Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Something Toko and Komaru probably didn’t know was that Syo still had all of her memories from the Tragedy. The years that Toko thought she lost. Well, Syo remembered all of them, and honestly, it was fuckin’ good that Toko didn’t remember the rest. Syo knew how many times she’d fronted only to feel the aftermath of a panic attack, or seeing her arms or thighs scratched to hell in back just in those couple of years.

If Toko remembered being trapped in the school before the killing game started, or how the Tragedy started even before that, Syo could only imagine what else would happen to their shared body.

That wasn’t to say that Syo never caused harm, either. Those tally scars on her thigh? That was all her. She figured Toko always saw it as a permanent reminder of all the people Syo killed, a punishment for her for having someone like Syo share her body. Syo knew as much just from how her classmates used to treat her. She was much more observant than they all realized.

That wasn’t why Syo did it.

It came to her mind one day when Komaru was cuddling with her. Syo, as much as she liked to pretend otherwise to preserve her tough reputation, loved loved loved that physical contact with her girlfriend. Her thoughts went like this: however they were positioned, she noticed that Komaru was careful to keep her hands away from the tally scars. It was a respect thing, probably, since Syo had never explicitly said she was alright with Komaru touching them, and she highly doubted that Toko was okay with it without permission. But it did get her thinking, regrettably. Syo wasn’t the biggest fan of thinking.

“Syo? Is something wrong?” Komaru mumbled, half-asleep. Their bedroom in their Towa City apartment was enveloped in silence apart from the occasional noise outside. Syo had long since learned to tune those out unless it was bloodcurdling shrieks. They were in bed, just enjoying each other’s company.

A lazy day. Something so rare, something Syo used to hate. Since Toko not being busy with something or other used to mean her mental health would spiral, and then Syo would have to take over until she felt better, even if that sometimes took close to a week.

“Mm,” was her response. Noncommittal. She looked at the couple of scars on the backs of her hands, on her inner arms, from damage Toko had done over the last decade. They looked so different from the scars on her thigh, but they were scars nonetheless.

Different methods, different look, same harm.

Komaru hugged her a bit closer, tighter. Syo was a proud person, and thus enjoyed being the big spoon, so to speak, but she wouldn’t deny that Komaru was also excellent in that regard. She figured that Toko was usually in the little spoon position, so she didn’t mind indulging Komaru when she still wanted to be the big spoon. Komaru pressed a kiss to the back of Syo’s neck—Syo, unlike Toko, preferred her hair up and out of the way. Syo wouldn’t mess with Toko’s clothes, but she drew the line at tangled hair constantly falling in her face.

“You can tell me if there is,” Komaru reminded her, sounding more awake than moments ago. “Okay?”

“I know.” She tried sounding grumbly, but the edge wasn’t there. Her eyes were still fixed on the scars on the backs of her hands, her mind still fixed on the scars on her thigh. She recalled the way they bled when she cut into her skin, the lines never quite parallel to each other. Sometimes, when they were healing, they itched. And when she fronted and they itched, she scratched them, reopening them. So some of the scars looked worse than others. That was on her, just like their presence in the first place.

It had been years, since Toko enrolled in Hope’s Peak, since she’d done anything else. She’d been a bit busy maintaining her body whenever Toko lapsed into scratching or not bathing again. A myriad of things she had to manage, because that was what she was there for. Taking care of the body and taking care of the people who hurt Toko.

Komaru shifted, one of her hands reaching around to hold Syo’s. Whether she knew it or not, she covered the part of Syo’s hand that was scarred, eclipsing the topic in her mind. Syo almost suspected Komaru knew what she was doing. It distracted her enough, but she knew it wouldn’t last very long. Eventually, something would stick. Not yet.

Syo was not a person who showed any weakness. Never. It was both a matter of pride and a matter of responsibility, which is why it sometimes confused her why Komaru was so soft with her. Syo was not a soft person.

Another minute or so passed. Komaru’s breath slowed, signaling that she was sleeping. Syo was not a soft person, so she pretended she didn’t smile knowing that, for once, she was safe in someone else’s arms instead of being the one someone else was safe with. Even if they didn’t think they were safe with her.

Toko had worse days than Syo did a lot of the time. That was why Syo was there. She had bad days, too, though. She wouldn’t stop pretending that she didn’t, but at least she didn’t take those out on her body anymore. Hardly ever, not for years. Not when she was the only one holding the body together most of the time.

“Dekomaru,” she muttered, knowing Komaru was asleep and wouldn’t hear her. “I love you. So fucking much.”

Komaru snored. Syo just barely stopped herself from laughing.

There was one thing Syo knew for sure. She and Toko were both much better off than they were in years, even with the aftermath of the Tragedy. With more work, maybe the body eventually wouldn’t get any new scars.

Chapter Text

Honami was … pretty sure it was an accident. At least, she hoped it was an accident? She didn’t think anyone in archery club had it out for her, which seemed to chalk everything up as a mistake.

Of course, that didn’t dismiss the arrow that was still clinging to her clothes after piercing her arm, and the pain that came with it.

“Here, I’ll take you to the nurse. I hope it’s not very bad.” Shizuku plucked the arrow away, avoiding touching the bloody tip, and lead her by the elbow back inside Miyamasuzaka. Shizuku hadn’t been the one to shoot the arrow, but she’d been the closest, and honestly, Honami was glad that she knew Shizuku in that situation. She was still trying to process everything, and having someone she already knew leading her away helped, even just a little.

Shizuku spoke almost nervously the entire way through the halls, the arrow still in her hand, but Honami was a little distracted, both at the pain and sensation of blood trickling down her arm, but also embarrassment. There were still other people in the building for other club activities.

She could imagine them whispering and staring as the two passed, though every time she looked up there was nobody else there. Honami hated the thought of being looked at like that, like…

It was a good thing the two arrived at the nurse’s office when they did, because all of a sudden Honami felt pretty lightheaded.

She listened to Shizuku explain the situation to the nurse, even showing her the arrow, who surprisingly didn’t seem very alarmed. That was probably a good thing. Honami spent that time wondering how she was going to tell her bandmates, her best friends, that she probably wouldn’t be able to make it to practice today and maybe another couple days after that. It seemed like the arrow didn’t go in very deep, which was good, but that didn’t spare her mind from wandering to the places of blame she knew would never come from her friends, the guilt at knowing this could hold their band behind, the disappointment they would never feel about something beyond her control.

Honami flinched, though she wasn’t sure if it was from her thought process or the nurse moving her arm to inspect the wound.

“You were lucky,” the nurse said, rolling Honami’s uniform sleeve up enough to properly see. “Since the arrow fell right after, it probably didn’t go in very far to begin with, so we’re probably looking at minimal damage. Still, I want you to get this more properly checked out.”

That was what she was afraid of, though she did breathe an internal sigh of relief that it could’ve been worse. She still didn’t say anything. She didn’t have anything to add.

The nurse cleaned the wound up quickly, wrapping it to make sure it would stop bleeding for the time being. “Let me walk you home,” Shizuku offered when she finished. “I still remember the way there.” Honami hadn’t noticed, but at some point Shizuku had left the room and changed back into her uniform. It looked like she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And so they went.

About halfway through leading Shizuku to her house—sure, Shizuku said she remembered, but she knew her friend’s sister was very likely to get lost on the way if she led—Honami realized she hadn’t said anything for what must’ve been about an hour or so. Part, she knew, was that she just didn’t have much to say.

The other part was that she was still so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she felt like she couldn’t.

When they were a couple of blocks away, Honami cleared her throat. “Thank you for walking with me,” she said, her voice a bit rough from not speaking. “But aren’t you missing practice with the rest of your group?”

“Hm?” Shizuku looked over at her, her eyebrows raised a touch in surprise. “Oh, I already let the others know I’d be late. I really don’t mind, it’s more important that I know you got home alright. Shii would be mad at both of us if you didn’t!”

That comment made Honami smile. Shiho, though she wouldn’t admit it right away, was perhaps the most protective of all of them. It also reminded her that she needed to let her, Ichika, and Saki know that she wouldn’t be at practice. There was still a half hour or so until they would be on their way to the studio they usually practiced at, so she had a little time, but still…

They wouldn’t blame her for needing to skip. That wasn’t something they did.

Her arm hurt a bit when she moved it still, so she tried texting their group chat with her one, non-dominant hand. She would’ve asked for Shizuku’s help, but she’d already done plenty, and she wasn’t the best with technology, besides.

It was only after she sent the text that she realized that just saying that she couldn’t come because she was accidentally show with an arrow wasn’t the best idea.

Usually she was so careful with her wording, too, but it had slipped her mind. Her messages positively blew up, to the point where Shizuku laughed lightly at the nonstop notification sounds coming from her phone. A bit overwhelming, but Honami knew they were concerned and meant well.

And. She would have to tell her parents, too, repeating the same story she was currently trying to shakily type to the group chat. Yes, she was fine, no, probably nothing major. The three assured her that it was no problem, they were a little ahead of schedule anyway and could rearrange things if needed. No blame, no guilt, no disappointment.

Didn’t erase the pain, which was more physical, but it at least let Honami actually breathe again. She could only hope her parents would take her story as well when she told them.

Chapter Text

Up until things fell apart, it had been a normal day. Katarina felt like she was thriving in life, having gotten past that point with all of her death flags weeks before. She and her friends spent so much time together during the break from school. She couldn’t help but feel safe with them—and especially with Geordo. It took a while to wrap her head around it, but she was more accustomed to their blossoming romance. Perfectly comfortable.

And the weather was nice, too, which was why she persuaded Geordo to take a walk with her. Not even working on her garden, just a walk! Maybe that was why he’d agreed so easily. Or maybe it was just because she was the one who asked.

Everything was perfect. Until it wasn’t.

Katarina couldn’t describe very well what happened. Her brain just decided to make her stop walking in the middle of a sentence, telling Geordo about how far she was coming with her magic (not very far at all), and flood her with information. Or, not even information. Memories.

“Katarina?” she heard Geordo ask, but his voice was muffled under the sound of her heart beating quickly in her ears.

Before, it had all been distant knowledge from what she was still pretty sure was her past life as a high schooler. Just information of fates that didn’t befall her specifically. In that one moment, though, it all came crashing into her, all at once, like she’d lived every single one. All of the deaths that might’ve happened had she had one misstep, including the death from her most normal, previous life.

She knew what all of that was, but she’d never felt it. Now, she remembered all of it, every sensation from each final moment. It was different from watching it happen to a video game character she was emotionally detached from. It was overwhelming and it hurt and—

Her breathing shifted, coming faster. Her heartbeat was incredibly loud, drowning out everything else. Her eyesight was starting to turn black and fuzzy at the edges. She was unsteady on her feet. What was happening?

Every bit of pain she’d ever felt—or some iteration of Katarina had ever felt—returned to her, bursting through her chest, her stomach, her head, her whole body. She was numb to everyone else, no other sounds, no other feelings other than the overwhelming pain, confusion, and sheer panic.

The final moments of each life played again and again in her mind like she was experiencing them for the first time. Each movement hurt. Even just reaching her hands up to her head made her chest burn like she’d never felt before.

All those times, she’d died and felt all that pain. One at a time. Each life ended. But never all at once.

Katarina squeezed her eyes shut, wishing through everything that it would end one way or another. She felt like she couldn’t breathe; every breath was quick and shallow.

Was she dying again?

After, she wasn’t sure how long, she felt some other steady beat rise over her heart. A small voice edged in with it, murmured instructions on how to breathe. She followed the directions, eventually giving her heart and lungs a much-needed break from how fast they’d been working.

The voice, as it turned out, was Geordo’s. The beat, his heartbeat. They were on the ground, his arms wrapped around her protectively, her head pressed to his chest. She didn’t dare open her eyes yet, but she could feel that much. The pain from the memories was slowly fading, exiting her system, but she was afraid that if she opened her eyes, she would see some kind of ill fate come right to her again.

“You’re alright,” she heard Geordo whisper to her. His voice was almost softer than she’d ever heard it. His voice tended to take on a soft quality with her, which she found quite cute.

Katarina burrowed herself a little closer into him, moving her arms to embrace him back. She was afraid that if she opened her eyes, if she let go of him, everything she knew would be gone and all that pain would return tenfold. All of it would be real.

Geordo rubbed her back gently, kissing the top of her head. She listened carefully to his heartbeat, calming herself down. Eventually, she did open her eyes, looking first into his. He was real. She was fine.

“Are you able to tell me what happened?” he asked after a minute passed.

Katarina paused, then shook her head. It wasn’t a matter of trust, but… She didn’t know if she could explain any of it to him. That she hadn’t always been herself the way he knew her. That she’d definitely lived other lives.

More than anything, she didn’t want to worry him with any of that.

“I don’t think it’ll happen again,” she said softly as her answer, her voice hoarse. She hadn’t realized, but it felt like she had tear tracks down her cheeks. That embarrassed her a little, but no more than anything else had.

Geordo was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “Would you like to go back? Perhaps you could use some rest.”

“Not yet.” Her answer was quick. Her grip on him tightened a bit, pulling them even closer than they already were. She hadn’t been sure that was possible. “I… I think I’d feel better if we stayed like this, just for a little while longer. Is that alright?”

“Of course.”

Geordo held her close, still rubbing her back lightly. There was nobody in the world she would trust her life with more than him, except for of course herself. She felt safe in his arms, bringing her more fully back to the beautiful day around them, the bright future she still had ahead of her.

Her resolve strengthened in the moment. Her past selves might’ve died from their actions, but she would never let that happen again.

Chapter Text

Hina was well aware of Toko’s aversion to water. “Aversion” was putting it lightly for sure, but Toko always vehemently denied that it was any kind of fear or phobia, despite Hina’s inkling.

Given her love of swimming, some wry part of her brain joked that opposites attracted.

“Okay, Toko,” Hina said, looking at her girlfriend with her most serious expression. Toko already stiffened, like she sensed what was coming. They’d had a good enough time hanging out in Hina’s room—much more comfortable than the paper-littered wasteland that was Toko’s—but it was time for something new. “I think it’s time.”

