#thpff

[hey-heigo]

naegami fanon vs thpff naegami. ft. kyoko

[bone-byrd]

you could fix him but i could watch him trembling and glaring with utter hatred. and strip him of his power.

this is fanart for @dangans-ur-ronpas's fic, I loooove it sm if you see this. haaiiii your brain is HUGE

Makoto: He couldn't have committed the murder, he's BLIND Byakuya: Nuh uh!! (<< said with hatred and betrayal) Makoto: fuck you mean nuh uh???????????

[hey-heigo]

work doodling the freaks

[hey-heigo]

my danganronpa whump fic is one year old as of today

[hey-heigo]

byakuya falling in love with makoto like. you are just a tool to me. or you should be. but you keep surprising me in ways i can't predict. i don't know why i treat you like you're indispensible. i dont know why im always searching you out of a crowd

byakuya falling in love with kyoko like. mein gott you are a terrible woman. but your unrivaled skill and unsettling behavior has captivated me. i do not understand you but there are times where i can tell we are similar. i can't tell if this bothers me or intrigues me. maybe both

[hey-heigo]

Chapter 26

PLEASEEEEEE NOTE: this is a Maturity rating chapter. heed the content warnings below etc etc

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

this one was supposed to be merged with chap 25 but it was getting long and i felt like this motive reveal chapter should be isolated anyways

one day i will write a full thing about fucking nasty style and post that online without the 25 chapters of leadup

ty @digitaldollsworld for the peer review and validating me specifically :)

Content warning tags: blood, physical violence/roughhousing, biting, making out (while bloodied. mild bloodplay?), mildly dubious consent becoming unspoken consent given enthusiastically becoming dubious consent again, coitus interruptus, mild (nonsexual) breathplay, murder plot suggestion, unhealthy relationship dynamics...Please let me know if there's anything I'm missing

< previous - from start - next >

To his surprise, they don’t continue on the same path together.

Instead, they split, with Kirigiri walking towards the stairs, and Makoto in the opposite direction. Without exchanging words, or even a glance.

It gives him pause for a moment, but the choice is ultimately easy. Kirigiri, for all her mysteriousness, does not seem like the kind to be swayed by money, or most other things for that matter, and would certainly not hesitate to point out his current state. He goes after Makoto instead, trailing him some steps behind into the supply room.

The place is the same as ever - stacked with materials, shelves crammed snug with crates of all sizes, and with the air disconcertingly clean and free of dust, as if Monokuma vacuumed every day - and the overhead lights hum and buzz, glowing with an insufficient yellow light. Makoto is crouched near the far wall, over a box on a bottom shelf. Byakuya approaches, making no effort to conceal himself.

For a moment, neither of them say a word. Makoto continues to rummage, and Byakuya simply watches, arms crossed, waiting patiently as the silence stretches to minutes. 

Finally, Makoto turns over his shoulder. “Uh…hi?” He doesn’t sound startled or surprised by Byakuya’s presence, but more bewildered by it than anything. “Do you need something?”

Somehow, it doesn’t sound sarcastic or spiteful. On the other hand, he sounds so genuine that it dissipates any tension that might’ve been in the air. Byakuya sighs, a little exasperated, but less bothered than he thought he should be.

He was going to ask what Makoto’s feelings were about the motive reveal, but suddenly the atmosphere is all wrong for it, and such a conversation feels too exhausting to have now. “What are you doing?” He asks instead.

“I’m…” Makoto trails off, turning back to look into the box. “...Looking for something.”

“Yes, I gathered that much.” He rolls his eyes, and steps nearer. Even standing right behind him, it was impossible to determine the exact contents of the box just by looking, and he didn’t remember the exact locations where all the products were stored either. “I’m blind, not stupid.”

And he blinks, surprised by what he just said; that hadn’t been the snide remark he wanted to make. It feels like it should have been harder to say, and yet the words had left his mouth easily, like he’d been waiting to finally say it for himself. Makoto startles a bit, just as taken aback by the admission as he.

“I…” Makoto starts, then looks back down. “Uh, yeah. Sorry.” 

The response is so meek it’s annoying, and not the kind of answer he was wanting from someone who had been sneakily butting into his life the past few days, and he scowls. Whatever light-heartedness had been previously present was now slipping quickly away into irritation. “I don’t need your pointless scraping. What are you looking for?”

Makoto doesn’t answer. Rather, he continues to dig through the box, acting as if he hadn’t heard Byakuya’s question at all; a complete reversal from the previous sheepish, meaningless apologizing. It’s almost jarring, if it wasn’t also something entirely infuriating - he couldn’t remember the last time someone had the gall to ignore him, other than his father - and Byakuya childishly aims a kick at his shin. “Answer me.”

“Ow,” He says instead, unconvincingly. “Okay, okay, um. Do you promise not to get mad?”

“I’m going to be even angrier if you keep talking in circles.” He snaps, the last threads of his patience thinning. “I know for a fact that you’re not this wimpish, so speak up.”

Even despite the demand, Makoto is silent a little moment longer, rummaging still. Byakuya is about to kick him again, when he stands up, a tiny, blue box clutched in his hand.

“You, uh…you were shaving this morning, right?” He takes a deep breath, then holds the box out. “You’ve got a little blood here-” And he taps a finger against his cheek, somewhere below his ear; Byakuya mirrors the movement, reaching up to feel that thin line of roughness, the scab tugging at the skin. “And…I remembered my dad gave me this brand of razor, it’s really easy to use-”

Byakuya smacks the thing out of his hands before he can even finish speaking, sending it spinning across the floor, beneath some other shelf.

For a moment, the two of them stand there, stock still. Byakuya can feel his pulse thrumming in his ears, throbbing against his eardrums; he’s not sure which of them is more shocked, to be honest. Makoto’s hand is still partially outstretched, now empty.

Then: “What the hell is your problem?!” Makoto demands, instantaneous and loud and cracked with a slight note of hysteria. The sound bounces tinnily between the metal shelving units, before being swallowed into the wooden surfaces of the crates.

“What is your problem?” Byakuya shoots back, just as furious. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want your pity?”

“It’s not pity if I’m trying to keep you alive,” Makoto grabs his arm, shoving it upwards. His hand is nowhere big enough to wrap around it, but the grip is tight anyways, fingers digging into the hollow junction of his wrist. “You barely eat, you don’t talk to anyone-”

“I’m trying to keep myself safe-”

“That’s shit, that’s bullshit. You look,” He breaks to breathe, to laugh, and his grip tightens, grinding the bones. “You look like such shit, and it’s not even hard to tell. It’s so obvious that you’re trying to hide it but you can’t, and everyone can see that you’re falling apart and it’s so pathetic but you won’t let anyone get close enough to tell you that -” He’s shaking, or maybe that’s Byakuya himself. “Just-”

And falls silent - no, not entirely silent. Byakuya can hear his uneven breathing, the quiet squeaks in his throat. Stifling the sound of his crying, still only just audible over the hum and clanks of the building’s internals, and the ring in his own ears.

Why was he crying? The thought is fleeting, and should have just been a blip in everything else. “I am not,” He starts, and the latter half of that sentence never even becomes coherent in his own mind.

Instead, he tries to wrench his hand backwards and away from Makoto’s grip, and Makoto just follows him, pushing him, until his back meets the hard, uneven edges of a shelving unit, digging into his shoulders.

“You are, you so are,” Makoto wheezes. His hand shakes violently, but Byakuya still can’t break out of it; his wrist is being pinned to the metal frame, the cold surface a shock against his skin. “You - fuck, you can’t even take care of yourself. You try to act so cool but you’re so helpless it’s lame. You’re trying so hard to predict where the next threat is coming from but your biggest threat is yourself. You can’t even see what’s happening around you, so you don’t even try to find out - I just -”

And he stops, taking another deep, shaky breath, head dipping down until his forehead rests against Byakuya’s collarbone. His other hand is bracing the edge of a shelf, next to Byakuya’s hip, and Byakuya can feel it by sheer proximity, the warmth bleeding impossibly through the layers of Makoto’s jacket and his own thin shirt.

He-

should say something. Anger and indignation boils in his gut, how dare Makoto say such things? Who gave him the right? Didn’t he know who Byakuya was?

But-

what can he say, when it feels like he’s suddenly been struck stupid. Like he’s a child again facing his first real defeat at the hand of one of his siblings’s lackeys, kneeling with scraped knees weeping blood into his pants as he’s being taunted, the words hysteric and victorious. Like he’s trying to argue with Kirigiri, but she’s already had the last word and is simply walking away.

So he resorts to the same answer he had the first time he was forced to concede to one of his siblings, and kicks Makoto in the shin.

It’s not a very strong blow. Caged in against the shelf as he is, he doesn’t have enough space to pull back very far; but it makes Makoto grunt, surprised, and his hold loosens. Byakuya shoves him backwards, and glances to his side, where the white light spilling from the open door marks the exit.

He could leave. He doubts Makoto could catch him if he ran seriously. But his legs refuse to move; it would feel too much like conceding. He’s been losing too much these past few days to forfeit again, now.

Makoto is standing in front of him, the overhead lights above providing just enough illumination for Byakuya to make out the location of his nose, the curve of his brow, and in the split second before he can do anything Byakuya reaches out. One hand snags fingertips into Makoto’s hood. The other grabs his face, slotting his chin almost tenderly into the space between forefinger and thumb.

The effect is instantaneous, Makoto’s cheeks heating beneath his fingertips. “Hey, wh-”

Byakuya feels his face pull, an undignified baring of teeth that’s barely reminiscent of a smile, before he drags Makoto forward and knees him in the gut.

He prefers more dignified solutions to things, but violence is the most universally understood language, and he can admit to its usefulness when the need calls. Like now, as Makoto wheezes, bent over, his hands clutching unsteadily in Byakuya’s shirt to keep himself upright.

This is how it should be, he thinks, as he looks down at the crown of Makoto’s head with a twisted sense of triumph. It hardly lasts long before Makoto’s moving again with an animalistic growl, fingers twisting so tightly Byakuya can feel some threads snap in his shirt, before he’s shoved backwards with a rattling clang against the shelves.

It’s hardly enough to stun him, but he winces anyway, at the metal frame digging between his shoulder blades. Far more effective, is what comes next - Makoto sways, resting his forehead against Byakuya’s chest - before surging upwards, colliding the top of head against his nose.

The taste of copper is an afterthought to the sharp, explosive burst of pain. Byakuya screams - snarls - with it, blood tracking a hot line down his upper lip, stinging against raw skin. He sinks his hands into Makoto’s hair, and yanks roughly, trying to drag him off.

It’s unsuccessful. He doesn’t have the strength in his arms to move the weight of another teenage male, but it’s not wholly ineffective either. He hears a sharp intake of breath, and he’s managed to drag Makoto’s head backwards enough to see his face.

A face that, even in the dim yellow light of the supply room, is flushed darker than usual. And with eyes that are blown wide, the blotted shape of iris-pupils very, very dark against the whites.

It takes a moment for him to put together what that means through the haze, before Makoto’s hands are resituating themselves in Byakuya’s shirt collar, and yanking him down to - kiss him.

He freezes for a moment, mind once again going utterly blank. It’s nothing more than a hard press of lips, almost far too innocent compared to their previous state. Makoto’s lips are warm and slightly chapped, and sliding slightly against his as he smears the blood over his mouth.

It continues for a long moment, the two of them frozen in place, until Byakuya realizes that Makoto was beginning to pull away, his hold loosening; willingly seceding control over, meek again, and anger works its way up in Byakuya’s skull, spiking sharp and precise through the delirium.

He twists his hands, fingers tightening in the locks of Makoto’s hair, and forces him still, bowing his head down to bite at the seam of Makoto’s mouth with all the composure of a starving dog, smearing blood, tongue and teeth snagging in the cracked skin of his lips.

He pulls away just enough to grin, savagely, at the sight of Makoto with a vividly dark slice staining across his mouth. “That is how you kiss someone,” He whispers, with something dark and self-satisfied curling in his gut.

The only response Makoto gives is a low, almost inhuman sound, before he’s being yanked down again.

There’s nothing chaste about it this time. Rather, it’s more like a continuation of their fight, biting, clacking teeth, hands scrabbling and grasping for purchase. Makoto matches his every move with the same exact vigor, and Byakuya tastes salt and hot metal and the over-sweet sourness of energy drinks and laughs into the kiss, breathless and triumphant at Makoto’s desperation, the feeling of hands dragging down his sides, even as he claws back, trying to drag him nearer, nails raking across the thick fabric of his blazer, down his back, over his arms. In turn, Makoto licks into his mouth, tonguing hotly over his canines, the soft roof of his palate.

Disgusting. Byakuya shudders, and lets his jaw slacken just a little more.

He feels his back beginning to slide, uncomfortably, down the frame. It’s both an annoyance and a relief - the previous angle was killing his neck - but then Makoto leans forward, weight pressing against him, sandwiching him there, and digging his spine painfully against the hard juts of the shelves.

Byakuya half-thinks to scold him for that, but at the same time, Makoto is sliding his leg between his thighs, propping him up, and the reprimand turns into a groan instead, breathy and desperate and far too loud in the solitude of the supply room.

He jerks back, suddenly self-aware again, face flushed to burning. This was - he feels his head swimming, self-appalled, rivaling the temptation to sink down a little lower, lean into the hands that are now feeling clumsily up his ribcage - utterly unbecoming of him. To give into such base temptations-

Ever persistent and apparently undeterred by the absence of his mouth, Makoto leans forward and presses his teeth to the side of Byakuya’s neck instead, and the rest of Byakuya’s coherent thoughts try to fly out with those thin, pinprick-sharp flares of pain.

“Idiot,” He still manages to hiss, even as he gives in and grinds down, against a sweet pressure that makes everything feel so - indescribably - “Bastard, you pathetic little-”

Talking was getting troublesome. He presses his hands against Makoto’s cheeks, feeling a small thrill of victory when he feels his thumbs brush the corner of his lips on the first try, and kisses him again, feeling dizzy with it.

His hands shift, seeking out better purchase in Makoto’s hood, knuckles pressing against the warm, jumping muscles in his neck, the other sinking into his hair again. This time more to keep himself upright as Makoto was apparently trying to bite his tongue off - and that thought really shouldn’t be doing anything for Byakuya, and yet -

Tap, tap. Tap.

“Makoto,” He gasps, whines, managing to pull himself away once more. This time grabbing onto Makoto’s face and pushing him backwards like an undisciplined, overeager dog - the other boy struggles for a moment, pushing back against his hands - “Wait, just - calm down, you - do you hear that?”

It takes a moment for Makoto to respond. “Wh-huh?” He manages, somewhat incoherently, which Byakuya…supposes, is reasonable. They’re still pressed against each other, and Byakuya can still feel something pressing against his thigh, which he tries very hard to ignore, in favor of concentrating hard.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It doesn’t sound like it was coming from the hallways. But it couldn’t be the heating or piping in the walls either; it was too soft, and…too dynamic, too purposeful, for that. He cranes his head over his shoulder, but the only thing behind him was the shelf, some boxes, and the flat, gray expanse of the wall.

Tap. Tap, tap, taptaptap-

The sound rises to a sudden crescendo, speeding behind him. Almost reflexively, he shoves away from the shelf, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Makoto lands on his back with a grunt, and Byakuya lands nearly on top of him, before scrabbling backwards until his back meets the shelf, self-awareness shattering his earlier insanity.

Makoto is staring at him, face still flushed and dazed. “Hey, what was-?”

“Awahwahwah!? Kyahh!!”

They jerk their heads in unison, turning to find a short, round, oblong shape standing in the doorway. Monokuma stands there with face covered by paws, squealing. “C-c-could this be?! The fabled, mythical, super-ultra-sexy-secret-rendezvous I heard about from the headmaster’s handbook?! Wah! My eyes!! My untainted, honest, adorable teddy-button eyes!!!”

“Shut up!” Byakuya snaps, voice far too high-pitched to not be damning, despite his best attempts to calm down. He surreptitiously turns away from the door, and can see Makoto doing something similar out of the corner of his eye, tucking his knees up close to his chest. Monokuma shakes, either from laughter or phony horror.

“Oh, there’s no need to worry, Young Master Byakuya. I’m a very progressive bear, after all!” It nods emphatically, and Byakuya grits his teeth at the derisive use of the title. “After all, I am your headmaster, and I want this place to be all sweet and accepting of all my students! You can talk to your classmates about it at this seminar I’m planning-”

“Get out of here.” Makoto rasps, voice still rough and a little unsteady. He sounds downright furious, more so than Byakuya remembers ever hearing him. “It wasn’t- It wasn’t like that.”

“Oh-ho? T’wasn’t it?” Monokuma tilts its head, and toddles over with squeaky footsteps. “Well then, what did happen? Because it certainly looked to me like I just blue-beared you two!” And it cackles hysterically at its own joke, the sound grating and echoing between the shelves.

“He-” Makoto’s sneakers scrape against the floor as he shifts, hesitating. “He was- trying to…trying to kill me.”

And even through the rising haze of fury, panic, and nauseating shame, Byakuya’s thoughts grind to a sudden halt.

