Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You’re a lost cause, you know.”

The cat eyes him warily, but it continues to scarf down the food in front of it as it holds his gaze, daring Kokichi to take away the food at its feet as if he hadn’t left it there for the damn cat in the first place.

He scoffs. “You won’t make it unless you trust me.”

Or, if the cat does make it, it will be very, very miserable, Kokichi thinks, tilting his head up at the gray, overcast sky and allowing the teardrops of rain to force his eyes shut. He breathes in once, deeply.

His thoughts are surprisingly quiet today.

A sharp pinprick of pain in his ankle causes him to let out an embarrassingly high squeak as he jumps away from the pressure, swerving his head down to meet the angry stare of the scrawny feline.

His eyebrow ticks in annoyance. “Bitch.”

It hisses at him and runs away.

As the sound of falling rain registers in his head, he blankly drifts his gaze back to the now-empty plate. Selfish.

He’s not entirely sure when the pitiful thing started showing up, but he supposes it was a bundle deal with the house. He didn’t need much, didn’t even really need a house, but he wanted to live alone and far, far away.

Most of his classmates—contestants?—those in the killing game went their separate ways, or so he was told that would happen after they woke up. It’s natural, they said. Why spend time with someone that reminded you of your worst years?

Still, Kokichi was observant in the time they were observing him; he did his own snooping here and there, always looking for hidden cameras, hidden words, hidden motives. What kind of hospital aftercare program would put them through a trauma-inducing simulation in the first place, anyway.

Every day ended the same in that place: someone alerted staff that Kokichi was missing, Kokichi hid in a staff’s room or closet or attic, behind a bed or random couch or under his own bed, but by evening or midnight he’d be found and brought back to his room with soft whisperings of comfort that never failed to unsettle him.

The boundless patience, the lack of danger or double-edged words meant to trip him up only set him on edge, and every day he tried to make the other pin drop.

It ended up coming from a classmate of all people—not the nurse, nor the doctor, nor the other doctor that liked to ask about his feelings way too much, but the very same classmate that took his life in the game.

Kaito Momota.

“Aren’t you tired, man?”

Until that point, Kokichi had only caught glimpses of his classmates, and most steered clear of his room and general perimeter. It seemed that the ones running this whole stint put a lot of money into one “afterword” building set to ease contestants back into the “normal” life, so there was no shortage of rooms to occupy to avoid one Kokichi Oma.

“Give it a break,” Kaito told him, catching him so off guard that Kokichi simply blinked at him. “It’s over.”

But what was over, exactly? Kokichi still felt the press crushing him at night excruciatingly slow, his bones splintering when they broke; the feeling of his entire body exploding from the pressure. He felt the heat of the angry stares of his classmates, even if the most their gazes held in the halls was weariness. He heard the same accusations and insults thrown his way every night when the rest of the wing grew so quiet that Kokichi picked up on the moment that hatred seeped into their voices.

He’d tangle himself in the sheets, pulling at threads and his own sleeping clothes to escape, the sheen of pure fear-sweat covering his skin, and he choked himself out of screaming as he relived every night in that killing game when the sun went down.

It wasn’t like he didn’t try to ignore it. He did try to forget.

He even asked for it.

“You’ve altered our memories before,” he growled at the nurse that paused in her movements at his voice. “Remove mine from the game. Isn’t that the easiest way for us to heal? To forget?”

She shook her head, her mouth turning into a frown. “It doesn’t work like that in the real world.”

The real world sounded dull, he told himself that night, tears streaming down his face as his chest caved in again and his voice grew hoarse in his head.

The cat returned the next day.

Kokichi left a plate of actual cat food today.

“They say don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” he tells the cat from where he stands in his doorway, glaring down at it, “and yet, here you are, acting as if I am totally fine with yesterday’s little rebellious act.”

Little murmurs reach his ears as the cat meets his eyes over the dry food, noisily asserting its dominance as it munched.

Scowling, Kokichi waits in a robe wrapped around him to ward off the colder air this evening. He doesn’t want to leave out scraps for any other freeloaders like this one.

“Either you’re gonna have to become a housemate, or you’ll get killed outside,” he continues. “There’s no other option.”

An ear twitches, but otherwise there’s no acknowledgment of his words.

Kokichi huffs. “Cats aren’t natural outdoor predators, or not house cats like you,” he scolds, feeling some sort of small relief from being able to direct his anger at something. “You’ll die from the weather, another predator, or disease. You pick.”

It runs off once it’s finished.

Kokichi doesn’t try to catch it.

“Look around you.”

Nervously, Kokichi brings his thumb to his teeth, chewing away at his fingernail as he subconsciously rocks his body back and forth on his bed, finding it strangely comforting as he stares ahead, utterly disconnected from his surroundings.

“Kaito has us. Who do you have?”

He flinches, and he thinks he tastes something metallic in his mouth, like he chewed on a penny. He feels numb.

“You’ll always be alone, Kokichi.”

“Kokichi.”

He blinks.

“I understand if you’re not prepared to talk about it, but sometimes just talking about anything helps to move through uncomfortable feelings,” says the man across from him, never once letting himself drop the smile on his face.

Uncomfortable, Kokichi snorts in his head. My, if they were just uncomfortable, why didn’t he just say so? Kokichi’s great at dealing with uncomfortable feelings.

He’s been dealing with it all throughout that game.

Oh, he’s saying something.

“…have left already, so we’re designating some extra resources for you to get you back out there before you know it!”

He’s attempting to amp up the spirit of the atmosphere in here, so Kokichi tries for a nod to make it seem like he was listening.

“Let’s change it up a little,” the man is saying. “Would you like to play a game?”

Tonight, Kokichi considers leaving the cat to starve. If he keeps feeding it, it’ll just keep coming back with expectations from him, and he can’t help a hopeless beggar like that.

Kokichi has no plans on keeping a pet.

He tells himself this as he steps out the door with a throwable plate of wet and dry food, practically a gourmet meal for a useless stray, and the cat watches from a distance as he sets it down at his doorstep before backing up a couple feet. Quickly, it dashes out and starts to inhale the food at its feet.

Kokichi sniffs. “You could at least appreciate the variety I prepared for you this evening.”

This cat is bold enough to ignore him.

An inexplicable surge of frustration shoots through him, and the cat is the target today.

“You won’t survive without an ally, you know? You’ll die if you can’t depend on me,” he sneers, and then his expression drops into something blank.

Just as quickly as it rises, he feels himself deflate, shoulders drooping as a weight settles on them.

He slumps onto the doorstep, and the cat jumps back in surprise before hesitantly returning to eat, eying him suspiciously now.

He thinks a part of his heart just shattered, a little, when his brain registered his own words.

“Shuichi,” he calls. “Hey, hey! Shuichi!”

The boy, or, perhaps more fitting, the man doesn’t turn, and he doesn’t acknowledge the footsteps rapidly approaching behind him. His stare is focused on what’s directly in front of him. He has no time to dwell on the past.

Kokichi grabs his arm, pulling him to a stop in the middle of the hallway. He’s practically bouncing on his feet after seeing the detective, a new source of energy kicking back through him at just a glimpse of his favorite.

He’s wearing a rather bland outfit, more like a pair of pajamas than something to go outside in, and Kokichi is tempted to tease him for the lack of formal attire. The first thing Kokichi did after he woke up—rather, the third thing—was request an outfit similar to the one he used to wear, and while they gave him a regular white long-sleeve and comfortable gray pants, he tore off a part of his sheet to act as a makeshift handkerchief to tie around his neck. They wouldn’t steal his individuality, too.

No matter how fake it was.

“Hey, Shuichi, hey! I didn’t expect to see you on this floor,” he rushes out, too excitable to think about why the detective refuses to meet his eyes. “Were you here the whole time? And to think we could have been having sleepovers and gossiping about the worst nurses here!” He cups a hand on one side of his mouth as he leans in and whispers, “Spoiler alert: It’s Gwen. She doesn’t let me stay up past ten.”

Shuichi is so lifeless in this moment that Kokichi straightens up a little, firmly holding his arm but softening his excitement. Right. Everyone’s healing, or whatever.

“You know, there’re some board games in the common room, so if you’re looking to try to beat the king of all games, now is your one and only lucky chance! Because I’m free!”

Games. Games and mysteries will distract a detective.

Shuichi, however, doesn’t respond. He keeps his gaze down, and it’s like he’s reverted back to the teenager that pulled on the bill of his hat to avoid looking anyone in the eye.

Briefly, Kokichi wonders if they really did lie to him and they were able to erase memories.

“Shuichi! Heeeello? You still in there?” He waves a hand in front of the detective’s face. “What’s going on in my beloved’s head?”

Something must have ticked him off because Shuichi straightens suddenly, eyes scathing in their assessment of Kokichi before him, and the corners of his mouth tug down. “Stop it, Kokichi,” he says quietly, still so soft even now. “That’s enough.”

“There he is!” Kokichi chirps, happy to see some kind of reaction from him. “Go on and tell lil ol’ Kokichi what seems to be the problem.”

A little too late Kokichi realizes he probably should not have antagonized Shuichi.

His face reddens as his frown deepens, and Shuichi turns to face Kokichi head on, making Kokichi very, very aware of how small he feels at this moment. “The problem,” his voice trembles, “is that you’re trying to pretend, Kokichi.”

It sounded like a swear, the way Shuichi said his name.

“You’re pretending nothing happened,” he continues, his voice rising in the flood of his anger and Kokichi’s eyes flick down to see his fists clench, white-knuckled, “you’re pretending the game is still on, that we’re still there, but we’re not. We do not fit into a normal lifestyle, and you’re trying to pretend your lies and your attitude does.” He heaves a breath, his eyes momentarily closing before reopening, holding Kokichi’s gaze with a vengeance that he’d never seen on Shuichi’s face before. “They don’t.

“You have to start over.”

It took months to get out of that god-forsaken facility.

Something about stable mentality, support systems, integrating into reality, blah blah blah. Boring!

All they really wanted was for Kokichi to change himself—his very being.

Not even in this world does Kokichi fit, he’s found.

A liar? Comes in every person, in some way. It’s natural.

Everyone lies! Shuichi, Kaede, Rantaro, Kirumi, Ryoma, Maki, Kaito, Himiko, Korekiyo, Tenko, Angie, Kiibo, Miu, Tsumugi…!

Well, maybe not Gonta. Intentionally. Anyway.

The little dingy house Kokichi picked was a far cry from the one Team Danganronpa tried to offer him, all expenses paid, probably huge mortgage attached to it, but Kokichi felt all the more proud for turning down their offer.

Sure, the house sat in the middle of nowhere, a good thirty to forty minute drive to the nearest town for supplies, and, sure, the upper level and basement were bound to be left mostly unused, but Kokichi wouldn’t be looking around the corner every two seconds for traps or cameras.

He’d find peace, even if peace meant that the world wouldn’t ever get to meet him.

As he kicks open the front door with a dramatic slam and a wide smile on his face, shouting, “Honey, I’m home!” to absolutely no one, Kokichi comes to this realization.

And he lets the smile drop into neutral.

There’s no show to perform for anyone. He’s truly and utterly alone.

“Do I want to live like this forever?”

He conducts weekly therapy sessions with the cat. Might as well have it pull its own weight somehow.

“I mean, you need me, and I need me, but who else?”

Reclining on a towel on the front lawn, he pretends the sound of waves rhythmically crash with the noisy crunches of a starving beast, and that the stiff ground below him is a rock he willingly decided to tan on, claiming advantage on an elevated level for peak tanning privileges. With a pair of shades and the warmth of the sun on his bare chest, it’s near uncanny to the beach, with the added bonus of no sand in odd and uncomfortable places.

He was tempted to go full birthday suit since he’s well out from any civilization, but he didn’t want the soda swim trunks to go to waste even if there’s not a speck of use for them; he’s not been in a pool or large body of water in… well, ever.

This thought collides him back into reality with the cat slopping up its meal like a pig he used to know. It is slower, less cautious now, but it still refuses to let him pet it.

It’s probably diseased anyway.

“Maybe I should get a dog,” he muses, taking one arm out from under his head and using it to pull down his shades as he sends a look over at the tabby. “At least it’d act grateful.”

Ignorance is bliss, the cat says in his head.

He agrees and pulls the shades back down.

“Start over? From what?”

His questions fall on deaf ears as Shuichi has turned his back to him, already halfway down the hall when the words registered.

He waited for a minute, waited for some kind of reaction from Kokichi, like Shuichi wanted something from him, but it just didn’t connect in Kokichi’s head.

They all lived a life in the games, whether Shuichi wanted to accept that or not was his problem, but Kokichi couldn’t just hit restart. He burned bridges; he’s responsible for two deaths. He killed himself.

He can’t just start over from that.

After Shuichi, Kokichi spends less time wandering the halls, and he reverts to isolating himself once again in his room, except he is interrupted in his mindless daydreams every three hours by a nurse.

They took immediate notice, and they can’t have a Danganronpa participant’s health decline in the recovery period, can they?

At least, physically, they can’t.

It’s about three in the morning when Kokichi’s decided he’s had enough of this life. His true years he lived were in the game when the name Kokichi Oma meant something to people: when it scared people, intrigued them, or annoyed them.

The true Kokichi Oma lived and thrived and died in that game.

And now, people don’t need a Kokichi Oma in this mundane life.

No one has visited, and Kokichi sure as hell wasn’t going to reach out, so what was the point of living a stagnant life?

There’s no motive in this horribly boring, simple life he’s chosen for himself. No thrilling heists, no group of misfits that love him as their boss waiting to greet him at home, and no alluring detective that’s willing to stick around and solve the mysterious case of the missing participant that ended up dying for nothing in the game.

Because there is no mystery now.

Kokichi’s been figured out, and he doesn’t have a backup plan.

He doesn’t have anyone.

It’s 3:07 AM.

He’ll take care of the cat tomorrow, and then he’ll take care of himself.

…

There’s supposed to be a feeling of relief now, he thinks. A sigh. A dramatic determination that fills him with purpose after this realization.

But as he is lying in a too-cold bed with nothing but twisted sheets and a boring white ceiling as company, he feels the tears start to stream down his face.

Crying? There is no one to cry for.

Yet the tears come down relentlessly, and his chest feels like it is caving in from something other than a hydraulic press, that it is threatening to simultaneously be crushed and burst at the same time, and little hiccuping gasps start to leave his mouth.

He’s so lonely.

Why couldn’t he reach out? Why couldn’t he be forgiven?

…Why did he push everyone away?

Where was that moment of relief after all the shit he went through? Where was his hero’s reprieve? The happy ever after he deserved after he gave up everything for everyone else?

Selfish, his mind screeches at him. Heroes don’t do good deeds for the rewards afterwards.

Well, maybe he never was meant to be a hero, he always was the villain, but doesn’t he deserve something worth fighting for now?

Scrubbing at his wet eyes, his mouth open in a silent scream with nothing but choked noises escaping in the otherwise unnerving quiet of his room, Kokichi gives up.

His mind keeps him awake for hours more.

“Congratulations, Kokichi! You are now officially a member of the public society.”

Great. Give me my papers.

“With this honor, you are free to go wherever you want, whenever you want, however you want!”

He rolls his eyes.

“That being said, Team Danganronpa has graciously decided to give all participants a wealthy sum of money to pay for your first 100 vacations! Please spend it responsibly and joyously!”

Kokichi smiles wide to hide his flinch at that name.

“We hope you have a great rest of your life!”

You ruined it.

Three quick, concise knocks shatter his concentration.

Tongue sticking out, Kokichi has been determined to catch this stupid cat all morning and afternoon to send it to nearest no-kill shelter; at least it’d have a chance then, with free meals still served.

The damn cat, as if it knew his intentions, was determined to avoid every kind of treat-in-a-trap trick that Kokichi set up. Even luring it into his house just so he’d have a smaller space to work with than the literal outdoors resulted in hours of playing hide-n-seek.

Now it’s been tearing up his couch, knocking over his tables and one dead potted plant, jumped and pushed off every pillow, knocked one chair over, and almost set the kitchen stove on and burned its paws.

To say the least, Kokichi is a little frazzled by now, and a knock at his door only sets him further off the edge.

He hasn’t had an unexpected visitor in months. Five months, to be exact: every day he’s been here.

People don’t just… stumble upon his home.

So it must be a crazy fan or a solicitor, and he’s not really in the mood for either.

“Not coming! Go away!” He calls, even if a part of him craves any kind of human interaction and wants to jump at the opportunity to perform.

A pause, but then the knocks start up again. Five knocks now.

“I’m serious! I’m actually a cannibal, and the longer you stay, the more I plan for dinner!”

That should do it. He is currently in a stare down with the cat in his destroyed living room as it glares at him from under the couch, but his ears prick as he thinks he hears a snort from outside his door before the knocks come once again, insistent. A visitor amused by his antics? Now he really has to see who’s behind his door.

Giving the cat the stink eye, he quietly mouths, “It’s not over,” and he moves towards his three-locks door. He leaves the chain on as he opens the door an inch and peeks through.

And slams the door shut immediately.

Chapter Text

What was that saying about people in deserts imagining pools of water when they’re at their most dehydrated?

“Kokichi, please open the door,” comes a soft, painfully familiar voice from outside his door.

No, his mind supplies. You are on death’s doorstep.

“This is a trick,” he breathes to himself.

“What was that?” calls the devil from the other side.

“This is a trick!” Kokichi chirps cheerfully.

A pause. “What do you mean, ‘trick?’”

“Begone, devil!”

“Kokichi, stop messing around,” the voice replies, strangely lifelike, “I need to talk to you.”

Is this his subconscious’s last effort to keep him alive? It’s not a very nice trick.

“Kokichi.” Oh, the voice is stern now.

He unchains the lock and steps aside to open the door and let him in. No use keeping the devil waiting.

His Shuichi is cautious, looking around as he steps inside, shoulders slightly up and tense, eyes sharp as he glances into Kokichi’s home that looks like a tornado ran through it. All because of a scrawny feline that doesn’t know a helping hand even if it slapped it in its face.

“You, uh… your house looks comfortable,” Dream-Shuichi says, surprisingly timid for Kokichi’s usual fantasies.

He snorts. “You can say it’s messy,” he teases. “It’s not my fault.”

As if on cue, there is a crash from the next room over that makes them both wince, and Kokichi groans and shuts his eyes. “The devil sure wants to tempt me today.”

“Do you own a dog?”

Kokichi’s eyes slide back open, looking at his beloved detective with a hint of a smile in his expression. “No. I decided to remodel.”

“Suddenly?”

He smiles wider.

Shuichi’s fingers twitch with the desire to reach out and touch the man before him, to ensure he is real—and alive.

Kokichi has no such hesitations, it seemed.

“H-hey!” Shuichi exclaims, startling from Kokichi’s finger giving a hard jab into his chest.

He is met with a blank stare, one that Shuichi has learned to mean that Kokichi was surprised by something.

Kokichi mumbles, “So, it is you, huh?”

Shuichi tilts his head, curious.

Shaking his head and letting a wide grin overtake his face, his mask, Kokichi throws his arms up behind his head in a way that induces a strong sense of nostalgia in Shuichi. “What could a retired detective want with little old me?”

Retired?

His troubled thoughts must be all across his face as Kokichi’s grin switches to amused curiosity, but there is something so paper thin in his smile. “Don’t tell me Shuichi works a nine-to-five with all the money he made from the games? It was probably double what the dead made.”

Shuichi flinches. Leave it to Kokichi Oma to ignore social taboos. “I never retired.”

Kokichi does not try to hide the way his eyebrows rise, purposely letting his confusion overtake his features in an attempt to play off his very real, very prominent shock at this statement. “A fake detective never retired being a real detective?”

“Why do you think it was fake?”

“Everything was fake!” His brows furrow now, almost pouting. Let himself seem exaggerated, he thinks. Let Shuichi believe he’s no different.

Let himself believe that that statement didn’t ruin everything for him.

As long as it has been since Shuichi last saw Kokichi, he feels he understands him more now than ever. “Our personalities are real. They didn’t—couldn’t make up everything. We don’t even know how much of it was a lie.” He feels himself shrink, reluctant to bring up the past but so curious, he asks, “Did you watch the last trial?” A pause. “Did you watch yours?”

Of course he didn’t. “Of course I did.” He heard enough from the gossiping nurses. He watched parts of the ending. He knows how no one cared for his death, his sacrifice, as expected. “Maybe there is some truth regarding your abilities, huh, Detective?”

Flustered, Shuichi rubs the back of his neck—no doubt a gesture he picked up from that moron Kaito. “I… I suppose that’s one way to interpret it.” Serious, his eyes meet Kokichi’s dead-on. “You have characteristics from the past, too, I see.”

Laughing a bit weakly, he quips, “And what gave you that impression?”

“You still put on a mask to hide vulnerable feelings.”

“Juuust vulnerable?”

“Excuse me?”

He is sick of this conversation. Turning his back to him now that he has established Shuichi is no threat, Kokichi starts to pick up around his living area. “Please, do feel free to tell me how I surprise you now and how I don’t; compare, contrast, parallel them to the first five minutes of meeting the new me after, what, half a year? Go ahead. That detective title isn’t for nothing, I’m sure.”

There is a silence long enough that Kokichi actually turns around to look back at Shuichi, pausing in his movements to focus on determining his mood. He’s such a blank slate, sometimes.

“You never cleaned your room.”

“Huh?”

Shuichi shuffles. “Back in the game, your room was the messiest. There’s no way it became that state in one day, or even a couple of days. You collected items from all of the trials. It was a long-term, gradual buildup of hoarding.” Gesturing a hand around, Kokichi follows his hand motioning around his living room. “I thought—when I first came in—you were the exact same Kokichi. Messy room, sarcastic comments, defensive masks… it was as much of a relief as it was devastating.”

Did he hear that right? His face scrunches in annoyance. “Are you hearing yourself right now, Shuichi?”

“But I’ve studied your actions in the game.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to admit that.”

“I know you better now. So I know that your face is easier to read now. You’re willingly cleaning the room. I don’t think you were lying in saying that this mess isn’t your fault.”

“What a detective you are.” Kokichi sneers. “Too bad you never had these skills during the game.”

“That, too, is a defensive reaction,” Shuichi says calmly. “I’m hitting the mark if you’re trying to distract me with hurtful words.”

There is a small prick of panic in the back of his mind, so he lets himself think. He was better at this in the game, it’s true. But it’s because of lost practice, not because he changed. “I think…” Kokichi drawls, “that someone is trying to focus on me a little too much.”

Shuichi startles.

Bullseye.

“Why don’t we focus on what’s different about you, Shuichi Saihara?” Kokichi starts to circle him like a proper predator. “Better yet, why are you here? What’s your goal in visiting the craziest lunatic from the game—eh, maybe we’ll save that for Tsumugi, on second thought. The one that even you couldn’t figure out amidst all those other wild mysteries you sniffed out like a certified bloodhound.” He stops right in front of Shuichi, intent in projecting confidence. “Where’s that relentless skill of yours?”

Narrowing his eyes, Shuichi’s frown deepens. “I came here because I need your help.”

“And you’ll get none of it. Goodbye!” Kokichi puts his hands up to start pushing him towards the door.

“W-Wait—wait!” Shuichi parallels his movements, but he does it in that scared, doe-like defensive way. “Hold on, Kokichi! I need your help because you’re directly involved in this!”

Well, smack him silly and call him predictable, but that catches his attention. “Oh? Well, spit it out already! What’s with the suspense, Detective?”

Huffing, Shuichi does not hide his furrowed brows and scowl. “Look, after the game, most of the contestants went their separate ways—“

“As expected,” Kokichi interrupts.

“Sure,” Shuichi grumbles, “but some of us were scouted to join the Future Foundation.”

He stops and waits there, but Kokichi just looks at him blankly.

“The Future Foundation. The government-level one lead by Makoto Naegi currently. That one.”

“Huh.”

“Are you telling me you have no idea what that is?” Completely flabbergasted Shuichi is such a fun sight.

“Well, no, I didn’t say anything. You just made a lot of assumptions,” he cheekily replies.

Exasperated, Shuichi pierces him with a considering stare, observing for a minute in silence. Kokichi, more used to angry stares or, really, none at all in the past few months, finds himself remembering how he got away with his stillness in the past. Angry stares almost became easy to handle compared to Shuichi’s measuring eye, but the best way to handle an analytic eye is to distract it.