“T-time for what?” Toko bit her thumbnail, eyeing Hina up and down. “I-I’m not ready for anything like that.”

Hina was more than used to Toko’s comments alluding to a more mature subject. She simply rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. We are going to the pool.”

Toko froze. “No. I’m even m-more not ready for- for-” She shuddered at the mere thought of the large yet contained body of water.

It wouldn’t be the first time they went to the pool together, but usually Toko just sat on the side of the pool with a book while Hina swam. She was always far enough away from the edge that there was an incredibly microscopic risk of her getting wet. Even stepping into the same room as the pool was a huge feat for her, something Hina had been incredibly proud of her for.

But. Toko’s fear of water extended to the bath and shower. It seemed like the most upkeep in that department was extra deodorant and dry shampoo unless Syo was fronting. And as much as Hina loved her girlfriend, that just wasn’t healthy and didn’t exactly smell the best.

“You won’t go in all the way,” Hina promised, doing her best not to slip into a pleading voice. She switching from sitting regularly to sitting back on her feet, ready to spring up at a second’s notice. “Baby steps, right? So we’ll just be standing on the top step. That’s hardly enough water to get your feet wet. And there’s usually nobody else there right now, so you won’t be splashed by anyone.”

Still, Toko shook her head. “How w-will I know you’re not going to p-push me in?”

It was a weak excuse. They both knew it, if Toko’s complete lack of conviction was anything to go off of. Hina simply raised an eyebrow at her.

“Just for two minutes. I’ll time it.” She widened her eyes a bit, a sort of look she knew Toko could almost never resist. “You share your writing with me. I want to share something I love with you.”

A familiar conflicted look appeared in Toko’s eyes. That was when Hina knew she’d just about convinced her. “...Only for two minutes,” Toko repeated, though it still didn’t seem like she fully believed Hina, who nodded enthusiastically in response.

Because it was just the top step, they didn’t even need to get changed into swimsuits. Well, Hina did anyway, since she wanted to get all the way in and swim for a while afterward.

Toko took her time sliding off her shoes and socks, eyeing the water carefully. She was still several meters away, though Hina waited patiently for her to finish getting ready. At least, in that sense. She had a feeling Toko would need a little while longer to get ready mentally.

As she waited, her mind wandered. Toko never explained why she was so afraid of water, but Hina didn’t need an explanation. She knew bits and pieces about Toko’s childhood, so it could’ve been anything throughout her life that was forced on her or something like that. It made her angry when she thought about it for more than a few seconds at a time, knowing that people used to torment Toko for anything they didn’t like about her.

“Here, we’ll step in together.” Hina offered her hand and waited for Toko to take it; she knew Toko didn’t like being touched out of nowhere. Toko looked at her hand for a few seconds before screwing her eyes shut and taking it.

One step at a time, Hina led her towards the edge of the pool. Toko didn’t keep her eyes shut for long, nor had Hina expected her to. If she was that afraid of the water, why would she not watch where she was going around it? Hina knew Toko trusted her, but it was still understandable that she wanted to be extra sure.

Toko stopped right on the edge of the stairs, looking down at the water below her. She didn’t say anything, but all of her thoughts were written in her expression.

“Just the first step,” Hina reminded her, positioning them so it was harder for Toko to see the deep end of the pool. If she could focus just on the task at hand, maybe it’d be easier to accomplish. Out of sight, out of mind in a way.

Toko locked eyes with her after Hina stood on the step herself. Shakily, she put one foot down. Hina grinned at her, keeping their eye contact steady.

Toko didn’t move any more.

“Th-this is as far as I-I’m gonna get,” Toko muttered after a second, her eyes wide.

“That’s fine,” Hina told her, keeping her grip steady. “It’s already been half a minute, you’re doing well.”

It looked like Toko was going to make a biting comment for a second, but she closed her mouth again. The last minute and a half lapsed in silence. The moment Hina told her time was up, Toko stepped out of the pool, scurrying away towards the towels they’d brought.

While Toko dried herself off—not that there was a lot to dry—Hina went further into the pool. “That… That wasn’t so bad,” Toko relented. “Maybe … I could try again. Sometime.”

Hina smiled. She was happy to help with that.

Chapter Text

There came a point in Komaru’s still-young life when she realized that a lot of the people she saw around Towa City weren’t actually people at all. It wasn’t for a few weeks after she and Toko settled in that she noticed, when she mentioned passing someone on the street. Toko had given her a strange look and asked if she was feeling okay, since there had been nobody there.

So, Towa City was haunted.

It was a dour, but simple truth, for the most part. A lot of people had died there during the Towa Incident, as the survivors had taken to calling it. The ghosts themselves were able to wander around the healing city, but most of them stuck near the places they’d died. Even as the city was cleaned up, corpses taken for burial and blood washed away, the ghosts remained like nonphysical reminders of what was.

Most days it wasn’t that big of a deal, just a fact, since Komaru had adjusted rather quickly to the knowledge. Every time she and Toko went out for their patrols, she saw them. Most of the time, it was alright. Most of the time, she had other things she had to deal with, like taking care of the stray monokuma or breaking up menial fights between people just trying to adjust to the rest of their lives. If she focused on anything but the task at hand, she was putting herself, Toko, and likely others in danger.

When she was just walking around the city on her own, it was a different story.

Most of the ghosts minded their own business, which she was grateful for her, but when it was just her, her thoughts, and the ghosts surrounding her like the monokumas had surrounded her after the helicopter crash, she couldn’t help but feel like everything was just a little amplified.

There were far more ghosts than there were living humans, for one. That alone was a lot to wrap her head around, and sometimes made her think a bit too hard, causing her to lose precious sleep. Even more was that they all talked. To each other. To nobody. The noise was constant every time she left her and Toko’s apartment. The ghosts didn’t usually bother any other living people they came across—but because she was the only one who occasionally, mistakenly, made eye contact with them, she was the one they came to know as the only one who could see them.

It was … more than a little overwhelming.

Komaru wasn’t sure why the ghosts were so freaking active that day, but it sounded to her like they were all speaking much louder than usual, or maybe they were in a higher concentration, neither of which would be a problem if she wasn’t on her own. Toko had opted to stay in their apartment for the morning, and the Warriors were doing their own thing, too. It was still a little rough for those kids to go out without her or Toko with them just in case, but she wished she’d brought someone out with her to distract her from all the noise.

The ghosts didn’t bother avoiding walking through her, either, meaning she got chill after chill down her spine every time. Of course, Komaru was adept at avoiding them if they were walking right towards her from the front, but she never had any idea if they were coming from behind or one of her sides. Ghosts didn’t make any noise unless they were talking, something that didn’t bode well with her.

At least none of them possessed her like that one time. Toko would probably never let her into the apartment again if that happened.

Komaru pressed her lips together tightly, looking around for something to focus on visually that wasn’t one of the many ghosts. Kind of impossible, since she didn’t have a close face or conversation. Chill after chill wracked her as ghosts passed through, forcing her to pause every few steps. The noise never stopped, though. It was all she could do to not fall to her knees or curl in on herself.

As best she could, she blocked out all of the voices, covering her ears with her hands at one point. With the chills stopping her so often, it took her too long by her standards to return to her apartment.

She took shaky steps up the stairs, closed the door resolutely behind her, sunk down, and sat with her back against the door.

“...Is everything okay?” Toko asked from the couch, looking up from her notebook.

“Give me a minute.” Komaru covered her face with her hands, breathing slowly and truly appreciating the silence. Silence was so underrated. Or, not always, since the silence that there was when she was alone for that entire year was the crushing kind. But the silence her and Toko had with each other was much more comforting. A minute passed, and she dropped her hands, though she stayed seated near the door. “Sorry. Lots of ghosts out there today, it was … a lot.”

Toko nodded as though she understood, but Komaru knew that it was mostly a sort of sympathetic thing. Then again, Toko had once drawn the comparison of too many ghosts for Komaru to too many people for her. Maybe she had a good idea of what she was talking about.

“There’s some tea left on the stove if you want some,” Toko ended up saying, bringing back the normal conversation and subsequent quiet that Komaru much preferred to the ghostly chaos. “It might not be hot, though.”

“Thanks.” Komaru stood up on still-shaky legs, taking those few steps into the kitchen for the promise of a comforting warm drink. Even though it was warm out, too, there was something about warm drinks that would always be just right. And the perfect amount of silence and background noise that accompanied it made it seem that much sweeter.

Chapter Text

Sleep was hard to come by, Aoyama discovered. He thought it was supposed to get better, a little over a month since … everything. There were some times he had good nights, or at least nights without dreams, but those were very few and far between.

He knew his mom worried. Hell, he knew that Ishikawa, Yoshida, and even Shingetsu worried. They all just talked the other day at the park, and he could see it in their faces. No matter how many times Aoyama told them there was nothing to worry about, they either ignored him or just straight-up did not believe him. None of them were subtle about it, either.

Aoyama turned over onto his back, staring at the ceiling of his room. He fought the urge to check his phone for the time, which would only then lead him to the internet or his gallery. He would skip over his contacts entirely, because although all seven of them—being him, Ishikawa, Yoshida, and Shingetsu and his friends—bargained a policy of being available to talk twenty-four-seven. Apparently, and he heard this from Yoshida, Shingetsu’s friends often had nightmares as well, and gathered in their shared living space rather than facing those nightmares and thoughts alone in their rooms.

Clearly he understood the appeal of that. It was easier, living doors away from each other, to go out into a shared space than it was to reach out to someone else through text or calling. It was too easy when he was alone to convince himself that he shouldn’t bother anyone.

So far, he hadn’t slept, so he didn’t have the nightmares he usually did to speak of. All of the related thoughts were there, however, so it was more or less the effect without the cause.

It was something he’d talked about with Yoshida and Ishikawa before: the matter of there not being more of them. That they’d only spent several days as a whole class. That, yes, there were people who had deserved to live more than he had.

He never spoke the latter part out loud.

Aoyama wasn’t wrong, though, or at least he felt like he wasn’t wrong. He was aware that he’d been akin to an instigator, making arguments worse or starting them himself. Then there were the people like Yasu or Matsumoto or Sasaki, all of whom had tried to quell those arguments. Hamasaki or Fujimoto, who minded their own business.

A small, deep part of him knew that secretly, Yoshida and Ishikawa wished that Oshiro or Ueda survived instead of him.

He never spoke that out loud, either. They would just deny it, and that would be a lie, no matter how sincere they seemed. It was something he and his therapist had vaguely touched on—that he was the only one of the three who didn’t have particularly close ties to any of the deceased—but that, again, was due to his own actions.

Aoyama moved onto his side, looking at the window with the curtain shut over it. Windows were a blessing now. He could hardly stand to be in a room without one.

Oshiro would’ve liked the view from that one. She should’ve lived instead of you.

He turned to his other side, pushing his phone further away so he couldn’t see the screen still. The shuffling sound his sheets made annoyed him.

Hamasaki also would’ve found that annoying. She should’ve lived instead of you.

He sighed, bringing his knees closer to his chest. Sometimes feeling small helped.

Know who would’ve had the right words? Yasu. He should’ve lived instead of you.

Even with his eyes shut, his heart and thoughts wouldn’t stop racing.

Racing. Know who did that? Maeda. He should’ve lived instead of you.

Aoyama would’ve loved to scream at his thoughts to shut up, but he didn’t want to wake his mom. She wouldn’t mind, especially if she knew why, but it was the same reason he didn’t want to reach out to the others.

He tried thinking about other things, things he would’ve done as a child to try to get to sleep. Counting sheep, warm milk, music. Nothing had worked once he hit third grade, so he’d stopped trying with those three. He doubted they would work now.

Thoughts in fully-formed sentences stopped, replaced instead by repeating everyone’s names in his mind. Everyone who still had things to offer to the world, things that now would never be done. They were good people. He would very much have to work towards being a good person. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure it could be done.

Without checking his phone, he wasn’t sure how much time passed. He buried his face in his pillow, tossing and turning, but his thoughts wouldn’t stop. It was overwhelming, to the point where he could feel himself shaking.

Fuck it. Aoyama reached over for his phone, unlocking it with practiced ease and navigating to his contacts. He avoided his gallery altogether; that was where he had photos of them as a class from orientation, the one Ishikawa set as her phone background. He wasn’t sure how she could look at all of their smiling faces and never feel sick to her core.

He tapped Yoshida’s contact and tapped the button to call her. The amount of time he spent on the phone with her or Ishikawa, he might as well have them set as his speed-dial contacts.

She picked up on the second ring. “Aoyama?” she asked, sounding completely awake. Aoyama moved the phone away from his ear, checking the time. Two in the morning.

“Were you sleeping?” he asked, making sure to keep his voice down so his mom wouldn’t hear.

“Nah. One of those nights. I’m guessing you’re the same?” There was some movement on her end, like she was rolling over in her bed, too. “Whatever it is, lay it on me.”

Aoyama never would’ve thought he would find Yoshida’s voice soothing, but there he was. Soon, he’d be distracted.

Chapter Text

Ueda hummed to herself as she slipped her glasses on, putting her contacts case back into her bag. She wasn’t usually the humming kind, but the song she used for her program was so catchy, she couldn’t help it. And besides, she was in a good mood. Spending time with Camila was the perfect way to cap off a good day. Even with her nerves about the motive.

The thought of the motive soured her mood just a bit. She wanted to tell Camila that she had the video, but she wanted to spare her from just what was on the video. That was what a responsible leader—a responsible friend—would do, right?

The locker room door clicked open. Did Camila come back?

She looked over at the door with a smile, but froze in place when she saw the messy black hair of Maeda. It hardly registered in her mind in the moment that he had ice skates in his hands, because she was more focused on the fact that he’d somehow accessed the girls’ locker room.

The next moment brought more pain than she’d ever felt in her life.