“What?” He says aloud, at the same time as Monokuma squeals with apparent delight, drowning him out entirely.

“Oh, oh! Is that so?” And it rounds on him, all of a sudden far too close for comfort, his vision divided white and black. “Tell me, is this true? What was the weapon? What was the plan? Oh, it’s a shame I interrupted, so now I gotta make up for the lost opportunity! Spill the deets!”

So none of it had meant anything. Their pathetic, awkward fumbling in the dark, his brief delusion of control, had only amounted to this. Back to being humiliated and shamed by a grinning, faceless mastermind, and with no more authority over himself as he did before, as Makoto was trying to save him. Again.

He kicks Monokuma away, sending it spinning with a yelp into one of the shelves, and bolts from the room. Makoto is shouting after him, and soon there are footsteps dogging at his heels, but he makes it all the way back to his bedroom before Makoto catches up to him as he’s trying to unlock the door.

He narrowly makes it inside, tries to swing the door shut but it bounces off of Makoto’s shoe, jammed in just in time - and he’d wince in sympathy, or mull in the dejá vu of it, if he wasn’t currently trying to tamp down his own swell of emotions, nearing to breaking through his thinly held-together composure.

“Why did you say that,” He spits through clenched teeth. Too exhausted to try and force him out, too angry to just ignore him. “Of all the stupid, useless lies to come up with, you had to choose one that made me look even more pathetic?!”

“What were you going to say, then,” Makoto shoots back, just as irritated. “Was there anything more plausible that would’ve been better for you than ‘we were making out in the closet’?!”

He doesn’t bother to reply. Because no, that was the most believable thing Makoto could have said, which was why he was so furious now. There was the logical setting, an established motive - the set-up for a cheap, impassioned crime, with no thought or grace behind it. 

If he had said it himself, he might have barely been able to salvage his own pride. But having to be defended by his own so-called ‘victim’, having to be saved by Makoto again-

He sits down heavily on the bed, rubbing his temples. “Just leave, Makoto.” He sighs, eyes screwed shut. He’s too tired for this, and would rather try and sleep and forget it all. Or break down, which was beginning to feel like a very real possibility, which he’d rather do in the privacy of his own room anyways.

But instead of leaving, Makoto drops down to the floor with a thump, directly in front of him. “I’m not leaving until you go eat something.” He says, stubbornly, apparently recalling his entire original purpose of trying to bully him into codependency.

I was hoping he would’ve forgotten that. Byakuya feels a pulse throb beneath his fingertips, exasperation pushing through the rising fog of panic. “Must we do this now?”

“If I don’t, you’re going to ignore and avoid me and everyone else again, right?” He could almost hear the teasing smile tugging at the corner of Makoto’s mouth. “But, um. I mean. If you don’t want to talk, we could…you know…”

It takes a moment to identify exactly what he’s suggesting, but the disbelieving laugh that escapes Byakuya’s mouth is entirely unintentional, the panic miraculously dissipating in the same breath. “You can’t be serious.”

“I-I mean-! I’m totally okay if you don’t want to, I just thought…” Makoto trails off with a cough. “I…it was kind of a joke. Um- but you were enjoying it too, right?” There’s a thin note of hesitance in his voice.

Byakuya sighs. “...Yes. Unfortunately so.” Enough that if he thinks too much on it, he’ll become aware of the buzzing still lingering in his lips and the feeling of warmth beneath his hands, the low throb in his nose where the bleeding had only just stopped, and there was no good way that particular thought process was going to end. He’d almost prefer the impending anxiety attack to this.

“O-oh, okay. Cool. That’s cool.” Makoto rocks a little bit. “So…”

“I��m not having sex with you right now.” He deadpans, and Makoto has the gall to blush sheepishly, as if he weren’t the one making the suggestion in the first place.

“Right. Yeah, of course.” He scratches his head with a quiet laugh. “We…kinda took it a little fast, huh?”

That was an understatement. And he raises a hand over his face, trying to hide the heat rising beneath his fingers…much of what had happened was mostly due to his own actions. “Well, it’s not like we are in a situation where we could have a normal progression of things.”

“I don’t know, we have a pretty good kitchen. I would’ve liked to make you dinner first, or something.”

“How romantic. Forgive me if the idea of a school cafeteria meal doesn’t sweep me off my feet.”

“You won’t know if you don’t try it. I can make a pretty good omelet on a good day…if you’re okay with that.” The lilting invitation is clear, and Byakuya snorts.

“I should’ve murdered you in front of Monokuma.” He deadpans back.

Now it was Makoto’s turn to chuckle, a soft, surprised ‘ha!’ that makes Byakuya smile wholly inadvertently.

“Yeah, probably,” He agrees. “Did you want to?”

The smile slides off his face instantly. It sounds like Makoto is joking, but - it’s hard to tell. So hard to tell without being able to see if he’s smiling, if the easy tone of his voice matches his face.

“Do you want to?” He asks again, voice softer, serious.

Probably not a joke, then. He laces his fingers tightly, tight enough for his joints to ache, pressing the knuckles to his chin. “It hadn’t…crossed my mind.” Not seriously, at least. And not since the last trial.

But he could. There was no deal to uphold, not anymore. And Makoto - 

“Why are you asking?” He looks up for the first time, at Makoto, sitting cross-legged on his carpet. Staring back at him. “Surely you don’t want to die?”

Makoto doesn’t reply, his face still curiously, infuriatingly blank.

Everything that had been previously cleared comes rushing back, fury and disbelief and - anxiety, of all things, a painful, welling lump of it rising up his gullet - and before he knows it, he’s on the ground, kneeling across from Makoto with his hands around his neck.

The skin is warm. Shockingly soft, slightly tacky with sweat. The pressure isn’t enough to cut off airflow - his hands are only just resting against his throat - but Byakuya flexes his thumbs lightly, feeling the shape of his Adam’s apple beneath his fingers, his pulse beneath his palms.

And the whole time, Makoto makes no move to push him off. He had twitched, maybe, surprised at first, but that was all, now frozen stock-still - no, he was relaxing into the touch, muscles going purposefully slack as his shoulders slump.

“...What are you doing.” He whispers. Tenses his fingers, feels the breath hitch. “I could kill you right now. Why aren’t you stopping me?” Takes a deep, shuddering breath as he feels his voice begin to break. “Don’t tell me you actually want to die here!”

Makoto’s mouth is a dark cavern as he opens it to respond. “I don’t. Of course I don’t.” His voice wheezes slightly. “But if it’s you… I’d rather it be you than anyone else.”

Byakuya feels his hands shake. This was too much, all of it too much - he hadn’t even concluded how he felt about Makoto yet, not coherently - and apparently, in the time he’d spent in self-isolation, something had become twisted. The most mundane person here had become wholly insane. For his sake.

I must be insane too, he thinks, for the tiny, irrational thrill of joy that runs through him at that realization.

He jerks when he feels hands resting over his, fingers tracing delicately over the fine lines of his knuckles, the hollow of his wrist. Keeping his grip steady.

“I don’t think you will, though,” Makoto continues. “You don’t really want to kill anyone. You would’ve done it already if you did.”

“Don’t act like you know me.” He grits, grip spasming, torn between removing himself from Makoto and throttling him to shut him up. “You know perfectly well there’s a difference between intent and capabilities.”

Makoto takes a shaky, raspy breath. A slash of white pulls across his face. “Then are you gonna prove me wrong?”

Byakuya hesitates for too long. In that time, the hands that rest over his pull and then press, and he flinches as his palms fully meet Makoto’s neck, almost icily cool against the clamminess of his own skin. He yanks them backwards like he’d been burned, too shocked to even scold him for - for any of it. Too flustered to wonder if he even could.

His hands shake, still, even when he clenches them into fists with his nails biting into his palms, pressing into his knees.

Makoto coughs once, massaging his neck, before he stands up slowly.

“Let’s go,” He says, still smiling as he offers up a hand. “I’ll make you an omelet.”

< previous - from start - next >

[hey-heigo]

Chapter 31

first chapter of da year :)

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

not much to say for this one. kind of a transitional chapter into the trial

every now and then i re-reference the game transcripts and realize that ive missed a lot of stuff that's kind of important within the game canon and it becomes a race to see if and where i can introduce those naturally

beta'd by @digitaldollsworld!

Content warning tags: Monokuma-typical dialogue, hangnail fixation, student tardiness

< previous - from start - next >

Makoto jitters as he waits by the elevator entrance with the others, chewing on a hangnail on his thumb. It’s a bad habit he had throughout elementary and middle school, and one his mom would definitely get pissed at him for reviving.

Sorry mom, he thinks distantly, as the tiny sliver of skin gets caught between his teeth just so - and is joined by a bead of blood, hot metal on his tongue, as he tugs open a tiny, stinging wound next to his fingernail. But he felt like there were ants marching under his skin, a steady, anxious march of them as he waits for what feels like ages, glancing repeatedly at the doorway.

A few moments later, there’s the sound of clomping footsteps and indistinct words, and he nearly gets a twinge in his neck twisting around to see who it was. But it’s not Byakuya, or Kyoko, or even Hifumi - but Monokuma, uncharacteristically reserved (and, for some reason, missing a few patches of fur across its head and torso) and dragging Toko along by the edge of her skirt. And Toko…

He blinks, forgetting to be apprehensive for a moment. The characteristic twin braids that usually swung from her head were gone, shorn messily and at uneven lengths, just above the shoulders. The right side still had enough length to hold its shape as a braid, though there were a lot of messy, flyaway strands poking outwards that gave the impression that she’d been electrocuted. The left side was cut shorter, in line with her chin, and was completely undone, frizzing outwards from her face. There’s a band-aid - reddish-pink and patterned with white bunnies - slapped high across her left cheekbone. Her glasses were askew.

For a moment, no one dares to say a word, as her eyes flick between them, wide and wild and blazing with rage. “W-What are you looking at?” She snarls, voice stuttering only slightly, but enough to confirm that, yes, she was Toko, and Makoto relaxes a little.

(Not that he had anything against Syo, really, aside from the…murder. But Syo was a lot, and he wasn’t sure he could handle her right now.)

“...Toko?” Hina tries, tentatively, and she flinches, hard enough for her glasses to slip even further down her nose. “What - what happened…?”

“Isn’t it o-obvious?” She snaps bitterly. She yanks her skirt free from Monokuma’s grasp - who doesn’t even make a sound of protest or indignation, weirdly enough - her fingers white-knuckling the fabric, before shoving her glasses back with the palm of one hand. “She cut them off. Th-thought it’d be funny, or something…n-not that she ever th-thinks about what it matters to me…”

No one really knows what to say to that. “...Well,” Sakura eventually says, a little awkwardly. “It doesn’t look…bad.”

“Y-eah…” Hiro agrees, sounding way too skeptical to be believable. “It just…needs to be evened out?”

Whatever comfort they were trying to offer was lost on her, who only scowls fiercer, as she moves to isolate herself to a corner, her typical habit. Clearly no longer interested in entertaining any further conversation, though Makoto can feel her eyes boring into him when he looks away, returning his thumb to his lips.

The minutes tick by in an agonizing crawl. Monokuma is waiting silently with them now, adding a new layer of anxiety as it cycles between tapping its foot dramatically to staring at its wrist like it’s checking a watch, and yet the last three of their party is nowhere to be seen.

The hangnail Makoto was teething at finally gives up the ghost and snaps off with a sharp, needle-prick of warmth. Instead of pulling his thumb out of his mouth, though, he tongues at the raw, weeping skin, tasting salt and copper and another bloom of hot pain.

The sound of footsteps has him jerking to look again, dragging his hand from his mouth, and a moment later the sound is followed by Byakuya and Hifumi, rushing - kind of - towards them. Neither of them are moving especially fast, and Byakuya was keeping pace with Hifumi, though Makoto’s not sure if that’s on purpose, or, if something else was going on - he did seem to be struggling, his brow pinched, uncharacteristically stumbling somewhat as they reach the group. But the rest of him seems okay, and that in itself is enough of a relief to make Makoto rush over to meet him.

“Hey,” He starts, and then realizes he’s not sure what to say. Not for lack of stuff that he wants to say - ‘are you okay’ being the first one, ‘are your legs okay’ being the second, ‘did you eat anything yet’ being the third - but he also has the feeling Byakuya wouldn’t actually answer any of those at this instant.

So instead he settles for the next most important thing: “Where’s Kyoko?”

Byakuya’s face tightens a little more. “Coming up behind us,” He replies tersely, before grabbing onto his shoulder: “What did you find?”

“A-A lot,” Makoto stammers, a little taken aback by the sudden question. He reaches into his pocket to show him, but no sooner does his fingers brush smooth plastic than does something -firm and plush, Monokuma’s paw - smack his knee with surprising force. “Ow!”

“No spoilers!” The bear barks, once more its over-animated self - though somehow, the few clumps of fur that Syo had snipped off of it makes it look a lot more menacing than usual. “Grr…when I say it’s trial time, I mean it! That means no more schemin’, plottin’, conspirin’, nothin’! You save what you got for the trial so it’s fair!”

“Even lawyers will discuss before and during trial proceedings,” Byakuya points out, and Monokuma glares, red eye flashing bright and dangerous.

“Oh yeah? Well that’s that and this is this! I’m the law here! And the senate and the captain, and I speak for the trees, y’hear?!” It shakes its paws threateningly, and everyone leans away from it, uneasy. “Grrah!! That really pissed me off, on top of me already being pissed off about student tardiness! Don’t you know you gotta respect your authorities? Don’t you know you gotta respect other people’s time!? I swear, this generation is gonna go to the dogs!”

“Ugh,” Hina mutters under her breath. “Boomer.”

“Dude,” Hiro hisses next to her, still sweating with fear. “Shut up.”

“And where’s Kirigiri?!” Monokuma continues its tirade, undeterred by the errant comments. “She’s late!”

“She’s on her way,” Byakuya says stiffly, at the same time as Hifumi stammers: “She-she said she wanted to check something-”

And immediately, he clamps a hand over his own mouth, eyes widening. Everyone looks to Monokuma, breaths held, as a foreboding shadow passes over the toy’s unmoving face.

“Sh-she probably went to the bathroom or something!” Makoto interjects quickly, at the same time shuffling to the side to stand in front of the exit. “She’ll be here any moment, so-”

“Outta the way, Makoto,” Monokuma barks, and really, the rage would be comical if Makoto didn’t know what it was capable of. He could practically see steam blowing out of Monokuma’s ears. “Tardiness is one thing, but breaking the rules is another. Investigating outside of investigation time is like breaking out the volleyball during math class! Super wrong and super not allowed!”

“If it weren’t allowed, it should be written more clearly in the rules.” Says a voice from behind him, as cool and unaffected as ever.

He spins, and can’t help the relieved grin that threatens to break across his face. Hiro shouts, “Kyoko!” and she only nods, acknowledging them briefly before stepping forward to stand in front of Monokuma.

“Sorry if I’m late,” She says tersely. “But I was walking directly here. You can check on the cameras if you want.”

“Don’t get smart with me…” Monokuma shakes its paw at her. “That’s no excuse! When I say ‘trial time’, that means you show up within five minutes! Any later and I put out a warrant! Any later later and you get penalized!”

“If that’s the case, shouldn’t you make that more clear?” Byakuya scoffs. “This is the first time we’re hearing about this.”

Monokuma rounds on him instead. “It’s basic decency! Common sense! D’you also want me to teach you one plus one is three!?”

Makoto watches as Byakuya’s eye literally twitches, lip simultaneously curling in disgust. “It’s not like she was wandering aimlessly. And you’ve never discussed these kinds of regulations before, or emphasized the importance of them thereof. It’s not even written out in the rules - which, as you’ve made clear by this point, is our standard for what we can or can’t do - so how are we supposed to know that this is a punishable offense?”

Monokuma’s eyes flash again, bright, hospital-sign-red, and its whole body seems to be vibrating in place with barely-contained fury, and Makoto makes a blind grab for Byakuya’s hand, with the intention to stop him before something bad really happens; because as much as his words make sense, Monokuma was weird today. The bear’s unexpected silence only to be followed up with something bordering on rage, over Kyoko being just a few minutes late - Makoto can still vividly remember Junko’s eyes, wide and trembling, staring at him as Monokuma nonchalantly tossed a cloth over her skewered body and shooed them away -

Byakuya doesn’t flinch when Makoto squeezes his wrist, but his eyelids drop and flicker slightly, and too late, Makoto registers the crossing pattern of bandages under his fingertips and remembers, loosening his hold quickly and guiltily; Byakuya doesn’t really react to it, doesn’t even look at him, though he does shake his hand out slightly before returning it to hang loose at his side. 

“Smart-aleck, huh?” Monokuma growls, squeaky-toy voice low and dangerous. “Well, fine then. If you’re gonna be like that-”

There’s a chorus of unanimous pings, in the air, and then a collective shuffle as everyone digs out their pockets for their handbooks. Byakuya reaches into the pockets of his pants, finds nothing, and for a moment looks so genuinely disheartened that Makoto almost passes over his own handbook, before remembering that it wouldn't really do anything for him. Looking down at his own screen, he stares at the new line below the bulleted list of rules.