Distract it, he could. “Sounds like someone just wants to show off his shiny, new credentials at some big-shot company. What gives?”

Yet, the words wash over Shuichi like water. “How isolated have you been since the end of the game?”

Oh, he does not like this line of questioning.

“How rude!” he gasps, “I attend an aerobics class twice a week and routinely join the elderly for bingo nights every Sunday for your information! How’s that for isolated?” He ends with a rather smug smile on his face, but, once again, Shuichi is unaffected.

“Why would you isolate yourself to such extremes?”

“Hey, did you even hear me?”

The hand covering his mouth lowers, and suddenly his gaze focuses on the messy decor of Kokichi’s home. “In fact, I would expect someone of your style to have the most flamboyant and loud interior to match your rather outgoing personality, but instead your decor is plain. Simple.” His eyes dart around to take in the details. “Safe colors like beige and white instead of purple and black.”

“I happen to like white!”

“You even have a bookcase.”

“Are you saying a man can’t read? Look at yourself, nerd!”

“Minimalistic style at its finest. If you didn’t have some furniture and the house didn’t look like a tornado had run through it, I would’ve guessed you were getting ready to sell the property.”

Kokichi gapes. “I think I’ve just been insulted for keeping my house marketable.”

“And why would you do that, Kokichi?” That piercing gaze is back on him. “Why does it need to stay marketable if it’s your home?”

It’s like watching a light bulb blink on in his head.

“Unless… you feel like you can’t stay in one place,” Shuichi says slowly. “You are still searching for a purpose long after the game has ended.”

Kokichi scowls. Shuichi couldn’t be more wrong. He had a purpose. It’s over. It’s done. Now he is just the leftovers of a human being. “I think you’re projecting.”

“Perhaps,” he replies, surprising Kokichi, “but you’re lying to yourself.”

He can’t help it; he laughs. It is so damn funny: the absolute irony that Shuichi can’t connect the two dots that Kokichi lied to everyone. “Oh, I missed my beloved!” He sneers. “Not. Leave the psychoanalyzing for your friends. Tell me where I come into play with this Future Foundation.”

It takes him a minute to circle back, and Kokichi hates the look in his eye like Shuichi discovered something vulnerable about Kokichi. Like he knows him.

Shuichi clears his throat. “First, you need to have some idea on what the foundation stands for, when it became known publicly, and who leads it now, most importantly.” His eyes wander around the room before he lands on the messy couch. “This may be overwhelming for you, so I suggest we sit down.”

Kokichi upticks an eyebrow, faintly annoyed, but he leads the way. Despite some pillows knocked off and a blanket that made it halfway to the floor, the couch is rather neat. Or it was. Damn cat.

He moves the pillows back to their rightful places and simply throws the blanket on the opposite end of the couch to be folded for later, gesturing for Shuichi to sit. Kokichi chooses the armchair directly across from Shuichi, preferring to face this news head on.

He raises his eyebrows when he sits, prompting Shuichi to sheepishly start his explanation.

Chapter Text

Hands clenched together, Shuichi avoids eye contact with the strangers on the train. Only three other people are in this particular car with him, but the fear of any one of them recognizing him sits in his stomach like a stone.

Some things never change, he supposes.

Back in the game, eye contact meant doubt, anger, or hatred; now, it meant questions, accusations, and, worse, idolization.

Sitting alone with his thoughts is one of the worst things Shuichi can do in this day and age, but today he finds himself with no other choice as this long train ride is the only stop the closest to his destination.

If Shuichi hadn’t retrieved this information from his own systems, he would have believed that he was given a false lead with malicious intentions. This line with so few passengers, stopping at a place Shuichi had never heard of before and had to find with a magnifying glass on a map—this was prime material to set up a murder and hide the body in a place so remote no one would ever find it.

Shuichi didn’t work on murder cases, not after… but he knew the signs. Sometimes his cases crossed with homicide. This felt like he was living one of them.

With nothing but his phone as a distraction, Shuichi taps on the screen to look for messages, and the same messages from Kaede and Kaito pop up wishing him safe travels and to “stay alert” when he finally arrived. He unlocks the screen, but his eyes are quickly drawn to the top right corner: no cell service.

Tightening his grip temporarily in a subconscious display of anxiety getting to him once again, he thinks. He could play one of his puzzle games for the millionth time or continue writing down notes about this journey—this was supposed to be a visit on business, after all—but his eyes shift and he finds himself looking at his mirror reflection, and his thoughts drift.

There, in the reflection, he sees a determined version of himself, sitting by his coffee table in his home. Glancing to the left, he sees Kaede’s worried face.

The transparent scene solidifies before his eyes, and he lets his mind take him back to the past as the scene becomes alive for him once again.

“Are you sure about this, Shuichi?”

“I’ve never been more sure of something in my life,” he answers, firm. “We need him.”

Kaede looks hesitant. “I understand that, I do.” She looks down at the map before her. “It’s just… we haven’t seen him in months. He hasn’t seen us in months. We have no idea what he is like now.”

Shuichi tries to ignore the flicker of doubt that needles at him with her words. “It doesn’t matter. His ability to pick up on lies and piece together complex information is valuable enough, alone.”

“But he could have moved on. He could have a family…” She bites her lip. Shuichi’s heart trembles. “Or he could be trying to move on. I mean, he left without a trace!”

“Kokichi has always isolated himself when he was plotting something,” Shuichi counters. “He likely knows the issue, knows that we’re on the case, and he’s finding his own way to put a stop to it.”

“Aren’t you making too many assumptions on this?”

Taken aback, Shuichi’s eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Kaede starts, “we haven’t seen Kokichi in months. You’re implying he already knows, but it’s possible he doesn’t. You’re thinking you know how he works, but… things are different now, you know?”

They both avoid each other’s eyes temporarily, looking to the table or off to the side, an awkward silence filling the room. Confrontation has always been weird between them after the game, knowing there is one conversation that they need to have but neither have been willing to bring it up.

That being said, Kaede is not wrong, and these are normal concerns, yet Shuichi can’t help but feel this is out of character from the Kaede he knew.

Silently, he wonders how out of character he acts now, too.

“Kaede, look at how much we stayed the same and how much we changed,” Shuichi says quietly, meeting her eyes. “Do you really think Kokichi is any different?”

“As far as we know, he didn’t have the same support system we did,” Kaede points out. She speaks with the gentle patience of a teacher correcting a child. “No one from the game mentioned seeing him since the facility.”

Shuichi covers his mouth, lowering his eyes; a telltale habit that he never fully broke. “If our Ultimates weren’t actually real, but our talents were, then it should be fine either way.”

“Huh?”

Shuichi refocuses his gaze. “If my Ultimate was based on my actual job, and if you professionally played the piano before the game, then Kokichi, as an Ultimate Supreme Leader, must have a talent for reading people and leading. He may even have connections that we need. How he became after the game is irrelevant—his character must be based on something real. That’s all we need.”

Kaede frowns, but she doesn’t argue. It is an impersonal observation, and there are flaws to it: they don’t actually know if their talents were based on anything. All they know is that they have a knack for the same skill their Ultimate happens to be based on.

Even on that note, Kokichi could be an alcoholic, dissociated from reality. He could be in charge of an organization, like he claimed in the game, and it could be hard to find him in one place.

Or… Kokichi could have a family. He could have a partner, he could be a father, and he could not want to be involved in the most significant puzzle of their lives.

Nonetheless, Shuichi feels, deep in his bones and worth all his weight as a detective, that Kokichi, being Kokichi, would not refuse a mystery so deeply ingrained with their future that it could affect the rest of their lives.

Who knew what a Supreme Leader actually meant to the Danganronpa executives? Who knew if the basis for Kokichi’s character was always to be the antagonist?

Leader, supreme leader, evil overlord—all these words are childish nothings to Shuichi. All he needs are Kokichi’s skills.

That’s all. Nothing else.

The scene floats away from his consciousness as the rattling of the tracks filter back in. Unseeing for just a moment, Shuichi finds his vision return to the sight of his shoes, and, just as quickly as he is returned to the present, his brain wanders far away once more to the past.

“This is stupid.”

“Makiroll, c’mon, it’s not the worst plan.”

“It might as well be.”

Shuichi kept his head down, a bit embarrassed to interrupt, both knowing this would happen and still wishing the hard part was already over. No, he hasn’t even gotten to that point and it was already going to shit.

“Do you really think he’s changed at all from the game? Do you want to d…” she trails off, scowling. “See? Nobody can change that quickly.”

“You have changed,” Kaito firmly refutes. Then he cracks a smile. “You don’t go around choking everyone you dislike anymore.”

Maki huffs, but there is an uptick to the corner of her lip, lightening her expression into something softer, less tense. They were good for each other, Shuichi thinks, looking up.

And this was probably the best time to interrupt. “Actually,” he says hesitantly, watching both pairs of eyes turn to him, “that’s kind of the point. That he hasn’t changed, that is.”

Just like that, it explodes into a tense environment again as two pairs of eyes burn through Shuichi.

“Why the hell would you want him to stay the same?”

“You are an idiot.”

“Look.” Shuichi splays his hands, focusing on them temporarily as he knows there is even more he has to deal out in bad news. “We need the skills he showed in the killing game, and if he is the exact same person he was before, that would actually be the best-case scenario,” because I can read him then.

As Maki and Kaito stare at him, Shuichi starts to lose his nerve, feeling their judgmental gazes and refusing to meet them.

Kaito breaks the silence first. “I get what you’re saying, man, but…” he starts, then stops. “You know what? You always had a good read on him, and he did have the craziest plan to end the killing game. Crazy, but effective. I trust your judgment.”

A sigh of relief leaves him. “Thank you, Kaito.”

Maki’s scowl deepens. “That doesn’t mean this plan is smart.”

“It’s more of a preventative measure.” Shuichi tries to appeal to reason with her. “If he doesn’t know, then he needs to know because it will likely affect him, and we don’t know if they’ll start reaching out to past players soon. If he does know, then we need to know if he’s hiding because he’s plotting.” He glances between both of them. “Kokichi can be difficult, but he had one of the best plans to shut down the killing game. I need to know if he can do it again.”

Shuichi promptly shuts up then, waiting. Moments like these needed a calm before the storm, a firm agreement before starting the next battle.

Kaito reaches an arm up, scratching behind his head in a telltale sign of uncertainty, frowning but nodding to Shuichi once. “All right.”

Maki inclines her head in the barest of nods.

Shuichi lets the silence sit for a second longer as he breathes in and out. Now came the hard part.

“And I need you two to stay behind while I meet with Kokichi,” he rushes out in one breath, barely finishing his sentence before the cacophony of noise breaks out.

“What.”

“No way in hell.”

While, at the time, that experience was quite nerve-wracking for Shuichi, he can’t help but chuckle at his friends’ overprotectiveness in the present. They’ve always seen Shuichi as family, and so their care almost went beyond what he experienced with Kaede—another one of his best friends, but not quite the same feeling as the almost sibling-like connection he finds in Kaito and Maki.

There was a sense of pride that came from Maki when she saw that the strength training came in handy during Shuichi’s daily activities, and there was always a need to mentor from Kaito who thrived in being given the opportunity to dish out advice when Shuichi needed it.

If Shuichi ever needed a picture of family, he would bring all of them in for it, including Kaede. They were his people, plain and simple, no matter how complicated it may be to explain what brought about their connection.

Come to think of it, they took that role a long time before Shuichi even realized it.

Shuichi stared at the lobby doors, blankly taking in his surroundings, understanding his purpose for being here but reluctant all the same.

Release day.

It was bright outside. There was sun, and gray pavement, and green grass, and cars that moved, birdsong and bugs, and there was no red.

How much of it was a lie?

The ding of the elevator makes his head swivel towards it, anxiety causing him to flinch at every noise, every potential danger.

Out comes a bouncing Kaede, less of an excitable energy and more of a restless one, he considers, as he takes in her strained smile and white-knuckled grip on the small suitcase she was rolling behind her.

“Hey there, Shuichi,” she says softly when she reaches him, softer than her body language suggested she was, and she smiles up at him with those scared eyes, fidgeting with the strap of the backpack on her shoulder. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

His breath stutters. “Yeah,” he says, quiet.

“Finally getting out of here.”

“Yeah.”

They stand there in silence looking at those glass doors that revealed a world unknown to them—a world that once was said to be a lie.

It is so… terrifying.

The elevator dings again, and a loud argument breaks their trance on the outside, both turning to look towards the sound.

“I said I packed it!”

“Check again.”

“Damn it, Makiroll, stop tugging on my arm! I’ll check it!”

The smile grows across his face unbeknownst to him, and he watches a struggling Kaito with two suitcases and a backpack pulled on by a stern Maki eyeing his luggage, pulling only one small suitcase behind her.

“Oh, hey, Shuichi! Kaede!” Kaito yells out, waving an arm even though they’re only about twenty feet apart.

Maki’s head whips over to them, and her eyes soften as she spots them, seemingly tugging on Kaito with a new strength as she quickens her pace and he nearly trips over his suitcases in the process.

“Who needs six towels, anyway?” Kaito is complaining as he nears Shuichi and Kaede.

“It’s called resourcefulness.” And Maki leaves it at that.

“Hey guys,” Kaede greets, her exhaustion making itself present as she relaxes her stance in their presence.

“New beginnings, huh?” Kaito remarks, eyes trained already on the glass doors in front of them.

Shuichi sees Maki nod beside him, but she doesn’t speak. Neither can Shuichi; he feels a little choked up at the thought.

“I guess… we had no one in the real world waiting for us,” Kaede whispers, finally saying the thought that must have been weighing on her mind these last two weeks when it was announced that they were leaving the facility—for good.

She’s right, Shuichi thinks. Those memories, that family—his uncle. He wasn’t real. He never came.

No one did.

Looking down, he sees Kaede’s hand trembling. Reaching out, he interlocks their fingers, giving her one squeeze. This is real.

Her watery eyes meet his, and she gives him a weak smile. She understands.

To his left, Maki tenses, but she nods. Accepting. Perhaps expectant.

Beside her, Kaito frowns, but he quickly reaches over to clap Kaede on the back. “They wouldn’t understand what it was like anyway. We’re your family now. We’re never going to leave you.”

They all let that sit in. Who knows how they came to be in the games—whether through kidnapping or volunteering, whether they had family or not, they don’t know.

But what they found with each other, that could be their reality.

Maki breaks the quiet with a huff. “He’s going to be so annoying.”

“Hey!”

While this memory leaves Shuichi on a warm note, the present reminds him of his current situation, and it brings him even further back to a colder time.

The knock at their door sets everyone in the room a little on edge. Visitors are a mixed bag, but their latest apartment should be out of the way for most solicitors. Fans, however, were another story, and one that deeply impressed a terrible memory upon two of the current residents of their small and temporary home.

Shuichi stands up, intent on being the one to answer the door after glancing at Kaede’s face, plastic smile frozen upon it, and Himiko, who quickly holds her hands up to her ears in an attempt to block out the sound.

For the last week, Shuichi observed Kaede stopping herself just before leaving the apartment, and Himiko made it clear that she intends to hole herself up in her room for the foreseeable future. With Kaito and Maki out, Shuichi is in charge of intercepting any potential sour encounters with the public—in other words, all interactions with anyone that wasn’t already living in the apartment with them, but especially any potential fans tracking down their locations.

Before Shuichi can move away from the couch, he feels a tug on his shirt, and he looks down to see Kaede with an uncharacteristic look of horror on her face before she poorly hides it with a determined expression.

“Shuichi,” Kaede says with a small tremble in her voice, “please just ignore it.”

“I’ll be right back, Kaede,” he replies, smiling to assure her.

Kaede frowns. “I-I’ll come with you!”

“No, Kaede—“

“It’s all right,” she interrupts, “I’ll be right out of view.”

“Kaede—“

“It’s just to make sure you’ll be okay.”

Shuichi’s eyes widen, but he relents, smiling genuinely this time, nodding. He prepares himself as they walk to the door together, but Kaede’s presence already relieves some of the uneasiness he feels.

Before he opens it, Shuichi looks over to Kaede, and she gives him a nervous thumbs up. Returning his gaze to the door, he opens it a crack to gauge their visitor’s demeanor.

Shuichi’s mouth drops, swinging the door open. “T-Tenko?!”

An equally startled Tenko mirrors his shock, a shrill “Shuichi!” leaving her mouth in surprise, before she quickly tries to reign herself in, straightening up.

From his peripheral, Shuichi sees Kaede mouthing something at him, likely repeating his statement, but he is too focused on the sight of a former classmate of all people to acknowledge Kaede. They were not exactly in touch with their peers aside from the ones that chose to live together after the game.

“Ah, hello… Shuichi.”

The effort in which it took to say his name suggested to Shuichi that Tenko was trying to come across a certain way. Placating, almost.

The last time Shuichi saw Tenko… Well, it must have been at the facility.

A month has passed since most of the students of the fifty-third class have gone their separate ways since the killing game. During their time in the “healing” ward, Shuichi had talked with most of his former classmates, but he found himself sticking to those that he had already built a connection with during the game. Kaito and Maki being givens, and while Shuichi found there were obstacles to overcome in his relationship with Kaede, issues that still needed to be talked through, she, too, became a staple in his life—someone that he couldn’t let go, even though all they went through nearly tore them apart.

Regardless, not all former partnerships lasted from the game.

Himiko was a surprise. She found an attachment to Maki and himself after the facility, leeching onto them in a way that Shuichi could not say was entirely healthy. For some undisclosed reason, Himiko refused to discuss Tenko or Angie with them, closing herself off at every attempt by Kaede or Kaito, so they never brought it up again.

And here was Tenko, knocking at their door.

“It’s—it’s been a while, Tenko,” Shuichi says. “How’ve you been? How are you?”

Tenko’s face shifts to something displeased before she visibly forces what Shuichi thinks is meant to be a smile but turns more into a pained grimace. “I’m… doing fine,” she grits out. “Thank you.”

Shuichi can’t help it; his mouth drops open again. Beside him, covered by the door, Shuichi distinctly makes out Kaede mouthing, “What. The. Hell.”

“Look… Shuichi,” Tenko starts, just as strained, “I… need to ask you a favor.”

Instinctively, Shuichi wants to accept, but he knows better now, he’s more cautious, so he says, “I’m listening.”

Tenko’s grimace becomes lighter, something more genuine, and she seems impressed by his response.

That sparks a warm feeling in Shuichi’s chest.

“I understand that Himiko is staying with you.”

Shuichi hesitates before he nods.

Tenko nods back at him, and she starts to fidget, looking everywhere but at him. Tentatively, she removes an envelope from her pocket, holding it preciously between her fingers.

Shuichi’s attention is fully on the envelope, curious about its contents, so when Tenko speaks up again, he jumps.

“I’d… appreciate, if you could, give this to Himiko.”

Tenko meets Shuichi’s eyes.

“And—and tell her that she’s always welcome to—“ Tenko cuts herself off. She gulps. “If she ever wants to… if she misses Angie, I put our current address in the letter. Or if any of you would like to visit. It’s on the envelope, too. I was going to mail it, but…” Tenko’s ramblings stop. She gives him a small smile.

Shuichi understands. “I can do that.”

A wider smile grows on her face. “Thank you, Shuichi.” It takes her a minute, but she delicately places the envelope into Shuichi’s waiting hands.

With a quick glance to Kaede for confirmation, Shuichi asks, “Would you like to come in?”

“No, no,” Tenko quickly waves a hand, almost enthusiastically declining the offer that it takes Shuichi a bit off guard. “I’m… trying to…” she trails off. “If Himiko is inside then…”

The revelation stuns Shuichi: Tenko is denying herself of seeing Himiko. Tenko is actively trying to change herself.

Can a Danganronpa character change their very being?

Shuichi reflects on her actions. Not once did Tenko call him a degenerate male, Tenko thanked him, Tenko asked him for a favor, and, the most damning evidence of all, Tenko is refusing herself of seeing Himiko.

She’s not all changed, though, he considers, looking at the envelope he carries. She still wishes to reach out; she’s just adjusting the parts of herself that likely were amped up for television.

Was Shuichi also “amped up” for television in some way?

“Hey, you’re starting to seriously creep me out,” Tenko says, a hand to her mouth like she is whispering a secret, “cut it out, would you?”

Ah, he’s been staring a bit too much. “S-sorry, Tenko. Thank you for reaching out to us. I’ll be sure to give this to Himiko.”

Tenko nods, appeased, and she does a two-finger salute before bounding off, a clear intention in her direction.

Shuichi watches her for a few seconds as Kaede gently closes the door.

She holds her back to it while staring at Shuichi. “That was…”

“Odd…” Shuichi soberly finishes.

“Yeah…”

They look at each other, both coming to conclusions, though likely not the same.

“Do you think,” Shuichi says carefully, “that participants of the Danganronpa show were based on pre-established personalities?”

Kaede sees through him, and it is a rare moment of familiarity from the games. “Ask what you really want to ask, Shuichi.”

“Do you think we were real people?”

“We had to be,” Kaede says, unrelenting. “We had to be,” she repeats, subdued.

“Okay,” Shuichi says.

He doesn’t know if he believes her.

He should have.

“What… are you doing?”

“Eep!”

Shuichi doesn’t really have energy nowadays. Nothing quite phases him anymore, and how could it? His life has been torn down—twice, in one day, it felt like.

Apparently it had been weeks.

Seeing the dead walk the hallways hasn’t done much for Shuichi’s state of mind. In fact, for most people, that would be a sign of insanity.

Shuichi’s not fully confident in his sanity.

So seeing Miu Iruma, strangled to death, snooping around a random door in a hallway on a floor that Shuichi had inadvertently wandered down or up to—he’s not sure, most days, where his feet take him—well, it doesn’t phase him, per se.

It, unfortunately, does spark some kind of itch, a relative kind of aspiration to understand, that compels him to speak out at such a scene preceding before his very eyes.

And Miu, Miu wasn’t expecting that.

“Wha-wha-what the fuck, Shuichi!” Miu screeches, clawing at her hair, her apprehensive eyes shooting around before glaring at Shuichi. “Could you warn a girl before you decide to blow your load all over her face!”

It is only because Shuichi is in such a state of apathy and utter desensitization that he can come out of this exchange moderately unbothered, the red that rises to his cheeks notwithstanding.

“Miu, I—“

“Shut it, Pooichi!” An aggressive middle finger fills his vision as he crosses eyes to see it, successfully quieted. “I’m on a very important mission right now and I need all these screws tightened and centered for it to profit!”

“Uh…”

“Absolute concentration, fuckwad!”

“A-ah, okay.” Shuichi purses his lips. It was always better to avoid verbal confrontations with Miu if he cared at all for his blood pressure.

Briefly, he considers leaving Miu to her own devices, letting whatever happen with his consciousness free, but her intense stare at the door is so odd that Shuichi’s feet stay planted in place.

This is what damned him in the game, this curiosity. He supposes the writing of his character will never truly leave him, not for how they took someone and erased all previous existence of him.

“Hold on, Shuichi.” Miu breaks through his thoughts. “I might be able to make use of you yet. I need you to seduce Cockichi into coming out of his room.”

Shuichi blinks. Comprehension hits Shuichi slowly, with a closed fist but a strong form, and it quite literally takes a minute for him to recover. All blood that previously drained from his cheeks rises right back into them, his face hot and uncomfortable, and his eyes are wide yet unseeing.

“S-s-seduce?!” He squeaks.

“Don’t be shy on me now, pipsqueak! Get on up there and put on your bedroom voice!”

Shuichi is a gapping fish, a stunned lamb, and a puffed-up cat all at once. He can see it now in the headlines: Shuichi Saihara—Existential Crisis Before Thirty.

“Don’t just gawk at me now! C’mon, knock on the door and say you’ll fuck him or something if he shows his tiny ass!”

And he thought it couldn’t get any worse. “M-Miu!”

“What, little Shuichi feeling a bit shy? Need to do some pregaming or somethin’?”