Ueda screamed as she fell over, her legs unable to support her thanks to the fresh, deep cuts the blades of the ice skates made. Each move she made sent more waves of pain through her, even as she tried to get herself up, to even just push herself away from Maeda.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice more shrill than she’d ever heard it. Panicked.

Maeda didn’t answer it, but instead dropped the skates and easily lifted her like she weighed nothing. She tried beating her fists against his chest, squirming around in his grip, but each time he took a step, she moved, and when she moved, everything hurt.

“Maeda, seriously! Put me down!” Ueda kept shouting her words, hoping in vain that someone just happened to be in the boys’ locker room and could hear her, or had entered the girls’ locker room just after they left. Tears started flowing down her cheeks, just from the shock and the pain and the realization of what, exactly, was happening.

Ueda wasn’t stupid. She knew she was still in a killing game. It was foolish of her to think that everything would be alright if she had everyone ignore the motive with her. She should’ve known something would happen—that she would be the one to be targeted.

Somehow, a small part of her still didn’t believe the situation.

Maeda dropped her unceremoniously onto the ice, the sudden movement almost blinding her with pain. Her vision actually turned white for a second. When it cleared, she looked up at him. He wasn’t that much taller than her, but he towered over her then. She’d never felt so small in her life.

“Please,” she tried. Her voice nearly died in her throat, sounding like the barest whisper. “Maeda, you’re not… You’re not a killer. Please, you can still undo this.”

He said nothing, just scowled down at her. His expression, or maybe the coolness of the rink, made her shiver. Not once in her life had she ever imagined herself in such a position. She moved one of her hands just slightly to push herself into a better position, maybe one she could get herself up from, but stopped when she felt the wet stickiness of blood under her fingers.

Her blood was starting to coat the ice.

“Maeda,” she said again, but before she fully said his name, he turned his back to her, stepping off the ice. Her heart beat faster in her chest. And she knew enough about anatomy to know that probably made the blood flow out of her legs faster. “Maeda!” she screamed, breathing a little faster. What else could she do but scream, hope in vain that someone heard her and came in and saved her? “Please, don’t do this!”

She was cold. The ice was cold under her, and she wasn’t dressed properly for it. Moving hurt, though; she couldn’t even curl up into a ball to protect herself from the chill.

From where she was on the ice, she couldn’t see where he was, but she heard him still moving around. Maybe he was cleaning up the blood she’d spilt on the way to the rink. Wryly, she thought it was the move any killer would go for first: covering their tracks. He’d probably go for the locker room next, maybe go through her things and take the motive tablet she’d stashed in her bag.

Maybe he already saw it, somehow. If he hadn’t, he’d be disappointed. There was no way killing her would be worth it, not for a world like that.

“It’s not worth it,” she tried telling him, just like her thoughts had told her. “I promise. This is going to bite you in the end, whether they find you or not. And I know Camila will find you.”

Maeda didn’t say anything. She hadn’t expected him to, but it was a last-ditch effort.

She could try pulling herself to the wall, pull herself up… But she wasn’t sure if that would work. It would hurt, absolutely.

“Please,” she said under her breath, looking around her, at the rink, at the bloodstained ice, at the ceiling. Tears returned to her eyes again as she shifted, fresh pain coursing through her once more. She could try screaming again, but she knew it wouldn’t work. Nobody was around to hear her. And nobody would think to look for her. Not even Camila. Soon, her cries were the only things she heard. “Please, I don’t want to die!”

Before an hour was up, before she started becoming dizzy and far too cold, she changed what she was asking. It was too late to ask not to die. Instead, she wished that Maeda had killed her quickly, instead of leaving her to die so incredibly slowly.

What a cruel fate she faced.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, when a room was filled with complete darkness, Makoto’s memories took over for him. They took him back to the execution that had failed, to the long fall down the garbage chute, to the couple of days when he wasn’t sure if he would ever see light again. He was terrified and exhausted then, and complete darkness only brought those feelings rushing back.

Although, sometimes it wasn’t the overwhelming darkness. Sometimes it was just his own reflection.

Makoto finished towel-drying his hair—or doing as best a job as he felt like. He didn’t mind if his hair was still a bit damp, not when he wasn’t going anywhere else for the rest of the day. At least when it was just damp, it wouldn’t drip all over his favorite sweatshirt and soak the fabric to the point of discomfort. He lowered his hands, and the mirror was right there, waiting for him.

It was hard to see on most days, at least if the person looking at him didn’t know where to look. But the scar was there, no doubt. His eyes were always immediately drawn to it.

He parted his hair gently with his fingers, looking at that sliver of jagged scar from when he’d fallen during the execution. Everything else from the failed execution had healed in the couple of months after he and the other survivors had been rescued by Future Foundation, but the scar stubbornly stayed. The almost ironic part was that he hadn’t given it a second thought back then, when he’d assessed his injuries after the fall, because it had already mostly stopped bleeding by the time he noticed it. Now it was all he could notice. Surprisingly, it was the only physical scar the killing game left him, like the mental scars weren’t enough.

Makoto let his hair fall again. He pulled his sweatshirt tighter over him, like that would help other than offering comfort. If his hair wasn’t parted just so, the scar was almost completely hidden, a saving grace of sorts. But still, his stomach turned just from those few seconds of looking at it.

He and his friends… They all had questions their minds returned to when they were too idle. Or if they were reminded of it. Questions like: what if Future Foundation hadn’t been there? Questions like: what if I’d done this one thing differently?

For him, it was especially questions like: what if everyone had believed I was dead?

Because the only reason he was still there was Kyoko. If she hadn’t realized he was probably still alive after Alter Ego saved him, if she hadn’t thought to even try to go after him, he would probably still be in the very pit of the school, rotting away.

The thought made him shudder, though it was a thought that his brain repeated on every bad day he’d had since the end of the killing game, and even some of the good ones, souring them. Even now, even with the bright fluorescent bathroom lights that frankly made him look paler than he really was, the sight of that scar reminded him of all those fears, every minute of horror the killing game brought. All those times he thought he wouldn’t make it out alive, the fleeting hope that despair tried to dash. It was a miracle—it was lucky—that he was standing there, still looking at his reflection.

That didn’t make the thoughts any less powerful.

Makoto broke his gaze from the mirror and hurried to finish cleaning up the bathroom, doing whatever he could to avoid the reflection and avoid accidentally touching the scar. It never hurt, to the point where if he was distracted enough he could completely forget it was there, but he always pointed it out to himself in the end.

His bedroom light was still on; a protection against potential darkness. His fear of the dark wasn’t as potent as Toko’s, since he was alright with even partial darkness. Even just moonlight was enough for him to feel more safe.

Looking around his room, he began focusing on specific, small items to take his mind off the scar. On his bedside table, there was a book he was only a couple chapters into that he’d borrowed from Byakuya. Next to that, there was a piece of scrap paper and a ballpoint pen for when he had a sudden thought of something that needed to be done, written down so he wouldn’t forget. His lamp, the shade a soft brown. Underneath the table was the single, simple nightlight he wasn’t ashamed of using to keep his room a little more light while he slept.

Alright.

He picked up his phone, laying on his side of the bed. No new notifications, surprisingly; he was always used to at least one email every hour from Future Foundation, or else an encrypted update from the former Remnants of Despair on Jabberwock Island or text from his sister. The blank screen looked like a fuzzier, darker version of the mirror, and though his scar was hidden at that angle, it kickstarted the thoughts all over again.

Makoto unlocked his phone quickly, the colors of his home screen getting rid of his reflection, but only partially ridding his brain of that train of thought again. He still needed something else to focus on. It was rare for him to have so much time to himself instead of working on any given project for Future Foundation, but of course it was working against him. Free time without anyone else around wasn’t really free time at all for him, not when he was more social. It wasn’t too late in the evening, though; he could probably check in with his sister and Toko. Even if it ended with him listening to their banter, that would be enough to fully take his mind off of Hope’s Peak as a whole.

Without a second thought, he dialed. Those thoughts would be gone soon.

Chapter Text

Being homeschooled was lonely.

Saki hadn’t started that long ago, but she missed seeing all of her friends every day. Icchan, Shiho, and Honami came over as often as they could for playdates—her parents said she couldn’t go out too much because she’d get sick—but that wasn’t enough for her. Tsukasa, and sometimes Toya when he was over for piano lessons, played piano and put on little shows for her with her favorite plushies, but that wasn’t enough, either. Because they all got to go to school every day. She didn’t.

The night before that day in particular, Saki was excited, almost too excited to fall asleep. She practically talked Tsukasa’s ear off about it before bedtime. She’d be able to see all three of her friends the next day! They were coming over for a playdate! It had been about a week since she’d seen them, she wanted to hear about everything she was missing in school!

It was a different story the next morning.

She didn’t realize she’d woken up at first, just that all of a sudden she was in horrible pain. Sometimes she felt enough pain to cry, or got sick enough that she had to go to the doctor’s or even the hospital, but it was never that bad. Everything hurt, and she felt like too hot with her favorite blankets. Just barely, in the recesses of her mind, she heard Tsukasa calling for her parents; he always woke up earlier than he had to so they could talk a little before he had to go to school. He might’ve heard her crying, or realized something was wrong. He was the best big brother.

Saki tried curling up on herself, to bring herself more comfort, but her muscles screamed in protest when she moved. She wanted to kick her covers off, but that took too much effort.

Her little mind didn’t know what was happening. It took the most logical leap it knew how: she was in more pain than she’d felt before, and that meant she was dying.

Before long, she felt her father’s strong arms around her, lifting out of bed. Weakly, she tried to open her eyes, but everything was blurred from tears—and the rest of what she could see was spinning. She didn’t even close her eyes all the way before the edges of her vision faded to black.

She was in and out from there, still in pain and almost too tired to be scared out of her mind. Somehow, she managed.

Saki only had one thought going through her mind, convinced she was dying: that she was supposed to see her best friends ever later that day. And she hadn’t seen them yet. And she was dying, so she wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to them.

If she hadn’t already been crying steadily, that thought would’ve made it start.

It was at that point that she lost consciousness for what she thought then would be the final time.

Years later, Saki counted herself lucky.

Lucky that she hadn’t died then, even if she had to stay in the hospital for longer than ever before. Lucky that she had been able to leave, even if it was years later. Lucky that she was in a band with her best friends, even if it had been a bit rocky to start.

That wasn’t to say she didn’t have her bad days. Sometimes she pushed herself a little too hard, and she had to stay home when bugs were being passed around school just in case. It always sucked, but at least in the latter case, she could pass time in Sekai with Miku, Luka and the others until her parents got back from work. It wasn’t as lonely as it was before.

So when she started to feel dizzy even when she wasn’t pushing herself, or woke up a bit feverish despite it mostly clearing up before she left for school, she was hesitant to tell anyone. She didn’t want to go back to the hospital. She didn’t want her life taken away from her again.

The flu was going around school. Saki was barred from going to practice with her friends at all because they were all exposed to it, and Honami’s little brother caught it, too.

She even avoided Sekai. It wasn’t the same to just talk to them all over calls, to practice on her own and pretend she wasn’t fumbling over what was once easy runs on her keyboard.

Once more, it came to a peak in the morning.

By all accounts, there was no way she could’ve caught anything. Her entire family was incredibly careful even when simple colds were going around. But she took one step out of bed, ignoring her dizziness and fever, only to fall immediately.

Just like that time all those years ago, she heard Tsukasa calling for her parents as she faded in and out of consciousness. Her pajamas stuck to her sweaty skin uncomfortably, her bangs plastered to her forehead. This time, though, it was his arms that wrapped around her, picking her up like she weighed nothing.

Just like that time, she truly believed she was dying.

Just like that time, she thought about her best friends.

In all the commotion, in her not being fully conscious, maybe she hallucinated it, but she could’ve sworn she saw Miku pop up on her phone, which was still on her nightstand. From Tsukasa’s arms, she locked eyes with the little hologram Miku just briefly before Tsukasa carried her out of her room and to the car.

Maybe, her fever-addled brain told her, Miku would be able to tell the others. Sekai was made of feelings, right? So Miku would know what Saki would want to tell them.

Once more she faded out of consciousness for what she thought would be the final time. The only difference was that she was a little more comforted in the reality of her situation.

Chapter Text

Well, thankfully, Honami was fine. She had to get a few stitches and had to take it easy for a couple weeks—weeks—but there was no extensive damage, which she was happy to report to the rest of Leo/need. Her arm would just be sore for a while, but then she could get back to actually practicing instead of just sitting in.

…She still hated that they’d be unable to get any more experience performing in front of audiences until she was fully healed, but her friends assured her it was no problem. They hadn’t been scheduled for anything soon, so taking a break from practice wasn’t as big of a deal as she expected it to be.

And, Honami reiterated to herself a few times, they would never be mad at her for something outside her control.

Honami closed and locked her bedroom door when she got home, preparing to go to Sekai with the others. It was Saki’s idea, apparently. Honami wasn’t sure exactly why the decision was made to go there instead of the studio they usually practiced at, but it was never a bad thing. After all, the Virtual Singers gave really good advice, and it was almost like they were an extension of Leo/need with how close everyone was. She’d have some company in sitting and taking notes on what she would eventually need to work on.

As she expected, she was the last one to arrive to Sekai, having taken her time in changing out of her uniform and into more comfortable clothes. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, blinking the blinding light out of her eyes that always accompanied her trips to Sekai.

Once she could see properly, she paused. Saki, Shiho, and Ichika all stood in front of her, with all the Virtual Singers behind them. Honami’s fight-or-flight response was not her friend and made her heart beat like crazy until she realized that Saki wore a telling grin, the kind she had when she was trying to keep something a secret. Honami loved her, really, but Saki was not the best at keeping secrets most of the time.

“...What’s going on?” she asked before she could convince herself otherwise. Rin and Len, both of them behind Shiho, were practically jumping up and down. Another sign.

She looked around the room quickly. Nobody’s instruments were set up.

“We have something for you,” Ichika said, tucking some of her hair behind her ear. “And we thought it might be better to do something like this here, so everyone else could join, too.”