“New addendum: ‘when trial time is announced, all are expected to participate. And anyone late by longer than FIVE MINUTES will be PUNISHED.’” Monokuma recites for them as they read. “There, ya happy now? S’That clear enough for you-” And it takes a deep breath, chest puffing out. “-BRATS?”

And Byakuya frowns, chewing on the inside of his cheek again, but doesn’t seem inclined to argue the point anymore. No one does, for that matter, and Makoto thinks he can finally let out the breath he was holding, when he takes a look at Kyoko and sees her brows furrowed contemplatively.

“Just a second,” Kyoko speaks up, closing her handbook with a snap in the same breath, and Makoto has to internally brace himself. “At this point, there’s only eight of us left, with two, almost three people having died earlier, and at least one more of us expected to die today. If we can expect the ‘punishment’ for breaking any of these rules to be the same as established from day one, wouldn’t this end your game sooner?”

Monokuma tilts its head, anger forgotten in an instant. “Puhuhu…is that what you think?” It giggles. “Well first of all, my goal is a thrilling, chilling, killing game! How long or short it is doesn’t matter, as long as the momentum keeps up to the end! ‘Course, I would prefer it if you all could last as long as you can, and show me your drive as Ultimates! …But, you do have a point about the number of victims, so…”

Another ping, and Makoto fumbles to reopen his handbook. “New rule: ‘the blackened may only kill a maximum of two people.’ Unless we somehow make it to the end of the game with three people left, and maybe I’ll reconsider, but that’s for later.” Monokuma leans over to try and pat Kyoko’s knee, and her leg jerks for a moment, as if to kick the robot across the room - instead, she just takes a step back, out of reach. “Good catch, Miss Kirigiri! I do so appreciate thoughtful students!”

She doesn’t look pleased by the praise at all, face darker than usual as she tucks her chin into her knuckles, thinking. In fact, no one does; he catches sight of Sakura’s face scowling as she flicks her handbook closed with a sharp snap, and Hiro’s anxious fidgeting. Hina is the only one who meets his eye, though she just as quickly looks away; but he gets the unspoken message loud and clear. 

No time to discuss it though. “I almost forgot! The whole dang point of this!” Monokuma explains, with a conductor-like flourish of its paws, the lattice doors of the rickety, industrial elevator scrape their way open with a ding. “Alright, everyone! In you go! I’ll meet you down below!”

No one really wants to get on, but after the whole fiasco Monokuma had just put on, no one really wants to test it either. They shuffle their way in, one by one, and Makoto distantly remembers the first time they rode this thing, the weight of fourteen people had elicited a terrifying groan that had everyone frozen, stock still and hardly daring to breathe as they rattled their way down. This time, it doesn’t even creak.

Toko was one of the first to enter, and stationed herself near the doors. She eyes Byakuya with wide red eyes, a strange, intensely focused look on her face, and Makoto hastily shepherds the other boy towards the opposite end of the tiny space and into a back corner, before positioning himself solidly in Toko’s line of sight. He goes to motion for Kyoko, try and beckon her closer so he can tell her about the evidence he’d found-

But, she’s already here, and standing directly in front of Byakuya. Arms crossed, her left hand flexing slowly and deliberately, her leather glove creaking with every stretch and pull. Eyes perfectly glazed over, as if in thought.

“Kyo-”

“Not now.” She mutters, and her gaze flicks briefly to the camera in the corner, and then back into the middle distance.

“But,” He says, whispering now, following her attention to the camera as he reaches into his pocket. “It’s important-”

“It can wait. Don’t reveal anything here.” She says, sharper this time, and this time her eyes darts to the others around them before focusing on him instead, narrowing slightly, pale irises giving the impression of pinprick pupils, like a wild cat. “Understand?”

And he does, a little, but only a little. Even if this was their third trial, it still made him feel like dirt, having to be suspicious of their friends. And it still didn’t get any easier, being treated by Kyoko as something between a personal assistant and confused child; even if she was the only one putting in the most effort into getting everyone out. He clenches his hand in his pocket, momentarily forgetting the open wound on his finger, and cringing at the raw sting of fabric scraping against it, and the prospect of lint getting where it shouldn’t. He looks away, trying to distract himself from that, Kyoko, the impending trial, and the now-familiar sense of impending doom building in his chest with every meter they descended, until his attention falls on Byakuya again.

Byakuya was mirroring Kyoko, arms crossing over his chest, but he’s anything but still. His eyes shake like they don’t know what to focus on, darting, trembling, never at rest. To him, Kyoko, the camera, the descending walls outside the elevator, the others, Toko, him again, the floor. His right cheek is pinched a little with how he’s chewing on it.

He looks younger without his glasses, a lot less regal and closed-off. Makoto had noticed it the night before, right before he kissed him; and though he has the feeling Byakuya wouldn’t appreciate it if he mentioned it, he thinks he really prefers it this way. More human. Less guarded.

“Stop staring.” Byakuya hisses at him, and he jumps, and jerks forward again, face flushing. Had he been making it that obvious?

“Sorry.” He replies, automatically. But he can’t help peeking, especially when he notices the slight, purpling edge of a bruise peeking over the collar of his jacket, zipped all the way up as it is. And decides not to mention that either, at least not right now.

They rattle the rest of the way down in silence.

__

As expected, Monokuma is already waiting for them. Bouncing excitedly on its velvet throne, fur pristine once more. 

A different spare, Kyoko thinks, quietly checking off one of her suspicions as confirmed. They knew well by now that Monokuma likely had a reserve of excess models, but this established that there were different models stationed in different places, which could explain how the puppet seemed to get around so quickly; a mystery that she had been pondering for some time now, and deduced to either be secret tunnels, or multiple spares that the mastermind could switch control between on an instant.

But now wasn’t the time to dwell too deeply on that now. She takes her stand, sliding one hand carefully over her jacket pocket as she does, checking that the contents were still there. Casting a brief glance at Makoto, standing across from her.

It would have been for the best if they could have reconvened before this. But there simply hadn’t been time - and to discuss it on the elevator would have alerted the culprit. It was frustrating, but all she could do now was trust that Makoto had done his job.

“Gosh, when you’re all spread out like this, it really shows just how few of you are left!” Monokuma laughs, and sure enough, everyone’s standing a lot further from each other than before. There are new portraits where there should have once been occupied space, sitting within heavy metal frames - Celeste’s and Mondo’s faces slashed through with bright, offensive crosses. Strange how much of a difference was made by the absence of just two people.

Kyoko wonders who could have put those there - Monokuma, for all its many sleight-of-hand tricks, was nowhere near dextrous in shape or form to handle that kind of labor on its own - was it the Mastermind, then with their own hands? Were they watching from somewhere nearby?

“The rules are the same as always! Find out the blackened who killed your precious classmates! Vote them out! Get it right, and only the culprit is punished! Otherwise, only the culprit gets away scot-free!” She slides her attention back towards the bear as it continues its spiel. There were a lot of moving pieces in this trial, and to put it all together, she couldn’t afford to sit back as she did before. She’d need to speak up as soon as she was able. “Now, to start off - who would like to go first?”

She opens her mouth, but-

“I can.” Makoto says before she can make a sound, and returns her sharp and skeptical stare with a look that’s nothing short of anxious confidence.

“Can you?” She finds herself asking, unable to keep the incredulity out of her voice, and he gives a sharp nod that could have just as easily been a nervous swallow. “Then-”

“He can,” Sakura confirms, interjecting into their call-and-return game, and Kyoko turns to her instead. “Me, Hiro, and Hina can confirm his deductions as well. We saw the evidence.”

“Witnessing someone else’s logic is hardly enough to confirm a definite conclusion.” Byakuya scoffs, cutting off Kyoko once more, and she closes her mouth and tries not to feel too irritated. “But if you’re so confident, then go ahead and tell us who you think the culprit is.”

Things were already going off-course. She’d lost her opportunity to lay out her reasoning - but that was fine, she told herself. There was the chance that Makoto had reached the same conclusion as her, and if not, then she can debunk the evidence he laid out. He glances at her, and she nods once, tilting her head to give him her ear.

“O-okay, well.” He clears his throat hesitatingly. “When it comes to the deaths of Celeste, and the- the attempted murder of Byakuya, the culprit is Mondo.”

< previous - from start - next >

[hey-heigo]

just think itd be funny if they met irl

[hey-heigo]

Chapter 32

second chapter of da year...like a full month later

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

sorry this took so long! what i thought was carpal tunnel turned out to be frostbite and also the world ended in my head

i can't promise a proper posting schedule for the next few months but i'll try to find the time to write

@digitaldollsworld heart emotes forever

Content warning tags: descriptions of blood (typical Danganronpa trial stuff), nonlinear pacing (there will be flashbacks between the trial and Makoto's side of the investigation)

< previous - from start - next >

Makoto stares intently at Kyoko, trying to catch her reaction to his words, every minute detail. It’s not easy, not with how his sweaty hands slip where they clutch to the wooden rail, or the way his pulse roars in his ears.

For just a flicker of an instant, she looks surprised. Eyes widening, the corners of her mouth tightening and turning down in a brief, contemplative frown. But it’s gone just as quickly, face resettling into neutrality with, maybe, just a little bit of anger, in how her eyes are narrowed just a little more than usual.

“Explain.” She says, and was her voice sharper than normal? He can’t tell, and glancing at Hina, Sakura, and Hiro also doesn’t yield any clues. Each of them are watching Kyoko with a singular, anxious focus, the tension palpable.

Makoto coughs to clear the nervous knot in his throat. There was a weird energy in this trial, different from the ones previous. The first trial, he’d been caught up in grief in shock, clumsily fumbling through the evidence he’d picked up, following Kyoko’s cues. The second trial, he had a better handle on things - still nervous, but with a clear goal keeping him alert and concentrated - though that had quickly given away to guilt and remorse.

This time, the guilt was here from the start, sitting like a knife stabbed in his belly. Kyoko was going to be pissed at him, and there wasn’t anything he could do to avoid that - if anything, everything he was going to do was going to make her angry, if not outright hate him. He wouldn’t be able to blame her for that, but…

But, he also had a right to know. Everyone had a right to know. And if this was going to clear the air for the future, then he was going to have to do it now.

“We…we have the basic facts of the case to start off with, right?” He starts, haltingly. “We know the murder weapon that was used on Celeste was a hammer, found next to where Mondo was lying. We also know Mondo was stabbed by a sharp object, and a pair of bloodied scissors were found in Celeste’s hand-”

“But I believe I said that it was improbable for those scissors to have been used to kill Mondo?” She says, and he winces at how she sounds way harsher than normal.

He’s saved by Sakura. “Improbable, but not impossible.” The fighter says bluntly, arms crossed over her chest. “You pointed out the blood smeared on the entire length of the blade wasn’t consistent with the depth of the stab wounds, but that assumes that the blood was only on the blade due to entering the body. Blood splatter, or the way it was then hidden in her sleeve, could have also smeared the blood to reach that point.”

The brief flash of irritation that crosses Kyoko’s face was enough to dig the knife a little deeper into his gut, so he continues quickly. “Um, anyways - assuming that the scissors are the murder weapon, it's…pretty easy to assume that Celeste and Mondo killed each other, really.”

“Really? With their corpses on opposite sides of the room?”

“Hey, it’s totally possible that Mondo crawled over to the other side!” Hiro speaks up, chest puffing before withering immediately under the scowl Kyoko sends his way. “I-I mean…he wasn’t dead when we found him at first, right? So…”

“The blood smear from his body does imply that he crawled some distance, but it wasn’t very far, and it wouldn’t have nearly been enough to justify Celeste being found leaning against the opposite wall.”

“Then maybe she moved there herself!” Hina interjects, fists clenched. She matches Kyoko’s stare with a glare of her own, fierce and determined. “We don’t know for sure if she died instantly, right? So it’s totally possible that she walked over there before dying!”

“With the amount of blood found pooled on her body, it seems hard to believe that she didn’t leave any kind of clear blood trail between where she and Mondo were found.”

“Th-that doesn’t mean it’s impossible!”

There’s a sharp click, and Makoto jumps a bit at the sound - but it’s Byakuya, arms crossed. “So much of this seems to be relying on speculation.” He says coldly. His face is pinched into a contemplative frown, his hand reaching up to tap against his temple before just as suddenly dropping back down. “Surely this isn’t all the evidence you’ve gathered?”

There’s an unspoken insult implied in that question, a silent ‘is this all you managed, in the time since we left?’ Makoto glances quickly at the others, but thankfully, none of them had noticed it - or they were ignoring it, which was just as fine.

“We…did find this.” And he reaches into his pocket for the audio recorder.

__

When they’d first found the recorder that had been tucked into Mondo’s pocket, they were silent for a long moment after listening to its contents.

It wasn’t just out of shock, though Hiro did look pretty queasy, and Makoto was dealing with some kind of weird, internal vertigo after feeling his heart drop to his stomach like a sack of bricks. But also because the recorder hadn’t been hidden particularly well - in Mondo’s back pocket, on his right side - and it had practically fallen into Hiro’s hand the moment he went to shift him, intending to try and wrap a sheet around his body.

Even though no one said anything, Makoto knew their thoughts were unanimous. Something this incriminating, this obvious, and Kyoko hadn’t found it?

Sakura had slowly unclenched her hands, taking a long, slow breath. “Makoto.” She said, and he’d flinched, already having an inkling of what she was going to say. “We can’t ignore this any longer.”

He’d braced himself for it, but Sakura’s words still hit like a punch to the chest, making it dizzyingly hard to breathe for a moment. His hand tightened on the recorder enough for the plastic edge to dig into his skin.

“It’s probably not what it looks like,” He said, but the words sounded pretty pathetic, even to himself. “Maybe she really did just…miss it, or something. By accident.”

“Even so, that’s still…” Hiro’s foot jiggled a nervous pattern against the floor. “Kyoko has been acting weird, right? Like it’s not just me?”

“It was pretty weird when she took Byakuya, Hifumi and Toko with her,” Hina agreed. She looked furious, though Makoto wasn’t totally sure why - just that the look had come over her when Kyoko was investigating, and hadn’t fully left since. “I mean, for all she was talking about efficiency, I can’t see how it’s more efficient to drag Byakuya back and forth! His ankles were all messed up!”

So Makoto hadn’t been imagining the limp Byakuya had been walking with, the glimpse of a white bandage under his pants leg, the way he couldn’t seem to keep weight on either foot for too long. He tamped down the little flare of anger at that realization - right now, he was supposed to be defending Kyoko, not getting pointlessly angry. And Byakuya could take care of himself.

(Could he? A voice asked in his head, which Makoto pointedly ignored.)

“Right?” Hiro nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her actually do anything for someone, much less volunteer to take someone to the nurse’s office.” And his words were another blow. “Though, I guess she didn’t volunteer, it was more like making Hifumi do it, which…”

He trailed off. They were all thinking the same thing, regarding Hifumi being in that close proximity to a girl. They all knew how he acted around Celeste, after all.

Makoto didn’t want to suspect Kyoko. But she was also the one who told him to think objectively, to look at evidence and fact instead of sentiments while he was still grieving over Sayaka’s murder. To focus only on what was in front of him instead of clinging to the idea that he could trust anyone here.

How ironic, he thought bitterly, as he closed his eyes and dug his knuckles against his brow, the recorder tapping against his forehead. Too many things are adding up.

He must have been quiet for too long, because there was a sudden, gentle hand on his back, and he glanced up to see Hina crouched next to him. “Sorry, man,” She said quietly. “This is…probably harder on you than the rest of us, huh.”

“...It’s fine.” He tucked the recorder into his pocket, before he could break it with how much he was fidgeting. But having his hands empty also felt wrong, so he picked at a sliver of skin that’s beginning to curl up, at the corner of his thumb.

He had a feeling about it since Kyoko left them, but now her absence was stark and unavoidable. Without her, he felt - untethered, and not in a good way. Directionless. A balloon let go by a careless kid.

He glanced at the others, still standing around him, watching with varying looks of concern and sympathy. But it wasn’t enough to cover up the expectation, the tense, waiting air for their next move. Like he was the leader, or something, and that had put an even worse taste in his mouth.

I’m not Kyoko. He didn’t know how to split his emotions and rationality like she did. Even right now, he was still grappling with Mondo’s and Celeste’s death, Byakuya’s near-murder, and the revelations of the audio recording they had just uncovered. He couldn’t give direction like she could - he wasn’t sure he even wanted to try.

So instead, he’d stood up, turned to face the others fully, and asked: “What should we do?”

__

“Shut up.”

Mondo’s voice, a low, hollow growl, crackles and buzzes out of the audio recorder. Twisted with the grief he hadn’t been able to shake since Taka’s death, but unmistakable.

“I’m surprised,” Byakuya’s voice follows after a pause, clearer than Mondo’s, enough so that Makoto could discern how it was stilted with fear, even with the slight undercurrent of static. “I didn’t think you still had it in you-”

His voice is cut off by a sharp, sudden gasp, and then a deafening splash - a roaring explosion, gunshot loud in comparison - and then, nothing by heavy, labored breathing, before it clicks into silence.