Shuichi covers his face with his hands, the last ditch effort to pretend he isn’t here, at this point in time, internally dying on the spot as Miu chortles in his ears, clearly proud of herself. For what? Shuichi wouldn’t know. He’s gone. He’s a shell. Pure embarrassment listed as his cause of death: a heart attack on the spot that took him out mercifully amidst Miu’s killer teasing.

“E-enough,” Shuichi stutters out, voice so low and weak. Focus. “That’s enough, Miu.” He pauses to collect himself, trying hard to ignore his burning cheeks. “What do you need with Kokichi?”

Miu, predictably, cowers at the slightest sign of exasperation in Shuichi’s voice, and she wobbles like a newborn baby. “W-well, he’s not been out in a while and with releases happening soon…” she trails off, her body language suggesting she is self-conscious about something. “I just wanted to talk to him, you know! See what his plans are, god! Is that such a crime?” Back to her usual self.

Shuichi is just relieved to be on familiar ground again. “Coercion is a crime,” he points out. “Why not wait for him to re-emerge for one of the communal meals?”

“I did wait,” Miu says, irritable. “One of those bitch-ass nurses came and shooed me away. Said he’d ‘come out when he’s ready’ or whatever. Doesn’t that sound like a load of bullshit to you? We’re supposed to be healing and reintegrating back into the real world and they won’t let me reconcile with my damn killer?”

Shuichi thumbs his forefinger, attempting to prevent that gesture of covering his mouth. I’m not a detective. “It… does sound like a cop-out.”

“See?”

But… what can we do about it?

Shuichi looks at Miu, watching her fume quietly in front of the door she believes to be Kokichi’s room, and a pang of guilt strikes him. Could he be responsible for Kokichi’s re-isolation? They left on rather sour terms the last he talked to him.

Miu may be right in asking Shuichi to convince Kokichi to re-emerge from his room—for the wrong reasons, but, for all he knows, Shuichi is responsible for Kokichi removing himself from all peer interactions again.

Hesitantly, Shuichi approaches the door with Miu’s critical eye burning a hole into him, and he knocks once, pauses, and then continues four more times. “Hello? Kokichi? …Are you in there?”

Despite the lack of any noise from the other side, Miu “encourages” him to continue, hand waving urgently to convey to him that he must keep going.

“Um, Kokichi… I would like to talk to you again, and… Miu is here, too…”

Shuichi trails off as Miu inaudibly tells him to “shut the hell up” and aggressively holds out a hand with a thumbs down all the while calling him a “bitch.”

“Ah, disregard that last part.”

“Convince him to leave,” Miu whispers loudly.

“Uh…” What would convince a shut-in like Kokichi? “I wanted to say…” Shuichi considers his next words carefully. “I wanted to say,” he repeats, “that what I said previously… may not be entirely fair. For us. As in.” How does he put this? Even Miu is looking at him funny now. “We’re real people, so… so we had to be somebody, right? Even if—even if our memories are fake, we were people. Memories can’t make a whole person, right?”

Miu waves a hand under her chin, effectively asking him to cut it short.

“I mean—!” He’s panicking, he’s panicking. “What feels right for you, maybe that’s right for you. Because what feels right comes internally, so you… you could be acting exactly as you’re supposed to be, okay? Please just…” Shuichi quiets, leaning closer to the door now. This is just for him. “Please just come out.”

Although Shuichi expects the silence, the resulting answer still stings as he waits by the door, hoping that it will open any second now.

“Ugh, forget it,” Miu groans. “Little bastard lives to surprise. He’ll probably show up on release day with a pair of shades and a ripped chest, just for the dramatic entrance.”

Shuichi isn’t so sure himself, but he does have one question before he leaves. “Miu,” he starts, turning to face her, “why did you decide to reconcile with Kokichi, anyway? Isn’t it difficult to see someone who… plotted your death?”

“Well, yeah,” Miu agrees immediately, throwing Shuichi off even more, “I just want to slap the shit out of him right now.” Then she changes, hands on her hips and looking anywhere but at Shuichi. “But, you know, I could’ve been his killer. If my plan worked. If the shortstack hadn’t figured it out. Plus I…” She hesitates so severely here, clearly reluctant to say the next words. “I miss our banter…” She trails off.

Shuichi stays quiet, knowing Miu will snap back soon enough.

And sure enough, she does, glaring at him all the while. “B-because he’s the only one that can match my genius, you know! Don’t get any perverted ideas, incel-coded loser!”

“I hope he comes out, too,” Shuichi replies, ignoring the subsequent eek from Miu.

Miu misses Kokichi. Miu noticed Kokichi’s absence. Miu seeked out Kokichi all by herself.

Shuichi is too absent these days to make any observations worth a lick of attention, but a small part of him wonders…

He wonders if Miu and Kokichi were written to bounce off each other as they did, or if it was their natural chemistry that took lead.

Could that be paralleled with other pairings that grew close in the game?

An announcement overhead signals Shuichi that the train was arriving at his stop and to be ready to exit, so he stands up from his seat. As he waits for the train to fully come to a halt, he notes that the remaining passengers do not look to be departing with him.

Is he the only one getting off at this stop?

It seems so as the announcer now asks all departing passengers to leave the car and wishes a safe journey.

The temperature around this time is comfortable, and Shuichi straightens the light jacket he wears, adjusting more for the sake of doing something than fixing his appearance after sitting for hours.

Not a very welcoming spot, Shuichi observes, looking around a very desolate area for such nice weather. Nothing is blooming, moreso a dry, golden field of nothings for as far as Shuichi can see.

Best to get moving, he thinks. Kokichi’s home is another forty-five minutes out by foot.

This Kokichi is isolated. Shuichi knew this already from his disappearance from the public eye and former classmates’ reports.

A little while back Shuichi had called two classmates in particular with the goal of finding out about Kokichi’s temperament nowadays—neither had been able to comment, having no contact at all with their former peer.

That probably had been the biggest surprise for Shuichi. How would Kokichi keep up an eye on what’s happening with the world without popping in every now and then, poking for information or entertainment—either or, as Kokichi was always a bit of an attention seeker.

How does he do it?

Shuichi pulls out his notepad while he walks; he has time. A few theories to help him prepare for his confrontation with Kokichi couldn’t hurt.

Chapter Text

All right. So. Maybe he should have turned on the TV every now and then. Metaphorically. Because Kokichi didn’t own a TV.

“Sounds totally believable.”

“You would know if I’m lying.”

Touché.

“And the foundation was built for us, initially. It was meant to put a stop to events like the killing games after the first one aired on live television. That’s why it was created by the ‘survivors’ of the first game.”

“Well, they sucked at it.”

“Kokichi!” Shuichi rubs a thumb to his temple. As if Kokichi wasn’t usually this difficult. “It worked in lessening the games over time. We could have had more victims.”

“Wouldn’t your bestie, Kaede, be the one to say something like, ‘One victim is too many, Shuichi.’”

“I know that,” Shuichi reasons, a hint of surprise on his face at the mention of her name, “but sixteen victims over a hundred lessens the impact. It’s arguably better in terms of statistics.”

Statistics. “Hold on. I got this. She’d say, ‘Of course… if we’re looking at this like a math problem, that is.’”

“Then look at this way.” He’s dedicated, Kokichi will give him that. “The Future Foundation has succeeded in dampening the reputation of Team Danganronpa, the organization in charge of these games. Without their work, I wouldn’t have been able to win the last trial like I did.”

Like he did.

…How did he do that again?

“Did you… Did you actually watch the last trial?” Uh oh, Shuichi’s catching on to him.

“Yep.” Nope. “Didn’t I tell you this before?”

“Were you lying?”

Kokichi gasps. “Well, I’d never!” Wait, he wants Shuichi to believe him. “But I did so totally watch the last trial.” Nailed it.

Shuichi sighs, heavy, the literal weight of the world on his shoulders almost tangible in just one exaltation of breath. “You never let yourself be this ignorant of things around you before. You’re not going to be able to help us like this.”

Help. That’s right. Shuichi isn’t here for Kokichi; he’s here for Kokichi Oma.

Shuichi shifts, leaning forward to grab a phone out of his back pocket, and Kokichi snorts. “That’s the number one easiest spot to steal something, Detective. I’d think you would know better.”

Per Shuichi’s usual tactics from the game, he ignores Kokichi when he’s particularly being a nuisance. “Okay. I want you to watch everything past the moment you d—you left the simulation.”

“You can say that I died, Shuichi. We could even say I would be better off dead now!”

“Stop.” The concern in Shuichi’s eyes is sickening. “Don’t say things like that. Just… just watch.”

He understood… the gist. He knew about Tsumugi’s rant. He knew Kaito failed his plan.

But he didn’t know all of it. He didn’t want to.

“Maybe we should take a break for today. Let you adjust to that information.” Shuichi gently removes his phone from Kokichi’s hands that are trembling ever so slightly. He takes a look at the watch around his wrist and then refocuses on Kokichi. “Why don’t I make you dinner? If you don’t mind… I’d like to stay with you today to make sure you’re okay after taking all that in.”

Kokichi just blankly stares at him, processing.

“Oh!” Shuichi’s eyes widen, a flush darkening his cheeks as his arms wave wildly around. “I-I didn’t meant to overstep! If you’d like me to leave, I can check on you tomorrow. I just—I know information like this is overwhelming, and even though it’s been so long since the game ended, with how isolated you’ve been, I feel like… this could probably be too much all at once.”

Kokichi knows he should respond, he should lie and tell him he’s being forward, or lie and say the video was all known to him before, but his mind feels like it is in overload, and there is a little whirring sound deafening out all other noises as several points connect in his head that were once dead ends.

Kaito failed, but Shuichi succeeded. Shuichi won the trial, but the producers let the survivors have an ambiguous ending instead of a good one.

What did it mean? Why would they leave it ambiguous when the real world knows they are actors?

Yet, even with this context, no matter how he had hoped it would be different somehow, Kokichi was still just a liar to his classmates.

The video did not change anything, and that fact almost took up all his brain capacity. Almost. Kind of.

…Well, it kept replaying in his head. But it’s not like it is his priority. The ambiguous nature of that ending is more curious. Of course.

He just can’t seem to focus.

“Kokichi?”

Shuichi isn’t even here for him. He isn’t here to reconcile or because he cares in any way that mattered.

Shuichi’s too kind. He’s always been entertaining Kokichi for longer than anyone else because he can’t just properly tell someone to fuck off like Miu can—could. Who the hell knows what she’s up to today?

Not that she’d visit him, either.

Gonta might have been the only classmate that did like him, and he ruined it. Used him because he was useful; treated him like a proper DICE member, but DICE didn’t even exist.

This doesn’t matter. It never did. Why does he care?

What’s more important is why would Danganronpa fund games that put actors in a simulation if they were only going to erase their memories and let them run free afterwards? What was the point?

Surely there is enough negative press to shut this show down. Or did Shuichi do it? The ambiguous ending almost seems like… they expected a response like that.

“Kokichi!”

He whips his head over to the man on his couch. Oh. Shuichi. Shuichi is on his couch, frowning, but somehow he still looks nervous. Heh. He’s such an enigma.

“Okay, I’m staying.”

That’s his cue. Say something, Kokichi. “How forward! Should we hold hands when we share the bed?”

“I’m taking the futon, and you—you just stay there while I make something for dinner.”

That’s easy. He can stay still.

Shuichi pushes off his knees with his hands and uneasily makes his way across the crowded floor to his kitchen located conveniently right at the entrance to his home. Following just out of sight, Kokichi soundlessly slides onto one of his most ridiculous high chairs that crowd one side of the isle separating his kitchen from his living room.

As soon as Shuichi turns around to take in his surroundings and sees Kokichi, he sighs, but there is a little uptick at the corner of his mouth that suggests he is perhaps pleased by Kokichi’s presence.

Or he’s happy that Kokichi isn’t totally unresponsive. Maybe both.

He hopes it’s both.

Shuichi does not have to stretch the way Kokichi does to reach the top cabinets, and instead languidly extends an arm, perfect reach, looking around at the contents of the cupboards and drawers.

He doesn’t say anything initially about the contents of his cupboards, but Kokichi can tell there is something on his mind. “Penny for your thoughts? Just kidding! They’re not even worth that.”

Shuichi’s mouth ticks down. Kokichi’s eyes are drawn to the lines of his lips.

Poking around in his pocket, Kokichi noisily clamps a quarter down on the counter and slides it over to Shuichi wordlessly.

His lips part in his surprise before they inch upwards in a reluctant smile. “You’re an enigma, Kokichi.”

Kokichi reaches out to drag the quarter back, but Shuichi stops him by swiftly pressing his hand over Kokichi’s much smaller, much colder one. “I expected candy.”

Kokichi brow rises past his bangs.

“You’re childish. Or you were—childish. You didn’t eat much in the game from what I observed, and what you did have consisted of a lot of soda, candy, or snacks instead of full meals. But your cupboards,” he lays down a package of pasta, a can of vegetables, some random spices, “are full of variety. I’m curious if you have changed this much from the games or I never really knew you in the first place.”

“Both.” Instinctively, Kokichi lives to confuse, but he feels strangely honest when he replies this time. “Or I just lived with a very meticulous roommate! Who knows?”

“Who knows?” Shuichi echoes.

The kitchen quickly fills the room with the smell of fresh pasta and tomato, a classic filling meal fitting for the fair detective to make. Sometime between Shuichi waiting for the pot to boil and mixing a couple of spices and sauce together, Kokichi falls into a trance of just watching, and it nags at him.

He’s done his fair share of observing in the game—not that his classmates would know with how loud he made his presence in the room at all times—but he has never observed with the plain intention of mindless gazing. This content feeling, the feeling that this is what normal should feel like, that he wouldn’t mind an event-less life if this is his routine, unsettles him far more than Kokichi wants to unravel right now.

So he busies himself. Kokichi slides off the chair, albeit reluctantly, and he starts to clean up his living room. If Shuichi was staying over, he proooobably needs somewhere to lie down.

Clearing the floor is a rather quick task, picking up the smaller things to make space for a mattress, and feeling a tad petty from Shuichi’s earlier observations, he throws a couple of pillows and a blanket on the couch without tidying it. Vindicated, he supposes he can take the rest of the cleaning seriously and pivots his attention to the mess of the knocked-down potted plant—and promptly throws it right outside the sliding door, only keeping hold of the split vase.

A broom and a thorough sweeping prepares the area for foot traffic, but Kokichi cannot help but take a wet paper towel—running into the kitchen and quickly leaving it as the smell of dinner is almost too much of a temptation to abandon all hosting capabilities—and wipe over the area a couple times for any potential small shards hiding in the cracks of his wooden floor.

It’d be a shame to spend the rest of the night driving an hour to the nearest emergency room, after all.

…Not that a small shard would require the emergency room.

Kokichi bites his lip. Is he… becoming clingy? First sign of a visitor in months and now he wants to do everything in his power to make them comfortable—rather, to make him stay.

Or is it that it’s Shuichi? Kokichi curses his traitorous mind. Shut up, shut up!

“Dinner’s ready!” Shuichi calls from the kitchen and Kokichi hears the tell-tale sign of cutlery clicking together as a kitchen is cleaned and a table prepared.

The sound brings forth an unknown emotion in Kokichi, and he’s surprised to be blinking more than usual.

Company has been, for lack of better words, nonexistent, as of late. As of… ever. Even in that school, Kokichi found companionship in just leaving his room, up until the last few days of his life in that simulation when everyone saw him as the mastermind. Those days were seen as a necessity, and he had been too focused on the genius of his plan to see past the journey and its inevitable end. It took Maki, of all people, intervening and breaking down every step to his meticulous efforts, forcing him to a time limit, and signing his death warrant to realize that that was always going to be the end game for him—for someone like him.

Seeing Shuichi’s last trial and hearing Tsumugi’s dismissal of them as people and instead only characters, Kokichi realizes that he was right, even with a mind distracted by pain and a sanity fleeting by the second with the pressure of saving them all by ending it all, Kokichi was right.

There was no other possible ending for a character like him.

“Kokichi?”

A gentle touch to his shoulder startles Kokichi so badly that he jerks away instinctively, wide eyes finding a mirror version soaked in concern as Shuichi lifts both his hands up into Kokichi’s immediate sight; a gesture so pitiful and kind that Kokichi frowns deeply at the intention behind it.

He deepens his frown to play it off, willing his eyes with tears as he whines, “Shuichi, can’t you warn a guy before you touch him? You know consent is key nowadays!”

Predictably, Shuichi flusters a little, but there’s a surprising amount of resistance on Shuichi’s part to keep his eyes focused on Kokichi’s. “Are you okay, Kokichi? I called you a couple times and you seemed really out of it.”

“Contemplating the merits of restarting the killing game, is all,” he cheerily replies.

Shuichi huffs. He turns to lead them back into the dining area, but a sudden CRASH from the back hallway has both of their heads swiveling to that direction.

Kokichi scowls, and when he turns his head back to Shuichi, he finds the other’s eyes already on him.

“Do you have a house guest..?”

“Nope! Just you!” Kokichi is not telling him he owns a cat. He doesn’t, not really. “The window must be open in my bedroom. I’ll go shut it!”

With that, he makes his way down the hallway to his bedroom, but he hears a soft, “But it’s not windy outside…” as he leaves.

Well, he is not going to explain this one.

Preparing himself for the worst of the destruction, he sees that his bedroom door is indeed creaked open, and Kokichi gives two quick thumbs up to Shuichi—whose looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and faint horror—before quickly stepping into the room and shutting it.

No need to have a detective sniffing around his bedroom, especially after his resolve the other night—which may or may not still be on depending on what Shuichi needs from him exactly.

Glancing around with his hand still on the doorknob as an extra measure, Kokichi determines his room is… okay.

If Shuichi thought the living room decor was plain, he would be aghast with the lack of everything in his room. Aside from the messy mattress on his floor, all he had was a dresser and nightstand—that being the source of the loud crash, knocked over and some of the drawers open, including a drawer containing certain damning evidence.

Kokichi went to a doctor’s office only a few times, and for one thing only. When he retrieved what he wanted, he left for as long as he could.

He listened to some of the advice they gave him: better adjusted his diet, tried to give himself enough sleep, exercised—albeit lazily—regularly. Walks did wonders for his mental state the first few months.

Regardless, nothing helped the isolation, mostly because Kokichi refused to do anything about it.

And so, he decided that another proven method, one that helped with his night terrors, could be applied to one of his permanent issues: the issue of never moving forward in this world, of remaining stagnant and rotting.

That solution was currently spilled all over the floor.

Frantically, Kokichi drops to the floor and starts picking up the remaining supply of his sleeping pills, holding the bottle with a death grip in one hand while stuffing the pills on the floor into it with the other.

Shuichi could not see the state Kokichi was in now. He could not see how the once mighty and untouchable Kokichi Oma shared nothing of the glory he thrived in during the killing game, how normalcy was the true killer of someone so feared and mystified.

After all, this Kokichi was not meant for a normal life. He wasn’t meant to have a cat, or a boyfriend, or a family of any kind—at least he had something like that in his memories during the game.

It tastes bitter on his tongue. The true revelation that what was fake were the realest memories for Kokichi.

He is a Supreme Leader. What is he without his people that follow him?

No one, Kokichi mouths, staring angrily at the little pills that slip from his wobbly grasp.

A knock at the door jolts him out of his stare down, and Kokichi whips his head to the door, blind panic shooting through his head and freezing his movements.

“Kokichi? Is everything all right in there?”

The glance down to the remaining few pills on the floor tells Kokichi he should not instigate Shuichi on this matter and prompt him to come inside—but he doesn’t have any time. To his dawning horror, the door begins to open, and Kokichi’s hands are full of all the damning evidence he wants to hide from a detective’s eye.

How can he play this off? Which mask does he put on? Could he still hide the evidence?

On that last thought, Kokichi throws the bottle under the dresser, sweeping one extended arm on the floor to hide the remaining pills underneath while his eyes bounce to every corner of the room.

Did he hide all of the evidence?

It’s too late—he doesn’t have time. The door is nearly open, and he sees the torso of Shuichi standing at the entrance.

Kokichi better have been thorough enough for a trained eye because he cannot doubt himself on whether the job is done.

Shuichi’s eyes are already studying his room.

Chapter Text

Shuichi’s eyes dart around the room, a considering stare flickering between new details of the rather typical room of an apartment, but less so of a home.

Another bullet to strike Kokichi with, no doubt.

“See something you like?” Kokichi calls from the floor where he sits cross-legged, hands flat on the ground behind him to avoid any sort of defensive posture.

A bedroom is typically private, something to invite others in only, and never to be curiously explored as other areas of the house are, but Kokichi never made his room into his room, so there is not much to feel embarrassed about with Shuichi’s presence here.

Except for the pills.

“Uh…” Shuichi starts, and Kokichi does not let his eyes wander from his, painfully still, “I’m glad nothing is broken.”

Kokichi slowly exhales the breath he was holding, relieved, and he responds confidently, “Just my heart!”

“Huh?” Shuichi looks so taken aback at that.

Hm, might as well play it up. Willing the tears on, he juts his lip out and prepares the theatrics. “You know, ‘cause all that stuff Tsumugi said really got to my head, and so I just needed a minute to let it all soak in.”

Shuichi pauses. “What does that have to do with the noise from earlier?”

“…Nothing!” In the blink of an eye, Kokichi trains his expression to be all smiles again.

Shuichi sighs, but his gaze remains locked on him. “So, the noise was caused by the nightstand? What knocked it over?”

Humming, Kokichi feels the pull of a maddened smile on his face as he lowers his voice. “Actually, this house is connected to my emotions. That crash? A reflection of my horror!”

“Kokichi.”

“Okay, okay. I left the window open and a bird got in!”

“The window’s shut.”

“Huh, guess you got me there!”

“Kokichi, stop.” Pressing two fingers to his temple, Shuichi briefly closes his eyes before he straightens himself up again. It almost reminds Kokichi of Kaede, in a way. “It doesn’t matter,” he mumbles more to himself. “I set up the table already, so if you’re done in here—“

And that is when the traitorous cat shoots out from under his dresser and goes straight for Shuichi’s throat.

“Wh—what the hell!” Shuichi cries as the cat claws its way up Shuichi’s leg and aims for taking out his eyes.

Mouth agape, it takes all of two seconds for Kokichi to scramble up and dash for the scrawny thing. “Stupid cat, let go!”

Deranged—the cat is deranged. Hissing, spitting, and nearly taking out an eye in the process, the cat had sunk its claws into Shuichi’s jacket and refused to let go, teeth bared and eyes slit in fear-anger. Its nails are tentatively close to Shuichi’s throat, so Kokichi grabs a hold of the cat’s middle, trying to pull it back while Shuichi’s arms are up, protecting his face primarily.

“Get it off!”

“Oh, glad you’re here to tell me what to do!”

“Kokichi!”

What kind of cat holds on to someone’s neck like a fucking tick.

Shuichi is hissing in pain because the claws inevitably begin to break through the thin material of his jacket, and Kokichi is cursing the cat because he doesn’t know why it attacked or why won’t it just let go of the damn jacket.

Suddenly, the cat whips its head back and Kokichi sees its mouth open, sharp canines inches from his skin, and everything slows down for a minute.

In that slow motion, Kokichi removes the hand in the line of attack, those white weapons seconds from forming a temporary—painful—tattoo on the back of his hand. During those tense seconds where he silently curses the demon sent from hell to his home, Kokichi’s attention drifts to the visual of his hand and those teeth next to each other, and the crux of the problem reveals itself in that display of self-defense by the animal.

A scared animal.

“Wait-wait-wait-wait—stop moving.” Readjusting his hold on the cat, Kokichi ceases his movements to pull it back, but Shuichi’s squirming sets it off, struggling to climb higher and thus closer to attaching itself to real skin next—no barrier to dampen the damage.

“Kokichi, I swear to—“

“Just trust me!”

“Really?”

“Look,” Kokichi says, “us freaking out is freaking out the cat more—stop moving so I can get a better grip and take it off!”

“Just pull it off now!”

“Aren’t you the detective? Take a hint!”

With one last glare at Kokichi, more frightened than angry, Shuichi covers his head with crossed arms and freezes, his entire body tensed and looking like it could snap at the lightest touch.