With that, everyone stepped to the sides, parting to reveal a few of the classroom desks pushed together. Sitting on top of the desks were a teddy bear with a little bandage wrapped around its upper arm, a small bouquet of red and purple flowers, and a card. Honami came a bit closer, opening the card to find get-well messages written by everyone in the room.

“It was Saki’s idea,” Shiho said, and Saki stood proud, looking a minute away from posing like her brother. “It’s a little more than just words to help you get better.”

Honami picked up the teddy bear, hugging it close to her. It was so soft. “You all didn’t have to do this,” she said, trying to fight off the urge to start crying. “It’s really not a huge deal…”

“You were shot with an arrow,” Rin said, her eyes wide just saying those words. “I think that’s a big deal!”

“Agreed,” Miku said, her arms loosely folded. “We all were really surprised when we heard. It’s not every day something like that happens.”

“Exactly!” Saki looked like she was about to latch onto Honami’s arm before remembering that that was where she was hurt. “We’re just so glad you’re okay, and talking to friends and knowing they care like this always helped me, so I thought it might help you get better soon, too!”

That explained the flowers, mostly. Honami knew Ichika always brought Saki flowers when she visited back then. She looked closer at the bunch; she could recognize the lavender in there, at least. “Ichika, what are the red flowers? They’re really pretty.”

Ichika smiled lightly, a spark in her eyes like the one that Honami knew appeared in her own when she talked about stars. “Those are red carnations. Common meanings for it include friendship, love, and passion. I thought those with lavender—which generally means healing—would be a good fit.”

She really did want to cry then. Her friends were so thoughtful and caring, she really couldn’t ask for anyone better.

“Thank you,” she said softly, putting the teddy bear back down so she could wipe at her eyes. It felt a bit silly to be tearing up, but she couldn’t help it anymore.

“Aww, Hona!” Rather than her usual bounding hugs, Saki approached slowly and put her arms around Honami, being careful of her injured arm. Honami hugged her back as best she could, then felt Ichika and Shiho join them. Group hugs with them were always a bit silly to her, since she was the tallest by a couple centimeters, but she also did like that she could just bend a bit to bury her face in the crook of Ichika’s neck. Perfect for times like that when she was definitely crying and wanted to try hiding that fact.

Shiho, as to be expected, was the first to let go, with Saki clinging on the longest. “We’re all glad it was nothing serious,” Luka said with her usual cool smile. “Take all the rest time you need.”

“I will, don’t worry. But, ah, don’t you need to start practice soon?” Honami asked her bandmates.

At her words, Shiho sent her a small, grateful look. She probably had the same thing on her mind. “Right, let’s get set up,” Ichika said, tugging Saki off of Honami.

Honami smiled at them. She truly couldn’t ask for better bandmates—for better best friends.

Chapter Text

There were plenty of regrets Shingetsu had about the most recent killing game. By far, the largest was that he didn’t expose Nakamura as the mastermind sooner. He knew who Nakamura was from the get-go, but he hadn’t said anything to give Naegi and Fukawa time to get an in, and just in case he would be targeted, too. But the benefits would’ve outweighed the costs in the end. If he had exposed Nakamura at the beginning, it was likely that the entire class would’ve survived.

If he had exposed Nakamura, then Nakamura would never have gotten the chance to stab Ishikawa.

Shingetsu found quickly after the rescue that he didn’t like hospitals. Mostly, he deduced, because of the saline bags, the IVs, the needles. They brought back very unpleasant memories, to the point where his friends forced themselves into his room every night to ensure he would have the proper comfort if he was woken by nightmares.

Despite that, he spent every moment of visiting hours in that room. Ishikawa was one of the few people in his life who trusted him. She was a good person.

And he considered it mostly his fault that Nakamura had done so much damage.

The chairs inside Ishikawa’s room were stiff and uncomfortable, though Yoshida had remarked once that they were better than most hospital furniture was. Yoshida was a self-proclaimed hospital expert, it seemed. She sat in the chair in the middle with Aoyama on her other side. Her hair was only kind of in her signature pigtails; with her wrist still out of commission, Aoyama had volunteered to do her hair every day. It didn’t go so well.

The three of them didn’t look at each other or try to engage in conversation that would just be forced. It wasn’t that there weren’t things to talk about, but there were more pressing matters laying in the bed before them.

It had already been two weeks. Ishikawa hadn’t woken up yet.

Shingetsu hadn’t seen Nakamura take out the knife to stab Ishikawa, but he saw when Syo was pulling him off of Ishikawa, and he heard Yoshida’s screaming and Nakamura’s laughter. He’d been around enough carnage to know that something was very, very wrong. He just … didn’t think that it would come to this.

“Anyone know if her parents are coming today?” Aoyama asked out of the blue, his voice low. He looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep since before the killing game had started.

“I think so. After lunch, if I remember.” Yoshida yawned, not bothering to hide it. It was still early in the morning; the three had waited outside until the exact minute visiting hours began. Still, she didn’t take her eyes off of Ishikawa. “Her mom said her abuela will be here soon.”

Shingetsu nodded to himself. Ishikawa’s parents were nice, and understanding about the three of them wanting to spend as much time as possible in there. It was unfortunate that they couldn’t be with their daughter as often as they would like—in the post-despair world, it was hard to take time off of much-needed work—but he believed that was part of the reason why they were so okay with him, Aoyama, and Yoshida keeping Ishikawa company.

He … didn’t get it. Even with the extensive damage that needed to be repaired, she should’ve woken up already. Two weeks was a long time; he saw how antsy Yoshida and Aoyama were the more time marched on.

He noticed how Aoyama, when he thought nobody else was around, would talk to Ishikawa in the nicest voice he’d ever heard Aoyama use.

He noticed how Yoshida kept the room bright and clean, including the flowers on the windowsill. Flowers that reminded all of them of Sasaki, who likely wouldn’t have had as hard a time taking care of the delicate petals and stems.

It was off-putting how unlifelike Ishikawa seemed. Maybe it was just that he was used to her on her feet and talking. Shingetsu had only known her for about a month, but events like killing games tended to bring people closer, somehow. Which was why it was strange to not hear her voice for two weeks. Two weeks and no change whatsoever.

Yoshida blew out a breath, adjusting how she was sitting. Somehow she managed to sit in the chair sideways, her back against one arm of the chair and her feet hanging over the other, resting on Aoyama’s lap. Aoyama didn’t bother moving them.

It took everything in Shingetsu to not look up specifics. The three of them were pretty well-informed on Ishikawa’s condition, it would be easy for him to look up how long a person could stay alive if they were in her position. The only reason he didn’t was that he was afraid of what he would find. He was sure Aoyama and Yoshida thought the same.

Her heart rate monitor beeped steadily. Every so often, nurses would come in to check on her, basically ignoring their presence. Day by day by day had ticked by like that. Time brought everything closer to an end, and he sincerely hoped it would not be a bad one.

“C’mon, Ishikawa,” Yoshida muttered under her breath. Shingetsu didn’t know if she was aware she was speaking out loud. “You’re better than this. Even Aoyama thinks so.”

Aoyama snorted at her comment, but he didn’t refute it.

Those three… Shingetsu didn’t count himself among survivors of the killing game, since he was never supposed to be there in the first place. But they were supposed to be healing from the mental wounds the game brought. It was hard enough to do, adjusting to how the world was. It was even harder with one of their friends in a coma. They’d already been through so much. They didn’t need another of their friends to die.

“She’ll be okay,” he said, looking right at Ishikawa and willing her to wake up. “She has to be.”

Chapter Text

There were times, when Sora worked for the Berg household and even before, when he would wake up in the morning thinking he was somewhere else. All things considered, however, the Berg household had been one of the best living arrangements he’d ever had, at least at the time.

From growing up to being bounced around from country to country and kingdom to kingdom, Sora had learned a lot about the world. Not all of it was good, but he had recently discovered that there was, in fact, some good. That good was what his younger self had clung onto years ago, and it brought him to the Berg household, even though he was playing the role of an infiltrator. After all, the Masons had a goal he needed to accomplish.

That particular morning, Sora awoke believing he was still in the Berg household, waking earlier than the sun to prepare for the day. The way to be a proficient infiltrator, the way to fulfill the Mason family’s wishes, was to actually be able to do his “job” in a timely and impeccable fashion.

So he started the morning the way he always did, opening the curtains in his room to let in the eventual sunlight. The still-unfamiliar scenery outside his window surprised him.

Ah, that was right. He no longer worked for the Masons, or, by association, the Bergs.

He ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair, watching the sun begin to peek out from the horizon. The dormitories of the Ministry of Magic had quite the pleasant view, in his opinion. One that he was still adjusting to weeks later, but beautiful all the same.

It was gracious of the Ministry to take him in, he reminded himself, no malice behind his thoughts. Some part of him still didn’t quite understand the decision, not when he’d confessed to all that he and the Masons had done, but there he was. A room to call his own, one that was only as temporary as he wanted it to be. There was nobody to tell him what time to turn in; all he was told to do pertained to the work he had, in essence, assigned himself. He decided on his topic of research, so long as he checked in with Larna on his progress.

A strange feeling, that. The Ministry was much less harsh in directions than he was used to, back when he was a child an even as a blossoming teenager. At the Ministry, he had free time that he could spend however he liked. Others talked to him as a peer; many of the workers at the Ministry, and especially the Magic Tools Laboratory, were friendly, if overworked. In an odd way, he looked forward to being as overworked as them.

A hint of the emerging sunlight broke through the window, signaling for Sora to begin preparing for the day. Sora was allowed the luxury of getting ready at his own pace at the Ministry, though he still dressed and groomed himself quickly. He was far more used to being on tight schedules and doing things for himself in very small windows of time, after all. This often meant he was one of the first in the laboratory, save for those who spent the night working. He lingered in his room for a few minutes extra before going to get something to eat.

That was, perhaps, one of the greatest benefits of the Ministry: as part of the dormitory area, there was a kitchen stocked with food. Sora never had much for breakfast, but it was nice to have a little something and spend time chatting with his coworkers. Especially those in the Magic Tools Laboratory like himself.

So early, though, there weren’t many people in the kitchen. It was earlier than he expected, then. Sora didn’t know what to do with his free time, then, if he was that early.

It worked for the better, though, as the sooner he ate breakfast, the sooner he could get to work, and the more work he could complete in the day. He suspected if he headed to work now, Raphael would already be there, likely asleep over some research. It would be wise to wake him before Larna found him… Perhaps he should bring coffee, too. He doubted Raphael would want to end his work at that point.

Leisurely, Sora made his way to the laboratory. Though he mainly aided in Larna’s research of his dark magic, he dabbled in a couple other areas of research himself. He hadn’t quite decided on a single topic.

He smiled to himself. He had plenty of time to dabble in a bit of everything if he wanted to. Wanting to do things and having the ability to do those things was another something he was getting used to. Pleasantly so.

As he expected when he entered the laboratory, there was Raphael, asleep at one of the bench tables with several open books in front of him. Sora set the coffee down in front of him before taking his own seat elsewhere, letting the aromatic drink do the work of waking Raphael up for him. It would be a nice, gentle wake-up compared to what Larna would bring in a few minutes’ time. He was sure Raphael would much prefer the coffee to Larna’s energy and more work assignments.

While the coffee worked its proverbial magic in waking him up, Sora cracked open a book on magic himself, flipping through the contents to the page that matched up with a particular tool he was currently studying. Though they were known as “handymen,” Sora found a particular interest in how magic worked within each tool rather than simply building or repairing them.

His days were mostly constructed with his own whims. It still took a good amount of getting used to, but it was something Sora was grateful for. He never imagined he’d be able to be in that kind of situation.

Chapter Text

Rei was used to his outings resulting in something not going his way. Whether it be something minor like getting lost or something major like being attacked by an Alpha, he’d seen a little of everything. Hisui was rough; he knew that.

Of course it would be snowing incredibly hard when he was in Avalanche Slopes.

The visibility was so low, he could hardly see his hand in front of his face. He shivered under his clothes, hoping to find somewhere he could hunker down if only for the night, but even if he did find something, there was a chance he’d stumble across a nest of pokemon. And, knowing his luck, they wouldn’t be happy about sharing their space.

He stumbled over his feet, chalking it up to the wind that was whipping snowflakes and light hail against his skin. Akari had lent him her scarf before he left, just as a goofy way of wishing him luck. Rei pulled it up over his face again, trying to cover everything but his eyes. The wind, he knew, probably wasn’t the cause of him stumbling. He’d already been out for several hours in different areas of the Alabaster Icelands; it had been dark for hours, night falling just after the snowstorm started.

Or was it before?

It didn’t matter. With the snow so heavy, he couldn’t see the sky.

Little groups of Snorunt were padding around the area, despite the weather. Perhaps it was because of the weather. That might be something Professor Laventon would want him to further look into that for his Pokedex.

Rei stopped walking for a moment. Professor Laventon was somewhere nearby, wasn’t he? He couldn’t remember where the camp was. Samurott would probably know, but it was far too cold to let it out. He didn’t want to subject any of his partners to the cold, not when there were no ice-types among them. Even then…

With the snow flying in all directions, changing with the wind, he couldn’t tell which way was which. For all he knew, he was walking around in circles the whole time. He hoped that wasn’t the case, but the reality was that it was likely. Probable, even. Akari would probably laugh at him if she found out he was walking in circles for hours in the middle of a snowstorm, if word ever got back to her.

The wind changed direction, forcing him to take a couple of steps to stay upright. But, wait, wouldn’t it be better to lie down somewhere and wait it out? That way he’d conserve his energy, too. He needed as much energy as he could get.

He sat down on the snow-covered ground, bringing his knees to his chest to make himself a little warmer and harder for the wind to push over. Maybe if he closed his eyes, he’d be able to sleep a bit and wake up when the snow died down.

At his waist, one of his poke balls shuddered. Samurott’s. Maybe it wanted to come out, but he wouldn’t make it; it was too cold out. And it was night, anyway. Samurott was a hard worker, it deserved a good night’s sleep.