Kyoko looks stunned, eyes wide and staring at the little device in Makoto’s hand. And then she catches him staring, and composes herself in an instant.

“I see. So that’s the basis for your verdict.” She says smoothly, settling a hand against her chin as she thinks. Makoto scans her face, desperately searching for anything, a sign of nervousness, a flicker of relief - but nothing.

“Yeah. It is.” Hina says, and she sounds almost accusatory. “It’s kind of surprising that you didn’t find it before us, actually.”

“I didn’t have time to search the room very thoroughly.” She replies, and it doesn’t escape Makoto that the way she said that left no clear suggestion that she did know about the audio recorder in the first place.

“It was found on Mondo’s body, actually.” The glare Hina is wearing could set houses on fire, but Kyoko doesn’t even flinch. “It wasn’t even hidden or anything. So it’s kinda weird you missed it entirely, you know?”

That gets a reaction. Her brow furrows, her left hand twitching almost imperceptibly. Almost.

The tiny, flinching motion digs into Makoto’s brain, making him frown. He has the feeling he’s forgotten something, but whatever it is rests on the tip of his tongue and refuses to make itself clear.

“...I’m not perfect,” Is what she finally says, as noncommittal and generic an answer as she could have hoped to give. “And I was rushing. Though judging from how you presented this, I’m assuming that this simple explanation won’t cut it?”

“It doesn’t.” Sakura replies frostily. Makoto really hopes he’s imagining the quiet hostility radiating off of her - no, Kyoko has blinked and glanced away, so probably not - “If you have any protests against what we’ve found, you’re welcome to speak up and counter it.”

And Makoto silently begs, prays that Kyoko does do that, that she lays out exactly what evidence they missed and what evidence she found and creates a timeline that perfectly maps who the killer is, and they can all stop suspecting each other and things can - not fix themselves, but get better, start moving more towards group collaboration rather than this ‘every man for themself’ attitude that Byakuya and Kyoko are so intent on following, to their own detriments.

Instead, her eyes turn to him, pale and narrow and snakelike, and she says: “This isn’t everything you found, is it.” It’s not a question.

He doesn’t even try to lie. He thinks about it though, but it’d probably be futile. Kyoko was always uncannily good at seeing through people, especially him - or maybe just him, as he focuses his gaze on a particularly interesting whorl in the wood flooring in front of her. “It’s…not.”

“Then?” Byakuya says, clipped and irritated. “Is there a reason behind this tangent?”

There’s a grimace on his face, like this is the same level as an unexpectedly bad cup of coffee in terms of annoying things to him, but Makoto doesn’t miss the nervous edge creeping into his voice, the way his fingers twitch against his elbow.

“Even disregarding the fact that you’ve been withholding evidence,” And Makoto does his best not to cringe too noticeably, that knife of guilt doing an especially vicious twist at that. “Everything feels far too convenient to be wrapped up so cleanly. Furthermore, it seems that despite what everyone has been saying, they’ve been thinking something else.” This time, Hiro is the one who flinches, perpetually bad at keeping a poker face as Byakuya hits the bullseye. “It’s not Mondo you’re all suspicious of, but Kyoko, isn’t it?”

As he says that, all pomp and snark, he shifts his weight onto the opposite leg, leaning his hip gingerly against the railing. Bracing his hands against the wood surface, the sleeves of his ill-fitting jacket riding up for just a moment, revealing a flash of white-

Makoto registers the sight of it, and feels some last, thinning thread of control stretch, pull, and break.

“So what if it is!” He hears himself snap before he can even think it, and the knife does some kind of weird corkscrew maneuver as both Kyoko and Byakuya look to him, one with eyes very sharp, the other with eyes…just as sharp, actually, but it’s kind of hard to tell with how he’s usually squinting. And this is really the worst way to go about this, and he feels regret already settling in him, making him break in a cold sweat, making his breath come in short, stuttered breaths, painful and dizzying - but he’s already started talking, so - “Kyoko, you’re clearly smart enough to know that we don’t really believe in this idea that Mondo was responsible for everything! You’re always dragging me around and making me look at things that you’ve already found! So why can’t you start talking first for once?!”

For once, she looks genuinely stunned. Dumbstruck, staring at him like he’s grown two heads. He’d find it more intriguing if he didn't also feel like he was about to be sick all over the floor.

(“Ooh, dramaa!” Monokuma sings in the background, which really, really was not helping with Makoto’s urge to puke at all.)

“He’s right!” Hina shouts, taking over for him, and he can’t decide if he’s grateful for that or not - “Every trial so far, it’s always been you making Makoto talk for you - don’t think we haven’t noticed it!”

“That is-” Kyoko hesitates, blinking. For a moment she’s almost unrecognizable, not stalwart or calm but - just like the rest of them - unsure and maybe, just a little afraid, or at least Makoto thinks so. “I…have my own reasons-”

“You’ve also been acting strangely during this investigation,” Sakura says, words calm and simmering with the promise of a threat. “Despite the emphasis placed on investigation, you made Makoto take over investigating the art room - a crucial place in this crime - while you insisted that Toko go to the nurse’s office, and then made Hifumi carry her. I can’t imagine that would factor well into your need for efficiency.”

“Listen-”

“You-! I also thought it was pretty weird that you made Byakuya go with you!” Hiro jumps in, pointing an accusatory finger. “I mean, there’s no way you didn’t know he was injured! Even I could tell!”

“I’m not an invalid,” Byakuya replies sharply, and Hiro closes his mouth with a snap. “And she only took me along because she wanted to hear my testimony before the trial began. I wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t think it wasn’t going to be important.” His glare turns to Makoto, vicious and accusatory, and Makoto looks hurriedly away. “Is there a reason why you want to waste our time here?”

“It’s not wasting time, we- I mean-” He swallows, earlier bravado totally drained. “That is…I, think, if we’re going to - to keep working together, we need to…lay everything out. No more secrets.” He avoids looking at Kyoko too, though he can feel her staring bullet holes into him.

“And you thought this was important enough to bring up now, during a trial-”

“Yes, I do! Because at the rate we’re going, this isn’t going to be the last trial!” Byakuya flinches back a little at that, and, whoops, Makoto must have been yelling and he hadn’t even noticed; he quickly reels back. “I…I know it’s going to be hard, but…” God, he hates this. But he can’t leave it up to the others, not when he was the one who knows her best. “Kyoko, we don’t know anything about you. Not your talent, not what you’re doing every day…We don’t even know what you were doing before breakfast this morning.”

Understanding clicks on her face, and she resettles into her usual, neutral look. “I see. So in terms of alibi and possible motive, you’ve identified me.” And she looks at Byakuya. “Which one do you think I am responsible for? Mondo’s death? Celeste’s murder? Or maybe, it was the failed attempt to drown Byakuya?” She turns her gaze back on the rest of them. “Or maybe, it was all three?”

She says it all so casually, like this was just another thing for her to pick apart and analyze. No spite, no sarcasm - with how her hand taps against her chin, she could just be thinking out loud to herself. It’s kind of off-putting, and Makoto can see some of the others looking especially disturbed, Hina taking a step away, Hiro’s fidgeting getting more noticeable. Hifumi flinches so hard his glasses nearly fall off.

After a moment, Kyoko looks up again, eyes centering on him like a target. And he feels a shiver, icy and electric, run down his spine in response, at all the rage that she wasn’t putting into her words or gestures, darting between them like a static shock.

“All I have to do is explain why I’m not guilty, right?” She leans forward, one hand resting against the bannister, the other sitting on her hip. “Fine, then. Where should I start?”

__

Byakuya feels a now-familiar pang of jealousy, watching Kyoko settle into her role as the defendant with a grace he couldn’t hope to match. A complete sureness that he wishes he had, back during the last trial when it had been him who was being accused.

There are a lot of things that he’s envious of, actually, as he takes stock of the situation. The atmosphere is…not calmer, per se, but more controlled, less lost to emotion, and Kyoko had actually been afforded the opportunity to investigate on her own. Already, several major points working towards her favor.

On top of that, it didn’t seem that anyone believed she was truly the culprit. Or at least, the only evidence they had was circumstantial at best, and they were all aware of it. It seemed that they had learned from the last trial as well, which was - a good thing, he supposes, though it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

“I will say right now, I will only discuss the information that is relevant to this trial.” She starts, clipped and cold and leaving no room for argument, and he’s almost certain this is directed mostly at Makoto. “I won’t answer any questions that won’t make us any progress. I’ll only consider answering those after the trial, and only if I think I can answer them at all.”

“How cryptic of you.” Byakuya mutters under his breath, even as Makoto stutters out a flustered “O-okay.” The others make similar sounds of agreement.

“In that case, I’ll start with my alibi. This morning, before breakfast, I’d woken up an hour prior, and was investigating the A/V room on the first floor. However, this cannot be verified by anyone here, and so I doubt this alone will be a satisfying enough testament to my innocence.”

“Noo, not every-one!” Monokuma chimes in. “I’ve got eyes everywhere, baby! I’m like corn but with cameras!”

“Then, will you verify my testimony?”

“Hmm…” The bear crosses its arms and rocks side-to-side, thinking. “Nope! A teacher shouldn’t get in the way of their students’ growth! And if I make a habit out of freebies, I’ll lose my reputation! After all-”

“As I thought,” Kyoko continues, cutting Monokuma off completely and leaving the bear to sputter indignantly in the background. “When I left the A/V room. breakfast had already started for the rest of you, and I joined Makoto, Hiro, and Hina in the cafeteria. There was no one in the hallway who I noticed who might be able to support this claim.

“However, I’m not the only one. Hifumi has yet been unaccounted for during this time, no? As was Sakura and Toko.”

Several of the named parties splutter and shout, and Byakuya winces at the cacophony, the irritating baying. “H-How dare you! A-aren’t you just shh-shifting attention off of yourself!?” Toko is shrieking, while Hifumi stammers out: “I-I was i-in my room! Working! Honest!”

Hina, surprisingly, is the loudest of all: “Sakura was in the girls’ exercise room - which you’d know if you weren’t so secretive!” She snarls, with surprising vehemence. “She works out every morning, and I walked with her over there before going to breakfast.”

“But you didn’t go swimming this morning?” Kyoko tilts her head, as if surprised. “Or were you aware that the pool was going to be…occupied?”

“You-!”

Byakuya’s not sure what she’s trying to achieve with this. Tempers were being needlessly riled, and he can tell Hiro was leaning over desperately to keep Hina from jumping over Mondo’s empty stand at the other girl. On Kyoko’s other side, Sakura seemingly hasn’t moved a muscle, and Byakuya sincerely hopes that she really was as calm as she appeared to him.

“...Neither me nor Hina went to the pool this morning. The only evidence we have for that is our own testimonies, which may not be considered reliable.” Sakura says, and Byakuya sighs in relief that she sounds the same as ever. “Though, I see how a lack of a working alibi implicates more than half of us.”

“I imagine in my case, however, the lack of a clear alibi is especially concerning. ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ is the norm in this justice system, isn’t it?”

“Hm. I would appreciate it if you didn’t purposefully stir things up, though.”

“...I’ll keep that in mind.”

Even with the edge of a threat in Sakura’s voice, Kyoko still seems level-headed, composed and in control in a way Byakuya hadn’t been, and he tamps down that flare of envy again.

“U-um…” Hifumi’s quavering voice speaks up. “I…was in my room. I was working on storyboarding my anime, y’know. I-I only went to the art room afterwards to use some supplies I didn’t have on me.”

“Why not just work on it in the art room?” Hiro asks.

“Th-the art room doesn’t have good acoustics! And I wanted to listen to my recorded voice lines in their best quality!”

“Alright, enough.” Byakuya waves him off, irritated. “Then, I suppose that only leaves one person left. Toko?”

The way Fukawa’s head snaps up to him at the sound of her name is revolting. This is probably the first time he’s addressed her directly since the last trial - all too soon, in his opinion, but dire times called for dire measures. “Well? Your alibi.”

She mumbles something unintelligible, punctuated with something far too breathy and excited before saying: “I-I was looking for you…”

Of course she was. He’s not sure what he should’ve been expecting - can’t this girl do anything productive besides haunt him? “Be specific. You can do that much, can’t you?”

“Hmm, I guess?” She giggles in a sing-song. Her hands reach up to paw at her braids - no, he belatedly realizes that she doesn’t have her braids anymore - instead, her pale fingers sink into dark hair, cropped short and uneven and fraying around her head. An inverted, half-formed halo. “Y-you re-eally wanna know?”

“Out with it already.” He grits through his teeth. “Or are we supposed to assume that you were the one responsible in this trial?”

Her hands drop from her hair, moving down to fist in her skirt instead. “F-fine,” She spits, irritated and unhappy. “I-I went to wait outside your door a-a little before breakfast, but y-you never showed, and you w-weren’t in the cafeteria or on the first floor. So I went t-to check the l-library and saw your k-key outside the boys’ exercise room, and from there w-went into the pool.”

So that was how she’d gotten hands on his room key. He supposes he should be grateful it was her who found it and not anyone else - other than Makoto, she was the only one who probably would’ve taken the key as a sign to seek him out immediately. Though it was disturbing to know that she’d gone to wait for him before breakfast - he’d actually gotten up much earlier than usual with the sole intent of avoiding her, and the fact that they probably missed each other by minutes was…not comforting.

Now wasn’t the time to dwell on it, however. “And it seems there’s no one who can confirm or deny this.” Kyoko says, less a question than just a statement.

“N-no, of course not.” She lets out an ugly snort. “I-it’s fine though. I d-don’t want to k-kill you, or d-die, or anything anymore…t-there can only be one b-blackened, after all.”

So her obsession hasn’t died. He clicks his tongue audibly at that, loud enough that he’s sure she’s heard, though there’s no indication if she did. It would’ve been nice if, after almost being done in and reduced to what he is now, Toko could have lost some interest. A foolish hope, but it would’ve been preferable to whatever her obsession had developed into instead.

He wants to tell her she’s insane if she thinks that he wants anything to do with her, regardless of if she was responsible for saving him, but Kyoko was speaking again. “Toko. How many pairs of scissors does Syo usually carry?”

“W-what?!” She jerks so hard that Byakuya swears he can hear threads snap from where her hands are wrapped in her skirt. “I-I don’t know! W-why are you a-asking about h-her?!”

“From previous cases, it seems that each victim was pinned with the same number of scissors. Given the repetition of a perfect pattern, it seems that Syo tries to maintain consistency for each of her crimes - it’s not unlikely that that extends to the tools she uses. Would you happen to know if she carries the same number at all times?”

Each word is chosen carefully, creating a clear separation between Fukawa and Syo. A distinction that makes Fukawa visibly relax, shoulders slumping. “I think so? I mean, sh-she o-only uses th-the same number i-in all her…killings…a-and the case can only hold s-so many at a t-time.”

“I see, that’s a good point. Thank you.” And Fukawa flushes a little at the small bit of praise, her usual pallor blotching unevenly. “Can I ask you to check how many are in her carrying case right now?” Kyoko continues on, patiently.

There’s something off-putting about this whole thing. The way Kyoko, despite being forced into this position by Makoto’s insistence and the others’ suspicion, had so easily assumed control. She was no less exonerated, but - she was handling things well, she was communicating clearly, and everything she did felt - calculated. Premeditated. Even the parts where she seemed to have been purposefully provoking tempers, which only further begged the question:

If she could do all this, why leave everything up to Makoto?

“U-um…four. Four of them.” Fukawa says, after a moment of rustling and clinking metal. She’d been so mollified that she’d forgotten to even complain, which was a miracle in and of itself. “A-and the case is almost f-full, so…”

“Then that goes to show that I was not the one who placed Syo’s scissors on Celeste’s body.” And she reaches into her jacket to pull out a dark brown pouch, its silver contents clacking against each other as she lays it out in front of her. “This is the pouch I confiscated from Syo last time, and it contains five pairs. In combination with the fact that it would be a logical fallacy if I had placed those there, and then immediately found them and identified them as not being the murder weapon, is this enough to clear me?”

The response is…chaotic. Mostly due to Fukawa, shrieking with rage - “Y-you tricked me!”, pointing a pale, trembling hand in Kyoko’s direction - but also the shock from the other onlookers. Monokuma is squealing with delight, Hina is shouting, “Why - you couldn’t say this earlier?!” And Hifumi is whimpering fast enough to almost be considered hyperventilating.

Through it all, Makoto is staring at her. Probably dumbstruck, probably betrayed; even though he’s never truly seen it, Byakuya could almost imagine it, the slack, wide-eyed look of anguish on his face.

The rush of envy that makes his heart clench is familiar now, but he nearly topples over with the unexpected force of it, the frustration of it all. He doesn’t like wishing for pointless things - better to take action and achieve it than to daydream aimlessly - but at this moment, he wants nothing more than to swap his and Kyoko’s places.

“...Okay. Okay, yeah.” Makoto says at last, quiet, but - not quite defeated, to Byakuya’s surprise. “If that’s the case. Then what’s your take on the art room? What evidence are you hiding from us?”