Kokichi forcibly relaxes his hold, loose but just firm enough to prevent any unexpected actions taken by a cornered animal, keeping quiet and watching it cling to Shuichi’s jacket. For a few seconds, their attacker is still squirming, still trying to move upwards, but soon it slows in its frantic movements and gradually turns its head to look around, ever so cautious.

“That’s right,” Kokichi speaks in a soft tone. “See? It just needed to know it’s safe.” He directs this sentence towards Shuichi, who steadily lowers his arms to assess the situation for himself, but Kokichi’s eyes are solely on the cat. “Who likes to be randomly grabbed at by strangers?” 

His voice is more of a babble, a kind of baby-talk, directed to the frightened yellow eyes looking this way and that, and he cautiously attempts to half-pet its wiry fur in an effort to soothe it.

“He started it by going for my throat,” Shuichi grumbles, hands completely lowered and currently giving the cat the stink eye.

“Shhh, he probably smelled something off about you, you know, like how a dog can tell,” Kokichi taunts, clicking his tongue. “My, my, do we have a cat-hater in this household?”

“I like cats,” Shuichi argues. “I just don’t like to be attacked unprovoked.”

Enjoying this a tad too much, Kokichi’s eyes twinkle. “So if I told you—“

“Kokichi, the claws,” Shuichi interrupts.

Kokichi blinks, realizing the cat has completely relaxed in his hold.

Plucking the little thing off of Shuichi’s neck requires little effort—the cat merely blinking at the both of them.

Kokichi holds it out like he doesn’t want to touch it. “Well, aren’t you a bipolar thing?”

Exhausted, and a touch concerned, Shuichi gives him a stern look. “Kokichi, at least support its back.”

“I don’t think this thing wants me touching it any more than necessary, Shuichi.”

As if on cue, the tabby takes a swipe at Kokichi who, expecting that reaction, promptly drops it.

“Kokichi!”

“What?”

The bane of Shuichi’s existence—Kokichi snickers at the thought—darts back under his dresser, returning to its original hideout and temporary prison as it glares out from underneath with bright yellow eyes.

“Huh.” Kokichi crouches down to get a better look, and, for once, he doesn’t have a quip ready on the tongue.

It is almost as if he had a little protector there for a moment. The unbidden house pet proved to be enough of a distraction that drove Shuichi out of the room, and Kokichi watches with sadistic amusement as Shuichi firmly stays put at the entrance to the bedroom with a newfound nervous energy milling about him.

“Did you have to pick the one cat that hates me for a pet?” Shuichi eyes the underneath of the dresser by the door.

“Actually, this is a normal reaction,” Kokichi can’t stop grinning as he looks at Shuichi, “and I think this means he likes you.”

Although he is only met with Shuichi’s profound bemusement, Kokichi feels lighter than he has in a long while.

The whole situation is so ridiculous in his head.

Only yesterday, Kokichi made a life-altering, and life-ending, decision: Kokichi planned to kill himself. Today, he watched a stray that he trapped in his house attack not him, but a participant from a past killing game for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time after said classmate made him dinner.

Why? Because Shuichi needs him to think clearly.

For what? Because he needs Koki—Kokichi’s skills.

His smile starts to fade as the thought settles.

That’s right. This is ridiculous. And not normal.

Don’t get used to it.

By tomorrow, Shuichi will likely give up on him and return home, leaving Kokichi alone to do as he planned. This life—he can’t have it.

He doesn’t fit, and he can’t start over.

“Kokichi?”

His eyes whip up to meet Shuichi’s, subtly affirming that he’s here, he’s listening, but he lets his blank stare unsettle Shuichi further as he observes that familiar look of uncertainty and concern in those golden eyes.

That won’t last. It never does.

So he straightens up, he blinks again, and he smiles. “Did someone say dinner?”

Dinner is an awkward affair.

All of those earlier “I could get used to this” feelings—yeah, gone, zilch; skip this part, for sure.

It has turned to impatience, the meal sitting like sawdust in his mouth, methodically chewing, but the taste never registers on his tongue.

When will he leave?

The question leaves Kokichi with a sense of uneasiness, and while he became intimately familiar with that sentiment all throughout the game, there was only one solution to end this current desire of putting an end to stewing in these feelings.

Unabashedly, Kokichi allows his gaze to settle on Shuichi for uncomfortably too long, a silent standstill that Shuichi had no part in consenting to, but Kokichi doesn’t care. This is meant to be agonizing; Kokichi is destined to be intolerable.

Since the taste of the meal does not offer any kind of feedback due to his mute tastebuds, he decides he must display his approval in another, entirely maddening, way.

Why, intense eye contact, of course! Shuichi’s favorite.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Shuichi is posed and elegant, twirling strands of pasta around his utensil before taking a carefully measured bite. He thinks Kokichi doesn’t see the way his brow ticks and his face reflects barely constrained annoyance as he knows Kokichi is watching him, but still too polite to say anything about it—yet.

So Kokichi continues to do just that, resting a hand on his chin and slouching while noisily slurping up his pasta in front of his unusual guest.

“Could you stop that?” Shuichi finally says through gritted teeth, meeting his eyes with clear anger in them.

Kokichi finishes slurping up a strand with one last smack of his lips, letting the time tick on by just to add to Shuichi’s irritation. “Stop what?” He plays dumb. “Chewing with my mouth open? Slouching? Smacking these big, fat lips of mine?”

“Staring,” Shuichi hisses.

“Oh, that,” he chirps, pleased, “yeah, no can do.”

“Why not?”

“How else do I read your mind when your otherwise so forthcoming with your thoughts?”

Shuichi’s eye twitches. “I just said—“

“I mean, what gives?” Kokichi continues; he’s on a roll now. “Half a year has passed, and all this interest in little ol’ me and my use to you for whatever is up with the Future Foundation and Team Danganronpa’s schemes, but not one ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘hey sexy’ or ‘I’d like to get to know you properly this time.’ Where’s that, huh?”

“You…” Shuichi swallows, “want to get to know me?”

“No,” Kokichi flatly refuses, “you get to know me.”

There is a tense atmosphere that settles at the kitchen table as Shuichi gradually lowers his utensils and lets Kokichi’s words settle in. Kokichi, himself, fights the strange urge to squirm, uncomfortable with this conversation despite instigating and meaning it—for the most part, of course.

After all, can he trust his own words? Certainly not. His feelings? He learned to play those like a video game a long time ago. His memories?

They were all fake anyway.

So, what’s left? A pre-made biography authored by a stranger he never knew, never will know at this point, that has no grounds in reality—just a character story filled in to scratch some fan’s itch.

“Are you,” Shuichi starts and then stops. His eyes drop down to the plate before he drags them back to Kokichi’s intense gaze. “I’m—I’m sorry, Kokichi.”

Ah, that route. Getting to know someone who didn’t even know himself is boring, anyway.

“What for?” Kokichi drawls, placing his elbows up on the table so he could push his cheeks forward in the imitation of a cheeky smile.

Ashamed, Shuichi spares a glimpse at Kokichi before fixing his gaze on his lap. “I’ve been thinking about my job this whole time, and I-I haven’t considered your feelings into this at all. I’ve just been trying to… to distract myself, I guess. From the elephant.”

“Oh, you noticed?”

“What?”

Shuichi looks up in surprise, and Kokichi smirks as he nods to the left.

His eyes follow the movement, and—there, a tiny elephant sits on an otherwise empty shelf behind Kokichi. It looks to be carved from wood.

“That’s so…”

“Brilliant?”

Shuichi’s lips thin. “Did you ever grow up?” He does not mean for it come off rudely, but there is both a genuine note and audible frustration in his voice.

Kokichi sinks in those words, letting it pinch his smile at the edges. “I’m still living, aren’t I?”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Shuichi dismisses.

“Doesn’t it?” Kokichi feels his face turn cruel. “I’m starting to think you’re the one that hasn’t ‘started over’.”

“What does that mean?”

“When Kaede died, what did you do?”

“I-I,” Shuichi flusters. The topic catches him so off guard that he fumbles his response. “What do you mean? You were there!”

“Yep!” Kokichi chirps. “You wore your sad emo hat and moped around for a day before Kaito had to punch some sense into you. Then you took off your emo hat and—oh wait, Kaito still had to pull you outta your room and force you to find a hobby before you drowned in all your emoness, right?”

“How did you—“

“And when the game ended, what did you do?”

“W-what?”

“That’s right! You wandered the hallways like a lost child, looking for someone to tell you what to do, and took out your anger and sadness on anyone that approached you, right?”

“Kokichi, I—“

“Or was that just me?”

Shuichi’s mouth clicks shut. His eyes are wide and watery, but Kokichi doesn’t relent. He waits.

And then he pushes. “Or was that just me, Shuichi?”

There is not quite an accusatory note in Kokichi’s voice despite the content of his words, but a practiced neutrality that holds strong in his tone, meant to be assertive, but not aggressive: to find out, as opposed to confirm.

He is observing, taking in details, and letting Shuichi react as he sees appropriate, but when Shuichi says nothing, Kokichi’s patience starts to dwindle.

His lip curls. “Same, old Shuichi. Always need someone else to be your backbone.”

“..!” Stricken, Shuichi freezes up.

For a moment, Kokichi sees the pitiful, cap-hidden Shuichi in Kaede’s trial, the one that was relentless in his approach to defend Kaede in the most cowardly way possible—without a word in his defense, or hers.

But Kokichi should know better. Shuichi is not the same either.

He struggles for a minute, searching his words, but he quickly finds ground to retaliate on. “That’s wrong, Kokichi.”

“Prove it to me,” Kokichi challenges with an uninterested expression on his face, trying to weaken Shuichi’s resolve.

“I came here on my own.” Shuichi’s resolve is unwavering in spite, meeting Kokichi’s critical gaze head-on. “I wanted to confront you by myself, and I came up with the idea to bring you in on a plan to put an end to a war that we’ve been a part of our entire lives—the lives that we remember, that is.”

Kokichi listens, but he lets himself remain blank.

Shuichi’s composure starts to falter, but his voice stays firm. “I wasn’t the most confident, I made mistakes in the trials, and—and at the facility, but I pieced together evidence and convicted the killers.” He looks down temporarily. “I tried to keep Kaede’s promise. I tried to save everyone I could.”

“You didn’t save me,” Kokichi points out with a quiet voice.

“Be honest, Kokichi,” Shuichi says, looking up, “you didn’t want to be saved.”

Kokichi says nothing. There is nothing he can say to that.

They sit there, eyes assessing the other, quiet and waiting, waiting for someone to make the next move and direct the conversation.

Clearly there were many unresolved matters to address, he thinks. He doesn’t think he wants to address them.

Doesn’t he hate liars?

Yeah, that’s right.

His smile overtakes his face before his mind catches up, and he laughs quietly. “You always surprise me, Shumai,” he says so affectionately that he doesn’t recognize his own voice for a moment.

What is this fondness that he feels? Are his emotions so messed up that he sees a conversation, even an argument, as a positive outcome even if the words leave him sour at himself?

So he smiles harder, aggressively, to cover his fear. “Let’s get ready for a sleepover!” The words feel so childish in his mouth. They feel wrong.

Kokichi doesn’t want to think about why that is.

“But—“

“No buts, Shumai!” Kokichi waggles his finger at him. “No more heavy conversations for tonight. Beauty rest is important, you know!”

There is that stupid look again. If Shuichi was so interested in studying Kokichi’s face, he should’ve taken a photograph.

Shuichi and Kokichi silently prepare for bedtime, but Shuichi’s words from earlier stay in Kokichi’s head as he unwillingly mulls over them.

Is he right?

Unbidden, the next sentence that leaves his mouth surprises the both of them. “I’m not supposed to be here, Shumai.”

Shuichi blinks, holding a blanket as they stand next to his makeshift bed for the night in the cleaner living room. “What do you mean?”

“Here. I’m not supposed to be here.” Not even Kokichi knows exactly what he is getting at, but this is a strong sentiment that he feels he must convey to Shuichi.

“…In this house?”

Is that it? Kokichi thinks internally. No, that’s not it. He thinks back, to last night, to his decision, and then further—to the killing game.

He knows what he means. “In this world,” he utters softly.

“What—Kokichi, don’t say that.”

He frowns. Shuichi doesn’t understand.

Silently, he hands over the pillow he was holding, and then he smiles widely. “Good night, Shuichi.”

“Kokichi, wait.” Shuichi looks so adorably confused, so scared, clutching a blanket and pillow, looking at him like he said something crazy. “Why did you say that? Was it—was it because of our conversation from earlier?”

His smile widens, and he waves as he turns to leave. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite!” He calls, skipping to his room and then slamming it shut, locking the door.

Shuichi doesn’t get it. Not yet. His eyes are drawn to the nightstand lying on the ground, and then to the dresser where his pills remain hidden. On his mattress, the cat is curled up on the edge of it, asleep. 

Great.

Kokichi moves to the window in his room, lifting it up for the cat to escape during the night, and making the decision to leave catching it for another day. He doesn’t have a litter, or a bed, or food and water here. The cat can leave as it wishes. For now.

He is a half-broken machine at the moment; all of those jokes about Kiibo coming back to haunt him now. Ruminating over his actions lately, he comes to several realizations at once, the main point being that he doesn’t work right nowadays. He is lost in thought, he can’t seem to focus, and the most damning evidence of all: he doesn’t fit.

That thought—that he doesn’t belong here—it resonates from deep within him. It is not a feeling—it’s a fact. Shuichi doesn’t get it.

Tomorrow, they will talk about it. That and why Shuichi is here, what involves him, because Kokichi feels it.

He will not be here much longer.

Chapter Text

Kokichi is not asleep, not really.

He has kind of just been staring at the wall for a little while. Maybe an hour?

His vision has gone a little blurry at the edges, but his eyes are still open and alert, even at the late hour, having long since adjusted to the darkness in his room, so he sees the moment his door creaks open.

Earlier, after about an hour of contemplation and listening closely to see if Shuichi had settled on the futon laid out for him and fallen asleep, Kokichi unlocked his door with the sole intention that if a fire broke out suddenly in the night Shuichi could get to him and get him out. With no fire in sight or smell, his first thought is that Shuichi has come to check on him, perhaps feeling guilty from how they left things at the dinner table and wanted to talk it through some more, but Kokichi does not need to know the time to know that this would be highly out of character for Shuichi at this late hour.

Heh. Out of character.

Anyway, no head pops inside to his relief. Thank Atua. That would be creepy.

The door simply creaked open, and that was it.

Maybe it was the wind this time—

A sudden weight close to his legs stills him. It does not take Kokichi long to connect the dots.

“Get off, fat-ass,” he grumbles, trying to pull the blanket out from under the cat.

Unfortunately, it accomplishes the opposite effect, and he feels paws step onto his side painfully, seemingly stopping on every sensitive part to his stomach. He squeaks at a particularly sore press, untangling one arm to push the cat back. It turns its head to glare, hissing when Kokichi’s hand gets too close.

Kokichi dumbly stares back. “It’s my body, my choice!”

The cat disagrees, inevitably, because it starts to knead his leg where it now has placed itself out of reach while tying down Kokichi’s body.

Clever little creature, is it.

Whatever. He is honestly surprised he hasn’t passed out yet, with how the pills usually knock him—wait a minute.

His sleeping pills, the ones currently splayed out half-hidden under his dresser, are still there.

Kokichi didn’t take any of his pills.

His body moves on its own, curling upwards with his elbows in an attempt to sit up, but his legs lay immobile due to the heavy weight on them because of that damn cat. It is not even that fat, being a stray and all.

Well, obviously, he’ll just push off the—but the cat starts to purr.

What the hell!

This spawn of Satan has been making his life a living hell since the moment it started coming around his home, looking for a scrap and feeding off of him like a proper tick, and now it wants to show gratitude?

He plops back on his pillows with a soft thud. What kind of universal law is this: to leave a cat unbothered when it lays on someone and starts to purr.

He heaves a breath. One night is fine. He doesn’t need sleep, anyway.

It comes in a wave.

Slow awareness of the situation, understanding that he is in a half dream-like state, but no alarm bells ringing yet to pull him from the comfortable feeling his body melds into at this realization. Before he can even realize the gravity of the situation, the dream is already upon him, encapsulating his thoughts.

In his dream, he is on his futon, looking up at his ceiling, and there he sees a picture. He reaches up to fulfill his part in the dream.

“O-kay! Here I goooo! Rock, paper, scissors!”

His hand remembers the move naturally, and he hears himself respond.

“I see. Again. Ready?”

Rock, paper, scissors.

“How long will you prolong your life, Kokichi?”

Wait, that’s not right. Shuichi. Shuichi is looking down at him from the ceiling.

Rock, paper, scissors!

“Congrats, Kokichi. You’re still alive.”

That’s supposed to be his voice, isn’t it?

“I’m bored now!”

The order is all wrong. A pulse arises in his head of not quite alarm, but uneasiness that spikes once and then eases itself, like a dog that bites and then immediately licks the wound it causes. Even in this half-conscious state, he feels his arm lower back down beside him, but the ceiling appears closer. Shuichi disappears, and his own face is smiling down at him, whispering, “Enjoy the little time you have left… Kokichi.”

Before he can panic, his face is swept away and into a scene that he only bore witness to in memory alone, one that stuck despite his efforts to forget these fake implanted memories.

“Hey, boss.”

His people.

“Mandatory tea time is so lame!” One of his newest recruits complains, slouching back in her chair as she stares menacingly at the cup in front of her.

Kokichi sniffs in the dream. “I’ll have you know oolong tea is a classic.”

“Mind your manners,” says Kokichi’s right-hand. Good man, Kokichi remembers thinking, always had his back, this one. “Boss is trying to connect with the young-ins nowadays and you can’t fault him for trying.” Or not.

Chuckles erupt from the others at the table, and he marks this as betrayal number 986 by his organization.

“Ungrateful vermin!” Kokichi sneers. “I’m not even eighteen!”

“And yet you sound so old…” the newest recruit grumbles. “Don’t be so boring.”

Gasps sound in the room. The recruit looks up at this, surprised, and she worriedly glances around at the serious eyes behind the clown masks at the table.

Why would they wear clown masks at tea time? Kokichi doesn’t know.

Regardless, he straightens up in his chair, immediately bracing both hands on the table to push himself up and tower over his subordinates on his chair, one of the only times he can tower over anyone.

“Listen up, recruit!” Kokichi bellows, and all eyes are drawn to him. “This organization is built on fear, blood, sweat, sex, and tears! ‘Boring’ does not even factor in these descriptors, and I’ll tell you why!”

He ignores the mumble of “Was sex really necessary?” by one of his more analytical members, always too caught up in the small deets to realize the big picture—which is, by the way, that this organization is. Not. Boring!

“I, the Ultimate Supreme Leader, the Joker himself, Phantom Thief that haunts the night, incredibly-handsome-devil-that-the-world-has-ever-laid-eyes-on,” he takes a deep breath, feeling the anticipation in the room, and continues, “do, indeed, declare and dedicate myself to ensuring that not even one of my subordinates—that’s all you staring at me with those dumb looks on your face, including you, our newest recruit—will never, ever in a billion years, not even once in this lifetime, shall ever, never ever, never ever never ever ever never, not for one second, be bored in our wrongdoings!” Kokichi breathes in one gasping breath. “And should you ever utter those words out loud again, if I do not take steps to immediately rectify that situation, then I will pay for it with my life!”

His long speech is met with silence, the newest recruit just blinking at him while all his other members know to wait for the best things to come, so in the moment that he lets himself catch his breath, he takes one step on the dining table to reach their snack platters.

“Now,” he says, putting a finger to his lips as his eyes crinkle in delight, “who wants to start a food fight?”

Kokichi blinks, and he sees his real ceiling in front of him, plain and dark in the nighttime, not a flashback memory in sight. A tickling sensation on his cheek brings a hand up to brush at it, and it comes back wet.

Real tears. Not even the fun kind of crocodile tears.

Numbly, his hand returns to his side. He looks away from the ceiling, and his gaze lingers on the door to his room next, seeing the creaked entrance into the hallway that leads to the living room where Shuichi currently sleeps. His hand reaches out without his permission, and a thought pops into head.

What if he… called out? Told all of these secretive thoughts to someone, just to have them listen and be out there in the world than just in his head? What if there were people that knew the most vile, most honest thoughts hidden in deepest crevices of his mind, the kind so twisted and unfair and contradictory that are meant to draw people away from him, the one claimed to be the embodiment of a lie by the audience of Danganronpa? By Shuichi himself, who managed to solve every mystery but the true extent of Kokichi’s feelings in his game?

Is that fair, he muses, to expect Shuichi to know not even what he knows?

He did not take advantage of that shrink from the Danganronpa facility. He couldn’t trust him.

Can he trust Shuichi?

Gradually, Kokichi lowers the arm that was frozen in the air.

The cat is gone. Kokichi sits up on the bed, letting his legs hang off the side as he stares at the floor. He brings a hand up to his chest just to feel it rise and lower steadily.

Do people really die for a fake game? He feels like he is undead: a zombie meant to be dead but keeps on dragging on anyway. People like him do not get second chances, or they shouldn’t. He chose his ending—it should be resolute, unchanging.

Permanent.

He wonders if, in this universe, something that shouldn’t exist is pushed out to control the balance of whatever rules are established here, and, if so, these measures are invisible and only effective to the one that broke that unwritten rule. In other words, a mental mind break to drive out the consciousness that should not be here. 

Back in his body, sitting on this mattress covered with a thin sheet, Kokichi finds his gaze returning to the bare ceiling above him. The bare, boring ceiling.

He chuckles. Danganronpa succeeded. It doesn’t matter what Shuichi did to their reputation, what he did with their audience—Danganronpa succeeded. He has never felt such despair as this: lying alone on his mattress with his beloved down the hall, here for him and all that he was in the game, but never having felt so alone in his life. And to think this is the first time he’s had a visitor in months.

Enough of that.

His mind quiets until that single resounding voice rings out in his head, echoing like a ripple of water that bounces off each miniature wave.

When has Kokichi Oma ever let someone beat him when the game was in his hands?

The mind is a wonderfully cruel place. Just as quickly as it breaks down under extreme stress, it is also the sole thing that can bring him back out from under the press. He just needs to keep it busy.

Kokichi pushes on the mattress, quietly moving the drawers back and grabbing dark clothes, uncaring of what exactly he pulls out so long as the colors do not draw attention. Dressing quickly, he moves to his door and gradually inches it open, peaking out into the hallway and just catching the edge of Shuichi’s futon and covered feet.

It takes a few minutes maneuvering in the washroom, freshening himself up, and not once does he allow himself to think about anything else but the steps he must take in this moment to get ready. He knows what he needs, and, by extension, what Shuichi needs from him.

When Kokichi finishes, he creeps down the hallway, sparing one glance at Shuichi’s form that turns into a long stare at the slow rise of his chest, the ruffled look to the back of his head, covering most of his body with the blanket. He is so vulnerable here, sleeping in the house of a stranger.

Kokichi’s eyes slide to the kitchen on his right, the edge of it visible around the corner. He is so close to the knives. He could, hypothetically, take a knife and wake Shuichi up, scare him into revealing his information, what he knows and why he is here, but what would be the point? Shuichi has already proven to be forthcoming, if a bit reluctant to tell Kokichi everything at once. It would frighten him. Give him second thoughts on trusting this out-of-practice Kokichi, make him second guess the trust he has put in him so far.

It wouldn’t be boring, that’s for sure.

Shuichi shifts in his sleep, and Kokichi breaks out of his trance, blinking a few times.

Not tonight. Tonight he needs to regain the upper hand by himself, and then he can test Shuichi’s limits again. No more can Shuichi be one step ahead of him—Kokichi has only ever relied on himself, and that is how it should be. How it should always be.

Turning away, Kokichi caresses the sharper edges of the keys in his pocket, cementing his resolve and stopping once he reaches the entrance to his home. Checking the time, he reads a quarter past three in the morning. A detective would probably awake around six, but if he remembers right, Shuichi always relied on Monokuma’s announcement to awaken in the morning. He will give himself until seven.

Quietly, he unlocks all three locks and opens the door, sparing one last look towards his living room.

See you at seven, Shuichi.

When Shuichi wakes up, there is an uncomfortable chill at his back. Not a literal cold, or a tangible feeling, but a mental alarm that tickles the back of his skull.

He wakes up for something; the question, of course, is for what.