Right, it was night. He should go to sleep too, then, otherwise he wouldn’t be up in time to do much tomorrow. But he didn’t have his bedding with him, and he was far away from Jubilife Village. He couldn’t just run out and grab them and sleep under the stars.

He looked up at the sky, blinking rapidly when snow came too close to his eyes. He couldn’t see the stars through the snow, and above the snow was probably clouds, anyway. So he wouldn’t be able to see the stars. Too bad.

Rei then looked around him. Nothing but snow, just like he thought. His footprints were already covered in a fresh sheet of powder, so he wouldn’t be able to retrace his steps even if he could see them. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten so far to begin with. When did the snow even start? It couldn’t have been that long ago.

He laid down on the ground, the snow compacting enough to work well enough for a bed. It was more comfortable than more solid ground, at least.

Samurott shook more at his side, but he ignored it. It wouldn’t be fair, even if it was resistant to ice. That didn’t mean it was resistant to cold as a whole. Or maybe it was? That was something else he could look into for Professor Laventon.

Rei shivered, turning onto his side. The scarf he had with him—was it his or Akari’s?—pushed against his cheek and the snow, soaking through and feeling chilly against his skin. That wasn’t good, right? Being cold and wet was supposed to lead to … something. He couldn’t remember what.

The snow only seemed to pick up around him, even as he thought he heard voices in the distance. But all he saw before were pokemon. Were the Snorunt talking to him, somehow? He tried to say something back, be a good conversationalist, but nothing came out when he opened his mouth. Actually, he couldn’t even tell if he opened his mouth at all.

The snow slowly faded around him to a fuzzy sort of black. If the storm was over, why could he still feel it on his skin?

Slowly, Rei closed his eyes. The darkness didn’t differ either way. It must’ve been the Snorunt talking to him, because he couldn’t make heads or tails of what was being said. The chill of the snow seeped into him, the kind of cold that made him feel warm. Warm and fuzzy, like he was sitting at a fire with his friends.

Even then, eventually the warmth died down. He wasn’t warm, he wasn’t cold. He wasn’t quite sure he could feel anything but the firmness of the compacted snow beneath his body. He was just … there.

Chapter Text

The new household Keith was supposed to live in was huge. And … lonely.

It had been three weeks since he’d arrived, being traded over from his old household. He hadn’t expected much, coming from his old … family. If it could be called a family. The other people he knew had families that didn’t act like his had.

The Claes family was, apparently, part of his family in some way. But they didn’t act like it, either.

Duchess Claes—he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to call her—didn’t seem to like him at all. He was still young, but he knew looks of disgust like the back of his hand. It hurt to see coming from someone he didn’t know very well yet. He hardly saw her anywhere.

And Katarina…

The first couple of days in the Claes household had been alright by his standards. He wasn’t immediately ridiculed, or hurt, or anything like that. In fact, Katarina had been very welcoming of him, almost immediately calling him her new brother. She seemed excited to get to know him, something he was very unfamiliar with. The thought of having someone his age to talk to, to play with, who didn’t seem to want to hurt him, was something he wanted to get to know better.

But then he’d used his magic again. And all of that came tumbling down around him.

He hadn’t seen Katarina very much in the time since then. Of course she would want to stay away from him; he nearly hurt her very badly. It was better for him to just stay in his room on his own, wasn’t it?

There were a couple of times that were curious to him, as he stayed in his room with nothing much to keep him company. The servants in the household were kind, at least those who attended to both him and Katarina. Even they couldn’t stay for very long, though.

Those few times, he thought he heard the beginnings of knocks on his door. The start of Katarina calling out to him. But before she could get a full word or full sentence out, someone else called out to her, whisking her away from his room. It was probably Duchess Claes, or else one of her servants, making sure Katarina went nowhere near him. With all that had happened, he couldn’t blame them. Katarina should stay away from him. He was a danger, that’s what everybody said.

All things considered, he was still better off than he was elsewhere. He could deal with being alone, or he thought he could deal with it. It was better than being hurt by the people he was with, wasn’t it?

In his room, alone, he had time to think. Think about why Duchess Claes may not like him. Maybe it was because of what she heard about him at first, or maybe she never wanted to take him in to begin with. Duke Claes was often busy, so Keith didn’t see him very often, and he wasn’t going to ask anyway. Obviously now she had another reason to hate him: he hurt her daughter. Even if it seemed like Katarina forgave him, for some reason, it was clear that Duchess Claes was the one who was keeping them apart. Keeping him alone.

He startled out of his thoughts when he heard another half-knock at the door. Katarina had started getting a little bit meeker in her attempts, or perhaps she was trying not to be heard. Before she could even call anything through his door, he heard the shouting voice of her mother, telling her to step away from his room. Nothing he hadn’t heard before. Still in bed, he curled in on himself.

Keith … was lonely.

No matter how many times he tried telling himself that it was better than how he had once lived, spending every day virtually on his own was far from ideal. No matter how many times he told himself he could live like that for as long as he needed to, he wasn’t sure he actually could.

He had food and water, both of which were delivered to his room in meager portions. Occasionally there would be some dessert on his plate, which he was convinced Katarina sometimes snuck on. He could only imagine she would get scolded for that each time. It really wasn’t worth it for her to do.

He had books for his studies, but they were old and there wasn’t much light in his room, besides. He had some space to practice his magic, but he didn’t want to end up hurting someone else, perhaps worse.

As he believed he was even before moving to the Claes household, Keith was truly alone in the world.

Even if Katarina seemed to want to get to know him soon, as long as Duchess Claes disliked him, she would never let her daughter near him. He had very little human interaction each day, something a deeply hidden part of him craved, even though it had only spelled out horrible things for him in the past. Perhaps he was cursed to be alone in the world.

He pulled his blanket over his head, wishing the rest of the world away. His brain was constantly filled with if-only scenarios, ones that made him long for a different time, a different place. Keith probably wouldn’t even be able to run away if he tried, as much as he knew Duchess Claes wanted him gone.

There was no place for him in the world of nobles. That was an undeniable truth. He’d made peace with the fact that nobody wanted him, as much as he could as a child. It was like a daily mantra he repeated to himself: I’m okay with being alone.

No matter how much it hurt, Keith could deal with not talking to anyone else in the Claes household. It was better than being hurt by his family.

Wasn’t it?

Chapter Text

Ichika wasn’t the best at communicating. She sourced that as one of the main causes of her issues with her friends in middle schools; there was no way around it. She liked to think she was improving, but… Well, there was always room for improvement even still. For when she had an opinion she didn’t think the others would agree with, or if there was something she probably should share with them but felt was too unimportant.

Which was why for the last couple nights, when she didn’t have work, she would tell the others that she was going to stay in Sekai for a while longer to practice or clean up or something, rather than telling them the truth.

But, of course, Honami noticed.

“Ichika,” she said in the firm tone Ichika knew she used to get Kanade to eat actual food.

“Yes?” Ichika held her hands behind her back, hoping she seemed casual about it. She’d managed to evade Saki’s energy and Shiho’s sharp eyes that way so far. She thought she’d done enough to stop Honami from finding out, too. “You can go, I don’t mind moving the rest of the desks back on my own. I know you wanted to do some extra studying tonight.”

Honami frowned slightly, her brow furrowed. She took a step forward. Ichika took a step back. “Show me your wrist,” she said, still using that firm tone. Despite the small edge to it, it was still filled with all of Honami’s compassion.

“I don’t—” Before she could finish her sentence, Honami reached out and gently took Ichika’s arm, studying her left wrist carefully. As Ichika thought, it was already swelling a bit, as it had the last few nights. She winced as Honami turned it so her palm was facing upward.

“Sorry, sorry,” Honami said quickly, lightening her touch. “Ichika, this looks sprained. How long have you been hiding this?”

Ichika shrugged once, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she didn’t necessarily want to tell her. “It’s fine, really, I’ve been wearing a brace on it outside of practice—”

“Not at school,” Honami pointed out, though there was no hint of accusation in her voice. She let go of Ichika’s wrist. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

…She couldn’t bring herself to argue. Honami disappeared from the classroom, moving to another with purpose in her step. Ichika wondered if she would run into the Virtual Singers, what she would tell them she was doing. Then she looked at her wrist again. She’d been doing a good enough job of keeping it under wraps, what had she done wrong that someone noticed?

“Here,” Honami said, a first-aid kit in her hand. Ichika knew that most of the classrooms had one somewhere, just to be on the safe side, but there wasn’t one in the classroom they used most often for practice. “There are ice packs in here, I’ll activate this one, that should help the swelling.”

There were other directions hidden under that assertion. Ichika wouldn’t necessarily say it was odd to see Honami so assertive, but she did like seeing that side of her. So Ichika sat on one of the desks, keeping her wrist close to her as a sort of protection. She didn’t have the brace with her—that was still in her room. Honami didn’t look her in the eye as she worked the ice pack, causing it to actually start being cold enough to serve its purpose. “...I didn’t really mean to hide this,” Ichika said, her voice soft. Again Honami gently took her wrist, holding the ice pack on top of it. She flinched, both at the cold sensation and the added weight, but she couldn’t deny the relief it brought. “I don’t know what I did. I thought it would be better after a day or two.”

“I wish you’d told me. I don’t like seeing you—any of you—in pain.” Honami finally looked up at her, concern clear in her expression. Even if Ichika focused only on her eyes, it was still there. “Why did you keep this from me? From us?”

Ichika wanted so badly to look away, but she couldn’t. “I didn’t want … to be the reason we stopped practice. So I didn’t say anything. I’ve been able to get through practices, though, so it can’t be that bad.”

Honami didn’t say anything to that. In some ways, the bonds between the four of them were still fragile. Ichika knew, logically, nobody would be mad at her for something like a hurt wrist. It wouldn’t shatter the band completely. They weren’t in middle school anymore.

“Can you… Can you not tell them? Not yet?” she whispered, almost quiet enough that Honami wouldn’t hear her. She didn’t expect Honami to answer, either, but then—

“Alright.” Honami moved the ice pack lightly, now icing the underside of her wrist. Ichika felt safe whenever Honami held her hand, even though it didn’t technically count in that moment. “But I want to keep checking in with you. And I want you to tell them if it doesn’t get better in a couple of days. I don’t want to see you making this injury worse, and neither would Shiho or Saki.”

Ichika pressed her lips together, but nodded. That was reasonable. “Thank you. For helping.”

And, almost like a knight in shining armor, Honami bent slightly and brushed a light kiss against Ichika’s knuckles. A blush rose in Ichika’s cheeks like a bloomed rose, though more instantaneous. She smiled in the way that Saki always called a “Honami-brand” smile. “Ichika, I will always help you when you need it. And I know you’d do the same for me.”

Ichika mustered her own smile, between her lingering anxiety and the dull throbbing of her wrist. Honami was very reliable; Ichika wanted to be just as reliable for her. She supposed the first step towards that would be taking care of herself, something she would work on.

Chapter Text

Over his sixteen years of life, Kiyo had become relatively efficient when it came to taking care of little injuries here and there. Traveling on his own as a young teen to observe other cultures got him into several scrapes at times, though none he couldn’t get himself out of.

Situations in Hope’s Peak Academy weren’t nearly to that caliber, though gym class could occasionally feel that way.

Rather than going to the nurse’s office when a stray volleyball had hit him square in the face as he said he would, Kiyo returned to his room, aware of what would likely happen if he went to the nurse’s office. He could already taste blood beneath the mask he wore even to gym class. He ran his tongue over the cut on his lip to make sure the blood wouldn’t seep through.

Kiyo arranged some cotton balls from the first aid kit in his bathroom before ever taking off his mask. The location of the cut would make it awkward to cover with a bandaid, but he could at least clean it and ensure that it stopped bleeding. He would need to look in the mirror to properly take care of it…

It wouldn’t be much of an annoyance if the volleyball had split his skin anywhere else. He wouldn’t need to remove his mask in that case, though even on the rest of his body there were myriads of scars he would rather not see if he could help it. Some were more innocuous than others, both in terms of size and origin, though it was easier to not look at them at all if possible.

He soaked one of the cotton balls with cold water from his faucet before finally pulling down his mask, looking directly at the offending cut instead of anything else on his face. There shouldn’t be much dirt to wash out of the cut, but cold water would help numb some of the pain, anyway. Cold water tended to sting on cuts, he realized years ago, but still felt plenty better against fresh cuts than warm water did.

His eyes wandered.

The scars he’d gotten from traveling, generally speaking, were ones he could excuse. He could explain them away, should any of his classmates mistakenly see them. He couldn’t say the same for the other scars that his mask conveniently hid.

Carefully, Kiyo removed the cotton ball, leaning closer to the mirror to inspect the damage done. All things considered, the volleyball did less damage than he was used to in that area. That was something good for present him, though the past him was worse off in that respect. He preferred not to think about it if he had to, but his thoughts wandered just as much as his eyes did when he should’ve been focusing on the fresh cut.

Despite the slight swelling around the cut, it had already stopped bleeding. He could safely pull his mask back up and simply avoid acidic foods until it healed on its own.

His hand froze when he tried to adjust his mask, as his eyes found the one particularly nasty scar towards the corner of his mouth.

Kiyo was not a fan of talking about his sister. He had long since come to terms with the undeniable fact that she had abused him when he was younger. He hadn’t had a single word of contact with her in years, especially not once he began traveling on his own and began attending Hope’s Peak earlier in the year. That stage of his life was, thankfully, over—though not without its reminders.

He forced himself to avert his eyes, cleaning what little mess he had made. His hands stubbornly wouldn’t pull up his mask, so he might as well do whatever else he could to distract his thoughts.

Perhaps he was gone for too long, or perhaps someone had followed him and he only thought time had passed. Someone knocked on his door. If he had to guess, it was likely Kaede or Kirumi. Both girls were the kind to check in on someone even if they were only mildly concerned about something. He was finally able to force his mask back up, adjusting it just so before answering his door.