“I’ve never purposefully hid evidence from any of you. I’ve delayed revealing them to ensure a cleaner progression of the trials, but I’ve always revealed my hand in the end.” She replies, and she sounds like she’s smiling. “After all this, you still want me to continue?” “Please,” And Byakuya feels something in his chest twist again, feels that irrational want rear its head - he’s not sure how he knows, but somehow, Makoto sounds like he’s smiling too. “I’ll leave it all up to you.”

< previous - from start - next >

[hey-heigo]

Chapter 33

squint and you may see the intricate throuple web i weave in which no one is ever winning

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

this time i got distracted by project: eden's garden which i argue is a fair and just reason. everyone go check it out it's like if danganronpa was good

also will be a long pause to the next chapter bc im moving againn. maybe. probably. idk

@digitaldollsworld <- understander...

Content warning tags: descriptions of blood, injury, canon-typical trial things

< previous - from start - next >

As Kyoko ponders where to start, she quietly reflects: This entire situation is less than ideal.

Even with the hurdle of their suspicion just barely cleared, she could feel their eyes watching her, trained like sniper scopes on her every move. Scanning for the slightest faltering, the barest indication that could be taken for guilt. She’d managed to divert them enough by giving just enough reason that she wasn’t as suspicious as anyone else, but none of that served to clear her name entirely; if she let them linger too long and realize that, all her hard work would be undone.

At best, it’s ambiguous that I was involved with the murder of Mondo and Celeste. At worst, I’m still a suspect for the attempted murder of Byakuya. She casts a quick glance to the boy in question, whose pale, fogged-ice eyes glare right back, pupils twitching and uneasy. A cornered, half-blinded cat. Considering Makoto’s current volatility, that’s not an idea I can let take root.

A quiet breath leaves her, not nearly audible enough to be a sigh. If she’d known this was going to happen, she wouldn’t have tried passing off so much of the responsibility to Makoto in the first place. Regardless of how useful he was - a medium that both served as a link to the rest of the group, and at the same time, a reliable buffer - she underestimated just how emotional he could be. How easily swayed by sympathy. I thought Byakuya was his only weakness. I didn’t realize that he still cared so much about everyone else.

She clenches her left hand as she thinks this, curling the fingers despite the stiffness and the bone-deep ache radiating out from her middle knuckles, and lets the bloom of pain wipe away the irritation. Regrets could come later; right now, she needed to focus.

“To start off, let’s establish something right now. I don’t believe Toko was involved in any of the deaths at all.” She finally decides. As expected, there’s a small chorus of surprise, as both Toko’s and Byakuya’s heads whip to her almost simultaneously, one wary, the other disbelieving, but both equally shocked.

“How can you be so sure?” Byakuya demands. “It’s her scissors on Celeste’s body-”

“Syo’s scissors,” She corrects calmly, and watches from the corner of her eye as Toko shoves her face into what was left of her hair, her exposed forehead turning pink. Good - as troublesome as the author was, Kyoko couldn’t be picky about allies right now. “And as I said before, those aren’t the murder weapon. They were likely placed there as a red herring.”

“Don’t argue semantics with me right now.” He snaps. “The point is, the only person who could have put those there was her, whichever one of her, it doesn’t matter. You’ve established that yourself. What reason would she have to do that, if she wasn’t involved? At the very least, as an accomplice?”

His skepticism is understandable. His own history with Toko aside, it wasn’t as if Toko wouldn’t be capable of it, as they’d seen before. And it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t have a motive, either.

“If she - Syo - is an accomplice, then it probably wasn’t planned from the beginning. But I don’t think Toko is directly involved. It’s likely she walked into the art room and fainted at the sight of blood, and that’s when Syo appeared. After all,” And she turns to Toko. “You cede control whenever you become overwhelmed, don’t you?”

It was an easy thing to figure out if the right details were noticed. Toko Fukawa, asocial, paranoid, and the Ultimate Writer, had rather crippling cases of aquaphobia and hemophobia, and was prone to fainting. The aquaphobia was obvious upon reading her works; someone raised in a prefecture with enough fishing piers to provide material for her novels, and yet despite the subject of the romance being a fisherman, water is always being portrayed as something to avoid. A danger that separates the characters and threatens to rip them apart. That, in combination with her apparent aversion to washing, was telling enough.

The hemophobia was even more obvious than that. Toko had admitted it herself during the previous investigation, and to Byakuya, no less. His brow twists as he recalls it, along with all the unpleasant memories it dredged.

Toko squirms under her gaze, but meets her eyes bravely. “Y-yeah. That’s right.” She manages. “But, I-I’ve been getting better! Sh-she never comes out anymore…I-I just let my guard d-down…” She twitches as she says this, turning to Byakuya, her eagerness clear.

Byakuya continues staring resolutely at Kyoko, as if he hadn’t heard anything at all.

“So you’re suggesting that the sight of blood in the art room led to her fainting, and that’s when Syo appeared?” He scoffs. “What a convenient excuse. Especially considering how she was able to desecrate a corpse during the last case.”

“I thought you might say that. And it is true that she said she’d been training to overcome that fear. But we have to remember it’s not fear that determines whether or not Syo can appear, but mental exhaustion or shock. Otherwise, we might’ve met Syo much sooner.

“Let me explain,” She continues, hiding her exasperation with another, not-quite sigh as Byakuya opens his mouth to argue once more. “In both cases that we know so far, Syo only appeared after a series of highly stressful events and when Toko was trying to maintain composure. The first time, she had that confrontation with you in the library, and was already in a state of mental disarray when she found Chihiro, who was covered by a tarp at the time. She collapsed rather promptly after staging the scene. This time, she went to warn people of your situation, and then was greeted with the sight of Mondo’s and Celeste’s bodies. That kind of scene would shock anyone.”

His mouth snaps shut with a frustrated click, lips pulling into a frown. “You’re incredibly intent on defending her.”

“I’m just trying to keep the air clear.” She replies, the perfect image of casualness. “With the position I’m in right now, I’d rather not let anyone’s personal feelings interfere.” And Makoto blinks at that, face twisting openly with guilt. Byakuya’s frown deepens at the word ‘personal’. “On the contrary. Is there a reason why you’re so intent on labeling Toko as involved?”

“I simply find it hard to believe she wouldn’t be. And I don’t think your explanation is satisfactory enough to clear her.”

“It doesn’t need to be. Can you provide an explanation that can confidently explain if she’s guilty?”

It’s unfair of her to taunt him like that. She knows this, and reflects that she should probably feel some measure of guilt for it, but it was necessary to cut off this line of questioning before it could devolve into something meandering and uncontrollable, and so holds her ground. Even as Byakuya glowers, fuming but silent. Toko is glancing between the two of them, eyes wide behind her glasses, pink down to her neck. Her face is still mostly hidden behind her hands, and the look in her eyes is curiously unreadable.

But that’s hardly important to Kyoko right now. She looks away. “Let’s go over the big picture of things, starting with the scene in the art room again.” She says. It was best to start with something everyone was familiar with. “Mondo was stabbed from the front, and the scene was staged to suggest that Celeste was the one who killed him, and that he had wounded Celeste in retaliation. There’s a clear contradiction here, if we consider where we found their bodies, and their states when they died.”

She pauses, but there’s no change in the atmosphere. Their stares don’t waver. Makoto’s mouth is pulled in a tight, grimacing line, a clear sign that he was going to refuse to play along with whatever she sent his way. Regardless of how important it was. She suppresses the urge to sigh again.

“Mondo and Celeste were found on opposite sides of the room, facing each other. The blood trail from Mondo’s body suggests he either crawled or was dragged there. On the other hand, there’s no blood trail from Celeste at all, but I did notice that there was an excess of it on her dress - if that blood was from the head wound, then there would be a clear trail marking how she got to that position, right?”

This time, her expectant pause is met with blinking, the clicking of gears in everyone’s head. Makoto’s eyes widen in understanding, and his mouth half drops open to say something, but-

“So…Mondo didn’t kill her?” Hiro asks, a strained sort of anxiety behind the question, different from his usual fearful energy. His eyes are wide as he looks at her, apprehension and caution tinged with - hope?

“Not for lack of trying.” And Hiro shrinks back down at that, deflated, disheartened. “If you remember, there were strangulation marks on her neck. The size and shape of the bruising can only implicate two people, and considering Mondo’s proximity, it’s highly likely that a mutual confrontation did take place.”

The fortune teller just nods, numbly, staring down at his hands. Makoto glances at him, the worry evident on his face, and the reproachful look he sends her way. “Um, but,” Makoto says, facing Hiro. “That doesn’t mean that he did kill her. The Monokuma File said that she died of the head wound, not strangulation.”

It must be a small comfort for Hiro to know that the shell-shocked boy he’d been trying to help hadn’t been responsible for a murder, judging by how Hiro offers a weak smile back. But it was ultimately a pointless thing to say; it doesn’t absolve Mondo of anything, nor does it offer anything else.

At least it serves as a good lead-in to her next point. “The head wound in question. It’s a depressed fracture in the cranium, located towards the back of the head on her left side. Combined with how the dent is angled, if Mondo had been the one to strike her, he would have had to hit her from behind.”

“Ah-!”

Aoi was the one who had just gasped, the scowl that she’d been wearing dropping for just a moment as her eyes widen with realization. It returns just as quickly when she notices Kyoko staring, however, and she turns away with a huff.

My words must have affected her more than I expected, she thinks, and shoves back the irritation that spawns at it. It wasn’t as if she had been trying to antagonize Aoi earlier. Her only intentions had been to point out the unfairness of their suspicions, but that was now proving to have been a double-edged blade of a decision. Can’t she understand this isn’t the time to be petty-

“Hina,” Makoto prompts gently, and this time Aoi only hesitates briefly, shooting one last dirty look in Kyoko's way.

“There was this…clear plastic bag thing in the trash can of the art room.” She explains. “It was all ripped up, so I wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something that was kinda blood-colored on it so I kinda noticed it, I guess. But since the wound was on the back of Celeste’s head…” And her brow scrunches in concentration as she hovers a palm a little to the side of her ponytail, roughly where the blow would have been. “It doesn’t really make sense how there was so much blood on her skirt. Like, most of it should have leaked down her back, but there was a literal puddle of it on her lap, but there were only some thin trails of it down her face and front. Which is weird, since I know head wounds bleed a lot, but that amount in that short a time would’ve needed, like…like a faucet flow, or something.”

“Thinking back now, that bag you found must have been a spare blood bag from the nurse’s office.” Sakura muses. “I didn’t recognize it at the time, but it makes sense now.”

“Right, so that means that whoever killed Celeste, must have hit her on the back of the head and then dumped blood on her! That’s why there’s no blood trail to show how she moved in the room, and why all the blood is on her front and not her back.”

It’s a respectable display of reasoning. She’s not the only one who thinks so, as Byakuya raises an eyebrow, evidently impressed. Aoi herself almost seems proud, before the realization that she was talking about the murder of her classmate settles in, as she raises a hand to her mouth in horror.

For a moment, Kyoko feels a small, quiet flare of sympathy for her, before it’s quickly superseded by a more pressing, unnervingly familiar feeling of dejá vu. And she categorizes the sensation and files away to look over later.

“Correct. All of this points to there being another party involved here.” She stops for a moment, to stare back at Makoto. He doesn’t shy away, wearing that same, determined expression as earlier. 

‘I’ll leave it all up to you,’ he said, and it’s almost funny how he took her own words and twisted them on her. In many ways she’d underestimated him, but he’s also underestimated her, if he thought she was going to simply accept his way.

“With that said, I’m sure I didn’t need to say all that just to reach that conclusion.” She continues, voice softer and utterly devoid of expression. She’d been told once that such a thing was good - it made others take her seriously, regardless of how young and childish she was - though who told her such a thing, or why, was a mystery to her. “After all. You all knew that already, didn’t you?”

The reaction is instantaneous. That ripple of surprise and unease; Hifumi blanches even more, on the verge of fainting. Hiro flinches and turns away, Sakura’s fingers flinch and clench where they’re tucked into her elbows, but Aoi tilts her head up and stares back; a little apprehensive but no less resolved. Byakuya’s head jerks, turning first to Makoto. then the others, and finally her - the only one who had been left in the dark, again.

He was clever enough to pick up on her clues that there was another person involved while they had been walking to the pool, but not on the quiet hostility that had greeted her the moment she stepped into the elevator lobby. Even with all his adaptations, it couldn’t account for an entire missing function, as he reels with the feeling of missing something obvious to everyone else.

The brief frustration on his face gives away to resignation. At this point, he must be too familiar with this feeling to waste energy on it. “Well, Makoto?” He asks, and if he sounds less demanding than usual, then that wasn’t for her to pick apart. “Is this enough reason for you to do your part?”

__

She’s talked them into a circle.

Makoto can’t help but be impressed by it, despite everything. There was no way he wouldn’t be, of course - he always knew Kyoko was amazing, in that quiet, closed-off way that she was - but it was frustrating. All that work, and she’d twisted it around on them so easily.

It’s not out of spite, He tells himself, while simultaneously trying to ignore the slight twitch of what might be a smile on her face. It’s the most logical thing to do now. I’m the one with the most information about the art room.

The thought doesn’t quite banish the irritation that lingers, but it does get him to stand a little straighter.

“...We figured that there was more to the scene because it doesn’t make sense for Mondo to have a recording of himself attempting murder. Which means either that someone was involved in the set-up, or they framed him - and also killed Celeste.” That much felt obvious, because how else would proof from the pool find its way to the art room? “What’s not clear is who did it, and why.”

And previously, he had thought it was Toko, or maybe Syo. And still thought it, honestly, because he wasn’t sure who else might have a motive, who didn’t have an alibi.

“Putting that aside for the moment, if we look back to the murder weapons; Celeste was killed with a knife meant for clay sculpting.” And at his nod, Hiro gingerly withdraws the knife from a pocket, wrapped in a tissue with the dusty blade crusted dark. “We found it in one of the tool cups on a table.”

The blade itself is thin, and with a sharp enough point for carving delicate details out of dense material, but the edge of it is still pitted with dried clay and slip. He shudders, thinking of how it’d feel to be stabbed with something like that - sharp enough to pierce, but the length of it jagged with tiny, stone-like protrusions.

“After we found that, I checked Celeste’s hands…there’s a little dried clay stuck in her palms and nails. So I… think we can say that she did kill Mondo, or- or wounded him, at least.” His voice stutters a bit, and he clears his throat quickly. “But - because of the scissors, which could have only come from To - I mean, Syo - and the body’s positions, it means that there had to be another person involved who killed Celeste. Probably with the hammer that was found next to Mondo, and - the blood pack, I guess? - and then staged it to make it look like…like they killed each other, and that, um, Syo was involved…somehow.”

And he pauses here, frowning as he mulls this thought. It’d been a little weird how much attention Kyoko had given Toko. How uncharacteristically polite she’d been with her words - and Makoto knows that she’s smart, but this kind of sly, covert manipulation...it wasn’t anything he’d ever seen from her. Of course, she’s not nearly good enough to make it go unnoticed by anyone else who might’ve been listening, and nowhere near as good as Sayaka-

He shuts his eyes so swiftly he feels the pressure flare around the eye sockets, cutting off that thought at the helm. In the darkness, he catches a flash of a teasing smile, smeared blood on white - Don’t think about that! Not now!

The pressure builds. A thin, throbbing spike piercing through his temples. They’ve gone over more or less everything from the art room, but there was something missing, something that they hadn’t fully addressed. Something, something…

“...Toko.” He thinks, as that thread of wondering finally connects at the ends to form a realization. And blinks his eyes open to see the others staring at him, various looks of bewilderment, expectation, and…mild irritation. Namely from one person.

“What are you muttering about?” Byakuya demands, lips pulled in disgust.

“Sorry, I just - I just realized something. We never got Syo’s side of things, right?” Toko jerks as he says this, like she was shocked. “If we believe what Toko said, that she’s managed to keep control all the way up until walking into the art room and seeing the bodies…and if we believe Kyoko that Syo was an accomplice here, then…when did Syo have time to collaborate with anyone?”

It feels like a lightbulb moment. Familiar now, with this being the third trial, and it’s like he can see that spark in his head, lighting up where next to go. Even as everyone else is processing it, he turns to Toko. “Are you absolutely sure that you’ve been in total control the past few days?”

“Wh-wha- wh-who do you th-think you are-?” She snaps, but her hands tremble, eyes wide and unsure. “I-I’m sure, I mean - I-I always feel t-tired wh-when I wake up after her, a-and she d-doesn’t really c-come out when I’m a-asleep…”

“But are you sure,” Makoto presses, and she hesitates even more now, bottom lip wobbling before she sinks her teeth in it.

“I…” She lowers her face, fringe obscuring the upper half of it from view. “W-well, I guess I h-have been more t-tired than usual i-in the mornings… e-even though I-I’ve been g-going to bed e-earlier…”

“Are you serious.”

Byakuya’s voice is flat, his face stony, but Makoto can tell that he’s…really, really mad. The same kind of quiet, controlled anger that Makoto only saw a few times before in his life, from his mom when he accidentally broke a window with a baseball, his teacher when the classroom frog got lost after he got put in charge of it, and Kyoko, just a little while earlier. Right now, the other boy was staring at Toko like a frog that died under a cabinet and was recently uncovered at the height of its decomposition. “So you’re not sure? And you couldn’t tell us this sooner?”