He needn’t wait long for his answer.

“Gooooood morning, sleepyhead.”

The words are much too familiar, much too like the game. Shuichi bolts straight up from his bed, groggy but alert, whipping his head up to meet two furious eyes hidden behind a wide smile.

Earlier, Shuichi had fallen asleep restless because Kokichi had shown signs of an unpredictable personality due to being a changed person, but he did not feel a sense of danger or distrust in Kokichi’s actions despite his wariness around his former contestant. No, instead Shuichi was restless because he felt that their conversation was cut much too short, by Kokichi no less, and its continuation was urgent to understand the situation he had found himself in with a changed Kokichi that refused to acknowledge his own differing characteristics.

By extension, Kokichi had seen something in Shuichi that reflected his own observations on his former classmate.

The uncertainty of Kokichi’s words were what kept Shuichi up late into the night, but he forgot.

He forgot how dangerous Kokichi became in the latter game.

“So. We have looooots to talk about, it seems,” Kokichi says, a high tone full of sarcasm and spite, but Shuichi can only focus on the knife waving around in his hand where he sits cross-legged in the armchair, scooted close to the futon and blocking Shuichi against the couch behind him.

“What—“

“The big Future Foundation!” Kokichi throws his hands up, the blade of the knife glinting off the early morning light and freezing Shuichi in place. His whole body moves with his words, making this small and underweight boy from the killing game seem larger than life. “Scouting the victims of the killing game, saving future children’s lives from total mind breaks due to a fictional simulation. They’re heroes in this day and age.” He leans closer to Shuichi’s still form. “They’ve got some secrets, though, don’t they?”

Shuichi’s breath gets stuck in his throat.

“What exactly did you come here for?” Kokichi’s eyes are unrelenting; not for one second does he give Shuichi space, nor does he pause long enough for an answer. “Did you actually come here because you need my help?” He says this so cruelly, a low tone that unsettles Shuichi to his core. There was only a few other times that Kokichi had sounded like this in the game—all of which took place in the last few days he was alive. “Or did your Future Foundation ask you to come here? To collect me?”

“I didn’t—“

“The Future Foundation sure likes its trophies,” Kokichi cuts him off, studying the knife in his hand idly. Looking at it as if it were a speck of dust and not a weapon currently being used to intimidate. “Parading around the survivors singing their praises and progress.” The last word sticks to Kokichi’s tongue, sounding as if soured the taste in his mouth.

Shuichi swallows. Whatever Kokichi found out, it ruined their tentative peace in reuniting again. Dismally, Shuichi wonders if there was any peace to start with. Maybe coming here was a mistake, even if this visit was unavoidable in the first place.

“I wonder why, upon joining, the dead from previous games suspiciously… disappear.”

How did he even—? “They’re not—!”

“Are you here to make me disappear, too?” Innocently cocking his head, Kokichi looks up, a finger to his chin.

“N-No! You’re making it sound like we’re murdering people!”

“Are you?”

“No!”

“Then what?” Kokichi leans closer, pointing the knife directly at Shuichi’s chest now. “What are you here for?”

“I’m here for you!”

Kokichi presses the knife forward, making contact with Shuichi’s chest and hearing his subsequent gasp. “I hate liars.”

“I’m not—you would know!”

“You’re not telling the full truth, Shuichi,” Kokichi singsongs, “better hurry before my hand slips.”

Suddenly, before Kokichi can react, Shuichi shoots out his hand and grabs Kokichi’s wrist, tightening his grip almost painfully as he stares at him with an apprehensive face, yet he meets Kokichi’s eyes determinedly. Kokichi does not outwardly react, but there is a tiny sparkle in his eye that Shuichi takes to suggest some kind of thrill at this display of defense on his part.

“I’m not lying,” Shuichi refutes firmly. “The past victims of the game are not disappearing. The Future Foundation is helping relocate those that… that may have difficulty reintegrating back into the real world.”

“Really?” Disbelief coloring his voice, Kokichi narrows his eyes. “Or were they causing too much noise, hmmm?”

Shuichi does not respond, but his eyes widen, and he curses his instinctual reaction as he sees Kokichi’s smile return. There is no doubt that he took that as confirmation enough.

But a minute later, Kokichi’s smile twists. “I didn’t make any noise,” he muses, sounding a bit disgruntled. “Or is this just a preventive measure?”

Shuichi’s mouth opens and closes, but no sound escapes. It sounded almost expected, on Kokichi’s part, that it would be natural, after the killing game, to further silence the contestants. The way he dismisses the possibility that the Future Foundation, employed by the victims of these games, would never consider bringing harm to the people that experienced the same thing they did—it just does not compute in his head.

The distrust on Kokichi’s part, however, does, in an entirely too grim reminder.

“Well, what is it?” Kokichi, bored of waiting for an answer, prods. “Are you here to silence me before I get started? I do appreciate the vote of confidence here.”

“No,” Shuichi quietly says. Defeated. “I didn’t come here to relocate you.”

“Relocate!” Kokichi chirps, a voice so delighted by Shuichi’s wording. “That doesn’t sound like a fancy cover for kidnapping at all!”

“It’s not like that.” He is quick to shut Kokichi down, all the fight leaving him at once. He doesn’t even care about the knife poking at his chest anymore. This is about earning trust, about the possibility that one of his classmates was struggling, again, and no one reached out to show him it was possible that someone, somewhere, had his back. So, it starts with the truth. “I… I track them down, and Maki subdues them.”

“Of course Murder Girl ‘subdues’ them.”

“She doesn’t kill anyone.” He shoots Kokichi a meaningful glance. “It’s not easy—coming back. Seeing the world move around you. Dealing with the fans. So, we have a sort of… protective custody program.”

“But you’re not here for that,” Kokichi surmises.

“No.”

“So, if you’re not here to ‘relocate’ me, and Maki’s not here to ‘subdue’ me, then what are you really here for?”

“Tsumugi is hiding her identity as one of our former classmates.”

Unmoving, Kokichi just stares.

Unsure of how many knowledge bombs Kokichi can handle in the span of two days, Shuichi hesitates but ultimately decides to rip it off like a bandaid. Get everything out in the open and let Kokichi decide what he wants to do next.

“And,” Shuichi starts, “I believe you will be able to catch her lies and reveal which of our former classmates is actually Tsumugi in disguise.”

“…Huh.”

That was… a calmer reaction than he expected. He’s processing.

So Shuichi just continues to talk. “Contestants from the former killing games have long since moved on since their… ‘roles’ from the killing game, so we can actually just narrow down our class to the people she can hide among, since we’re still pretty fresh out of the game. We don’t have whole life stories that she would have to find and memorize. She just needs our basic qualities down.”

Kokichi is not looking at him anymore, staring over his head somewhere, silent. Shuichi is not really sure how to interpret that, so he just lets himself talk while he has the chance to explain.

“We found out she was ‘cosplaying’ us outside of the game because we caught her on the cameras doing just that.” Shuichi swallows. “I saw her as myself, and Miu.” That visual on the camera had stolen a sense of security he was just starting to feel after that dreaded killing game. To know that someone could take him, a ‘character’ that he thought was unique, and copy it so well that his coworkers couldn’t even notice a difference…

The security that Shuichi lost that day has not returned since.

He clears his throat before forcing himself to finish his story. “She used Miu to get into our camera system, and then… then she became me, to, uh, to get into the filing room.” He blinks rapidly, pausing for just a second. He did not even realize he was still holding Kokichi’s wrist until he feels the knife lower, whipping his eyes back up to see Kokichi entirely focused on him, gently lowering their arms. His lips are thinned, but he does not say a word, waiting for him.

That is surprisingly considerate, a part of Shuichi thinks.

“We don’t know what she took because she disabled the cameras in the room, but we know she is hiding among our class—which is why I’m here.” Shuichi squeezes Kokichi’s arm briefly, letting himself be open to Kokichi’s critical gaze. “You know how to tell when someone is lying. You could help us figure out who Tsumugi is disguising herself as now when we track down and visit our former classmates. And—“ Shuichi stops, but encouraged by Kokichi’s continued silence, he decides to voice this thought out loud. “And, afterwards, if you would like, we could put you into our protective custody so that you can find hea—“

“Fascinating,” Kokichi interrupts with a gravelly voice. Not that smooth, controlled tone, but a rocky voice that cuts the air from Shuichi’s previously soft and lilting tone. “A real detective mystery is on our hands.”

The voice lacks any kind of childish wonder.

“And what do I get out of this?”

Although Shuichi expected a response like this, he still must control his immediate contempt at that attitude. The attitude that drove him away from ever connecting with Kokichi in the first place: a selfish, paranoid composure designed to push people away. “You get the satisfaction of helping our classmates—“

“Nope, not enough!” Just like that, Kokichi’s blade is back in Shuichi’s vision, this time awfully close to Kokichi’s own cheek as he presses that same hand against it, the other arm leaning across one crossed leg. “What kind of prize do I receive for giving you my precious time and energy? It’s very valuable, you know! I’ll be missing out on some veeeeeeeerrry important missions during this time.”

If Shuichi were Kaito, he would have gotten up and left by now. If he were Maki, he might have strangled Kokichi.

But because he’s lived with Kaede, he knows better than to give up.

“…What do you want?”

“That’s more like it!” Kokichi snaps his fingers, eyes gleaming in the low light. “I don’t want your protective custody, but I do want anonymity.”

Shuichi frowns. “It’ll be the same thing—“

“I want—not you—someone from your organization to find me a remote island, allllllll the way out in the middle of nowhere, where neither me nor my subordinates can be reached for all of eternity!”

Shuichi doesn’t understand. “But you’re already isolated here.”

“You found me, didn’t you?”

“But if I didn’t search—“

“Even with searches, I want to be unfindable! After all, where else could my secret organization with over ten thousand members stay unfound by the police? Or, rather, people like you, Shuichi.”

Shuichi covers his mouth. He doesn’t get it. Why would Kokichi want to become even further isolated? What would be the point?

He studies the man in front of him. Doesn’t it get lonely?

Not seeing any other way out of it, Shuichi raises a tentative hand out. “…All right. You’ve got yourself a deal, Kokichi.”

Kokichi grins. Wild. Unpredictable. “The pleasure’s mine, Detective.”

Chapter Text

“We should really be—“

“Shhhhh!”

Effectively hushed, Shuichi watches warily as Kokichi peaks one eye out from behind the door, waiting for a temperamental cat to finally arrive.

It was already evening on the same day that Shuichi woke up to a knife pointed at his throat, the same day that he was interrogated for his connections to the Future Foundation, and the same day he remembered that Kokichi Oma was truly a paranoid bastard.

He sighs once, stepping into the hallway to lean his back against the wall, keeping an eye on Kokichi’s crouched form. The cat did not even like Kokichi from what he could tell. It was purely a transactional exchange, but Shuichi hadn’t yet pinned down what Kokichi got out of it other than something to do. A hobby or distraction, the cat didn’t do much other than hiss and eat, with a side distaste for Shuichi that involved attacking him at random, he thinks bitterly.

Of course Kokichi Oma would like cats, but especially enjoy a cat that hated everyone, including Kokichi Oma.

Other than that, Shuichi had come across several surprising revelations about Kokichi during this trip that set him back a minute, having to reevaluate his previous speculations on how time away from the simulation changed the so-called “Remnant of Despair” that claimed to be the mastermind and made one of the most convoluted trials from the game.

Sparing a glance to his bookcase, Shuichi had taken some time to study Kokichi’s… home… the night before he went to bed, taking care to avoid light from anything other than his own phone, and the bookcase admittedly was the first thing he looked at—not just because he was a bit of a book connoisseur himself, but it was one of the only things Kokichi really had in his house. The furniture was sparse, and the bookcase was notably the one piece that should store items that would, ideally, help Shuichi understand what became of Kokichi post game.

The shelves were occupied by a variety of items, and not all were books, but an overwhelming majority of fantasy, mystery, and… anime series?

It was odd seeing DVDs mixed into the batch considering Kokichi’s lack of device to watch them on; Shuichi hadn’t even spotted a laptop anywhere in his apartment. He truly lived a hermit’s life after the game, but Shuichi wondered if that had been the cause of a previous interaction with fans, like Kaede and Himiko’s situation. 

Curious, Shuichi had picked up one of the DVDs from a series, wondering what would be the use in owning something just to keep it on the shelf, untouched and unused, and read the synopsis on the back. Yu-Gi-Oh was the title, a story centered around children’s card games with a fun catchphrase about dueling…

It sparked a sense of familiarity within Shuichi despite having never seen the series himself. Where had he heard about this before?

Within seconds, he made the connection.

Kokichi.

Kokichi made a lot of references whenever Shuichi hung out with him, most of which flew over his head, but one of the games Kokichi had played with him was about a card game, life points, and monsters and mythical beings.

That familiar itch scratched at his brain, but he ignored it briefly in favor of looking through the rest of the items on the shelf, one title in particular catching his eye for how it reminded him of his former classmate.

A manga titled, “Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji,” poked out on the third shelf, not fully put away, and so Shuichi pulls it out with a careful hand and flips through the pages, catching bits and pieces of an intense storyline.

It isn’t until he flips through half the book that Shuichi makes the second connection: a burning apology, steel beam, and, the most damning of all, a rock, paper, scissors game.

These all connect to actions and things Kokichi said and referenced in the game, and he bought them to…

Shuichi’s brow had furrowed, considering the contents of the bookshelf. What did he buy them for? Is he perhaps… trying to understand his in-game character’s interests?

It made sense on some level: Kokichi Oma was a childish character, and he enjoyed silly, and dangerous, games during his free time. He had a maturity trait to him as well, sparring back and forth with Miu spewing some particularly cruel and vulgar language while, contrastingly, enjoying a peaceful tea time with Shuichi. It reminded him of an actual leader, as ridiculous as it sounded in the moment. A good leader would check in with his followers; a good leader would enforce leisure time to ensure his subordinates rested up.

All assumptions were on Shuichi’s part, of course, and none were actually true now knowing that parts, if not all, of their memories were faked, including the most important people in their lives: Kokichi’s group of misfits and Shuichi’s uncle, for example. Who knew what people were real to them? As far as Shuichi knows, no one in the real world cared for them. No one came to greet them at their release.

It could be one last middle finger by Danganronpa, pretending to have contacted their families but in actuality relishing in the joy of their hopes being dashed as no one came to pick them up, but Shuichi, for some reason, does not put much stock into this theory. The game was over, and the cameras were off. There is no audience to broadcast that moment of despair to.

They were released, and that was it.

Not to mention, the facility was designed for their healing as unnerving as it was to deal with nurses and doctors that were neutral on the game: people that grew up with the reality that Danganronpa was normal.

It does not comprehend to Shuichi, but he supposes that does not matter. It is normal here, and he just has to deal with that reality because it is his reality.

Circling back to Kokichi, Shuichi was also surprised to find many novels that he was familiar with, wanting to read or having just finished the series, especially when it came to detective and criminal intertwined fantasies. Some were even novels Shuichi had never heard of to his further shock, and he quickly became interested in the synopsis based on the summary given on the back.

It… touched a part of Shuichi, a feeling that he was not even sure what it was or what it meant, but it resonated with something deep within him.

He wanted to know more.

So he scoured the shelves, finding nonfiction topics, too, and many surrounding the genre of psychology and sociology, particularly pertaining to the human brain and severe traumatic experiences’ effects on it.

Fascinating, he had thought.

Furthermore, there were… Danganronpa novels.

Fiction upon fiction, or perhaps nonfiction if being technical in his experience, of past contestants, lore, the origin roots of the game and how it came to be this popular.

Shuichi had glimpsed through the book, skimming pages upon pages until his stomach started to twist and turn, sparking a deep-rooted angry response that almost made him tear the book apart.

It was pure, sadistic fascination. Human’s cruel and dark desires to watch others in pain is what it narrowed down to.

Shuichi understood, he understood too well, but it did not mean it didn’t shake his entire core with fury for what was allowed for the sake of entertainment in this day and age.

He did not understand how Kokichi could keep this on his shelves and know it was there every time he walked out of his bedroom and entered his living room, knowing that the thing that ruined his life was caused by a simple human cruelty to observe but never help; in other words, it was a form of the bystander effect, but for the sake of entertainment.

To know his suffering was so unnecessary.

He stopped his investigation shortly after that. His thoughts were filled with too much self-pity for him to properly analyze his surroundings, and he wanted to go to bed at a decent hour to hopefully meet Kokichi at his awakening.

His late-night investigation revealed a small but enlightening insight about his past contestant, and it painted a rather normal picture of him—a far cry from the mess that he left his room in from the killing game.

Yet, the conclusion he draws is scarily similar: this house that Kokichi lives in—painfully normal, spotlessly clean—it suggests a pretense of someone normal, with a few small quirks of Kokichi’s true interests and voracious desire to understand and learn peeping through. In the game, his room revealed Kokichi’s failing mental state but true intentions regarding his “evil” plans in the killing game.

His room was the door that revealed Kokichi’s character, and right now it said that Kokichi, with his bookshelves, psychology books, games, and cat, was listless.

It was nonsensical but outlined a habitual routine: to leave his house plain despite having stayed in the same building the moment he moved in, practically the entire time since the end of the simulation. Never to move in or fully settle, but only to meet basic stimulation needs with static things that cannot surprise or change; in other words, those unchanging things were books and games. The cat was a surprising touch, but Shuichi suspects this is more unintentional.

He did note in his findings that Kokichi’s stay at the aftercare facility was notably longer than his peers, which could speak to his need to remain the same despite having near six months to realize that was not possible in a world like this.

Almost a month had passed after their release when Shuichi found out about Kokichi’s disappearance from the facility and permission to re-enter the real world through a lengthy and annoying phone call. Only Korekiyo and Tsumugi could rival that time frame, as Korekiyo had a backstory that turned him into a serial killer and Tsumugi’s records were conveniently no longer available for review by reason of accidental termination.

Accidental.

Anyway, if Kokichi never fully settled into his home, then he never found a reason to stay, but he also never left. The only thing that brought some change to the look and feel of his lifestyle was the destruction caused by a cat.

All this to say that Shuichi believes that, no matter how long the setback, the cat is a necessary inclusion to their journey.

If the cat could at least distract Kokichi from his more extreme reactions upon interacting with his former classmates after having half of a year mostly to himself, then maybe, maybe Shuichi would survive this temporary partnership. Kokichi, too.

In the game, he never even thought that Kokichi would do something so extreme for the sake of putting an end to the misery that they were trapped in. He may have issues with reaching out for help, and isolation has already proven to be detrimental to his state of mind, so if a cat helps him break this pretend state of normalcy that he puts on in his own home, then the cat is a necessary expense.

No matter how long it takes to catch the damn thing.

“Do you have treats or—“

Kokichi cuts him off with a look. “Shuichi, I would think a detective knows better than to speak during a stakeout.”

His eyebrow twitches. Necessary expense, he must remind himself.

“Oh, look, look! There it is!”

Like a child, Kokichi forgets his momentary irritation with Shuichi to share in the excitement of something happening, that of the cat tentatively stepping through the household and approaching its dinner this evening. Shuichi holds himself still as he watches Kokichi pressed flat behind the door start to crawl towards the cat as soon as it lowers its head.

What proceeds is the most deranged game of Red Light, Green Light that Shuichi has ever seen involving a cat. In hindsight, this is the first time that he has watched a cat act as the moderator, too. 

Every step, and Shuichi means every step, the cat whips its head back to glare at Kokichi, who is frighteningly good at freezing himself before the cat has fully turned its head. Cats were known for their fast reaction times, but somehow, someway, Kokichi Oma could rival that speed with his own ability to react. It was shockingly on point to his in-game character: to put on a performance so adjustable to his classmates’ reactions and come up with believable stories and lies at the drop of a hat—well, it was nothing short of amateur.

Shuichi gently shakes his head. Not the time, nor the place.

Kokichi is about three feet from the cat when it jumps back and hisses for seemingly no reason. It did not catch him moving as far as Shuichi observed, but it must be upset at his proximity.

Under his breath, Kokichi mutters, “Oh, so now you don’t want to cuddle? Only under the cover of the dark, is that it?”

Shuichi chokes, and apparently that was all the distraction the cat needed as it swivels its head towards him with wide, frightened eyes, just noticing his presence from his sound, and Kokichi lunges with a blanket.

“Mrrrrrraaaaaoooow!”

Shuichi rushes forward at the yowl, hands hovering over the blanket as Kokichi struggles holding it over the cat as it claws and pulls, undoubtedly furious at this level of treatment.

“Wh-What do you need—should I grab one end?!” Shuichi frantically asks, hands hovering over the blanket but reluctant to touch without Kokichi’s permission. 

“Yep, I think pulling it apart like they used to do in the old western days should do it!” Kokichi chirps, the strain on his face visible as he attempts to control the feisty feline. “Grab the cage, numbnuts!”

“O-Oh.” Shuichi snags the—obnoxiously pink, but he doesn’t question it—cat cage and shoves the metal door open, holding it as Kokichi tries to lift the bottom of the blanket into it.

“Ouch!”

The sound alerts Shuichi to a problem as he sees Kokichi wince before readjusting his grip quickly. “Are you alright?!”

“Peachy keen!”

He squinches his nose. Who says ‘peachy keen’ nowadays?

”Forward!” 

Kokichi’s shout breaks him out of his temporary disgruntlement, and he instinctively moves the cage towards the cat as Kokichi stuffs the blanket, making Shuichi cringe from the rough treatment, and he inwardly apologizes to the cat. Thankfully, Kokichi’s final stand ends the scuffle, and although the cat quickly untangles itself from the blanket, hissing, it is safe inside the cage. 

The two “cat wranglers” meet eyes over the pink cage, equally blank faces pausing in silence as only the sounds of occasional growls and hisses interrupt their temporary truce. 

Shuichi, forgetting his earlier findings, promptly deduces a new conclusion. “This cat is going to be a nightmare.”

“Maybe we should name it ‘Akumu.’”

Shuichi opens his mouth before clicking it shut immediately, clamping down on any words that try to claw their way out. He sighs. This is going to be a long trip.

No matter how much you grow, Shuichi, you’re still weak.

The mind is a dangerous place to let sow even the smallest seeds of doubt. The outside world bleeds into a line-less painting, one of color and shapeless figures, creating a sort of white noise effect on the sounds and life around him. It invites these darker thoughts, ones filled with Shuichi’s worst memories and fears despite the travel partner that accompanied him today.

Kokichi himself is distracted by the sights outside of the window, and it temporarily quiets something inside of Shuichi to see such unabashed curiosity upon his former contestant’s face, reminding him of a time earlier in the game when Kokichi was, at most, a shit-stirring classmate.

Shuichi cracks a smile at the thought.

It didn’t last, of course. There is only so much time in a day that Shuichi can spend above ground, avoiding the rising tide of his overthinking tendencies, the ones that cripple his self-esteem and his imposter feelings post-game, before it drags him back down into the lowest of depths.

How bad is it for Kokichi?

Or can a liar take it all in stride, knowing that Tsumugi, too, built her world upon lies?

Studying Kokichi’s actions, Shuichi cannot say for certain one way or the other. He seems smaller outside of the game than when they were in it and unaware of Kokichi’s true intentions, but he made it convincing when he talked about enjoying the game.

In that regard, he also made it impossible to form a deeper connection with him, too.

But Shuichi felt, a small part inside of him, truly felt that Kokichi wanted to be unraveled—not through the lens of a microscope or by forcing their way into his room to uncover the hoards of evidence collected by his own hands, but, as Kokichi had put it once, “psychologically cornered” in a way that would reveal an immoral ally.

Maybe he needed to be one that crossed the lines so people like Shuichi could pick up on the trail without dirtying their hands in the same way, or maybe Kokichi needed someone willing to do just that to know Shuichi was worthy of peeling back the layer soaked in blood that he spilled to trick everyone, including the mastermind.

Frowning, Shuichi looks away from the current innocent façade that Kokichi displays as his eyes bounce from one thing to the next outside the window, unable to look at him and realize all over again how intentionally confusing Kokichi makes himself to be.

Why can’t he ever be simple? Say what he means, let people get on the same page?

What is the horror of understanding the true person underneath the mask?