“Ah, Kaede.” As he thought. The class president in her, not to mention her caring nature, would make her more concerned than most.

“Sorry for intruding,” she said almost hastily. She hadn’t been in gym class, he realized then, looking at her uniform. Kaede was one of few who never attended that class. “Shuichi told me what happened, and you weren’t in the nurse’s office, so I just wanted to check and make sure everything was alright!”

Kiyo smiled a touch beneath his mask, though the action made him wince a bit. Kaede frowned when she noticed. “Everything is fine, thank you. There is no need for you to worry.”

Kaede seemed skeptical about that, but she didn’t push the issue. She did seem to know when it was better to let something be. “If you’re sure.” She paused for a moment. “Will you be returning to class later? I can let our teacher know if you’re not.”

He had to think about that for a moment. Would he gain anything from showing up? “I believe I won’t.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t feel physically well enough to carry on through another few classes; it was mentally that he had to have some space and time. Any of his classmates would understand that sentiment.

Kaede nodded once in understanding, just as he thought she would. “I’ll leave you be, then. I’ll bring your homework by later!”

Kiyo closed his door after she left, bringing a hand up to carefully prod at his lip through his mask. Still swollen, and still stung, as he expected. It would heal in a matter of days, though not without some pain. Yet another reminder of what he’d grown past, he supposed.

Chapter Text

For a handful of days—well, two—Aoyama thought that his throat hurt because of screaming and talking so much during class trials. Then he remembered that he’d been the only one to miss the most recent trial while he was recovering from the apparent appendectomy inside the hell school. So then he thought it was just a dry throat or something.

He tactfully ignored that it had been getting slightly worse.

“Look who else is becoming a frequent flier of the nurse’s office,” Yoshida remarked when he walked in. She was rummaging through some cabinets, probably looking for more painkillers for her wrist or bandaids or something. He didn’t care enough to ask. “Not to sound involved, but—”

“Shut up.” He winced as even those two words scratched mercilessly at his throat, making the mistake of trying to clear his throat immediately after. That just made him feel worse. All he needed were painkillers or something, but Yoshida was still blocking the cabinet.

Aoyama still couldn’t move very fast thanks to the recent surgery he was still somewhat baffled by, so Yoshida was able to get up in his face and feel his forehead. “You’re like a hotspot for this shit,” she said offhand as he smacked her hand away. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to take after me.”

“Ew, no.” Aoyama had to really force the words out, practically gritting his teeth to get through them. He should’ve just made more tea and sucked it up for another day or so.

Yoshida looked him up and down before sighing. “Well, I’m not gonna force you. If you want to keep being in agony, be my guest.” She shrugged and left, not taking anything with her. He glared at her back, but only until he tried swallowing and the pain returned. There were more pressing matters for him to deal with.

The lighting in the nurse’s office was slightly better than the lighting in his bathroom, so he found a mirror and opened his mouth, looking at the back of his throat. He’d never gotten his tonsils removed as a kid, and it was looking like that was coming back to bite him now. No doubt those were what was causing his sore throat, especially if Yoshida apparently thought he had a fever that he was only beginning to feel himself.

With a muted sigh, he turned back around to find her again. Normally he would much rather suck it up and wait it out instead of ask help from her of all people, but he had a feeling she would know a more targeted way to help than just generic painkillers and tea.

Just his luck—or hers, or some kind of coincidence—she was waiting in the hall outside with a smirk on her lips. “Thought you’d need me at some point,” she said with all the confidence in the world. Aoyama scowled at her and rolled his eyes. “Seriously, though, how can I help?”

“Tonsillitis,” he whispered, familiar enough with the term to have been able to recognize it, but not familiar enough to know how to treat it. The last time he’d had it, he was still in grade school. Sore throats were common enough, sure, but they’d usually accompanied colds or something of the like.

Yoshida nodded in understanding. “That explains it. I had mine out ages ago—surprise, surprise—but I think…” She trailed off, brushing past him and going back into the nurse’s office. Reluctantly, he followed her, finding it much easier to hold back on biting comments when he could hardly speak a single painless word. “Basically the same stuff you do for any sore throat or strep, like hot liquids and ice pops, but it might be safe to take antibiotics just in case.” She took a bottle out of one of the chilled cabinets, tossing it to him. “I don’t think your fever is high enough for a fever reduction, so you should be fine to sleep it off.”

He looked down at the liquid antibiotics she’d tossed him and then raised a questioning eyebrow at her. There were only a few questions he wanted to voice, but thought better of actually asking them.

“Yeah, have it enough as a kid, the treatment plan just kinda sticks with you.” Yoshida shrugged, tugging at the slightly uneven pigtails Oshiro had helped her tie. “With all the shit I’ve been through, maybe I should be a doctor or something if we get out of this hell.”

She laughed enough at her own comment that Aoyama didn’t feel like he had to.

“Ten days of antibiotics should do it,” she added before he could turn his back. He marched straight back to his room, reading the instructions on the bottle on his way.

Between everything he’d gone through in the game so far, most of it divorced from the literal killing game going on, he had a feeling the universe was out to get him for some reason.

He walked past a few of his other classmates, ignoring them even if they tried to greet him. The more he thought about his situation, the more tired he felt, and the more he wanted to rest as Yoshida had suggested. He couldn’t believe he’d come to a point where he was taking advice from her of all people, but she probably did know medicine the best of anyone else in the class, and it would be too obvious if she tried to poison him or something. Probably.

Swallowing the lukewarm tea he still had in his room was an issue, but he got there eventually, setting up whatever he could to make more when he finished that cup and get ready for more rest afterward. With any luck, there wouldn’t be another murder he had to investigate before he started feeling even marginally better.

Then again, it was a killing game. Anything could happen at any time. He was at the mercy of fate.

Chapter Text

“Soon, we will no longer be engaged.”

Those seven words played on repeat in Katarina’s mind, in the same voice she originally heard them in only a handful of hours before. She didn’t think Geordo knew that she heard him saying them—she hadn’t gone into his room as she’d planned, instead returning to her own—but those words were the kind she couldn’t simply unhear.

Katarina knew it was always a possibility, of course. She was the one who kept reminding him through their years of engagement that if he ever wanted to break it off, if he ever fell in love with someone else, she would be supportive. But in the moment, all she wanted to do was cry. How was she supposed to make that decision: hold onto him like the selfish villain she was supposed to be, or let him be happy with someone else at the cost of her own happiness?

Somehow, within an hour or so, her friends had found out. It started with Sophia, who’d come to lend Katarina a new book and listened when Katarina told her, and then Katarina suspected that Nicol heard from her. Then it must’ve spread to Alan, who told Mary, and eventually Maria. Keith knew before that, of course; he’d seen her return to her room with devastation written all over her.

She… Well, she had somewhat expected something like that to happen. She’d been preparing for it since she was a child. But she’d been genuinely happy with Geordo.

She thought he’d been happy, too…

At the very least, she would’ve appreciated it if he had just come out and told her, instead of talking to someone else about it first. Didn’t he respect her more than that? He’d always respected her in their relationship, just as she respected him. What had changed?

Katarina buried her face in her pillow, hoping that when he finally broke off their engagement, he would at least be happy with the person he married.

Maria had a feeling that there was something more to the story. Of course she would believe whatever Katarina told her, but she also knew how much Geordo loved her. He wouldn’t end their engagement just like that, would he?

“I believe you’re right,” Alan sighed when Maria brought that up to the rest of her friends. “That doesn’t sound like something Geordo would do.”

Mary looked at him for a moment, something almost disappointed written in her features. “We should probably ask him,” she agreed with a nod. “If for nothing else, to ensure Katarina’s happiness.”

Sophia, Nicol, and Keith, of course, needed no convincing. “It’s settled, then,” Maria said with a soft smile. “He should still be in his room, yes? I’m sure there’s some kind of explanation for what he said. All we need to do is ask and listen to what he has to say.”

It did hurt her heart, in a way. Both that Katarina was suffering, but also that Maria knew that there was something more to the situation. She spent the walk to Geordo’s room thinking about how, if she weren’t herself, she would’ve likely tried to win Katarina’s heart in the moment, disregarding Geordo entirely. But she knew how much Katarina loved Geordo, and how much Geordo loved Katarina. Her friends were so happy together; above anything else, she wanted them to be happy.

Mary took the lead almost instantly upon arrival, knocking and calling out to Geordo. It seemed to Maria that Mary’s earlier disappointment had morphed itself into a muted anger, one that Maria never wanted to be on the receiving end of.

“What, exactly, did you say about your engagement with Lady Katarina?” she demanded as soon as Geordo answered his door.

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

Sophia nudged Mary aside a bit. “She overheard you say something about no longer being engaged soon,” Sophia explained. Recognition registered in Geordo’s eyes. “Please, tell us that you meant something else by it.”

Someone knocked on Katarina’s door again. As much as she wanted to ignore it—again—her body worked almost as if it were on autopilot when she heard Geordo’s voice. She rubbed at her eyes, hoping she didn’t look like as much of a mess as she felt.

“I owe you an apology,” Geordo said as soon as Katarina opened her door. He spoke somewhat quickly, like he expected her to close the door on him. She would never. “I wasn’t aware you heard what I said, and I’m sorry about that. But I do have an explanation, if you would like to hear it?”

Katarina paused for a moment. “I already know what it is. I thought there was a chance you could fall for someone else, I—”

“Katarina.” Geordo took her hands gently, looking into her eyes. “I haven’t fallen for anyone but you. I said we would no longer be engaged soon…

“Because I want us to marry.”

Katarina’s breath hitched, caught in her chest. Her heart beat loudly in her ears. Everything in Geordo’s expression was perfectly genuine. “You- you do?”

“Of course I do.”

The way he said those words was so gentle, but so matter-of-fact, like he could never possibly say them in any other way. There could never be any answer other than that.

A blush rose in her face—it never was concentrated to just her cheeks—and she stepped forward, hugging Geordo close. Tears were coming to her eyes again, so she buried her face in his chest. Even if they were happy tears, she didn’t want him to see her cry. At least it would cover up that she’d been crying earlier.

“I want to marry you, too,” she said, her voice muffled from her position. She felt more than heard him laugh gently, returning her embrace with ease. “There’s a lot that I want to do, but that’s one of the things I want the most.”

“Me, too.” Geordo kissed the top of her head. Everything was alright.

Chapter Text

Despite what she was sure most people in her life thought, Toko was not a fool. When she first adopted Kameko as a pet, she knew what she was getting into. She did the proper research to make sure Kameko would live a long, healthy life by stinkbug standards.

But Kameko was not just a bug. For as long as Toko had known her, Kameko was her only friend. A friendsect, as she called her in her mind.

She didn’t ever say that out loud, since she knew nobody, not even her more eccentric classmates, would understand.

Her research told her how long stinkbugs like Kameko could live, so she tried her best to mentally prepare herself even after a month. But as the time wore on, and the two made the move to the dorms at Hope’s Peak together, that timeline was pushed further and further from her mind. Kameko seemed happy, and that made her happy. Caring for someone other than herself was somehow easier.

Toko was a writer, so she tried to avoid cliche statements such as “all good things must come to an end,” but that was what it felt like when Kameko died. It was early in the day, before class had even started. She wasn’t planning on attending, anyway.

In all her life, Toko experienced a lot of negative things and emotions. She’d never, however, really lost anyone close to her like Kameko was. Until Kameko, she didn’t have anyone in her life that was close enough for her to miss. But there was Kameko, unmoving in the little habitat Toko had put together for her several months ago. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of her friend since Kameko had stopped moving.

She … wasn’t sure what to do. Losing someone so close, wasn’t she supposed to be crying? Wasn’t that how people grieved?

At least an hour must’ve passed; she noticed the filtered sun shift across her floor, warming the side of her body where it hadn’t before. Her stomach churned, though she wasn’t sure if it was from hunger or nausea. Possibly both. She hadn’t eaten anything yet, but she didn’t think she’d be able to stomach anything if she tried.

Someone knocked on her door. “Toko?” Sayaka asked through the door that Toko really wished was soundproof. Toko frowned instinctively, though the idol wasn’t … the worst person. “I wanted to check on you, is everything alright?”

Toko didn’t say anything, but she finally looked away from Kameko, opening her door more fully than she ever did. Sayaka took in her disheveled appearance quickly; the girl’s intuition was generally spot-on, the rest of her classmates had come to realize.

Keeping her door open, Toko stepped away, going back to Kameko. It wasn’t often she allowed other people into her room, but there was still so much coursing through her—and yet nothing at all at the same time. The sheer lack of everything combined with, well, everything, was overwhelming.

Sayaka followed her in, stopping next to her beside Kameko’s habitat. Nothing about it had been touched. Toko was okay with getting the dirt under her fingernails, adjusting whatever she had to, but she didn’t want to disrupt anything about it on the off chance that Kameko would suddenly spring back to life.

Wishful thinking, something she almost never practiced anymore.

“Oh, Toko…” There was a certain amount of pity present in Sayaka’s voice, something Toko detested, but she couldn’t find the words to argue against it in the moment. “I’m sorry. I know how much Kameko meant to you.”

Did she? That was usually the sort of time Toko would have a snappy comment back, maybe an insult that rolled off her tongue much too easily, but once more there was nothing. She was surprised Sayaka even remembered Kameko’s name; it wasn’t like Toko publicly advertised that her only real friend was not a person. Kameko was more dear to her than anyone could ever be.

“Do you mind if I…?” Sayaka waited for Toko to nod slightly before putting an arm around her shoulders in a kind of awkward side hug. It was less contact than a full hug was, which was why she supposed Sayaka chose that method instead. And she remembered that Toko didn’t like being touched without asking, too. Her classmates were clearly at least a little more observant than she gave them credit for—or at least Sayaka was. Unless she had some kind of ulterior motives, in which case Toko would give her no credit at all.

Maybe it was the contact that made the tears finally well up in her eyes, but she felt herself sink to her knees, unable to support herself anymore. Sayaka sat down with her, still holding on gently as a way of showing comfort, she supposed. It wasn’t … unpleasant.