“I-I thought-! I-!” She shakes her head furiously, looking like she’s about to cry. “I r-really was working h-hard to keep her under c-control-”

“Clearly not hard enough. Are you useless?” He spits, and Toko reels back like he’d just chucked a dead frog at her. “You can’t even manage the one thing you swore you would!”

There’s a pause for a moment, everyone stunned by the pure vitriol in Byakuya’s words. Makoto can’t remember the last time he’d heard him say something so needlessly cruel, for the purpose of being cruel.

And then Hiro claps his hands, the sound making everyone jump. “Alright!” He chirps, his face twitching with an awkward smile, like he knows it’s not suited to the current atmosphere, but doesn’t know how else to move on. “So…we just have to hear out Syo’s testimony, right? Maybe she’ll be able to tell us about the culprit!”

Kyoko shakes her head. “I doubt that she would be so cooperative. Given what she did to Toko’s hair, it seems she’s not in the mood to be considerate of others.”

“S-still, it’s worth a shot, right? And she was pretty helpful in the last trial!”

“The circumstances are very different. She was already conscious last time and truly unrelated to this case. This time, we have undeniable evidence that she was involved.” She sighs, like this is all moot. “That aside, can Toko even call her out right now? Would she even be willing to talk?”

She gestures to Toko as she says this, making the girl flinch and shrink even more. “I…” Her voice is small and wavering, and she stands, hunched with her fingers digging into her arms, like a small animal. But there’s something determined behind her glasses as she lifts her face. “I-I can try…”

She falls silent, head bowing as everyone watches. No one even daring to breathe. Makoto counts his heartbeats, one, two, three…

And just like last time, Toko drops like a cut puppet, narrowly saved from slamming her head against the platform by a hand that flies up to grab the railing. But unlike last time, no one makes a sound, or any attempt to help her up, as a high-pitched, slithering giggle creeps out through the curtain of her bangs as she rises to her full height. As she raises her head, the light catches off her glasses, revealing the only thing behind them to be - insanity.

“I’m ba-ack~” Syo sings. “Didja miss me?”

__

Frankly, Byakuya thinks they could’ve done without needing to drag Syo into this - or at least, not dragging her into this now.

Because Syo was, among all her infuriating traits, also inclined to waste everyone’s time. Serving no one’s best interests but herself, regardless of the consequences - and regardless of her involvement, Byakuya feels that they would make much more progress if they went through all the evidence beforehand, instead of allowing her influence to appear now. Even now, as she stretches leisurely with a series of audible, crackling pops, sighing happily, seemingly relishing in everyone’s attention.

“Soo. You all decided you needed lil’ ol’ me, did you?” She rolls her neck, and Byakuya recoils at the sounds of her clicking vertebrae. “Al-riiight. Well? Anyone gonna speak up? I’m all ears!”

Makoto clears his throat first. “Right. Um, Syo.” For all his certainty earlier, he sounds like he was sorely regretting his decision now. “Can you…er…”

“Be more direct about it.” Byakuya snaps, feeling his patience thinning, before turning to the repulsive thing himself. “According to Toko, she was in control all throughout this morning, up until finding the bodies in the art room. Can you confirm this? And if so, what were you doing immediately after she fainted?”

Syo makes some kind of breathy, cooing sound. “Ohh, I love when you’re straightforward!” She trills, sounding nauseatingly delighted. “If only you could be like that everywhere else-”

“Shut up and answer the question.” He snarls. “If not that, then explain. How did we find your scissors there? We’ve already established they only could’ve come from your person.”

Her tongue rolls. Swipes over white teeth - or maybe just her upper lip - “You know…it sure is weird, right? How quickly you decided I had to be the one whose scissors those belonged to? Didn’t I tell you that they could’ve been hers?”

What she means by ‘her’ is obvious, even without her dramatic gesturing in Kyoko’s direction. “We’ve debunked this already. The pouch of scissors that you have right now contains fewer pairs than the one Kyoko took from you-”

“And who’s to say that I keep the same number of scissors on me at all times?”

His thoughts stutter to a halt. There was something strange about how she said that, all the twisting scribbles of her frivolity dropped from her voice, leaving behind a bare, metal surface; cold, sharp and sheer. A deathly seriousness that she had never displayed before.

“Sure, those scissors are mine. And a special make that only I know how to source. But I think you’re getting a little overexcited if you think that Moody would know any-thing about my habits. How else do you think I’ve made it this long without getting caught?” She sneers, head tilting. “Though, I guess I don’t hate an overeager man, but now’s not the time for it, don’t you think?” A pause, a quiet snicker. “Isn’t that right, Rampo-san?”

To Byakuya’s surprise, Kyoko is the one who responds, a hard edge of unease in her voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And he can hear the squeak of leather against wood.

“Aww, don’t play dumb! We all know you’re much, much, much smarter than that.” And the words finally click - and a cold sliver of dread begins to creep down his spine, a horrible realization - but no, that can’t be right, this was Kyoko they were talking about, she would never-

Would she?

“Enough,” He manages to find his tongue again, though he stumbles through the words. “Just - say what you mean.”

“Ooh, if you keep asking me to be so explicit, I’m gonna fall for you again!” She cackles, high-pitched and grating, and leans towards him, hand raised between them like she’s sharing a secret. “Act-ually…Toko’s been trying to keep me in check awhile, but she always slips when she goes to sleep, y’know? ‘Course, I don’t like moving around too much during then, since it’s just awful for my complexion if I don’t let this body rest…but I’ve been getting antsy being all cooped up and couldn’t help it.” And she shouts a laugh, so loud and sudden it makes him jump. “Imagine my surprise! When last night I walked out and slammed right into albino Sadako!”

“Albino-? What?” Hina splutters. “Wait, do you…do you mean Kyoko?”

“Who else? Don’t ya think she’s like a haunted doll? Dead quiet and always wandering when ya can’t see her?” Byakuya can’t bring himself to look away from Kyoko. Still unmoved as far as he can tell, and - surely, that must be the truth, there’s no way such a ridiculous claim would possibly affect her - “And she had some real interesting things to say to me that night. For example-”

“That’s enough,” Kyoko cuts her off sharply, a clear note of emotion in her voice now. As damning as a church bell. “We brought you here to give your testimony, not spout nonsense-”

“Oh, it’s not nonsense, though? I mean, we did run into each other last night. I can prove it, too.” The pale line of her finger turns, pinwheels, and then jabs in his direction. “Both of us witnessed the aftermath of their little dinner rendezvous. Don’t you remember how purple his neck was?”

And Byakuya narrowly avoids slapping a hand over the mark in question, twisting his fingers instead into the high, elastic collar of his jacket, knuckles brushing over the bruise. A hot, sickening curdle of embarrassment was settling in his stomach, contrasting the cold sweat breaking out on his nape. He can see Makoto mirroring his complexion, face darkening, then paling all at once.

Their discomfort doesn’t go unnoticed. Syo, of course, does nothing short of howl in laughter at the sight of it, doubling over the railing and nearly tipping right over it.

Hina looks back and forth between the two of them for a moment, mouth opening and closing a few times in silence. “...What did you and Kyoko talk about, then.” She finally says, addressing Syo - it’s as much a relief as it is another glancing blow to his pride.

Syo shrugs, shoulders and hands raising up playfully. “Oh, this n’ that. It sure wasn’t the weather though. Ain’t that right, Kyoko?” There’s the slick sound of gums scraping over teeth, as she pulls a wide, leering smile. “Or maybe I should call you ‘partner’?”

< previous - from start - next >

[hey-heigo]

the half part sees what the other half's got

Fic master-post

When Byakuya Togami wakes up in the classroom, the first thing he notices isn't the strangeness of his surroundings, or the fact that he should have been walking through the school doors just a moment prior, or even the lack of people or faculty around. Rather, the first thing that strikes him is his vision, reduced to vague blurs of color. Now effectively blind, he needs to navigate this sick killing game established by a comically cruel teddy bear, of all things, while concealing this new weakness from any peers that might try to take advantage of him. It should be easier than it sounds, if not for one particularly annoying peasant. An annoyingly observant peasant. And the most difficult girl he’s ever met. Unfortunately for him, neither Makoto Naegi nor Kyoko Kirigiri have no intention of making anything easy for him.

Rating: Mature (May change)

Tags (will be updated with chapter uploads): canon divergent, ableism (ableist language), blindness/low vision, non-consensual body modification (non-graphic), canon-typical violence, canon deaths, angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn, betrayal, eating disorder, descriptions of gore/kidnapping/attempted murder, descriptions of drowning

Pairings: Byakuya Togami/Makoto Naegi, Byakuya Togami/Kyoko Kirigiri, (possible Byakuya Togami/Makoto Naegi/Kyoko Kirigiri), Aoi Asahina/Sakura Ogami (background)

Anything relevant to the fic will be tagged with #thpff. Updates will be tagged with #thpff chapters

I'm not posting this on ao3 for the time being bc I'm currently not a fan of the management there lol. chapters 1-4 are still there but future chapters are going here

Chapters (Updates every Sunday)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 21.5

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

[hey-heigo]

naegami like a shoujo romance and togiri like a shounen rivalry

[hey-heigo]

Chapter 24

why did this chapter kick my ass?? damn!!!

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

soz for the unexpected delay i was moving + starting a new job + lost my grip on byakuya's slippery psyche

playing with my own headcanons for hiro and his backstory actually. bc. well. the original just is not very good at all now is it

tyyy @digitaldollsworld as always!!

Content warning tags: blood, mention of razor (not in intentional self-harm context), minor injury, nausea, panic attack, toxic obsessive stalker Toko, insecurity, mentions of self-starving

< previous - from start - next >

Byakuya drops his straight razor, and it splashes into the basin of his sink. Followed by a few droplets, hot and ruby-bright as it tracks down his jaw, vanishing almost instantly upon contact with the water.

For a moment, he doesn’t move, frozen, one hand still half-raised to his face, still curved in that loose grip. Then he braces his hands against the porcelain edge, knuckles tensing as he tries to keep them from shaking. The cut on his jaw stings, still slowly welling blood; his razor, silver and distorted, warbles in and out of sight with the water’s ripples, his eyes struggling to track its shape. He makes no move to fish it out of the water.

This was his second attempt at shaving. The evidence of his first attempt still throbs on the opposite cheek, near his ear. Despite moving glacially slow, other hand pulling the skin as taut and still as he could manage, the hard edge of the sink digging into his hip as he leaned as close to the mirror as he could, it was still proving to be a fruitless effort. The elegant blade that his mother’s family had gifted him, that he had been using since he became heir, was now simply too large and awkward for him to use. A task that should have been easy after all of Pennyworth’s guidance was now fraught with pointless danger.

…Maybe it’s not worth the trouble, he thinks, numbly. But the hollow, shattered defeatism that comes with the thought is so unfamiliar that it makes him grit his teeth, and then reach slowly into the tepid water to pull the razor out. His stubble was patchy already, especially near his jawline, and any more delay would almost certainly warrant someone commenting on it - maybe Hagakure, who couldn’t seem to keep anything to himself, or Celeste, who would delight in pointing it out while masking it as polite concern - but, at the rate he was going, he was going to draw more attention with a bloodied face.

His fingers scrape the basin, searching at a glacial pace until the edge of his thumbnail taps against the handle. He draws it out gingerly, shakes off the stray droplets, then wipes the blade with a silk cloth. Drying it carefully, meticulously - as Pennyworth had taught him, ‘it’s as good as useless if it rusts’ - before folding it and replacing it in the cupboard behind his mirror. He dries his face with the towel hanging around his neck, ignoring the way the Turkish cotton scraped against raw skin.

I could always just try again later, he reasoned with himself. Not so much as a surrender as it was a tactical retreat; and the results were bound to be better when he was calmer, more composed. He could still do it - he just needed some time.

And as for anyone who might notice it…

…Well. It wasn’t like he was spending much time around anyone else these days anyways.

—

Even if he wasn’t trying to seek out anyone else’s company, he couldn’t help but take note of their own routines, how they settled into their lives after feeling the world shake around them. 

It doesn’t surprise him that Celeste and Yamada have continued on as if nothing had happened at all. Celeste still maintains her airy simulacrum of a mysterious princess, occasionally inviting Byakuya to tea or dinner or a game of Othello, which he declines each time. Yamada, when he wasn’t offering himself up to be bullied and ordered around by her, would be in the newly-opened art room, and Byakuya could occasionally pass by to hear sounds of shuffling paper and the scrape of pens, and the harrowed, heavy breathing of a man possessed.

Ogami and Asahina are similar, returning to their athletic routine, though clearly more affected by the deaths of their classmates. They were attached at the hip before, but now Byakuya never saw one without the other, always in each other’s company, often holding hands - if Ishimaru were here, he might have decried it, ‘No PDA in the hallways!’ in that annoyingly shrill, school-bell voice - once, Byakuya had even overheard the two of them occupying the bathhouse together, when he had passed by with the intention of checking on Alter Ego’s laptop.

(He’d left quickly when he realized what they were doing, leaving the locker unchecked, his face hot and uncomfortable. It was all well and fine for them to cope how they pleased, but couldn’t they have some more decorum about occupying a public space? He was almost beginning to miss Ishimaru.)

…Speaking of Ishimaru. Even Mondo had found something to occupy his time with, these days.

It seemed that after that night with Alter Ego, something had shaken loose inside him, and he was an entirely new person. In some ways, he was even more troublesome than when he was depressed and languishing; loud, piercing, and always appearing when he was least expected, or at least it felt that way to Byakuya. Somehow materializing nearby, demanding to know what you were doing, why you weren’t adhering to some vague, obscure rule that he might’ve made up on the spot. An overgrown hall monitor that acted like every little infraction could mean life or death.

(It was all in the name of protecting the AI, but it was also getting on everyone’s nerves, and it almost made Byakuya regret ever involving himself in the biker’s business in the first place.)

Makoto and Kirigiri were doing whatever it was they were doing. Byakuya rarely saw them, and when he did, he never made any attempt to speak to either of them. It didn’t make much of a difference from his previous dynamic with Kirigiri, but with Makoto, it was almost like a repeat of what had happened just after the first trial. But this time, Makoto never made any attempt to approach him.

Which was perfectly fine by him. Regardless of Makoto’s intentions, his betrayal was unforgivable. There was no reason to associate with him any longer.

And lastly, there was Hagakure.

It’s not clear if the self-proclaimed clairvoyant had given up on Mondo, given the overnight change in personality (at the very least, there was no more need for a suicide watch anytime soon), but he seems to have latched on to Byakuya, for no clear reason. Frequently calling out to him whenever they crossed paths, dogging in his steps like a very determined stray. Chattering incessantly, even when Byakuya refused to deign any of his ridiculous stories with a response, often trying to herd him into the cafeteria so they could “lunch together, bond, maybe share a cup of joe? Even rich guys like joe, right?”

“...Did you mean ‘coffee’,” Byakuya replies in a flat, deadpan tone that was more resigned than irritated, during what must be the dozenth time that Hagakure had intercepted him, and maybe the third time he conceded to the other man’s insistence; if only because Hagakure had been particularly persistent recently, and would probably end up following him and broadcasting to Fukawa or Monokuma or anyone else exactly where Byakuya was seeking refuge, when not in his room.

(Not to mention that he was a little hungry himself, though he could only imagine the kind of common swill someone like Hagakure might consider coffee.)

“Hey man, to-MAY-toes, po-TAY-toes, right?” Hagakure just shrugs, and half-guides, half-pushes Byakuya by the shoulders into the cafeteria.

It’s midday. The place is empty, with even Celeste missing from her favored spot at her table. Hagakure shuffles him into the kitchen, tells him to wash his hands, and then-

-shoves two things at him. One, round, pale brown and still damp, with a slight papery texture beneath the moisture. The other, a piece of smooth, green plastic shaped like a ‘T’, with something silvery running parallel to the top. He skates his thumb lightly over it, and finds the edge of it sharp; a tiny blade.

“Whoa, careful! Don’t hurt yourself!” Hagakure tugs the tool back out of his hand, inspecting his fingers. “Like, come on. I even gave you the vegetable peeler, this is easy mode.”

“...What?”

Hagakure doesn’t explain right away, instead occupied with rolling up his sleeves, tying the brambled mass of his hair back with a strip of white. Arranged on the kitchen counter is a selection of tools, a colorful assortment of vegetables, and a hunk of something dark and pink, occupying the cutting board. There’s already a pot on the stove, and Byakuya watches Hagakure’s hand fiddle with some dark, invisible button across the top of the oven, and a telltale blue flame clicks to life. “We’re making gumbo! And you’re my assistant for the day.” He announces, with the same cadence of a cooking show host. He’s beaming, as if he hadn’t just said something utterly, completely insane.

“...What.”