“Look!” Shuichi’s thoughts are interrupted by an excited Kokichi shaking his shoulder and pressing his finger into the glass until the tip turns paper-white, directing his attention outside. “Ducks!”

Shuichi closes his eyes, a deep sigh escaping him. Maybe Kokichi is simply Kokichi, and that’s all he needs to know.

“Hey.”

A tugging on the sleeve of his jacket causes him to open his eyes to the sight of a Kokichi much too close to his face, and he jerks back in surprise; there have been too many unnerving conversations that have followed after opening his eyes to such a visual, and so an uneasiness quickly settles in Shuichi’s stomach as his eyes focus on a curious stare.

Kokichi, on the other hand, doesn’t react to his startled gesture and instead continues on with a deceptively light voice. “How did you know, by the way?”

His brows furrow. “Know what?”

“That I wasn’t Tsumugi.”

Shuichi quickly opens and closes his mouth, biting his lower lip as a secondary measure to avoid blurting out anything that comes to his mind first, like his most likely definitely-not-appreciated-gesture of snooping.

Right. That was a good question. Briefly, he glances away and then settles back on Kokichi’s expression, one of careful neutrality but mixed with childish wonder—certainly intended to lower his guard. He had a feeling that the answer to this question could have an effect on their future work partnership.

After all, Kokichi probably wasn’t just asking how he knew; he was gauging how Shuichi would perform his judgement for future classmates as well. The standard was being set, and Shuichi had a feeling this could be a similar tactic Kokichi used in the past: observing Shuichi’s actions to determine his trustworthiness in situations like this. 

Turning his gaze down to his joined hands, Shuichi hunches his shoulders into himself, caving from the pressure of an invisible weight as he understands the importance of his answer.

“I judged it on several factors,” he says softly, quietly as to not disturb the other passengers but also to let himself pretend this was casual conversation—not a test, “with the final conclusion set aside until I observed you in person.”

“A likely detective tactic,” Kokichi comments from beside him, but Shuichi can’t make out the tone of his voice; he finds himself too deep in his own head to pick out any warning undertones. So, he sets it aside in the category of Playful Kokichi Banter.

“I tried to gather some information from our former classmates on your behavior after the game in preparation for the visit.” He swallows. “But not one of them had heard from you after the facility. They didn’t even see you on release day.” Neither did I. “Not even the classmates that I thought you would be close to.”

“Hah!” The laugh startles him, causing him to jump in his seat, and he levels a dumbfounded gaze on the boy next to him, taking in his wide smile and crescent-shaped eyes, crinkled in amusement. “As if! I would never hang out with any of those losers!”

Shuichi frowns, and he returns his gaze to his folded hands in front of him.

He can still be so… needlessly cruel.

“When I heard you hadn’t attempted to reach out to anyone in the months following our departure from the aftercare facility,” he explains, “I figured that would impede on Tsumugi’s plans, or at least be an unnecessary obstacle. If she was planning on breaking into the Future Foundation’s file room, then she needed to know who worked there and where. She also needed to understand some of our natural movements at work to avoid suspicion when she paraded as—as us, m-myself and Miu, maybe more, during her infiltration.”

“Wow, that really shakes you up, doesn’t it?” Kokichi’s tone is mocking, and it stings to hear. “That she dressed up as you?”

“S-She didn’t just dress up, Kokichi!” To Shuichi’s horror, he recognizes Kokichi’s taunt but still rises to meet it, falling for the oldest trick in the book as Kokichi tugs on a thread and pulls it loose under the spotlight. “It’s just—it’s inhumane!”

“Why?”

Shuichi feels like he has whiplash, staring at Kokichi with his mouth gaping open like an idiot, but he can’t help it. His wound is open and bleeding and all Kokichi can do is point at it and laugh. “Huh?”

“Why’s it inhumane? All I see is a girl that just wants to dress up as her favorite characters.” Kokichi shrugs. “She’s doing what cosplayers do.”

He pauses to reign himself in. “You know this goes far beyond cosplaying, Kokichi,” he says lowly.

And yet, Kokichi continues to needle. “Does it? We are just fictional characters after all.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” The reprimand comes out of his mouth before he expects it, and he sees a twin look of surprise across Kokichi’s face at his stern tone. 

“Did Shumai just… use a bad word?” Kokichi asks, completely flabbergasted and openly stupefied as his wide eyes observe him. The look is so unusual that a small part of Shuichi revels in the fact that he caused it, and Kokichi sees no point, or is forgetting, to mask it. 

“R-Regardless,” he flusters a bit, though still preening from the shock of his statement to temporarily render Kokichi’s ability to snap back ineffective, reigning himself in to continue, “you know how that statement messed with our sense of reality, whatever may be fiction or fact. Of course it is disconcerting to see myself doing things I have no memory of on video. Just like the audition videos.”

Kokichi’s eyes narrow. “The audition videos were f—“

”I know I am not like that,” he interrupts. “I know that I did not use my clearance to steal a file from the Future Foundation.” He releases his clasped hands, holding one in front of his face to open and close it. “I know this, but…” He turns the critical eye on Kokichi. “Do you know how unreliable witness testimonies are? Someone can say, with full confidence, that the culprit was wearing a blue shirt at the time of the crime. Another will swear on their life that it was black. One will say that they were sure the culprit smiled while committing the crime, and the other will claim they looked conflicted. They’ll contradict each other despite both on the scene during the crime and witnessing the culprit in person. Yet, we rely on these testimonies for basic information, and a lot of times it is the damning evidence needed to solve the case. For something as simple as just… being there.”

Though his focus is steadfast, Kokichi does not outwardly react to anything he is saying. Shuichi decides it doesn’t matter. Saying it out loud helps him most of all, to acknowledge these feelings that have festered into something ugly inside of him.

”What I’m saying is… it’s… disconcerting, having evidence of a crime but only being able to rely on witness testimony.” He ends it with a sardonic smile. “Something known to be… unreliable.”

Kokichi doesn't respond immediately, and Shuichi breathes out a quiet sigh of relief for the unintentional few minutes given to compose himself.

When he thinks he is ready, he speaks up first. “To answer your question from earlier, I looked at your movements from the past five months. Isolation doesn’t exactly fair well for Tsumugi before her heist, even if it may be favorable now. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have taken your persona after the break in and hide you away or scare you off.” Kokichi snorts at this comment, but Shuichi ignores it and mechanically continues relaying his report. “However, I believe it would have been difficult to keep you quiet, especially if Tsumugi threatened to take your identity.” He doesn’t say that he also expected Kokichi to be aware of the situation, and thus take the necessary cautions to prevent it, that having been scratched off his notes already. “We had someone… observe you for the last month. You… We concluded that you had no suspicious actions that would need to delay my meeting with you.”

When he hears the sniffle, all of his senses go on high alert as he faces a watery-eyed Kokichi. He practically whimpers, “S-So, i-in other words, you determined I was a loser, right?”

”I—!”

”THAT’S—“

Shuichi reacts before his mind catches up, shoving a hand over Kokichi’s mouth and biting out, “Stop it. You’re not a child anymore, Kokichi.”

And just as quickly as he started up, Kokichi blanks, his tear-streaked face contrasting with his eerily neutral expression and unfailingly unnerving Shuichi. As if hearing his thoughts, Kokichi piles onto his apprehension when he gently removes the hand from his mouth. “Guess you’re right, huh. Go ahead, finish your story.”

That… was weird. “Ah, uh… As I was saying…” He pauses, waiting to see if Kokichi had any tricks up his sleeve after that display was cut short, but he just maintains that creepy calm expression. “…So, I was given the authority to make the final decision when I met with you in person.”

”Charming, wasn’t I?”

”And I—huh?”

It seems Shuichi should expect the whiplash at this point, but Kokichi Oma was never one to fail at surpassing expectations, so when he leans uncomfortably close to Shuichi’s face, again, Shuichi jumps back, using his arms to arch his back uncomfortably away from his approaching classmate. Kokichi ignores Shuichi’s actions to get away, moving so close that their chests press together as those dark eyes gaze into his lighter ones, and he practically purrs, “Don’t be afraid to admit it, Detective. I was just so alluringly mysterious that you knew I never changed from the game—that enigmatic, untouchable, fascinating thief that stole the show. Not even Tsumugi could prevent my plans.”

That last line sounded awfully… petty. 

“Shuichi,” Kokichi says, curling his tongue prettily around his name in a way that so clearly had undertones to it that Shuichi froze. “Tell me the truth. I’m right, right?”

It was so… not Kokichi. This is not how Kokichi Oma acts. It almost reminded him of the time he was in the L—he shudders. This has to stop now. “No, Kokichi.” He meets those eyes head on as they first appeared dark with the undertones, and now they were dark in confused anger. “It was the opposite.”

The anger grows on his face. “Is Shuichi lying to me?”

You would know, Shuichi thinks, his own frustration emerging from the back and forth. “It was all the little things that were unlike that of Kokichi Oma from the game that I deduced that you couldn’t be Tsumugi.”

”What.”

”She wouldn't take that risk. Not for our first meeting out of the game. Not for you.”

Kokichi’s scowl deepens, and he sits back, crossing his arms. “Maybe Tsumugi just likes cats,” he replies haughtily. “All of my actions could make sense for a Tsumugi-in-disguise-as-Kokichi-Oma performance. Even my isolation is ideal for her because no one knows the true Kokichi Oma after the game.” Kokichi’s voice cracks at the end, but he holds Shuichi’s gaze and ignores it to demand an answer instead. “Riddle me this, Shuichi: Who am I if I walk like a duck, talk like a duck, and sound like a duck?”

Shuichi feels his confidence return as he sits himself back up, finding himself back on familiar ground than whatever that earlier performance from Kokichi was. Before he can act on it, Kokichi takes the reins for the next topic of conversation, refusing to hand them over to Shuichi despite demanding his answer. 

“It’s a duck, Shuichi. Doesn’t matter which duck it is; it’s still a duck that walks, talks, and sounds like—“

”Why are you fighting me on this?”

”…Come again?”

Now that the rising tension is starting to fade from Shuichi’s shoulders, he feels himself curious about something else, so he looks for answers. ”If you are Tsumugi, then why are you trying to make me doubt you? Wouldn’t it make more sense to lie low and pin the doubt on someone else? You’re actively putting yourself back on the suspect list.”

Kokichi senses the trap, narrowing his eyes at this line of questioning.  “Because Tsumugi knows that that’s what Kokichi Oma did all throughout the ga—“

Shuichi interrupts him again. “Are you saying Tsumugi and Kokichi Oma are interchangeable?”

He provokes a visceral reaction of disgust from Kokichi. “As if I’m on that two-faced murderer’s—“

“Is Kokichi Oma not unique then?”

Irritation flares across his reddening face. “How dare you suggest—I’m one of a kind! Ultimate Supreme Leader, mastermind of the killing game, Remnant of Despair—I held all of these titles!”

Bingo. “Then why do you have so much faith in Tsumugi’s ability to become you?”

Kokichi bites down on his lip so hard that Shuichi fears it will bleed, but he holds his tongue for his reply. He needs Kokichi to be on the same page as him; he needs this doubting game to end now that they are no longer in the killing game. They will have to trust each other to make this partnership work, even if that trust only extends as far as believing the other is not Tsumugi. 

They won’t have to work together ever again once it’s over. 

Chapter Text

Soooo, Kokichi might have messed up a little, underestimated a damn detective, a damn good detective, and now he was being pressed to answer a question that was so stupid Kokichi could believe Gonta was here in spirit.

Oh, ouch, Gonta’s name still sparks a little pain in his heart. Okay, well, forget Gonta. Screw Gonta! Who needed Gonta anyway?

Not him, noooo way. Not for his super genius murder plan that probably destroyed the only other contestant that was as rotten as him in language.

She started it, though.

“You’re going to give me an answer.”

The stern voice, belonging to none other than his soft-spoken detective, draws his eyes back to him and his dumb pretty face.

Who was this guy, anyway? Seriously. Why did he have to grow a backbone for the sake of character development? Couldn’t he just have stayed the slimfit, shy guy that is massively popular with idol fans?

Stupid guy.

Kokichi feels the smile creep onto his face regardless. He can work with this, though. It’s not like Kokichi hasn’t ever been pressed into tight situations before, right?

Get it?

“But it’s—!”

“Shhhh!”

His ears prick as the whispers from across the near-empty train cart grow in volume and disrupt his focus on Shuichi, causing an eyebrow to tick up in annoyance. The voices were already noticeable with barely anyone riding on this line, but they steadily increased in volume until it became impossible to ignore.

He schools his face to portray a cruel smirk, as if he were preparing an awful response to the question presented, but instead his attention wavers as his curiosity spikes.

What were these people talking about?

Flicking a glance over, he nearly blanches. He must control his initial instantaneous repulsion as he comes face to face with beady eyes staring him down. As his eyes meet the stranger’s, they widen in response to his acknowledgement, the young boy nearly jumping from his seat in excitement and only reigned in by his nervous-looking friend pulling at his sleeve.

Kokichi stares.

The boy, who clearly wishes to move towards him, was undeniably and completely starstruck.

By Kokichi.

And all Kokichi can do is stare.

“Look! He’s looking at me!” comes the loud whisper from the boy. He half-rises, attempting to leave his seat with his eyes only on Kokichi, and then his voice is directed to him. “Koki—!” he starts to call.

His friend shoots a gaze full of fear at Kokichi and Shuichi as he manhandles the boy back into his seat, scolding him all the while. “Be quiet! This behavior isn’t appropriate in public!”

Fans. They were fans of the killing game. They were fans of him in the killing game.

He is about to break eye contact when he spots the desperation on the boy’s face as he struggles against his friend’s restraint, hesitant to make a scene but the shine in his eyes is unmistakably the agony of someone about to face deep regret if he doesn’t resist. 

It pokes a hole in his heart; the reminder pierces its target.

“But he saved my life! He’s my hero!”

Ha. Haha.

The feelings rising within him battle one another, a melting pot of realizations all fighting for one concise conclusion, but it instead intermingles into something that settles deep within his gut.

Disgust, hilarity, confusion, relief, fury—all fail to rise above the other to settle into one emotion, to make sense of the mess inside his head, all but one: hysteria.

The boy admires him.

He finally huddles over, elbows digging into legs as he claws his fingers underneath his eyes, forcing them open wide, wider.

The train cart ground is dirty, and it rumbles along their journey, trembling every now and then and forcing his fingers deeper into the pudgy skin under his eyelids.

The living boy admires the dead contestant.

A laugh tumbles its way out of his throat, just a throwaway giggle, and it is only when he feels hands grip into his arms and force him to sit upright does he realize Shuichi has been saying his name.

He wouldn’t have missed that during the game he thinks.

“Kokichi, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, my beloved detective,” he replies cheerily, but his gaze remains ahead.

Hahaha. That’s hilarious. He has a fan. Isn’t that funny.

Isn’t that funny?

“We’re getting off on the next stop,” Shuichi whispers into his ear quietly, and from his peripheral, Kokichi can tell Shuichi is studying the two from across the cart as discretely as he can.

Kokichi chooses to remain silent for the rest of their ride, and, for once, he and Shuichi seem to be on the same page.

“Y’know… I thought survivors made a hefty sum for, well, surviving. I guess not, huh?”

It doesn’t take long for Kokichi to kick back into the mix of things, just a little reflection, some internal rewiring, and maybe it comes back a little easier when he has something on Shuichi to pull on his leg a little bit.

There is nothing much to complain about in the sight before him, but it wasn’t like he was going to be a perfect angel during this trip either. He wanted Kokichi Oma, right?

In response, Shuichi side-eyes him, but he doesn’t deign him with a response, perfectly content to keep up their silent walk to death—or to become heroes! They’ll find out, he guesses.

But he sure clocked him, didn’t he? Well, it’s not like there is nothing to not not complain about.

It is not so much that the house is shaggy, per se, quite the opposite; it takes a humble appearance for the sheer size of it, seemingly to have been an apartment complex in the past with more windows than Kokichi ever had in his shoddy home. It almost makes him crack a smile.

Danganronpa contestants: given a lot of money, still can’t ever be rich.

Its humbleness comes from the domestic way the windows are half-open for fresh air, the door chipped with the paint of a previous, deep brown color and exchanged for a bright blue, and the fact that the door is cracked open the slightest exposing the eager person behind it, waiting for their approach before properly greeting them since it was about twenty feet too early.

He wonders who it will be that greets them, who could be worthy of the Ultimate Detective’s time and intimate daily moments, simultaneously ignoring any awkward feelings rising within his chest at the thought. It doesn’t matter who Shuichi decided to play house with, after all. This was a partnership built on use and urgency. It was not about something so juvenile as “catching up.”

For a brief moment, adrenaline surges through him and kicks his senses into overdrive.

What if Shuichi wasn’t leading him to his home but one of these “safe” houses meant to keep Kokichi in? He was already a prisoner in his own home, but he thinks he would rather stick a fork into a socket than be watched by an outside source again.

No, he knows he would rather do that.

His steps falter to a stop, glaring down at the front door as if to scare it into revealing the answers. They are a few feet away, but his feet just won’t. Move.

What if.

Is Shuichi Saihara trustworthy?

He almost snorts out loud. No, what he really needed to know is if Shuichi Saihara would—

“Kokichi?” Shuichi has since stopped, too, looking back at him curiously with an open expression. He’s so trusting, the stupid detective he is, with people he thinks he knows. Idiot. “Is everything all right?”

His heart flutters.

So he sticks out his tongue.

Shuichi rolls his eyes, but he waits for Kokichi to continue moving forward before he turns around, and Kokichi considers stabbing his eyes out if he plans on cataloging all of Shuichi’s actions in his head.

As they are just about to walk up the steps to the front door, it finally swings open, revealing just who has been awaiting their presence so eagerly.

The girl, or now, he supposes, the woman before him is much less brighter than he remembers. Her appearance is duller, but her smile…

Her smile reaches both cheeks with just a hint of the slightest of trembles.

Kaede fills the doorway entrance, squeezing her hands together with that shaky smile on her face.

He wonders if the tremble is a remnant from the game or the result of their classmate doppelgänger situation. He throws a quick glance to his right at Shuichi’s face, but annoyingly he is returning Kaede’s smile with a crooked one of his own. It’s kind of awkward, really.

Curious.

“Hey, Kokichi,” Kaede says gently, dragging his gaze back to her as she greets him like an old friend. Good, old, friendly Kaede. “How have you been?”

This cautious approach is better than he expected, but the friendliness is almost worse than if she had a full-blown spitfire of curses thrown at him for hindering the dream team’s progress in the game. There was a brief time that Kokichi imagined contestants spitting on him: both alive in the flesh and on his grave.

Well, since Kaede was being amicable, he should follow suit, naturally.

Throwing his arms up behind his head, he pulls the widest smile yet that squints his eyes in delight, and he cheerily replies, “Hey bitch, how’s it hanging?”

The silence that follows his words tells him he hit the nail on the head flawlessly.

He sinks in the success, anticipating the response from her as his eyes greedily open to observe the chain of reactions.

Kaede’s mouth drops open, and from the corner of his eye, he spots Shuichi physically recoiling at his words beside him.

In that split second, Kokichi feels like himself again: the social pariah that was feared in the game, worrying everyone for what would spill out of his mouth next—someone’s dirty secret, or a harrowing insult that would feel like a slap to the face.

In that second, Kokichi is Kokichi Oma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader.

In a blink, he is quickly thrown out of his inner celebration as a tug on the collar of his shirt forces his arms to balance him through his stumble backwards, whipping his head up to see a flustered Shuichi gripping him like a naughty kitten. With the other arm, Shuichi takes the handle of the cat cage from Kokichi’s limp hand, stunned from surprise, and reaches out to give it to Kaede, who takes it numbly, face still in utter shock.

A quick, “Excuse us,” leaves his mouth as he drags Kokichi back the steps they just took, leaving a rather funny sight of Kaede standing at the door as the sounds of angry yowls reach their ears. Shuichi puts a respectable distance between Kaede and themselves before rounding on Kokichi.

His eyes are ablaze with fury.

Oh, he’s so in for it.

“You will not,” Shuichi practically growls, eyes piercing into Kokichi’s, and Kokichi has to ignore the pounding of his heart to fully hear Shuichi’s words, “use that language with Kaede. You will not treat her that way. She’s been through more than enough, and she does not deserve to hear someone mock her death like a slap to the face.”

The stern tone of his scolding keeps Kokichi from opening his smart mouth that would undoubtedly induce further lashings of the tongue, tentatively keeping a mute smile to placate some of the boiling anger radiating from his beloved.

Kokichi has never been scolded so calmly before. It takes him a little off guard, but he considers it worth it to establish the ground rules for Kaede on where he stands as her former classmate. Now she knows, at least.

Shuichi searches his face for a moment longer before he steps back with one last warning glare, turning around to meet Kaede back at the door.

This time, Kaede is clearly much more hesitant to engage in another round of greetings. Kokichi wipes the smile off his face instead for an expression of disinterest, switching quickly enough in the event Shuichi decides to manhandle him again for supposed “nonverbal intimidation,” whatever that might entail.

She worries her lip as she glances back and forth between the two, but admirably pushes on to start over. “Hello again.”

“Hi, Kaede,” Shuichi replies, bowing his head slightly, “apologies about interruption.”

Just like that, Kaede’s entire composure softens, and she smiles much more genuinely this time. “Welcome home, Shuichi.”

Shuichi, in kind, gives her a smile that Kokichi notes has never been directed at him. “I’m home.”

Those words sit in the back of Kokichi’s brain like a stone sinking in the water, except Kokichi is the ocean floor the stone lands on, the impact blowing away the tinier pebbles to make room for one large boulder.

So. This is how the contestants healed without his presence.

He feels the smile instinctively cover his face.

A world without Kokichi Oma, huh?

But he saved my life! He’s my hero!

Unbeknownst to his thoughts, Kaede breaks in with a soothing voice, soft and kind. “Please do come in and make yourselves comfortable.”

Her voice is much less boisterous than he remembers, but that may be intentional on her part or a result of her confidence still recovering from the game. Either or, the tone reminds him of an accepting Kaede mid-trial; a Kaede that knew her fate and was prepared to give up her game.

A Kaede that prepared to pay her dues for the sins of her actions in the game.

If Kokichi were to compare himself, he’d say his dues were thrown aside, hidden in the trash along with his thoughts post-game and never to be acknowledged ever again. After all, Kokichi was fine. He doesn’t care about these people, and he doesn’t need to make amends for something he was designed to be; in fact, he’d even say he went above and beyond and played the villain so flawlessly that any other version of him doesn’t exist.

The ‘real’ him? Pointless. Erased. Never existed, he truly believed, in the first place.

He had no desire to piece together a Kokichi Oma that wasn’t the Ultimate Supreme Leader from the killing game.

But that would be a lie, right?

They end up sitting awkwardly at the table. A cup of coffee sits in Shuichi’s hands, curled around the mug and mirrored by Kaede with her cup of tea. Kokichi’s mug, a combination of hot chocolate with hot sauce, something Kaede balked at, sits untouched on the glass table between them.

When they had first made the move to sit down, Kokichi was prepared to sit by himself on the couch and for Kaede and Shuichi to share the loveseat, but to Kokichi’s bafflement, Shuichi chose to sit next to him.

He decides not to look into this detail.

“I, um…” Kaede hesitantly decides to break the quiet after they sit down, “I prepared a room for your cat. He’ll have a litter and bowls for his food and water.”

Ah. Kokichi turns his eyes to her. Shuichi must have called her. “Perfect!” He claps his hands together, breaking the awkward atmosphere with more noise. “You can have it!”

Evidently, neither of them expected that, judging by their twin looks of surprise.

Shuichi cuts in first, a “W-What?” tumbling out of his mouth.

“Yeah, Shuichi got along so well with it that I knew I couldn’t tear these two apart.” The cat had been placed on the other side of him, away from Shuichi, but Kokichi decides to change that, picking up the cage with an irritated growl slithering out from inside, plopping it gently on the ground on Kaede’s side of the table. “It’s yours now! What’re you going to name it?”

Shuichi closes his eyes. “Kokichi—“ he starts, causing said man to grin at the barely concealed annoyance in his tone.

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

No.

Kokichi freezes. It couldn’t be.