“I think Makoto has extra notes from class, I can ask him for those if you want,” Sayaka went on, her voice quieter than before. “Losing someone close to you is hard. You should take all the time you need.”

Someone. She didn’t say a pet, she said someone.

Toko’s vision blurred enough that her sight looked the way it did when she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She was hardly aware of anything in her surroundings apart from Sayaka, the floor beneath her, and Kameko, who had lived a long life for a stinkbug. A life full of love.

Sayaka was right that Toko would need time to process her loss. Despite the fact that it had only been months, she forgot what life was like before Kameko; it would take her a while to even begin to adjust to life without her. She couldn’t tell if it was easier to manage knowing that at least one person was attempting to comfort her. Whatever the case, she would have to pick herself up eventually. But she would never, ever be able to replace or forget Kameko’s space in her heart.

Chapter Text

Hiyoko couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong. She was one to generally ignore that kind of feeling when it came out of nowhere, despite the times she felt that way when she was younger. The times when she would find tacks in her shoes, or any number of things. She always pushed past it, moving onto the next thing.

She opened the door to her dorm room just as easily as she always did after her routine dance practice—though this time, she’d ended a bit early. Her date with Ibuki the night before ended a bit later than expected, so she was still tired.

There was a folded piece of paper on her floor.

Without giving it much of a thought, she picked it up and unfolded it. It didn’t have an envelope, nor was it addressed to her, but the paper was the kind of paper she recognized. Something she’d learned about Ibuki pretty early into their relationship was that Ibuki, like her, had a sort of appreciation for stationary. The paper she picked up was from a set Ibuki had bought on one of their dates, with cherries adorning the wine-colored paper. A sort of a nod to her past, Ibuki had explained it then with a melancholic smile.

Those melancholic smiles, Hiyoko had found, were reserved for when Ibuki trusted someone. That, or when she was alone.

Ibuki, being the songstress she was, was no stranger to writing songs and lyrics down and dropping them in random places. That was what Hiyoko originally assumed, picking up the yet-unassuming piece of paper. After all, the two often spent time in her room or Ibuki’s, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary to find what would soon be a song laying around.

Hiyoko skimmed it, but seeing her name, she returned to the beginning and read through to the end, her eyes carrying her faster and faster until she hit the bottom of the page.

And when she hit the bottom of the page, she ran.

It was still early in the day—she always practiced early, otherwise she knew she’d be convinced to not practice at all—so nobody was in the halls for her to run into. She was still growing, but slower than she wanted, meaning if she did run into someone, there was a good chance she would be the one going down, and she couldn’t afford that time lost. Not if what was in the letter was true.

“Ibuki!” Hiyoko shoved her girlfriend’s door open, almost surprised that the doorknob gave under her hand. Even if it didn’t, she had a spare key, since Ibuki had made a copy with a cool design on it for herself.

Ibuki didn’t look at her. She sat on her bed, her hair completely down and unbrushed. A pill bottle sat on the bed in front of her, the object of her attention. The cap was off, but there was still a safety seal covering the top of it. It barely registered in the back of Hiyoko’s mind that the nurse’s office had been restocked recently, likely why it was a new bottle.

“Ibuki,” Hiyoko repeated, slowing her approach. A beat passed, and Ibuki looked over at her, her eyes tired. More than Hiyoko had ever seen. “Honey, what are you…?”

“I thought you’d still be practicing.” Ibuki spoke quietly, not in the usual boisterous way she did when she was happy or excited. She shifted her position, bringing her knees up to her chest. “I didn’t want to make you worry. I thought it’d be easier if you found out after.”

“Make me—” Hiyoko cut herself off, stepping a little closer to Ibuki. Ibuki didn’t move, even as Hiyoko sat on the edge of the bed next to her. She didn’t have any other words. She was not the kind of person who could comfort others through words, or even usually physical affection. She knew Ibuki loved hugs and holding hands, but Ibuki didn’t seek out any of that in the moment. For all Hiyoko knew, that could make things worse, somehow. She didn’t know how she was supposed to react to anything.

Ibuki buried her face in her knees for a second before she looked up again, her gaze unfocused. “I’m not that great for an Ultimate, huh. You’d be better off with someone who had the talent to back up their talent. Dating me … it’ll hold you back.”

Anger bubbled up in Hiyoko. Not at Ibuki, never at Ibuki, but at whoever could’ve dared to make Ibuki think anything like that. “Ibuki,” she said softly, trying to keep her tone level, “you are one of the most talented people I know. I mean that with my whole heart. And even if that wasn’t true, you’re the last person who could ever hold me back.” As she spoke, she slowly moved her hand to grab the still-sealed bottle of pills, twisting the cap back on and closing her fist over it.

Again Ibuki buried her face in her knees, her shoulders shaking slightly. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into her knees. Her voice was thick with unshed tears. “I’m sorry.”

Hiyoko’s free hand hovered just over Ibuki’s back, still unsure. “I think we need to talk to Ms. Yukizome,” she said carefully, her heart dropping even with that statement. She just really and truly did not know what else to do. Ms. Yukizome wasn’t that much older than them, but she seemed to know so much more. Which mean she would know how to help, right? She had to. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

Still the two sat there for a minute, Ibuki crying and Hiyoko unsure what more she could do. It hurt that someone she loved so much would want to hurt themselves like that. She couldn’t imagine how much Ibuki was hurting underneath even all the melancholic smiles she shared with Hiyoko only. No matter what, she wanted to see Ibuki get the help she needed.

Chapter Text

The way Tsukasa saw it, it came out of nowhere. One minute, he and Rui were on a date, getting along perfectly swimmingly, if he did say so himself. Doing what they sometimes did: talk about their upcoming shows. The next… He really wasn’t sure what happened. But two days had passed since that date, and Rui had yet to so much as look at him during practice.

Tsukasa really didn’t understand.

He tried to think about what could’ve happened as he ate lunch alone, an act he was no longer used to. Communication, he knew well, was something vital to any relationship—but it was hard to communicate when one half of that relationship was not speaking to the other.

A shadow fell over him halfway through one of his thoughts. He glanced up briefly, confirming the source to be Nene. He’d guessed as much, given that she was shorter than Toya or Akito, the two other underclassmen who occasionally talked to him during lunch. Even then, she normally stayed in her classroom rather than eating with him and Rui. Tsukasa could guess why she was there now.

However, surprisingly, she didn’t appear to be angry.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Tsukasa asked, trying to appear as upbeat as normal. Even though they were troupemates, he was still Nene’s upperclassman; he wanted to set a good example, be someone she could rely on. Or, well, relying on him is something he would want her to do during practices and performances. Reliability was something he wished to be a constant.

“You and Rui aren’t talking to each other.” It was a blunt statement, not a question. Unlike most of her statements to him, there was no teasing quality. “Emu and I both noticed at practice.”

“...Ah.”

Nene blinked a couple of times, waiting for him to say more. He didn’t, because what more was there for him to say? “Just talk to him at practice today,” she sighed with a roll of her eyes. “This is annoying.”

And there was the Nene he’d expected to see.

She left before he could say anything to her, which he supposed was well enough. Tsukasa needed the rest of the time to think of how he could get Rui’s attention in order to talk everything out. Or, at the very least, find out what he did.

Which started with a single question. The simplest question he could think to ask as soon as he saw Rui talking to Emu at Wonder Stage.

“What did I say wrong?”

Rui seemed like he was going to turn and walk away from him, as he had the last couple of days, but Emu scowled at him and crossed her arms. Without a single word, she somehow convinced him to turn and face Tsukasa, before she nodded in satisfaction and skipped away to find Nene. “What is it, Tsukasa?”

Tsukasa drew himself to his tallest height—still shorter than Rui, but that was besides the point—and repeated himself. “Rui, what did I say wrong? I must’ve done something to hurt you, but I can’t remember what it was. And it hurts me that we haven’t been talking. I want to make this right, please?”

Something played in Rui’s eyes before he gave a faint nod. “Perhaps I’ve been … dramatic about this matter,” he admitted, looking off to the side briefly. “It was such a small comment, I didn’t consider you wouldn’t remember saying it.”

“Well, what did I say, then?”

“It was a matter of you compromising your dream, the way I remember it,” Rui started, still keeping his gaze relatively off of Tsukasa. Tsukasa wasn’t sure why he wasn’t looking at him. Was it some kind of anger? No, but Rui’s stance didn’t spell out anger the way it normally would. “When we were talking about our upcoming shows, you mentioned more about how you would do anything for our troupe—for me—including staying here when you had opportunities elsewhere.”

…Oh. Tsukasa remembered that conversation now. He hadn’t thought he had come off like that, but he’d meant what he said. He would do anything for them.

“And while of course I appreciate that you would love to support us all,” Rui continued, finally meeting Tuskasa’s eyes, “I don’t like that you would sacrifice something that could end up monumental for yourself. My star, you deserve every opportunity you get.”

A beat passed before Tsukasa nodded in understanding. He took a step closer, reaching for Rui’s hand. He almost expected Rui to pull away still, but Rui closed the rest of the distance between their hands, his calloused palms meeting Tsukasa’s soft ones. “I … will keep that in mind,” he relented, filing that information away. At the time, he supposed he’d considered it a bit selfish to even think of taking an opportunity outside of his beloved troupe, but Rui did make a point. Perhaps he could afford to be a little selfish, sometimes…

“I’m glad.” Rui brought Tsukasa’s hand up to his lips, kissing his knuckles gently. “And I apologize for causing you distress. That was not my intention.”

Tsukasa smiled at his boyfriend, though the moment only lasted about five seconds before Nene cleared her throat behind him. “Glad this whole thing is over, but we still have to practice sometime today.”

“Right, right.” Tsukasa hurried to get himself prepped which, really, was just finally letting go of Rui’s hand. His hand felt almost empty, lacking that warmth. “This next show will be our best, no doubt!”

Rui chuckled, adjusting his jacket around his shoulders. “I believe you’re right about this one, my star.”

Nene rolled her eyes, but beside her, Emu simply laughed, ready for anything as she always was. Tsukasa looked between his friends, their smiling faces (and Nene’s half-smiling one). He did mean that he wanted to be with them as long as he could… The future would come eventually, but he could still enjoy the present.

Chapter Text

The summer Katarina and Keith were ten, there was the bicycle. A “new invention,” the children of the kingdom were told, but Katarina was more in awe than anyone else. It was probably one of the few links she had between this world and her old one. Which was why, of course, she volunteered to show her brother how it was done.

Or, well, she worded it differently so as to not seem suspicious, but the sentiment was still there. Bicycles were bicycles! How hard could it be?

“Watch this,” she told Keith with a smug kind of smile. The flat area they’d chosen was adjacent to a nice hill, the kind she used to love riding bicycles down when she was a kid. The rush of air around her never got old, and the increasing speed used to remind her of amusement park rides. “I’m gonna go so fast!”

Keith looked at her and then at the hill, clearly with choice thoughts on his mind. Before he could properly find the words to voice them, Katarina sat on the bicycle, ready to go. “Are you sure about this?”

“Positive!” Katarina was a firm believer in never forgetting how to ride a bicycle, after all. She’d get to experience that familiar rush again, as good as it felt when she was ten back in her old world! The adrenaline rush from riding a bicycle downhill only softened year after year. She wanted it to be at its peak again. “Alright, Keith, watch this!”

She pushed off, pedaling a little to get some momentum downhill. She could already hear Keith shouting behind her—maybe he was trying to run after her? The wind in her ears was even more deafening, though, so she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Katarina laughed, fully enjoying the ride…

…Until her body realized that it had never ridden a bicycle before. Apparently that whole “never forgetting how to ride a bicycle” saying was based in muscle memory. Which Katarina’s body did not have.

And so.

Katarina kept her eyes closed instinctively as the bicycle wobbled and fell over with her still on it. And then as the bicycle’s momentum kept going, she still managed to hold on somehow, going down the hill with it. She was pretty sure she was screaming the whole way, but she hoped Keith thought it was more out of exhilaration than anything else. Because, yeah, it hurt, but honestly? Still kinda fun.

Then she reached the bottom, and all of the scrapes and what she vaguely recognized as some kind of road rash became apparent on her exposed skin. Like, all over.

“Katarina!” She was only on her own at the bottom of the hill for about ten seconds before Keith caught up with her. Maybe she was too dazed or something, but despite the burning of the scrapes on her skin, she wasn’t crying or anything like that. Keith looked like he was going to pass out, though.

“I’m okay!” Katarina smiled at him, getting up of her own accord. “See?”

Keith looked even more pale when she was just moving around normally. “No, let’s go back, I gotta clean you up before Mother sees.”

That reminder was what made Katarina lose the coloring in her face as well. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

Somehow, the trek home wasn’t eventful, though perhaps that was a blessing of some kind. Katarina had a feeling that her wounds would hurt more when they were washed out and healing than they already did, and even tenfold more when her mother found out. Looking over them quickly, rashes littering her arms and legs and probably part of her face, she had a feeling she wouldn’t be allowed out of the house for a long time. Probably until they healed. She would need a lot of help from whatever magic existed if they scarred over, since she still had that scar on her forehead healing.

Katarina hid in her room while Keith got what he needed. Honestly, she still couldn’t get over the fact that he acted like he was the older sibling, when she was the oldest. Both in this world and because of her experience in the other world! So it was kind of weird that he was so responsible, but that just meant she had to step up her act.

Keith returned quickly, looking around the hallway to make sure nobody else saw him. Katarina pouted at the antiseptic he had with him, but she was more than used to the sting of it at that point in her life.

“Please don’t ever do that again,” Keith said wearily before he’d even had a chance to start really looking at her wounds.

“It was fun, though,” she said, defending the bicycle with all her spirit. “Just … maybe I won’t go down a hill like that again until I’m older. Okay?”

Keith sighed mutedly, but still nodded. Katarina grinned to herself until the antiseptic made contact with her skin. He knew that sometimes it was easier to not argue with her, especially on matters like this. If he wasn’t able to convince her alongside her mother to stop climbing trees, then he couldn’t talk her out of bicycles.