It’s hard to make out, but he swears Hagakure rolls his eyes at him. Which would be infuriating enough to comment on, if he wasn’t also holding out the aforementioned vegetable peeler out, handle first, towards him. “Gumbo. It’s kinda like, curry I guess? But it’s a lot more soupy.” Apparently not put off by Byakuya’s unresponsiveness, he pushes the peeler into his slack hand. “I mean, I guess I’m not surprised you haven’t tried it. It’s not Japanese, or like…fancy, rich guy food.”

That snaps him out of it. “What,” He repeats, emphatically, with feeling. “Do you think you’re doing?”

“Um, like I said, making gumbo-”

“No, I mean-” Byakuya waves the objects in his hands, and feels only a little ridiculous in doing so. “I’m not- using these.”

Hagakure winces at that. “...No offense, Toga, but, uh…” He hesitates. “It’s…not exactly a good idea to give you a knife right now, you feel me?”

Byakuya can imagine his eyes tracing down his face, to the still-pink line on his jaw from this morning, and feels his face grow even warmer, with nothing to do with the open-flame stove not a meter away from him. “That. Is. Not. The. Point.” He hisses, emphasizing each word. “And - don’t call me that - you said we were here to get coffee.”

He spits these words like they’re poisonous, and Hagakure is still for a moment. He thinks that he’s managed to get his point across, but:

“Aww, Togster…you really did wanna get coffee with me?” Hagakure sounds genuinely touched, one hand pressed to his chest. Byakuya was about two seconds from throwing the stupid root vegetable in his hand against Hagakure’s equally stupid head. “We can have coffee after we make food. Besides, aren’t you sick of the meals we’ve been doing recently? Like I’m not a picky guy, but ramen and bread every day for the past few days is getting kinda…bleh, y’know?”

The worst part of this was that Byakuya agreed with him on that front. Even with his newfound habit of only eating when there was no one else around, or when Alter Ego threatened to stop reading for him until he took a meal, the selection was paltry to begin with and had only grown more unappealing with time.

“Your job is easy,” Hagakure continues, and grabs something hanging off the handle of a nearby oven, and drops it over his face, obscuring his vision for a moment. He jerks backwards in alarm as it settles to hang around his neck, only to realize that it’s an apron - a pale, mint-green thing that’s one size too small, with some still-visible stains splattered across it, and Hagakure had somehow gotten behind him and tied the thing in place already  - “You just gotta peel the potatoes, and I just gotta cut everything up. The roux’s already done, so all we gotta do is dump the ingredients in and let it do its thing.”

Byakuya is still reeling a little from being forced (though, there wasn’t much he could’ve done in protest, with both his hands occupied) into an apron. The things in his hands are so unfamiliar to him that they may as well be OOPart pieces in the making.

Besides him, Hagakure was whistling away, chopping meat with the silver blur of a large kitchen knife. Completely oblivious to anything around him; and Byakuya realized, he could leave right now if he wanted, and it wasn’t like the fortune-teller, of all people, could stop him.

He’s about to do just that when the other man looks up, knife stilling. “Something wrong?” He asks, with a tilt of his head. And before Byakuya could explain that, yes, there was something very wrong with this entire situation: “D’you need help?”

“No.” He says automatically, and immediately kicks himself for it.

“Oh, then-?”

“I don’t-” Byakuya says at the same time, and frowns sharply at the interruption. “I. Don’t do this sort of…thing.” It comes out a lot less assertive than he would like, and sounds a lot more pathetic than he means it to be.

“Oh. Well, yeah, I figured.” Hagakure shrugs, as he scoops up the mess of pink on the cutting board with the edge of his knife and drops it into a metal bowl. It lands with a loud, wet slap, and the bowl rings as it shakes against the counter. “No time to learn like the present though, right?”

Byakuya feels his eye twitch. In some ways, talking to Hagakure was more frustrating than negotiating with most white-collar businessmen, and more akin to arguing against a very enthusiastic wall. “I’m not supposed to do this kind of thing,” He tries again. “I’ve never had to prepare my own food in my life.”

It echoes what he told Makoto, that night he dragged Byakuya to the kitchen to prepare him a meal. But this time, it feels much less like a boast, and more like an admission. Like he couldn’t even do this much.

If Hagakure noticed the grimace passing over his face, he made no comment. Instead, he plucks the items out of Byakuya’s hands. “No time to learn like the present, my man.” He twirls the peeler between his fingers, and it spins, a foggy green circle. “It’s like a pattern, you pull the peeler down, turn it again, and repeat.” He demonstrates, hands moving quickly, with practiced ease. “Don’t worry if you miss anything. We don’t need it to be super clean, we just need most of the skin off.”

And he offers the peeler back to Byakuya, a gleam of white teeth on his face. Deceptively kind, poisonously pleasant. “Think you can handle that?”

Byakuya shoves his hand away, his patience thinning to a thread. “Take the hint,” He snaps, reaching behind himself to try and undo the knot. “I’m not doing this.”

“What? But it’s easy!”

“I don’t care,” He yanks at the ties, feels them come no closer to being loosened, and feels his face reddening with frustration, humiliation. He needs to leave, now. “I’m leaving.”

“Aw, Toga, come on-”

Byakuya reaches for the knife, left abandoned on the cutting board, and there’s a clatter as Hagakure backs himself against the ovens. “O-okay, okay, sure! Sure, jesus, okay!”

Byakuya rolls his eyes at the overreaction, already tuning him out, then starts awkwardly maneuvering the knife to try and cut the apron off. Arms twisting awkwardly to catch the bladed edge against the side of the knot. It’s not easy - he could swear, the blade seemed sharp enough when Hagakure was using it to dice meat, but now it slides clumsily against the twisted cotton, dull as a stone -

“Jesus,” Hagakure says again, but less panicked now that it was clear his life was under no immediate threat. “Okay, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I am not-”

“You totally are, man. Just - don’t slash me, please, and hold still -”

Hagakure gives him a wide, cautious berth, as if still worried he would suddenly turn into some violent, knife-swinging killer, edging until he’s out of Byakuya’s peripheral and standing behind him. A slight tug around his midsection later, and the apron is flapping loosely against his stomach.

To show his thanks, Byakuya sets the knife down before he pulls off the apron, not so much as handing it over as simply dropping it in the other boy’s direction.

He makes to leave, but Hagakure stops him - or tries to, throwing one hand out while scrambling to catch the apron with the other - “Wait, wait,” He still sounds jovial, but there’s a thin edge of nervousness to it now, residual after the earlier scare. “Listen, you don’t hafta help if you don’t want to, but like…can you just hang out? Here?”

“...You want me to stay. In the kitchen.” Where it was overly warm with a pot of water building into a steady boil, heavy with the smell of various condiments and spices, and pervaded by a general stickiness on the tile. “Why?”

“U-um, well…”

Byakuya sighs. He’s wasted too much time already. The coffee he was promised earlier was looking like a lost cause, and frankly, he wasn’t interested in eating anything anymore either. It would feel too much like accepting undue pity, somehow.

Apparently sensing his impatience, Hagakure finally blurts out: “Because-! I’m, um, scared! To be alone! So…”

Byakuya only stares. Even with his hair tied back, the shape of Hagakure’s head is still a round, dark splotch, albeit smaller than usual. And it bobs up and down like a dandelion as he ducks his head, hands clasped in an exaggerated plea. “Please, man, I literally can’t ask anyone else,” He begs. “Mondo’s all psyched-out and freaky serious now, Hifumi and Celeste were weirdos to begin with, and I’m sick of third-wheeling for Hina-chi and Saka-chi! And there’s no way I’m hanging out with Toko!”

He doesn’t mention Makoto or Kirigiri. Which, Byakuya assumes, makes sense, so he doesn’t bother to ask about it. “How do I know you aren’t trying to kill me,” He says instead, deadpan. 

Hagakure snorts. “Have you seen me?” And then immediately winces. “I mean - shit, sorry - but seriously, I’m pissing my pants every time Monokuma shows up. And at every crime scene, and every trial. You really think I could get over myself to off someone?”

“None of Monokuma’s motives struck a chord with you?”

“Well - I’d be lying if the first one didn’t make me nervous,” He nods. “But I divined how my parents were doing a bunch of times, and they were always alright, so that didn’t worry me too much. And the thing about secrets; well, mine is that I’m actually on the run from this yakuza boss I accidentally pissed off. I owe him a debt of eight million yen.”

Byakuya is certain he doesn’t miss the way Hagakure glances at him then, based on the way his ponytail twitches as his head turns imperceptibly. He decides to ignore the obvious bait, and moves on: “Fine, then. Then what’s your reasoning that I won’t try to kill you?”

“Oh.” Hagakure pauses. “...I didn’t, uh…think about that.”

Right. Byakuya can’t find it in him to be surprised about that either, though some bruised-up part of his pride does rail against the implication that he wasn’t dangerous. Like being blind meant he was harmless, helpless, defanged - he struggles against the implication, but only sickens himself more with the truth of it.

“I mean…do you want to kill me?”

Byakuya snorts. “I want to leave,” He leans back against the counter, feeling the hard, smooth edge of the marble dig against his back. “Obviously, I’m not crazy enough to spend the rest of my life here, waiting to kill or be killed.” He pauses. “And…I’ve been looking into possible causes for my…circumstance, and it’s looking more and more like it would require the work of a trained doctor, using specific equipment to resolve. Which this place,” He gestures around him. “Isn’t exactly equipped to handle.”

The other boy scratches his head. “Um, yeah. I mean I know that much. We all wanna get out and all, but like…do you want to kill someone to make that happen?”

Not in the slightest. He probably held responsibility for the deaths of multiple people at this point, but he had never had to kill them himself, nor witness the moment of their end. Dirtying his hands with someone else’s blood never appealed to him, and it was far more sophisticated to orchestrate someone else handling the messy work.

But his answer must show on his face, because Hagakure nods, satisfied. “Well, there you go! Also, I ran a divination on whether one of us would die today, and it’s not in the cards or the stars or divine intention, so we’re good!” He claps his hands. “Anyways. If you don’t wanna help, that’s all totally cool. All you gotta do is stick around.”

“You can’t be serious.” He scoffs. But he was getting sick of the earlier conversation - sick of talking about himself, sick of thinking about himself - so he stays where he is, crossing his arms as Hagakure busies himself with the ingredients. “How do your divinations even work, anyways?”

“What, you interested?” Hagakure flashes another white smile, and even through the haze Byakuya gets the impression that it’s a salesman grin. He could practically hear the cartoonish chime of a register. “My current going rate’s ten-million yen a reading, but for you I’ll throw in a buddy’s discount of twenty-percent!”

Byakuya gives him the most unimpressed look he can manage. “I’m not interested in wasting money on frivolities.”

“It’s not frivol-anything, man. They’re a hundred-percent legit! …Thirty-three-percent of the time,” He amends, sheepishly, at Byakuya’s withering stare. “But when they’re real, they’re real! With a hundred-percent accuracy!”

As he talks, his hands blur, moving with practiced ease. The small pile of potatoes changing from brown to pale yellow, to small, misshapen chunks, the green stalks of celery disintegrating under a knife, sharp-smelling and darkening the wood beneath it with its moisture. There’s a steady, fluid grace to it, and Byakuya watches on, feeling a sense of deja vu - faintly envious, partly entranced - the last he felt this way, he recalls, was being a child and watching his mother work in her studio, hewing faces out of stone.

He hasn’t thought about that memory in years, and he clicks his tongue sharply, irritated. Hagakure jumps at the sound. “M-maybe it’s more like a ninety-eight percent accuracy?” The fortune-teller tries, hurriedly. “Uh, it depends on how clearly I can convey it, I mean. Like how good the client is with understanding me…dialect differences and all that, though my English is pretty solid-”

“Why fortune-telling, anyways?” He cuts off Hagakure’s rambling. “I can’t imagine it’s an inherited position. You don’t seem the type to be taking up someone else’s legacy.”

“Oh! Well…” He turns to the pot, scrapes a bowl of brown slurry into its bubbling contents. “It was my dad who got me into it - not that he was a fortune teller or anything - but he knew stories about fortune tellers and priestesses and stuff, from where he grew up. It was pretty interesting, and I guess that’s what got me started.” He stirs, sniffs, tosses a handful of green shapes into the mix. “He actually bought me my first crystal ball, though it was just a cheap souvenir thing. I couldn’t’ve been older than, like, six or something.” He laughs. “Wow, I haven’t thought about this stuff in forever.”

“Am I dredging up bad memories?” Byakuya drawls, and Hagakure shakes his head.

“Nah, just old ones. But I got super into it; started begging my Ma to read me divination textbooks for bedtime, she thought I was going crazy. Dad just said it was normal for little kids to be a little crazy about something they like, though.” He shrugs. Another sniff, a sprinkle of red seasoning. “He was the first person I did an accurate divination for, actually. Like a real divination, not just for pretend.”

He goes quiet for a moment, wooden spoon scraping against the inside of the pot. Byakuya frowns. “And what did you ‘see’?” He asks, though only about half as sarcastic as he intended.

“Saw him in the hospital. And then leaving.” He replies simply. He turns, and scoops up the chopped ingredients in his hands, tossing them in with a hiss. “It was clear as day in that little glass ball, like I was watching a TV screen, except also kinda…I don’t know, wiggly? Like a dream. But I got shook up so bad I dropped it and broke the damn thing, and the next day my Dad went to the doctor for a check-up, and they shipped him to the hospital right after. Some genetic, hereditary thing, they wouldn’t even tell me what it was. I think Ma thought it’d freak me out if I knew, but I was just more freaked out not knowing.”

He reaches blindly behind him, searching hand patting at the counter, the cutting board. Byakuya hesitates, then grabs the bowl of chopped meat and passes it over. Its contents splash into the pot. “Thanks. Anyways, the weirdest thing was that I wasn’t, like, scared he was gonna die, or anything. For some reason I knew he was gonna make it, but I was more worried that he was gonna…hurt? Get even worse?” He pauses. “I kept on doing divinations afterwards with a tarot card set, just to see how he was doing, and each time it told me he was gonna be fine.”

His voice sounds a little thick, indistinct. Byakuya was beginning to regret bringing up this topic; he would hate it if he was suddenly expected to have to comfort a grown man. But instead of bursting into tears, Hagakure leans to the side, tucks his face into his elbow, and sneezes, gunshot loud. “Phew! Jeez, the paprika.” He sniffs, and Byakuya’s unease turns back into a comfortable sort of annoyance. “Anyways. Where was I…?”

“...Your father.” He hesitates for a moment. “When he passed away.”

“When he-?” Hagakure turns fully away from the pot to stare at him, mouth open, before breaking into a laugh. Doubling over so and wheezing like he just got punched. “Dude! No way, are you- did you really think that?!”

“What? Am I wrong?” Byakuya feels his face heating red again, with nothing to do with the steam. “Shut up. The way you were talking about it, you were acting like he kicked the bucket,” He snaps, and Hagakure stifles another laugh. “It’s the logical progression of things. You saw him get sick and die, and then-”

“No, no, dude, I said I saw him in the hospital, and then leave - oh, yeah, I guess I can see how you’d think that now.” He stands up straight again, swiping a hand across his face. “Oh man. No, I meant ‘leave’ as in literally leaving, like at an airport? He got better and swung back around, but got a job offer overseas right after, so he never really came back to settle permanently in Japan.” He turns back to the pot, turning the heat down low. “He sends postcards for me all the time, and he and Ma vacation together every year around the holidays.”

So that was it. Byakuya feels an irrational surge of exasperation, as if all his previous pity had just been wasted. “What does he even do? Your father?”

“He teaches quantum mechanics.” At Byakuya’s stunned expression, he snorts. “What, I’m not kidding! He test-runs all his lectures and speeches and stuff to me, and now I know way more about that stuff than I think most people ever need to!”

‘Prove it’ is on the tip of Byakuya’s tongue, but he holds back. He probably would never recover if Hagakure did somehow manage it and make him look like a fool. Hagakure stirs the pot in silence for a moment longer, before asking: “What about you?”

“What?”

“Your parents.” A shot of cold immediately runs down his spine. “Like, I know your dad’s a big rich unmarried bachelor hotshot, but what about your mom? Ah- ” Hagakure presses hand to his mouth. “She…is she, like…?”

“She’s not dead, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.” He replies, stiffly. “We’re estranged.”

“O-oh. Um. I’m sorry?”

“It’s fine.” He pauses, looks down at the tile floor. It was a mutual disavowment, around the time he made the decision to try for Togami heir. She was relieved to be rid of him, he was sure, and he was glad to be out of her house full of stone statues and hollow eyes. “I haven’t been in contact with her for several years. We’re as good as strangers.”

He really should just leave it at that. There’s no reason to elaborate any further, nor does he want to; he glares down at his feet, trying to count the tiles, and watches as the dark lines dividing them squiggle and disappear the moment he loses focus. And finds his mouth moving against his will. “My mother is Genevieve Delasol.”

“Cool.” A pause. “Wait, what!?”

Byakuya scowls and looks away as Hagakure turns back to him. “Like, the Delasol?! World-famous artist lady? With the sculptures? Miss Modern Michelangelo?!”

“Don’t call her that.” She had always hated that stupid nickname that the press forced on her, and so did he, though not for her benefit. It was a tasteless, and frankly disrespectful moniker. “But yes. Her.”

