention and understanding he's not getting from his parents or his best friend, leaving him vulnerable to Adachi's predation.
- Disproportionate Retribution: All part of Adachi's abusive M.O. You went over to your best friend's to keep him company while he's having a rough time and accidentally fell asleep on the couch? That hurt Adachi's feelings. Time to die.
- Domestic Abuse: Ranging from manipulation and verbal abuse to controlling behavior to rape and attempted murder. All of it is portrayed very realistically and for maximum dramatic effect, driving home both how terrified Yosuke is of Adachi as the relationship progresses and how reluctant he is to leave, thinking he brought it on himself and has burned all his bridges with his family and friends.
- Facial Horror: The description of Adachi's face once Souji lets up on him is pretty graphic. His mouth is so mangled that Souji can barely understand him when he tries to talk.
- Guilt Complex: Yosuke, like many abuse victims, believes that he's to blame for everything Adachi did to him. Later, when Adachi is outed as the murderer, he feels that he helped Adachi get away with it.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Adachi tries to convince Souji that they're the same, and it's only a matter of time before he starts manipulating and hurting Yosuke. Yosuke himself shuts him down pretty quick.
- If I Can't Have You…: Shades of this with Adachi; he swears he doesn't actually care about Yosuke, but he reacts very jealously whenever Yosuke talks about or spends time with Souji. It's mostly because he wants to have full control over Yosuke, but the Author's Notes suggest there may have been something deeper to it.
- Intentional Heartbreaker: Adachi only ever initiated his relationship with Yosuke because he thought, correctly, that having one of the IT emotionally invested in him would complicate the murder investigation. Yosuke was disposable, and Adachi planned to kill or otherwise get rid of him as soon as he safely could. When the Team finds him out anyway, he reveals his motives to Yosuke and Souji in the cruelest, most damaging way possible (see Unnecessarily Cruel Rejection, below).
- I Will Only Slow You Down: In chapter 21, when they're in uncharted territory in the TV World, an injured Yosuke tries to convince Souji to abandon him if they get into another fight. Souji immediately rejects the idea. "I already told you once: I'm not leaving you behind. Not now, not ever."
- Love Makes You Crazy: Adachi tries to convince Yosuke that all of the shitty things he does are because he's just so in love with him that he goes a little crazy sometimes. Later subverted in Adachi's “The Reason You Suck” Speech to Yosuke: "Here's a tip, kiddo, just for future reference: nobody does anything because they just love someone so much they can't help themselves. Especially not anybody who spends half the time smacking around the person they're supposed to love."
- Love Martyr: Yosuke stands by Adachi and defends him from his friends' (often innocuous) comments because he fully believes Adachi loves him, even though Adachi's behavior is throwing up more red flags than a soccer referee and Yosuke is absolutely terrified of displeasing him.
- Manipulative Bastard: Adachi, through and through.
- More than Mind Control: One of the ways Adachi manages to sink his hooks into Yosuke is by giving him the attention and validation he craves, all while convicing him that Souji, his best friend and previous source of all that positive reinforcement, doesn't have time for him because he's busy with everyone else in Inaba. Once Adachi's done, he's driven a wedge between Yosuke and the rest of the IT and convinced him that he's the only person on Earth who truly cares for him.
- Mouth Taped Shut: One of the "fun things" Adachi likes to try with Yosuke...mostly because he gets tired of listening to him talk."Well, okay, the duct tape worked for a little while. But even then he was pretty noisy."
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Adachi's fate once he's been pursued into the TV World and defeated. Souji probably would have killed him if Yosuke hadn't convinced him to stop.
- Oh, Crap!: Yosuke's reaction upon waking up on Souji's couch after promising Adachi he'd be home the previous night. He was on the Dojimas' couch, he and Souji were both still dressed down to their jackets and slumped together in a pile like little kids dozing in the backseat on a long car trip, his arm was trapped under Souji and he couldn't feel his hand. He'd fallen asleep, in other words. Somehow he had fucking fallen asleep. [...]"Oh shit," Yosuke whispered out loud, up to the ceiling, with barely any voice but just his lips moving. His pulse ramming up to panic-speed, adrenaline pouring in and sending him the rest of the way to awake on the express train. "Oh shit, shit, shit, shit — "
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Yosuke's friends all suspect something is up when he starts acting unusually jittery, snappish and distracted, all symptoms of the toll his unhealthy relationship is taking on him.