Did he have to be so damn unlucky?

Chapter Text

Tenko twiddles her fingers for the hundredth time, eyes glued on the street outside and following every car that passes by.

“He doesn’t come for another hour!” the cheery voice from the kitchen calls, knowing about this terrible habit Tenko has adopted.

And it is terrible. She knows that. Her therapist told her so when she tried to explain it, but still…

This is so important to her—how can she properly put into words that if she gave this up, she’d—!

Tenko chews on her bottom lip nervously. “Do you think she read it yet?”

The airy voice simply replies, “I don’t know.”

Tenko has to bite down on her tongue to avoid the snarky reply that bubbles up inside. Something like, Doesn’t Atua know?

Hurt that hasn’t fully healed mixed with internal regret, as per her therapist’s words. Look within, try to forgive; both yourself and those who hurt you. She takes a deep breath, holds for four seconds, and breathes out, taking the frustration away with her needed pause to settle down. 

“Ah-ha, I heard that!”

Tenko scowls. She opens her mouth—

“Good job, Tenko!”

Her mouth clicks shut. That was entirely too genuine to shut down.

Returning her attention outside, she lays her head on her bent knee, curling in on herself to gaze outside and continue to wait.

After a minute of silence, she whispers, “Thank you, Angie,” but her demure temperament is short-lived. “Grrr, but it’s been weeks! Do you think Shuichi lied? I knew I should have asked Kaede and not some degenerate—“

“Ah-ah-ah,” Angie interrupts, drifting into the room with her usual airy quality, “we don’t use superlatives or hyperbole to describe anything.” Under her breath, she murmurs, “Not even Atua.” Her smile is back before Tenko can even fully witness it dropped, eyes cheery but calm. “Besides, we trust Shuichi, remember?”

Tenko grits her teeth, lowering her arms from her hair to blink slowly. Once. Twice.

“…Yes,” she grits out. “Not all males are degenerates. But most can’t be trusted!”

“Okay,” Angie replies, all serene and tranquil-like. “But Shuichi is trustworthy, no?”

“Ugh!” Tenko couldn’t believe Angie was this well adjusted after the game; this ‘in control’ of her emotions. It was just unfair that a cult leader had more emotional stability than Tenko, a girl who is merely in love. It didn’t matter that the game was fake because her feelings, her love, is real. Himiko simply needed to know that.

Is that so bad? To be helplessly, devotedly in love? Falling in love is completely out of her control! She can’t pick who, or when. She just feels it, and she loves Himiko, and that was all there was to it!

Therapist ramblings of projected feelings and emotional attachments aside.

That said, she decides she needs to exit the space, mentally and physically, the way her therapist instructed her to do when her emotions were getting too high; perform some exercises alone, she had emphasized, and not on someone; and remember that she shouldn’t compare herself to others’ healing processes. Everyone needs time, and Himiko may not want to reach out right now.

Or ever.

But Tenko didn’t need to remind herself of that because she didn’t believe it. Her belief was that she needed to wait and be patient. Himiko needed time.

Angie watches her, the smile unmoving on her face, and only her eyes follow her when she leaves the room.

“…What would I do without her?”

Tenko will be the first to admit this is a pathetic display. It’s a common occurrence with degenerate mal—degenerate people that cannot accept rejection: those that put too much dependence on their partners, often female, and whine like babies when they don’t get their way.

Tenko admits this.

Regardless, she cannot help the way her mind wanders in the second month of no contact at all from Himiko. It is like a dam with no water—there was nothing worth holding back without her here!

Today, she splays herself on the couch: one arm covering her eyes, her legs hanging off the opposite arm, and her body melding into the soft cushions. Fittingly, Angie sits on the chair across from her, mirroring an episode at the therapist’s office, with Angie in the role of therapist.

She’s mentally stable enough to play it,  Tenko thinks bitterly.

“I don’t know. What will you do?” Angie replies thoughtfully. There is a lilt of curiosity in her voice that Tenko doesn’t believe is honest.

It’s a bit annoying. Angie’s new catchphrase nowadays is one bubbly, “I don’t know!” and Tenko doesn’t quite get why she likes saying that so much, but she doesn’t comment on it most days because… well, she’s usually right to say it. Why would she know Tenko’s actions? Only Tenko knows Tenko’s actions, or should know, but lately, she doesn’t.

She just feels hopeless. Nothing is worth living for, without her.

Tenko’s been telling a little fib, as of late. She feels bad, she really does, but she knows it’s dangerous to tell her therapist this. No one can know her innermost turmoil. 

Not even Angie, she thinks, sliding an arm away to eye her suspiciously from the couch. And yet, somehow I think she suspects it.

Angie watches her a lot. She thinks she doesn’t know, but Tenko, when not waiting for the mail, sees Angie out of the corner of her eye. Staring. Smiling, too, but staring unnervingly at her.

It scares her a little bit.

So Tenko parrots, “I don’t know,” back to Angie, maybe a bit rudely, in lie of telling the truth: that she truly, really, isn’t sure she could live without Himiko in her life.

Angie only smiles at her, eyes crinkling even more in delight. “Isn’t that nice?” she replies evenly in the face of Tenko’s shameful display.

The guilt kicks in quickly as it always does when Tenko takes out her stress on Angie, and she turns away, curling into the back of the couch to smoosh her face against it.

“I guess so,” she lies, lies, lies.

She knows she is becoming that which she doesn’t like, and she doesn’t know how to stop it. Her world has orbited around one person for so long, and now she doesn’t know what to do. Who to be.

Oh, Himiko, please come save me.

The doorbell rings.

Tenko does not even fully comprehend her own actions; all she knows is that she was previously helping Angie out back, pulling weeds in the garden while Angie clipped the heads of dead roses from the bushes to allow room for more roses to grow in, calling it “therapeutic,” and the next second the sound registers and all of a sudden she facing the front door.

She does not hesitate any longer. If it is Himiko behind the door, then she—and Tenko is included here—waited long enough! They never get visitors out here, and while Tenko has had her fair share of weird reactions out in public, she can take care of any degenerate ma—degenerate that may be lurking behind the door.

But hope only fills her now. No one has found her and Angie’s safe home yet—it is much more likely to be a classmate, and even more likely to be a classmate they invited to their home recently, and so it had to be none other than Himi—

Tenko swings open the door, mouth opened to form her name while her heart claws its way up her throat to speak out loud everything that has been forced down for so long from the absence of the one that could only deserve such pure lov—

A certain blue-haired girl stands nervously on their doorstep, fingers clasped together, and a surprised look fleets across her face before she straightens, her face switching into an apologetic smile. “Oh! Um, hello, Tenko. I wasn’t expecting the door to open so quickly.”

Oh. Tenko tries not to visibly deflate. Oh, indeed. “Tsumugi,” she greets her on autopilot, her mood already turning sour.

“I think this is what the youths call a ‘thirsty girl’ nowadays!” From somewhere farther back into the house, Angie’s voice rings loud and clear. Too clear.

Tenko’s cheeks heat up instantly. “I am not!”

“A-A thirsty girl?!” Tsumugi squeaks, flustered herself.

“I—ugh, Angie!” she cannot help but whine. “Don’t embarrass me!”

“I only speak with love!”

Tenko splutters. Her momentary embarrassment dies down quickly as she remembers who exactly is on their doorstep. Instantly, she crosses her arms, puffing out her chest and pointing her nose down at her former classmate, face twisting into something unrecognizable. “What are you doing here? I don’t recall inviting a—a traitor!” Despite her valent effort, she quivers a bit at the thought of how much power Tsumugi had over them in the game, and the absolute shock that she was hit with when she found out who was behind their torture. 

She doesn’t remember it now, but Angie had told her she went quiet for three whole days, and she didn’t react to anything said or done to her, except for a minor grunt at hearing Himiko’s name.

Another way that Himiko has saved her, she thinks. While Angie did tell her that Himiko never visited her in that time, Tenko doesn’t blame her one bit. She probably had a similar reaction to the news, and maybe she even went nonverbal for longer! Maybe she’s still healing.

Oh, Himiko.

Tsumugi notes the shift in the atmosphere, almost pulling in on herself further to make herself smaller in front of Tenko, and she flickers her gaze between the ground and somewhere over Tenko’s shoulders. “I… I know you’re probably not happy to see just plain me—“

“Oh, is that Tsumugi?” Angie pops up behind Tenko so suddenly that both girls jump in surprise. “I didn’t think we’d ever see you again!”

Tsumugi shies away from Angie’s gaze. “Yes… understandably—“

“Are you here to apologize?” Angie cuts her off so rudely that even Tenko eyes her curiously.

Angie must be hurting, she considers. Tsumugi betrayed everyone.

Tsumugi hesitates. “Of course…”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Angie?!” Tenko has to intervene. Angie has never acted this way to anyone. If Tsumugi really came to apologize, and if there was a chance that she, too, was brainwashed into the game, even if… even if she was brainwashed to be the mastermind, but she still knew about the audience, and their fictional stories… and their backgrounds…

Just as quickly as she fires up to become the mediator, she deflates. Tenko decides that her silence is probably better in this situation. Himiko never needed to hear her words, and she is most useful when using her fists to defend. Obviously.

“No, no, she’s right, Tenko,” Tsumugi says, waving her hand frantically. “I made so many mistakes in the game that I don’t know if I can ever make up with any of our classmates, and so… she’s right that I didn’t come here just to apologize for my actions.”

“Mistakes, hmm?” Angie hums. “Go on.”

Tenko is not sure how to feel about Angie’s indifference towards Tsumugi. On one part, she is grateful; she also wants to act like this towards someone who hurt them, who harmed them, so deeply. On the other hand, her inner—and, maybe, fake—intuition demands to hear her out, as a fellow woman, a former friend.

It’s better she keeps her mouth shut anyway.

“The truth is… I sought you two out specifically.”

Tenko shudders. This didn’t feel right. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but the way Tsumugi was speaking… She tries to shake it off, but her shackles raise nonetheless.

Just behind her shoulder, Angie remains quiet, and when she glances back to look at her, she sees Angie watching Tsumugi with wide eyes, like an owl with their unsettling expressions. Yet, she is also a silent beam of strength behind Tenko; they have had more than their share of differences, inside and outside of that game, but Angie has become the one person to remain consistent in her life through everything.

She’s become attached as a consequence. Like a dog that tolerates a cat within the household.

No more attachment than that. Of course.

“I think you t-two would be the only ones to understand.” Tsumugi’s sudden voice causes Tenko to jump, and she looks back at her to see her avoiding their gaze, seemingly so small at their doorstep, almost harmless. “I came here to start my journey and begin anew—n-no more cosplaying, but to discover who the true Tsumugi is!”

Tenko’s heart weeps. Perhaps Tsumugi is trying to better herself. That game was her whole world, so to separate her character from it—

She pauses. Was she… failing in that regard? Every action, every thought strayed towards Himiko—her wellbeing, her actions, what she would think of Tenko today, but never once did Tenko consider that maybe she had built herself around Himiko too much.

Tsumugi really must be trying to better herself.

It inspires forth something inside, and so Tenko opens her mouth, ready to rally her support—

“Hm, that’s all wonderful and a strong thing to do, Tsumugi,” Angie drawls, and Tenko feels the heat of her body near her shoulder. “By the way, how did you obtain our address? I’m preeetty sure you were not included in our holiday letters.”

A chill spreads down Tenko’s spine. That was a good point. Most classmates did not really stay in contact with each other aside from Kaede and Shuichi reaching out during the holidays, usually through letters and sometimes a phone call, from the numbers obtained during their time at that facility. Tsumugi was never included in that chain, especially since she left the facility late and could not have been there to exchange contact information. So how did she..?

When Tenko looks back up from where her gaze drifted, the expression on Tsumugi’s face is odd.

“You know,” Tsumugi sighs, “I didn’t know you would be here, Angie.”

Her expression looks like it is one of sympathy but pulled over another, like the skin on her face has been stretched over her real face in a false impression that her sympathetic face is real in the first place.

It’s more than simply being fake—it’s like her face is forced into fake sympathy.

“I never wrote you to be friends with Tenko,” she continues. “You were always supposed to be rivals fighting for Himiko’s attention, or Tenko would see it that way.” She sighs again, but it is lighter, almost… relieved. “This just plain surprised me. In fact… there’s nothing plain about this situation.”

“Okay, this is getting creepy enough!” Tenko’s nerves are shot. Tsumugi flipping like the TV remote whenever it’s Angie’s turn to pick a show was not on her Bingo card for this year, and she certainly did not want to entertain anything more about the past with their kidnapper. “Nice to see you again, Tsumugi, but you are not welcome to stay!”

She grabs the edge of the door, preparing to slam it shut, but—as every horror movie that Angie picks out goes—she is stopped.

Though, peculiar to this time, it is not by a foot.

“What do you do when your world has gone grey?” Tsumugi seems to ramble, eyes unfocused, and out of nowhere she starts to pry open the door with an umbrella, one that she must have hidden behind her back. Tenko zeroes in on the sharpened end pressed against the inside of their door. “You…” Angie and Tenko both push against the umbrella, but Tenko knows it is a losing battle: Tsumugi is using the advantage of stabilizing the curved end against their doorframe— “ paint it red!”

Shuichi was witnessing the standoff of two predators: one encroaching on the other’s territory but attempting to appear uncaring all the same, while the other was furious at the unexpected visitor, spitting anger and eyes ablaze. Yet, the shine in both of their eyes—it seemed, it looked like—yes, there was a distinct level of fear controlling their actions.

It was hard to tell with Kokichi, a masterclass in the art of acting, but it required a level of looking beyond what was written on paper and looking in further; the curtains were not just blue, after all. 

In the tension that flooded the room with the entrance of one, there was a distinct stillness that could only be formed from the effort of waiting, watching for other to make the first move. In a way, it isn’t two predators that he is looking at; much like the little animal whose gone silent in the pink cage, it is two puffed-up cats trying to look larger than the other.

And though it seemed like terrible idea to take his eyes off the intense display before him, the emotion rising within his chest forced him to turn on the only other bystander, once believed to be his only ally in anything, everything.

Kaede.

“I thought you were going to talk her out of the house these next couple of days?” Shuichi, trying to come from a place of curiosity, notes his own accusing tone in his quiet aside.

Evidently, the whisper is useless. Kokichi flinches at the sound of his voice, and selfishly, he is glad that Kokichi heard; that way he knows that Shuichi was not a part of this ambush. 

Almost subconsciously, Shuichi reaches out a hand to circle around Kokichi’s wrist, stopping before contact as he realizes what he was about to do, and to whom. It was a gesture that he saw Kaede do to herself, thumbing the pulse on her wrist as opposed to her neck: a sort of self-soothing motion ascertaining her aliveness without a triggering pressure upon her throat. 

Ultimately he hesitates, but featherlight fingertips make contact, holding the fragile wrist and smoothing a thumb back and forth over his pulse. Kokichi doesn’t react with his expression, but Shuichi thinks he sees his shoulders lower an increment.

This is new. He has never touched Kokichi like this, in a way that felt so intimate—directly touching a racing pulse under his fingertips.

He is broken out of his reverie when Kaede responds. “I knew they would avoid each other like the plague if they knew one of them was going to be here,” Kaede says, attempting for a firm voice but Shuichi has known her for a while now, even better after the game, so he can pinpoint the wobble of guilt underlining her tone. “So, I didn’t tell her about Kokichi’s visit. I said you were planning on adopting a cat instead.”

“Yeah, and I said that that’d be the only way for Shuichi to get some pussy is if he bought—hey, wait a minute, you tricked moi!?”

Miu, in all her eloquent glory, is practically spitting fire when her angry gaze turns on Kaede. 

Kokichi snorts, and that was all it took for Miu to return her death glare to him. “And you—to be so bold showing up here after months of nothing!”

Shuichi’s heart flips the moment he sees the cruel sneer grow across Kokichi’s face, and seconds later he removes his wrist from Shuichi’s grasp. He can’t help but notice that despite breaking their connection, the removal was gentle: a soft slide out from under his fingertips and not at all vigorous in its action.

“Well, I wouldn’t have come if I knew the loudmouth hag was here, would I have?” he says coolly, leaning back against the couch.

Miu steps closer at his retreat. “Better than some hermit killer refusing to take charge for his actions in the game!”

“Hm, maybe I need a good role model in my life,” Kokichi remarks thoughtfully. “Miu, would you like to start?”

“I—“ Miu stumbles, but she quickly levels an accusing finger at him. “Mine was gonna be quick—you would’ve been dead before you figured it all out!”

“You have the subtlety of an elephant,” Kokichi retorts. “You and your clunky tits could be heard from a mile away!”

“Clu—“ Miu gulps. “A-At least I was planning on doing it personal—your small dick cowardice forced a real man to take charge of your plan!”

“Guys!” Kaede interrupts, and Shuichi, who had been watching the showdown while a deepening frown grew on his face, swivels to catch the haunted look of regret on her face. “Can we just take a minute and sit down?!”

Good, a small part of him relishes cruelly. Help her, the level-headed, which also happens to be the most bull-headed, side of him counters. 

Just as he opens his mouth—

“Are you blind?”

“Huh?”

Shuichi blinks.

Kokichi repeats, “Are you blind, Kaede? I’m sitting down, you’re sitting down, Shuichi’s down. Miu is the only one standing up. Consequently, she’s also the one instigating this whole showdown—“

“You little bitch!”

“Kokichi!”

His head falls into his hands. What a mess. The incoming headache is pulsing at the front of his head, announcing its presence with the worst timing, per usual.

A mess that could have been avoided.

His eyes turn on Kaede who looks similarly overwhelmed. “Why didn’t you talk to me?” His heart is being squeezed by two fists. “Why couldn’t you have told me what you wanted to do?”

When she looks over at him, her expression twists into regret so his face must be telling of his hurt. “It’s just… I know they needed to talk.”

“But why didn’t you tell me?”

Kaede bites her lip. Even now, as he begs for an answer, Kaede does not trust him enough to share her plans. The cavern between them grows, and he is looking down the cliff’s edge.

A touch on his wrist makes him jump, breaking him out of the dark turn his mind was leading him down. It is so featherlight, just barely making contact, and it almost creates a tickling sensation as it sweeps across. Clearly meant to mirror his earlier gesture, he understands the one behind the gesture, and he looks over, amazed.

His mouth forms the name on his lips, barely getting out, “Ko—“

Two things suddenly happen at once. One: He sees that Kokichi is determinedly avoiding his gaze. Two: His peripheral catches Miu’s expression, and it puts a stop to everything else.   

Kokichi must catch on, too, as he accuses, “Are you about to puk—“ 

He can’t finish his sentence.

Miu throws herself at him, tackling him into the couch, and a wretched sound of wailing escapes her, muffled into Kokichi’s shirt.

“You dumb bitch!”

Shuichi observes the most open look of surprise on Kokichi’s face, and it sparks a sharp feeling inside, one that he cannot put a finger on. He wants to investigate that at a more appropriate time, but for now he is completely captured by the scene before him.

Kokichi works his jaw, eyes flickering between Miu and his hands that are hovering in the air, unsure what to touch or say. “I’m… really not sure how to react to this,” he honestly states in a skeptical tone.

Shuichi cracks a smile at that. 

“I’m going to kill you, you idiot!” 

“Well, you tried that, so.”

“Sh-Shut the hell up!”

In front of him, Kaede catches his eye. “Should we leave them, or..?”

Miu evidently hears this comment because her head snaps to the side from where it was burrowed into Kokichi’s side. “Oh, hell no! We don’t need a moment, but it’s clear you two do. I’m taking the insufferable douchebag with me—you guys figure your shit out!” 

Kaede waves her forward eagerly. “Please.”

“W-Wait a minute—“ Shuichi rises out of his seat, reaching out for Kokichi, but Miu is quick to drag him up out of the seat by his bicep, manhandling him towards the stairs leading to her room on the second floor.

Shuichi panics. He can’t leave yet, not now, not in this new environment where he hasn’t seen anyone for months. Shuichi can’t leave him alone so soon. What if something happens—who knows what could happen. He doesn’t want to leave those two alone—both of them are volatile beings, and he doesn’t know how that will mix in a closed space, no mediator, and after so much time has passed. 

To his shock, it’s Kokichi himself that assures him, saluting off his worries. “No worries, boss, this won’t count for company time!” 

Shuichi gaps. “Boss?” 

“By the way,” even as he is dragged backwards, Kokichi still has the energy to appear smug, “it’s probably time to let the cat out of the bag—literally! Let it breathe, y’know? Before I throw it back outside.” 

Shuichi looks down at the pink cage. The cat, as if knowing of his gaze, opens one angry eye to glare back. He pulls a face. He doesn’t want to let the cat out. 

“It’s time for you and Kaede to stop pussyfooting around! Looks bad when the ones that plotted to kill each other can get along better than the couple that was stuck like glue the second they met!” Miu calls over her shoulder before she slams the door shut, and the room falls into silence. 

Kaede breaks it first. “That was getting along?”

Despite the immense stress that Shuichi feels with Kokichi out of his sight, alone with his almost killer and then victim in the game, the tension building up inside him hits a plateau and he chuckles breathily, attempting to let the stress seep out with the sound. “Y-Yeah, right? It feels like we just witnessed a year’s worth of built up emotions there.”

“At least they’re getting it out in the open,” Kaede says lightheartedly, but unfortunately, the awkwardness briefly lifted returns with that statement as they avoid looking at each other.

Shuichi breathes out inaudibly. If Kokichi was facing his demons after half a year in isolation, Shuichi needed to, too. He could not stuff these uncomfortable emotions away and preach at the same time for Kokichi to face them as he met with each classmate again with a guilt-free conscious. He needed to follow that example put forth.

Or else it would have been like he was the one that hid away from his classmates for so long. 

“You… didn’t tell me about the plan,” he starts, hesitancy touching every word, but he forces it out regardless.

Kaede flinches. She, too, had been avoiding confrontations with Shuichi with the messed up rationale that no arguments meant no problems. “Miu wouldn’t have stayed here had she known Kokichi was coming. And see? She clearly wanted to be here in the end.” 

“You don’t know that,” Shuichi counters. “You don’t know that she wouldn’t have stayed here, or that she wouldn’t have come back later.” There is a hint of anger in his tone despite his attempts to tamper it down.

“Come on, Shuichi.” Kaede frowns, and finally their eyes meet. “Kokichi hasn’t spoken a word to anyone in five months. Miu chose to live with us because she couldn’t handle going out in public anymore. She cowers at a raised tone. Do you really think they would have talked had we not intervened?”

“You intervened,” Shuichi corrects. 

“Yes, I intervened!” Kaede throws her hands up, standing up with a look of pure irritation across her face, and it causes Shuichi to freeze. Like Miu, he is cowering, but it is not from the tone; it is the angry glare directed at him by his own best friend. It brings him back to a time that didn’t exist but traumatized him still, to this day. “I’ve always had to intervene!” Her voice rises a decibel every other word, the hysterical note revealing the frays to her patience to be long since worn, and she physically puts some distance between them. “Shuichi, you know I love you, but you always hesitate. When we have a sound conclusion, then we need to act. We can’t keep waiting for things to happen, because sometimes they don’t—and then it’s too late! I’ve never acted with bad intentions—never! You know that! So why—“

She cuts herself off, voice breaking into a sob. She tries her hardest to cover the sound, even raising a sleeve to muffle herself, but her eyes are full of unshed tears.

“S-So, why—why…” Her voice is almost inaudible. “Wh…”

Hearing her break down shatters his heart, and he physically has to clutch his heart in the most pitiful attempt of alleviating the pain.

Kaede can not comprehend it, he realizes. She truly can’t. 

It does not cross her mind that he is hurt by this. She believes that if it is right, she must act on it immediately. As soon as she thinks she knows what must be done, she does everything she can to get it done, because if it needs to be done, then there is no damage from making it happen—only from waiting for it to happen.

This is her logic. This is the truth of her matter.

But sometimes, on occasion, she will hurt someone in the process of doing what she believes is the right thing, and she doesn’t realize this because she believes so deeply in good intentions.

Shuichi resolves himself to this truth, and he mulls over this problem, an old memory coming to mind. “I saw Miu outside Kokichi’s door at the facility. Before we left.” 

Kaede whips her head over to him in shock. 