It would be fun, she thought of then, to ride bicycles with all of her friends! Oooh, especially if she’d be able to race Alan at that point, he would love that and she would love beating him.

Then she looked down at the road rash again and winced. Knowing her friends, there was a good chance they wouldn’t trust her endorsement of the bicycle. And she was definitely grounded for months anyway. But there was still a chance, especially once they grew older. As long as she could do it sometime in the future, maybe when she didn’t have to worry about her impending doom, they would be able to have the absolute most fun! She was already looking forward to that time.

Chapter Text

Chat Noir did his best to keep a pretty good poker face. A poker face laced with puns, of course, but a poker face nonetheless. The only one who could see through it was Ladybug, as any good partner should be able to.

Or, well, that was what he thought.

The reality of superheroes such as himself and Ladybug was this: there wasn’t really a choice when it came to fighting. Any time of the day, he had to try to be at the scene as soon as he could, stopping akuma after akuma from destroying Paris. It was exhausting for sure, and had no regards for his civilian life. There were multiple times that he or Ladybug was late, or had to fight while sick. Ladybug tried that more often than he did; her sense of responsibility wouldn’t let her take any time off.

Granted, he should’ve taken time off then, but in many ways, he was in the same boat as she was.

Mr. Pigeon was a pain in everyone’s necks, but for some reason it was only getting harder to defeat him instead of easier. Chat Noir was already sore enough from fencing and the other sports he was signed up for without being slammed against the ground and walls by flocks of pigeons.

“I’m really starting to hate this guy,” he grunted, trying to catch himself against the wall instead of being smacked into it.

“Join the club.” Ladybug took a breath, noticing him wince when his hand brushed his side. “Are you alright?”

“Peachy.” He tried for a kind of smile, but wasn’t sure it came as easily as it normally did. Then he tried to shake off the ache in his ribs, just as another swarm of pigeons rounded the corner towards them. He always hated when Mr. Pigeon made a reappearance. Not only was it just repetitive and obnoxious, but his allergies went wild. He kept himself just far away enough whenever he could that he could at least breathe. “Let’s wrap this up.”

Ladybug nodded, thankfully forgetting that he’d ever shown any kind of weakness. She started in action, though Chat Noir found himself having a bit of a hard time concentrating. He knew their suits were supposed to absorb as much impact as possible, but they weren’t perfect.

So he did become a little slower in his movements, but since he was still able to keep up with Ladybug, he was sure none of the pigeons would notice. They were birds. They weren’t exactly the smartest creatures on the planet.

He heard Mr. Pigeon laughing, though with all the birds flying around, he couldn’t see the akuma at all. While he could, he took a deep breath—and in that moment, he felt something like a very firm beanbag pelt him in the ribs, right where it had hurt earlier.

Chat Noir’s breath was fully knocked out of him. He stumbled backward, instinctively wrapping his arm around his midsection. He wasn’t sure what he’d done earlier to make it that bad, but he didn’t think Mr. Pigeon had noticed, either. Distantly, he heard Ladybug calling out for him, but he was a bit distracted by the new wave of pain that the apparent pigeon missile had brought him. He sucked in a breath, keeping his vision from darkening.

That had to be something Hawkmoth told Mr. Pigeon to do. That was never the kind of thing he did on his own before.

“We have to finish this quickly,” he said, pushing forward through the pain. It was mostly to himself; Ladybug was still going through the pigeons to get to where the akuma was hidden. He wasn’t really helping as much as he should, but then, when it came to Mr. Pigeon he could never really help much. Allergies and all.

Chat Noir moved quickly, as quickly as he could, to get through the pigeons and regroup with Ladybug. If he could take over holding them off, she would be able to purify the akuma quicker.

Mr. Pigeon really was one of the most annoying akumas ever. He felt kinda bad that Hawkmoth kept taking advantage of him, but he and Ladybug had to figure out some kind of way to stop his serial akumatizations. He would very much like to never see another giant pigeon again.

After what felt like another hour passed, the akuma was purified. He breathed a sigh of relief—as best he could, at least, since his ribs very much still hurt. Ladybug put a hand on his shoulder, expressing her concern with just her expression. His own cut off whatever she was going to say.

“I’m alright, my lady,” he said with another smile, still somewhat forced. “Just bruised, nothing out of the ordinary.”

Ladybug nodded in understanding. “Please take care, okay? Take a break if you need to, I can handle the next couple.”

“No promises.” He winked, a little more lighthearted. If he had the choice, he would always fight by her side.

Still, he got home and practically collapsed onto his bed with a groan. He could absolutely hide the bruises there more easily than anywhere else, though maybe he would have to work on some kind of cover story for gym class, just in case anyone brought it up. He pulled a muscle or something.

To his side, Plagg sat and munched on his much-deserved camembert, but Adrien just stared up at his ceiling. It had already been so long since the akuma attacks started, and the way things were going… He and Ladybug could hope, but it always seemed like they still had a long uphill battle ahead of them.

He wrapped his arm around his midsection again, flinching when his hand brushed the bruises. They weren’t the worst he’d ever gotten, but that didn’t mean they didn’t hurt. But, as always, he could deal with them. If it meant the safety of Paris and his friends, he could deal with them.

Chapter Text

The killing game had long since ended, and for the most part, the residents of Jabberwock Island lived in peace. Of course, they had their arguments from time to time, but Hajime and several of his peers—he kept wanting to call them “classmates” still—were generally able to cool tensions off enough.

Things generally didn’t get physical, though. That was a weight off of everyone’s chests, he was sure. That wasn’t to say there weren’t accidents, but nobody was never harmed on purpose. And since they were alone on the island, with little contact from elsewhere, most of the time if someone fell ill, it was a cold or some form of stress sickness, in which case they just needed to be kept away from Nagito.

It was … a lot of work for him to manage sometimes. Hajime didn’t necessarily mind being seen as the de facto leader, the one with the most contact with Future Foundation. The biggest downfall was general stress, but he figured he could manage.

Just like the back pain he’d started to have.

If Hajime were honest, he would say that he thought it started because of helping out Nekomaru and Akane with some of the physical labor around the island. Sure, he had a good amount of strength, but it was entirely possible that he overdid it. He thought in the back of his mind then that he might want Mikan to check him out just to be on the safe side, but that thought was quickly replaced with a plethora of others, mostly of other tasks that needed completing.

He had a headache at breakfast in the morning, downing some of the caffeinated tea that a supply boat had recently delivered. He rolled his shoulders back, hoping that would help the tightness in his back, but that didn’t help as much as he expected.

“Hajime,” Sonia said, taking a seat in front of him. They were two of the only early risers who didn’t immediately work out. The dining area of the hotel was bare apart from them. “If something is bothering you…”

She didn’t need to finish her sentence. As another of the group leaders, of course she would be one of the few who would notice if something was off. She was very good at realizing when people weren’t at their best, Hajime had noticed early after the killing game.

“It’s probably nothing,” he told her, suddenly feeling almost self-conscious. He was such a big preacher of them all being open with each other, and yet there he was, trying to appear like nothing was wrong. “Just something I might check with Mikan later.”

Sonia’s brow furrowed in concern, but she nodded. “She’ll be up soon,” she said, poking at her breakfast. “Sooner rather than later might be needed.”

Hajime would’ve argued, but a pinch of pain shocked him as he rolled his shoulders again. “...I’ll see her once she wakes up,” he agreed.

The pain, at least, wasn’t any worse by the time Mikan finished her assessment of him. Although the hospital on Jabberwock Island was fairly small, it was well-stocked enough for Mikan to get a pretty good idea of what was going on. Hajime, still mostly unfortunately with Izuru’s talents, had a vague idea of what it was, but a second opinion never hurt.

“I-I think this is subluxation,” Mikan told him, confirming his initial diagnosis of himself. “P-probably stress-induced, s-since you would’ve said something before otherwise.”

That made more sense than anything else he could think up. He stretched his back again and winced. At least it wasn’t anything more, and he didn’t think it was more than a mild case. “What do you think, then? Stretches and tylenol?”

“A-and rest.” Mikan cleared her throat before Hajime had a chance to argue. There were very few times she was able to steel her voice in a serious manner, usually when it came to medical advice. That was one of those times. “You already do a lot around here, take a day or two off. Y-you don’t want to risk making it worse.”

He knew better than to argue on that point. With the knowledge of Izuru, plenty of possibilities ran through his mind, all of them dampened by rest. “Alright. Today and tomorrow, then we can reassess.”

Mikan chewed on her lip, then nodded in agreement. She hovered a little as Hajime got off of the examination table, though he was fine for the most part. Only a little soreness. “I-I’ll tell the others where you’ll be!”

Keeping rest in mind, Hajime took the road back to his cabin slowly, making sure he didn’t turn in any wrong way. He was almost surprised that he didn’t see anyone on his way, but then, it was still early. There were quite a few late risers among them.

As soon as Hajime laid down on his bed, he felt immediately bored and restless. There was so much he needed to do, things that he knew Sonia and the others would be able to take care of without him for a day or two. Mikan was right about needing rest, though, especially since the source of the subluxation was probably stress. If there were a chiropractor in the island, that would solve the misalignment easily enough. Nekomaru was probably the closest to that, but just in case, he didn’t want to risk anything.

His ceiling was quite boring.

He adjusted his pillows a good dozen times, finding the best way to lay down with the lowest amount of pain. He could tell just where the misalignment was based on his movements. Those five minutes that passed were some of the longest in his life. Hajime genuinely hoped that it would solve itself quickly so he could get back to everything else. Even if it was a lot of work on his end, it was still his life. He would love to get back to it as soon as he could.

Chapter Text

By the time she turned twelve, Oshiro had made her peace with death.

It wasn’t something she ever talked about. She and her parents tried to ignore the reality that stared them in the face at every birthday, every holiday, every landmark. She wasn’t supposed to live past twelve; the four years after that felt like borrowed time.

Hope’s Peak felt like a kind of dream because of that. There she was, sixteen, doing her best to manage when she should’ve died four years ago, surrounded by new friends and recognized for a talent she picked up out of a passion when she had nothing else to do. That wasn’t to say she didn’t love astrology; it just started as a way for her to fill time when she couldn’t be in school.

Between the time she was supposed to die and entering Hope’s Peak, she had surprisingly fewer visits to the hospital than she thought she would. It helped, really. Helped her think that she could have a normal school life, and not have to tell her classmates.

There was one exception to that: Yoshida.

Oshiro had been planning on not telling any of her classmates, but Yoshida approached her first. As Yoshida put it, “I never forget someone I meet in the hospital.” Oshiro nearly had forgotten—until Yoshida shared some pictures of the two of them. Back then, Oshiro could hardly ever leave the room, but Yoshida had come in to keep her company when she was able. So she shared a little more information with Yoshida, someone she would quite honestly and literally trust with her life. If something happened, Yoshida would know what to do.

Although she had made her peace with her eventual, likely impending death, she thought it wouldn’t come to that. That nothing would happen while she was at Hope’s Peak. Wishful thinking.

She and Yoshida had standing breakfast plans on the weekends. Every day, really, but especially the weekends. Oshiro looked forward to them, but she couldn’t deny that there was something about the night before that made her feel more tired than usual. She thought then that she might have the cancel when the morning came.

When morning came, though, she found herself gasping for air, trying to get a good breath in. That hadn’t happened in so long that already she was afraid. Her muscles were too weak for her to move much; she couldn’t even turn her head to see what time it was.

She’d made her peace with death, but knowing that it might come for her right then and there was terrifying.

The longer she went on without a good breath, the more she panicked and hurt. She knew her lungs weren’t great, but she couldn’t think of a specific reason for them to fail on her then. Which led her to the one conclusion she didn’t want to face yet.

Her door opened before long—she kept it unlocked, especially since half the time Yoshida needed to come in and wake her up if they wanted to get breakfast on time. Maybe it was Yoshida’s luck that led her there in the moment, that it was Yoshida and nobody else.

“Amaya!” Oshiro couldn’t respond, just kept gasping for air. On the one hand, Yoshida would be better than anyone else when it came to getting her help—if she was able to be helped at all. On the other, if things went the way Oshiro thought…

She wasn’t sure what time passed, but eventually Yoshida took her hand, rubbing her thumb across the back of it. “Help is coming,” she promised, her voice steady. That was something Oshiro knew well about her: Yoshida was the kind of person who could be steady in the face of emergency if she had to be. Maybe she wasn’t the most level-headed all the time, but she was when it counted.

Oshiro’s lungs burned as they started taking in less and less air. At the same time, she was compelled to cough, making her struggle that much more to get the breath she very much needed. Yoshida squeezed her hand, whispering words of comfort. She closed her eyes, focusing all of her strength to her lungs, trying to hang on even though she knew there was a good chance she was done fighting. Four extra years wasn’t bad, she thought. They’d been good ones. She’d been able to make great friends like Yoshida.

She felt her chest shudder with every attempted breath, pain coursing through her body. Yoshida was still talking, but she couldn’t focus on what. Her lungs had finally given up on her, and all she could think about was leaving her friends.

It was easier of a concept to come to terms with when she was twelve. She knew about death, and she didn’t have the friends she had now. There were fewer people she would’ve been leaving behind, less of a reason to fight forward.

How could she fight any more if all of the strength was sapped from her body?

She had a feeling that even if she could open her eyes at that point, her vision would be blurry, both from the lack of oxygen and the tears from coughing and gasping. Maybe it had only been a minute or so, but she knew the limits of the human body intimately well. Eleven minutes was the limit, and she didn’t know how long she’d been struggling.

Without taking into account the people she would be leaving behind, the future she never believed she had anyway, it would be easier to give in to the fate that was inevitable for her. Even if she didn’t die right then, it would only be a matter of time, possibly even less than a year.

She tried squeezing Yoshida’s hand back, a sort of final gesture just in case. She wished she could tell Yoshida everything on her mind, but she had a feeling that Yoshida would get the message.