- Pants-Positive Safety: Naoto lends Souji her gun for protection when he goes into the TV World alone after Yosuke; since he doesn't have a holster for it, he carries it in his coat pocket. Naoto isn't pleased, but there's really nothing to be done about it.
- Revealing Cover-Up: Souji knows something's wrong when Yosuke suddenly starts wearing high-necked shirts to cover the strangulation marks on his throat; he knows his friend typically wears tops with a low-cut neck even under his school uniform.
- Suppressed Rage:
- Adachi in Chapter 18 greets Yosuke calmly, if coldly, when he returns home after being out all night. Once Yosuke gets within arm's reach, though, Adachi reveals how he really feels.
- Souji near the end of the fic, when the Team has defeated him and is getting ready to bring him in. With no reason to hold back any longer, he starts beating Adachi's face into pulp.
- “The Reason You Suck” Speech: During Adachi's Unnecessarily Cruel Rejection:"Let's see, you're self-centered, neurotic, and insecure, you want attention all the time, you think you're a lot funnier than you are, you talk all the time and half of it's bullshit, and you're so freaking annoying I don't know how anybody who doesn't have a good reason to put up with you lasts ten minutes without pitching you out a window. ...And I mean, I know I just described three out of every four teenagers in the universe, but come on. Did you ever even stop and ask yourself, just once, what it was I saw in you? Did you ever even wonder?" Half-laughing, even while his focus was sharpening, boring in on Yosuke. "Maybe I thought those were just some really sweet headphones? Or maybe I thought I could get some kind of discount at your daddy's big store? Give me a break!" He cawed laughter, so high and helpless he sounded nearly hysterical. "What would I even want with you in the first place? Honestly, I can't believe you didn't figure it out on your own! I kept on waiting and waiting, but nope — you just completely bought it, huh? What kind of an ego does that even take?"
- Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: Yosuke, who's pretty skinny to start with, starts losing a lot of weight during his relationship with Adachi. Nearly every time Souji sees him, he notices how thin and sickly Yosuke looks.
- Tranquil Fury: Souji calmly and methodically trying to beat Adachi's head in with his bare fists after the IT's final confrontation with him."I'll be done in a minute," he said, with perfect, even, if slightly breathless calm. At the same time he was cocking back his fist again.
- Trauma Button: Adachi liked to "try new things" with Yosuke that Yosuke did not enjoy. When he alludes to it in chapter 24, while the IT is pursuing him through the TV World, Yosuke reacts rather poorly."So I wanna try a little something, okay? Don't worry. I think you'll like it."
- Unnecessarily Cruel Rejection: Adachi to Yosuke. In front of Souji, no less."Hate to tell you, but... no, I don't actually have a huge, creepy bone on for you, kid. And I'm not actually so crazy in love with you everything I ever do is about you." He snorted brief, derisive laughter, although his eyes never left Yosuke — steadily, relentlessly almost-friendly. "Sorry to disappoint you, but... seriously? You really don't know any better by now?"
- Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: In chapter 18, after raping and nearly killing Yosuke in a fit of rage, Adachi insists that Yosuke "knows what [he] gets like" and that he doesn't like being violent...but Yosuke's behavior just forces him to.
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The Woobie: Yosuke. Good lord. - You Are Not Alone: Despite Yosuke's fears that the rest of the Investigation Team will want nothing to do with him once they learn of his involvement with Adachi, they unanimously rally behind him to support him as he deals with the fallout. You're our friend, our teammate, my partner. There's nothing he can say that will turn us away from you.
- Chie seems particularly upset when she learns what was going on and is the first to approach Yosuke and reassure him after the Team hears about it.