“She… she wanted to speak with him. Make things right. She,” he pauses briefly, “missed him.” 

Kaede slowly returns to her seat across from him, gingerly sitting back down, wide-eyed and clearly flabbergasted by this information.

See? he thinks. I can help.

Even so, he knows this only settles one part of the discussion. The truth is—is that this isn’t the root of the problem.

“Kaede…” he says softly, a tone so full of emotion that her teary eyes draw back to him, and he sees she is listening. “I know. You would never—“ he chokes up, fighting back his own tears at the high stress rooted in this conversation. “You’ve always thought of others more than you do for yourself. You care, Kaede, so much.”

She smiles: a devastating, lovely smile.

He mirrors that smile with a knowing curl of his lip. “It’s just… we don’t. Talk. Honestly, that is.” Her smile starts to fade, and he knows he needs to expand on that thought. “I know you think it was right to have Miu and Kokichi talk right away, and you know, it looks like you might be right.” He waves upstairs. “I haven’t heard any screaming yet.”

She chuckles wetly, and he follows suit, letting his own tears fall.

Not from sorrow, but relief in getting it out there. 

“But, I have my own thoughts, too. On how we could have gotten them to talk. And… I wanted to talk about it further… with you.” He stresses this point. Together, not apart. Not opposed. 

Her smile leaves, but her expression remains thoughtful.

He wipes his eyes, his vision getting a little too blurry now, and he laughs quietly. “We never talked about your plan from the game. How you put that whole trap together for the mastermind… right under my nose.”

His eyes are down, looking down at his lap, but he can spot Kaede’s legs stiffening and he knows he found the elephant.

In his mind, he pictures how Kokichi had a little carved elephant hanging up at the dinner table of all places, and now he sits across Kaede with a coffee table between them, the drinks from earlier having long since gone cold. He wishes they weren’t, and he could wet his throat—or just occupy it with something other than his words. The silence is intimidating, especially since it is his own words that prompted it.

It would have broken the quiet in the present had he brought a little joke of an elephant, broken the rising tension at least.

He… thinks he understands Kokichi a little more.

“I didn’t think twice.”

He looks up with wide eyes, hearing Kaede’s firm tone, and he observes a determined expression streaked by tear stains.

“I didn’t think twice,” she repeats firmly. “I hesitated, but only once, and only when thinking about whether it would work or not. But I didn’t think twice about not telling you.”

He tries not to clutch at his heart; there is a visceral feeling of something piercing it, finding the soft thing and puncturing through.

“I should have told you,” she says quietly.

Ah.  The hole throbs, but it mends a little, at that. He tries for a smile and discerns it comes out a little misshapen. “It would have been nice to know.”

From either side of the table, two watery smiles are drawn out. Careful. Caution remains. 

“I’m sorry,” Kaede says, and her honesty bleeds forth, eyes unwavering as she meets his gaze.

“Thank you,” he replies, a little awkwardly. There is a brief silence that follows, mostly due to Shuichi’s uncertainty in navigating this conversation, but his surety is this: he appreciates this. Before, their conversations were missing something, and now he knows: honesty. Trust. It was there, at one point, and it left sometime after Kaede did.

During the game, Shuichi relied so heavily on Kaede, before her ‘death’ and after, for it was her wish that pulled him through, that kept him believing in a better future; in a better ending than what Monokuma told them it would be.

This image of her—he doesn’t know when, but it became distorted. More than human. She became more than human.

In a way, Shuichi inwardly marvels at his thoughts; it was eerily similar to Angie’s cult.

When Kaede came back, so did reality, and its many, many unsaid words. The unfinished story.

They were picking up the pieces of that. Those that were left behind.

“I missed you,” Shuichi tells her. He doesn’t know why; he just feels it needs to be said.

Kaede reaches out her hand across the table, and he doesn’t hesitate to take hold. She grips it tight. “Together, from now on, right?”

They’ll be alright, he thinks. “Right.”

Chapter Text

As soon as Miu shuts her bedroom door behind him, whipping around to face him and simultaneously block off the exit, Kokichi felt his hackles rise like feral dog.

This bitch is crazy.

Along with almost pulling his arm out of his socket, she decides to scream at him, hug him, and then lock him in a room alone with her. Some would say this was a sign of forgiveness, others would say it was a sign of early onset dementia, and Kokichi has always been on the side of the realist.

“Just because your fantasies involve dragging unwilling men into the bedroom—“ he starts, ready to fully put his morals in the garbage, before he gets interrupted. Again.

“Listen, I didn’t bring you in here to hurl insults at each other left and right and get shit-all done with our talk.” Miu crosses her arms, scowling at him, but the way her arms are folded across her body makes her look small, scared.

It keeps Kokichi’s lips thinned.

“Look, I planned to kill you, you planned to kill me and succeeded, and it sucked. But you didn’t break any trust ‘cause I didn’t have any for you in the first place.”

Cool. Cool, yeah, totally as Kokichi planned, but whatever. Credit where credit’s due and whatnot.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not fuckin’ furious for how you made me go,” Miu spits, arms uncrossing and fists furling, “You—you motherfucker!”

Kokichi reflexively flinches, squeezing his eyes shut and preparing for the slap he probably deserves.

But nothing comes.

He squints his eyes open, witnessing an ugly sight of Miu heaving in anger while watching him with an irritated expression.

His face instantly twists into a wide smile.

“Well, truth be told, I just went with what I thought you’d like,” he starts slyly, “two hands, big strong man, getting chok—“

“Enough of that shit! It doesn’t excite me—“ she snaps, but then quietly, “anymore,” before squaring her shoulders and puffing out her chest again. The fire appears to be lit inside of her, so Kokichi steps back in self-preservation. “What you fuckin’ did with the toilet paper? I could trip a random blind kid on the street and that would still make me a saint next to your disrespectful as shit ending you gave me!”

Sensing the rising tension, Kokichi puts his hands up in an attempt for a placating gesture. “The toilet paper was coincidental—“

“Seriously?”

“Look, it’s not like you left many weapons around—“

“Fuckin’ toilet paper?!”

“Okay, fine! It was disrespectful! I’m sorry.”

Even the word ‘sorry’ comes out of his mouth wrong, twisting in his throat and coming up like last night’s dinner. He feels his smile alter as a result—not as much of a cover as it used to be. He keeps Miu’s gaze regardless, knowing her patience is nonexistent and still feeling out the danger in this scene; he doesn’t understand her reactions at all, and he doesn’t know how to counter what he hasn’t cultivated.

“Do you know how they talk about me? About my death?” Miu seethes, her anger no where near dimming, but simmering.

Kokichi thinks her anger may be leading her on a false charge. He quirks a brow. “Who?”

“Everybody!” Miu throws her arms up, finally breaking their stare down to walk past him, and he glances at his new exit for a few seconds before turning to keep Miu in his sights. Can’t have his back turned to an enemy, anyway.

Or… frenemy. He squints his nose. No, definitely an enemy.

For the first time since entering the room, he is able to quickly take in his surroundings in full, and it leads him to several conclusions based on the state of the room.

One: It was indeed Miu’s room. There were little trinkets of random, probably failed—judging on their unfinished conditions—inventions that could only be made by a so-called Great Inventor. He couldn’t quite make out what they were, but one of the broken ones on the floor looked suspiciously like his BugVac. He could totally invoke copyright on that.

Two: Miu hadn’t lived here long. Or she didn’t plan on staying.

While there were inventions scattered around, there wasn’t any color or decoration. It reminded him of the house he lived in after the cat destroyed its cleanly state, with the bed itself unmade, clothes were hanging off the dresser instead of inside it, and she generally left things hanging around that shouldn’t be out in the first place. Didn’t Miu know some things were best kept private—

“Angie was fuckin’ right when she said we’d be happier in that damn school than in the real world!” Miu interrupts his thoughts, causing an eyebrow to tick up in annoyance. “There are so many damn rules that I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the fuckin’ time! Can’t say that, can’t do this—this shit is impossible to figure out! And then the fans are the worst. It’s like they’re watching me in my sleep, guessing my bust size, trying to look up my skirt, and squeeze out every sweaty secret—I might as well have a camera shoved up my ass so they can tell me when I have to shit!”

“…Gross.” That was a lot to take in, but just because she decided to spill all this out to Kokichi doesn’t mean he’ll play the sympathetic friend. So, he mocks, “The great inventor Miu can’t figure something as boring as having a life out? Sounds like a skill issue.”

“Shut up! I know you’re feeling the same thing!”

“Oh? Do explain.”

“I mean, look at you! Since when does Cockichi Oma hide away from the spotlight? You’ve been quieter than a virgin after their first hump and dump!”

“…Miu? Seriously? ‘Hump and dump?’”

“Hit it and quit it, smash and dash, riding the bony pony, flickin’ the bean, whatever! That’s not the point—don’t you fuckin’ avoid the problem!”

“And what is the problem, Miu?”

“I don’t even know!” The loud honesty in her statement forces him into a disgruntled quiet. “I wasn’t prepared for any of this! The real world, the fake one—no one coming to claim us, not a single person cares about the person before the game! Then there’re all these stupid unsaid rules with having a spotlight shining up your ass. No cussin’ in public, no shit-talking the fuckin’ killing game—by the way, fuckin’ kids are gonna look up to you! Kids! Babies! Wiping their snot and chewing on their thumb—those types of newborns are also watching a damn killing show! Like I’m supposed to censor how I really feel on that!”

“And how does the illustrious slut really feel?” he snips, a sneer curling his lip. He didn’t come here to play therapist. He’s not friends with Miu. Why was he here?

“Like I’ll never recover,” Miu whispers, and Kokichi’s mouth clicks shut. She turns her watery eyes to his, her lip wobbling and eyes desperate for something—answers? Not that Kokichi would have any. “D-Don’t you feel the same? I… I felt confident, and sexy, and free in the game from any of these—these fucking invisible social—“ Miu cuts herself off, struggling for words as she waves her hands around, “—social taboos, or whatever!”

Kokichi thins his lips, staring her down and wondering how Miu thought he could relate to this—how she even felt like they were on the same level, on the same path.

Miu looks away, shrinking in on herself, probably in no small part because of Kokichi’s unending glare, but she continues regardless.

“You know what really fucking sucks?” He doesn’t reply, but she answers like he did. “Sometimes I think I’d have no one if I didn’t force myself onto Kaede and Shuichi’s front door.”

Something snaps inside Kokichi’s head at those words, and the attitude deflates.

No one.

They both have no one.

A bitterness bubbles up inside of his stomach. So, that is where the sleeping dog lies: Kokichi and Miu are the social taboos themselves. This is where they do not fit into society, where a disgusting murderer like Miu is on par with Kokichi Oma, a supreme leader of an evil organization.

His eyes meet Miu’s. In other words, this is where he reaps what he sowed in the game.

They’re both killers.

“We screwed up, Miu,” he answers gruffly. She winces. “This is what we get for backstabbing each other and becoming no better than the dirty killers in the game. We don’t deserve to feel integrated into society when we were the ones to throw ourselves out of it the moment we considered murder.”

“Just like Kaede?”

“Just like Kaede.” He huffs, a miserable feeling, one that is familiar—finding a twisted sense of comfort in it because of that—settles deep into his chest, sitting like his heart was its throne. “She was punished for it, though. In the game. We’re currently living ours.”

The prior quiet on Miu’s part breaks with a whimper before she twists her face into a scowl, the tears running down her face the sole illusion break of her anger. “And only death will set us free,” she spits.

Unbidden, Kokichi’s eyebrows raise.

Although he came to this conclusion on his own, hearing Miu say it out loud makes the idea seem… disconnected. Not quite the answer that he is looking for, despite it being the one he found.

“Only death will set us free,” he repeats numbly, testing the words out on his tongue.

Just like the game?

“This is so fuckin’ stupid,” Miu mutters. She curls over her knees, holding herself closely as she burns a hole into her bed with her gaze. “The game shouldn’t be affecting us in the outside world. We should be done with it all!” She groans, tucking her head into her knees. “I didn’t want to die in the game, and I don’t want to fuckin’ die out here! Why’s this shit so unfair?”

She ends her sentence on a dying whine. The sense of hopeless is palpable in her demeanor, but Kokichi sits beside her, quiet in the face of her pain.

A part of him froze when watching her, listening to her innermost fears out loud and hearing her say what he found out days ago.

Shouldn’t it feel right?

This is his conclusion, too, right?

As he studies her curled up form on the end of the bed, crying noisily with hiccups and whines with snot all over her clothes, there is a twinge inside of him, a notable “offness” alit in the atmosphere that sets him on edge.

What isn’t right about this picture?

There are two parallel visions in front of him: one where he confirms the inevitable end, shaking Miu’s hand in a pact of solidarity with the knowledge that they will never see the other again, perhaps even doing it right then, together, in a mockery depiction of friendship.

The other vision, the one so deep within the crevices of his mind that only blips of a picture come through, that of a Kokichi leaving the room but not with a crying Miu, walking down to Shuichi in the living room and…

And what?

He tries to burrow further.

Is it love? Do you crave affection?

He sounds it out in his head, testing the possible answers between the skin of his teeth, but the picture doesn’t solidify and so he rules it out.

A goodbye?

An uneasiness takes over, a shock so sharp and quick that it almost makes Kokichi nauseous, so he quickly dismisses the thought.

Not that.

Kokichi Oma will go out with a bang, not a goodbye. He is not meant for something as simple as goodbyes.

So what does Shuichi have to do with it?

He could almost laugh. All throughout the game, throughout those moments of terrible solitary and staying up until the morning light trying to figure out who was behind their torture and entrapment—all throughout that time, Kokichi had asked that same question for the same reason: Shuichi, on his mind, clogging up his thoughts and often times distracting him from his other, more pressing, goals.

Shuichi, Shuichi, Shuichi.

First a curiosity, and then a crush that needed to be crushed, to the sole salvation for the survivors—the only one that could save them—to his final opponent beyond the grave.

Every time he thinks of his detective a sensation alights his chest, one that is old and fragile but familiar, and he almost wants to protect it from change. 

The sniffling of his companion brings him back to the present, and he peers at the inventor in front of him, her hunched form so different to the boisterous poses he saw her most in.

He sighs, deciding his mind is best at losing itself nowadays, forgetting the present to retreat back to the past.

Don’t we all prefer that in a way?

“Wow,” he flatly states, “Well, hearing the slut say that fills me with a sense of camaraderie.”

“You could at least try to be nice,” Miu weakly snarks, “I’m laying my whole ass heart out here.”

“Camaraderie, Miu, camaraderie.”

“Like I know shit what that means.”

He levels her with a glare. “It means we’re both getting double-fisted right now.”

“Well shit,” Miu whimpers. “Life is just fucking the shit out of us right now.”

“Yeah,” Kokichi blearily agrees, finally moving to sit beside her on her probably gross bed, leaning back with a deep exhale. “Life is just fucking the shit out of us.”

Silence stretches between them again, but Miu breaks it this time.

“I… I don’t have anyone,” she whispers, her voice wretched to his ears. “I’m—I’m scared that no one will love m-me… for me.”

He almost flinches with the way those words hit his ears and curl into his gut, peeling away a layer of skin to something raw beneath.

It unnerves him: the similarities he finds in their thinking processes.

He chooses to remain silent. This isn’t right—he’s not the right person. Miu wouldn’t know if she could tell her deepest insecurities to him and be assured they’d be kept secret because of his future plans—she couldn’t know that.

So, this isn’t right. He’s not that one to confide to. These things are meant to be given to someone worth risking exposure for; they are meant for the thrill of living. Secrets, lies, the hidden truth—they all make life worth living on edge, and Miu encapsulates that motto even if she doesn’t realize it yet.

But he is not the one to help her realize that. He needs to be a background memory, a minor bump in her journey. 

Instead, he wants to know something else.

“Did they matter?”

“W-What?” Miu’s teary face whips up to look at him incredulously, like she realized he was still here.

“My actions from the game,” he clarifies impatiently. “Did they matter?”

“What the hell does that mean?” she says, exasperated. “Did mine?”

Yeah, it hurt. “Nope!” he pops the ‘p’ for added annoyance. “Especially considering you failed.”

“Bullshit!” she counters to his surprise. “I know you’re lying, because if you did that to me first, I would’ve been hurt!”

To his utter horror, Miu starts to bawl out of nowhere. Snotty, messy, disgusting tears from the quiet river before.

He sucks at this distraction thing, and even worse at comfort, so he can’t help but ask her straight, “Are you really crying like a little bitch right now?”

“You are, too, you little hypocrite!”

He’s what.

Immediately, he brings his fingers to his cheeks.

Shit.

Everything was leaking, apparently.

“Gross,” he mutters.

A disgustingly wet sound barks from beside him, and he fears whiplash when he turns to look at her again, and she’s… laughing. And crying. But mostly laughing.

“What’s so damn funny?” he asks, insulted.

“Thi—this is the first—“ she pants between her breaths, laughing a little too hard to be believable now. “F-First time you cried without turning it into a bitchyfest!” She snorts. “You’re such a d-drama diva!”

His eyes narrow. This bitch…

“Oh, you wanna start something right now, Miu? Is that how you—“ irritatingly, he has to wipe his eyes quickly because his vision was blurring, and he hears Miu howl with laughter, “—is that the road you wanna go down? I’ve got mountains of blackmail on you right now.”

“I’ve got a load myself,” she sneers.

“Yeah?” he challenges. “Need some toilet paper with it?”

She blinks. “That’s not fuckin’ funny.”

The switch from competitive Miu to angry Miu is record high, and Kokichi stares at her for a long moment.

“Look,” Miu seems to wuss out at the simple act of staring, “let’s say, hypothetically, you were speaking at my funeral—“

“Hypoth—“

“—and everyone ran out of tissues, right, ‘cuz gorgeous girl genius is dead and everyone misses her, so obviously tissues would run out—“

“Obviously,” he mocks.

She ignores him. “—and you were there and you didn’t bring tissues because you’re such a little shit and because you suck and I hate you but instead you brought toilet paper as to ridicule me—“

“This is getting way too detailed—“

“—and you just start throwing it into the grave and piling it up ‘cuz you think it’s so funny like the proper dirtbag you are and then everyone started laughing because who the fuck dies from toilet paper and now I can’t even be dead in peace because you’d fuckin’ haunt me from beyond the grave!”

Miu’s heaving breaths fill the room.

Kokichi gazes at her blankly, wrapping his head around her rant, but it is clear what sticks out to him most.

And he has to comment on it. “…Are you having nightmares of me throwing toilet paper on your coffin at your funeral?”

“I-It’s just a hypothetical!”

They’ve been up there a long time.

Shuichi bites his lip. “Should we go check on them?”

He doesn’t receive an immediate response, so he ceases the back and forth of looking at the stairs and then back down to the cage of the hellcat, where he was currently working up the nerve to unlock the cage, and instead he glances back at Kaede, finding her smiling this odd smile.

He blanches, freezing his movements on the lock of the cage. “What?”

“Look at you,” she coos, “you’re so worried about him now.”

The heat floods his face instantaneously. “I-I’m not!” Even he can hear the lie in his voice. Then her words dawn on him. “Now?”

Her face switches to apologetic. “Sorry, Shuichi, but his crush was obvious to me in the later part of the game. I’m not surprised you didn’t notice with all that was happening, but he always tried to get your attention.”

He did?

Kaede looks at him, and then she looks at him. Her mouth opens in surprise, and she remarks incredulously, “Are you telling me you haven’t yet realized..?”

He is so lost. Today has been too much of everything, and with more new information filtering through his head to be picked apart later, his stomach twists uncomfortably from the stress. 

Kaede’s mouth clicks shut. She smiles sympathetically. “Oh, Shuichi, don’t worry about it.”

His shoulders rise from the tension lining his body, but he keeps his head down even as his ears steam, focusing on the task at hand and trying not to let his damn brain go down another rabbit hole.

He focuses on the cat. 

It is quiet inside the cage, and he can’t see what it is doing, but he figures he needs to listen to Kokichi in this matter and let it out to stretch its legs, no matter how reluctant he is to do so. After all, the cat attacked him out of the blue; there is no saying it won’t do it again.

He takes a deep breath and unlocks the cage.

“What’s with the cat?”

Neither of them felt keen to leave the room despite the fact that the conversation flow had long since died. It didn’t quite feel like being forgiven, but it felt like enough.

Emotionally, Kokichi was spent.

He needed to get up and do something, but he also hesitated at the thought of seeing Shuichi right now. There was something about seeing his would-be killer turned victim that Kokichi hated to know Shuichi witnessed, even though this was inevitable in their journey.

Right.

They did have a mission, or something. This wasn’t a “let’s fix Kokichi” intervention.

It’s not like this visit was completely useless. Miu had undeniably changed, and even if Kokichi had been blindfolded, he could tell the vulnerability was too real to be faked. Someone like Tsumugi couldn’t fake these feelings.

As he eyes her, situated further back on the bed they both sat on, he observes her fidgeting, and it clues him in on another distinctly Miu characteristic: guilt.

Miu may have gotten a lot off her chest, but Kokichi hadn’t spoken a word on his true feelings.

She may not have held any trust in him, but in a twisted environment like the killing game—while Kokichi could have never felt something quite like trust, he felt betrayal from her actions all the same.

It wasn’t trust—it never could be. It was nowhere near even what he felt for Shuichi. 

Nonetheless, there was a sense of commonality with Miu, a kind of affinity, in the back and forth they shared in the trials. It wasn’t easy to explain what they had, despite Miu being the easiest person he knew, but whatever it was, it came as a shock when he realized that what he felt was a figment of his own creation: a desperation to believe that he made connections in the game, that someone would miss him, to discover the cruelest realization that, no, he wouldn’t be missed by anyone.

He thinks a part of him, the stupid, weak part of him, held on to the idea that someone of the dead would have missed him when he found out none of the living did.

No, that was just another lie he told himself.

The truth is this: the connection he thought he built, the one that he cherished tenderly to his heart, was fabricated by his own intellect because he believed the only individual that could ever find the truth in his lies…

…was a detective.

“What’s up with you, huh? Did you take some shit or something?”

The air leaves his nose in a rush, a quiet exhale to bring himself back. His mind is quicksand; it only takes one step to pull him under.

He breathes in, checking his shoulders to relax them, pinching his lips up into a relaxed smile.

“Not yet,” he answers honestly, though to her it will be no different than a lie.

“Sure,” Miu says unevenly. Then the stretch of a shit-eating grin spreading across Miu’s face gives Kokichi the impression that they suddenly switched roles. “What?” she goads. “Can’t get pussy so you had to collar one?”

Kokichi smirks. Predictable, as per Miu’s usual insult registry. “Trust me, I could do without.”

“Yeah, you’re too obsessed with Shuichi’s di—“ She cuts herself off at Kokichi’s heated look. “W-What? I-I’m just telling it how I see it!”

Luckily, Kokichi doesn’t have to deign her with a response because the sounds of hell suddenly start up behind the door.

“Huh.”

“Uh…”

“…Well, I can tell who the favorite parent is.”

“Kaede.”

She smiles cheekily at him, and he can’t help but look away in embarrassment, yet his fondness is undeniable. It was nice.

Her sudden sigh catches him off guard. “Okay, we should probably get ready. The next visitors will surely not go as smoothly.”

Shuichi tilts his head. “Next… visitors?”

Kaede looks at him. “Did you forget? …Shuichi.”

Although his mind wishes to apologize upon hearing the accusation in her voice, he pauses, knowing the rush of events has probably left his head reeling with priority information. He checks his watch, noting the time as late afternoon, close to early evening.

He planned on settling Kokichi in today, meeting with Miu later in the week once he’s briefed Kokichi on the situation, and then debriefing with—

Oh.

It is Friday.

Close to the evening.

He groans. “They weren’t supposed to come this Friday,” he complains, “I thought we agreed. Let him settle in first—“

“You know they worry—“

“They could have at least called me—“ he stops. He narrows his eyes on Kaede, who noticeably is averting her eyes. “Kaede.”

She fesses up instantly. “Kaito called on their way over,” she rushes out, quickly standing up to run to the kitchen, “No more secrets staring now! Love you!”

His head falls into the palm of his hands with an audible thud.

God, Kokichi is going to hate me after this trip.