“Dude…” There’s awe in his voice, as if it were something impressive. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s not. She birthed me like any other human.”

“Still! Like, they talked about her in my elementary school art class. Her stuff is so-” He splays his fingers near his head, puffs his cheeks to mimic the sound of an explosion. “Like, I remember seeing pictures of her stuff for the first time, and it freaked me out. One of the older kids in the neighborhood told me she was freezing people into rock, that’s how real her stuff looks.”

“She’s a good artist, but she was an awful mother.” Byakuya says flatly, immediately draining the rest of Hagakure’s enthusiasm. “We’re not continuing his conversation.”

“Right, right. Um. Sorry.” He taps his fingers against the spoon, ladles some of it into a little dish to taste. “Okay, um. Could you pass me some dishes? From that cabinet in front of you - to the left - yeah, thanks.”

The concoction he scoops into the shallow dishes Byakuya hands him is…unappealing. At least visually - a muddy brown sludge that glops thickly off of his ladle - but it smells good, spicy and warm. One of the bowls is passed back, and there’s a conflict of sensation as Byakuya tries to decide if he’s hungry enough to risk it, something that he couldn’t even clearly oversee the process of making.

“You’re surprisingly well-versed in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, well. I get into hot water a lot when my fortunes don’t work out, especially with my, uh…higher class clients, so I had to get used to taking care of myself. Didn’t wanna bother my parents with it, ya know?” He flicks off the stove, covers the pot, and reaches to the right for the rice cooker. Opens it with a sharp smack to the lid. “Like, I don’t think I’ve seen my dad face-to-face in…it feels like two years. Maybe longer.”

He holds out his hand. Byakuya passes over his bowl, and he plops some rice into the center of it, before handing it back.

“I can’t finish this much.”

“Sure you can, you’re a growing guy.” There’s the roll of a drawer being pulled open, then a clatter before a spoon is being dropped into his bowl as well. “You better eat all of it, by the way. Every grain of rice has seven gods, so you gotta eat them all so you don’t get cursed.”

“...What kind of saying is that?”

“Dunno, but my Ma used to say it all the time. Come on, let’s go into the caf-”

He halts suddenly, halfway to the door. Byakuya nearly runs into his back, and just barely keeps from spilling his bowl. “What-”

“Um. Hold on.” The previous casualness of his voice is gone, and there’s a hard thread of unease running through it again. “Uh…wait out here for a moment, okay?”

“Why-”

“Dude, please. Just for a moment.” He sets his bowl down on the counter. “I’ll be right back.”

And then he’s out the door before Byakuya can make any protest, leaving him alone in the kitchen, now uncomfortably quiet without the soft hiss of the stove. He stands there, stunned, feeling a little bit stung - no, irked - at the sudden dismissal.

He wasn’t about to take orders from Hagakure, regardless of whatever weird pseudo-symbiotic-relationship the other boy thought they had going on. He walks towards the door, moving to elbow it open-

“I’m telling you, just leave him alone.”

He freezes, ducking his head down. Hagakure’s voice is high and scratchy with nervousness, but firm despite that. “For the last time-”

“I-I-I-” Someone else stutters. The voice is familiar, and Byakuya feels his gut drop in recognition. The last he heard it, it was seething with malice, spit like venom at his feet. “I j-just wanna l-look at him…”

Hagakure lets out a long-suffering sigh, indicating that this wasn’t the first time he’s had to deal with this. “Seven hells, Toko, I really don’t get you,” He grumbles. “You said you hated him, right? I mean, you said so at the trial, and you did…all that.” He coughs. “He wasn’t interested to begin with, and there’s really no way to turn it around after that.”

“I-It was t-to prove that we’re th-the same!” Fukawa shrieks, trigger-sudden and indignant. There’s a sharp thump as she stomps her foot, hard enough to rattle some nearby furniture. “If I d-didn’t do that, he w-would’ve never a-accepted what h-happened to him!”

Byakuya frowns at that, and sets the bowl aside in favor of sinking into a half-crouch, ear pressing up against the door, beneath the tiny window. What was she talking about? Not accepting my own condition? Don’t I know myself better than anyone else?

“That’s not up to you to decide,” Hagakure starts.

“I-It’s not up t-to you to p-protect him either!” She spits back. “Y-you’ve been keeping him a-away from me recently, wh-what’s with you? D-did you have some k-kind of awakening, or something?!”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that my type is none of your business - and anyways, ain’t it logical to wanna keep away from you?” He grumbles, then yelps. “C-calm down-! I just mean - you know, you…you don’t exactly give off warm and fuzzy feelings about hanging out with people!”

Toko barks a laugh, shrill and mirthless. “Wh-which makes him perfect for me,” And Byakuya feels disgust roll down his back. “I-I know I’m m-miserable, a-and unfriendly and unloveable,”

“Hey,” Hagakure says, a little more gently than before.

“B-but s-so is he! H-he’s just b-better at hiding it, p-pretending to be a, a perfect, white-horse prince,” She spits the words vehemently. “I-if he was p-perfect, th-then maybe, I c-could just be s-satisfied with - with being n-near him, with b-being used…”

She trails off. Byakuya fights the urge to physically cringe at the mere suggestion, instead gritting his teeth, nails scratching lightly against the door’s tacky surface. “B-but, he’s not perfect. S-so, that means I c-can reach him - i-it’s possible for someone l-like m-me to actually be with him,” She giggles, and the sound is far too childishly delighted to suit her mouth, and far too chilling to have innocent intentions behind it. “I-I dragged him off his p-pedestal, s-so now I can actually touch him.”

It’s vile, listening to her. The sound feels like a filth that clings to him, sliding into his ears, contaminating him from the inside out. Poisoning him, paralyzing him.

He’s only vaguely aware of his body sliding down lower, unable to maintain the awkward pose, curled over and unable to brace himself properly against the swinging door. He sinks into a squat, ears straining.

“...Um, ew.” Hagakure mutters succinctly. “Okay, first of all, no you can’t. Pretty sure Monokuma would have some problems about that, he’s all gung-ho about decency and stuff. Second, Toga’s still not gonna be into you. You blew that chance when you, uh…”

“When I w-what? S-strung up Chihiro?” She snorts. “H-he would’ve done the s-same if h-he was a-actually as perfect as h-he said.”

The contamination sinks deeper, claws curling cruelly into his chest. I would have never, He thinks through the tinny, lightheaded hum in his skull, but there’s a sickening sense of dread that twists in his stomach as he realizes he can’t even be sure of that. He might have. He would’ve had no use for Chihiro if he wasn’t blind, he would have barely even hesitated if the opportunity was there - to defile someone else’s corpse for nothing more than his own self-righteousness.

He’s probably had this realization already, but it’s revolting to hear it come from Fukawa. He should go out there, tell her to shut up, to leave him be-

“-a-and anyways, y-you still didn’t t-tell me why y-you’re so obsessed with p-protecting him.” She’s still saying, distantly, and it feels as if the door is suddenly several times thicker than it was previously, muffling the sound dramatically. “Y-you don’t have a-anything in c-common, I don’t s-see why you’d want t-to be near him, u-unless…y-you’re doing it for someone else, aren’t y-you?”

Hagakure doesn’t respond. Makes no sound to confirm or deny it. Byakuya waits, ringing intensifying, disease festering into his lungs. It was getting hard to breathe. His pulse thrums in his ears, too loud to think, not nearly loud enough to drown their voices out.

“I s-saw you with Makoto,” She continues, and the confirmation of Byakuya’s suspicion does nothing to make him feel better. “He- he asked you t-to do this, right? To protect him, h-how nice,” She snarls, disgusted. “L-looking out for his p-precious boyfriend, when he won’t d-do it himself-”

“That’s…that’s not it,” Hagakure protests, but he doesn’t sound convincing, voice so hesitant and soft that Byakuya barely catches it. “Mako-chi’s just…busy, right now-”

“Y-yeah, too busy trying to g-get out of here so Byakuya c-can get fixed, so he can s-stop f-feeling guilty - h-he doesn’t want to have to look at him, b-but he can’t help s-sticking his nose in anyways, he’s s-so sweet it makes me sick.” Byakuya legs shake, cramping, but he forces himself still, keeps his ear flattened to the door despite the nausea building in his gut, the light-headedness in his temples - “B-but it’s too much work t-to comfort him or drag him a-around, s-so he has to get s-someone to do it, right?”

He wouldn’t, is Byakuya’s immediate thought, but it’s weak, even in his own head. Makoto hasn’t sought him out all since that night in the bathhouse because Byakuya had requested it; had demanded that he leave him alone with as much vitriol and firmness as he could muster, and as with so many other things, Makoto had obeyed. But while Fukawa’s words are acerbic and biting, they’re also painfully, terribly logical.

He wonders now, how he must have looked to the others. Slowly falling apart, barely eating, rarely showing his face. So utterly different from how he tried to portray himself at first, an ill-fitted facsimile of how he used to be, how he should be; it’s no wonder Makoto would go behind his back to take care of him. Between disobeying him again and trying to keep him alive, the choice must have been easy.

The fact that that choice had to be made at all, however, made Byakuya want to…

There’s a thud as his legs finally give out, his knees smashing against the tile, but he hardly notices. Not while the sickness spreads, a physical decay in his torso eating away at him, swift and insatiable. He’s not hungry anymore, but he feels emptier than he’s ever been. 

The door swings open suddenly, bumping against his shoulder, and he sways, unsteady. Hands reach out, catching him before he can fall over.

“Whoa, hey,” Hagakure sounds muffled, underwater. He hooks his hands beneath Byakuya’s arms, trying to pull him upright, and only then does Byakuya realize that he’s not really breathing. Probably hasn’t been for the past few minutes. “Toga- I mean- you okay?” 

Of course not, he wants to snap, but talking would mean opening his mouth, and that would mean breaking down into tears like a petulant infant, so he clamps his mouth shut and tries to get as much oxygen as he can through his nose. Slow, stuttered, wheezing breaths, teeth sinking into raw, just-healing skin and breaking it bloody all over again. He leans away from Hagakure’s grip as much as possible and tries to brace himself against the wall, shaky hands against the cool bumps of the tile. Trying to count them, one by one.

“I,” He manages to grit out when he was marginally more calm, ignoring Hagakure’s worried clucking. His voice quavers, and he swallows hard around the shrapnel lodged in his throat. “I’m going to go.”

“Dude, come on-”

He lurches forward, clumsily dodging Hagakure’s attempts to support him, and walks as steadily as he can out of the kitchen. The moment he crosses the open space of the cafeteria and into the hallway, he breaks into a sprint for his room. As far away from prying eyes as he can manage.

__

(When he opens his door later that night, he finds a plastic container and a spoon sitting by the threshold, its contents long cold.)

(He eats it anyways and scrapes it clean, and leaves it sitting empty outside of his door again.)

< previous - from start - next >

[hey-heigo]

Chapter 25

sorry this one took so long. unfortunately no sloppy homoeroticism this chapter, it was getting too long so i broke it up

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

can you kids get on with the next trial yet

my computer crashed like three different occasions while writing this so i fear it may be time to retire this google doc

@digitaldollsworld i owe u my life

Content warning tags: more issues with shaving and a shaving razor, canon-typical Monokuma cartoon violence, gun mention for aforementioned Monokuma antics, Monokuma-typical bullying (Monokuma as the bully, not the bully-ee)

< previous - from start - next >

Contrary to popular belief; Byakuya does know what defeat is like.

And if asked about it, he would, of course, declare it all as part of a grander plan. A blip in the greater scheme of his life, a tactical retreat, losing a battle to gloriously win a war. And it wouldn’t be wholly untrue, for most of them; for every time he had had to back down, it always culminated in an opportunity to lower his opponents’ defenses, to bide his time before striking back fiercer, sharper, more decisive. The fact of his status now is proof of that.

So no, he’s never lost, never even truly tasted failure. How could he, Byakuya Togami, possibly even know the meaning of the word?

But the truth that he might only ever admit to himself - on days when his reflection looks a little too fragile, and the commoners around him are a little too near, too human for comfort - was that he was well aware of what defeat felt like. Like a cloying, oily sensation that clings to his skin, stubborn and agitating, refusing to be dislodged no matter how hard he scratches, like trying to quell some stubborn itch. Suffocating and irritating all at once, like ants marching in his loose-fitting skin. A constant uneasiness. Paranoia.

He had felt it often when he was younger, more stupid, more naive. Back when he foolishly thought it was the natural order of things for children to be shielded from unpleasant things, those strange and frightening concepts of death and betrayal, and would get so torn up in the aftermath of every little trauma that even Pennyworth would grow exasperated, ceasing his coddling and shoving him onward insteads.

He thought he’d forgotten it, but now he finds himself overly familiar with that feeling. Now, it was almost tedious - he’d be bored of it, if it wasn’t absolutely and hair-tearingly frustrating.

He slams the mirrored door of his bathroom cabinet shut, and hears its contents rattle and fall over. It was going to be hell when he opened it again, had to find or identify any of those tiny bottles by smell, but he didn’t care. The other alternative would have been to throw the razor, now sitting innocently and safely folded on the sink counter, and there are a whole slew of reasons why he shouldn’t do that, with the most fleeting, irrational one being that Pennyworth would click his tongue.

(God, Pennyworth. All servants had to be considered disposable, but he never thought he would miss that old man and his meddling so much.)

The cuts on his jaw sting as he splashes water over his face again, furiously scrubbing his hands down his cheeks. It was another failure again today; he had a feeling he was beginning to look rather shabby, given the unfamiliar prickling he can feel when he runs his fingers over his chin and upper lip, contrasting the stinging, sticky smoothness of his cheeks. The thought of being seen like this made him want to hide, and the thought of hiding himself away forever felt like shameful surrender, with no reassuringly great scheme to fall back on.

This is ridiculous. He reprimands himself, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. That now-familiar, still-infuriating mass of fuzzy yellow hovers back. It’s just one simple task. I still have my hands, and I can do this much.

As if mocking him, a thin, blurred line of blood immediately begins to track down his face, from near where his reflection’s ear should be. He slaps a hand to it, digs his fingers into the cut, and lets out a hiss between his teeth, more out of anger than the actual pain.

But the pain does its job in steadying him, focusing his thoughts. Enough! He needs to make up his mind, either to keep trying or go do something else. He’s spent too long holed up in his room, and he needs to eat and do something without relying on the unwanted, well-meaning pity of stupid individuals, and maybe show his face enough so the others don’t identify him as some strange, pathetic little hermit. He needs to get some new books from the library, having already read and reread a number of the old ones. He should do any number of things, instead of acting so paralyzed, so-

“Stuck, ain’tcha?”

He spins so fast he almost slips on the tile, hands slamming against the sink behind him to steady himself, wincing as his hip collides with the porcelain. Monokuma, that hateful little bastard, is standing in the doorway of his bathroom, head tilted in a mockery of concern. “Gosh, you look like-”

“Shut up,” He snaps, immediately, reflexively. A stupid move maybe, but the bear made it so easy to forget he was dangerous by sheer effort of being insufferable.

“Whaat? Such words you’re saying to your headmaster!” It gasps, and shakes its head. “Can’t a bear be a little concerned for its lil’ cubs? I do all this for ya, and this is how you talk to me! ...Oh, but I guess I never did respect my momma either at your age, I really oughta give her a call…”

It’s almost comical, the way it goes from shock, to stomping its feet is exaggerated anger, to immediately wilting with gloom. Distantly, Byakuya thinks that whatever technology is responsible for puppeting the thing must be very advanced, but that’s hardly his biggest concern. “Get out,” He says instead, voice clipped and rasping out of his throat. He hasn’t been taking as many fluids as he should, and the water from the bathroom tap always tastes a little too sulfuric for him.

“And now he’s in his rebellious phase! Oh momma, I knew I should’ve treated you better!” Monokuma wails, almost convincingly distraught. “Oh…but, I guess I’ll do as she did and treat you sweet anyways. It sure ain’t easy raising all you little whippersnappers, y’know?

“Anyways,” And it perks up, cheery again. “I just wanted to give you a lil’ heads up on today’s itinerary! I noticed that all of you’ve been a liiiitle stressed lately, so I wanted to treat all of you to something nice!” The words immediately set the hairs on the back of Byakuya’s neck on end. Something ‘nice’ from Monokuma could never mean something good. “Puhu…now, I did send out the message in the form of paper notes, y’know, go all retro to mix things up a bit - but then I remembered that that just wouldn’t be fair to all of us, and we just can’t have the meeting until we’re all present! So I came all the way over here, just for you, to deliver the message face-to-face!”

It’s an oddly considerate action on Monokuma’s part. So considerate, in fact, that Byakuya immediately hears alarm bells begin to ring in his head. “...When and where is this meeting,” He says, slowly.

“Well, in the gymnasium! Figured there was no need to break out the velvet carpet for just the ten of ya. And as for when, ah…” It looks at its wrist, taps at it. “Ten minutes ago!”

He reaches behind him and grabs the nearest object - the razor - and hurls it. It bounces off the tile with a loud crack, the silver blade flying open, but Monokuma dances backwards, out of range. “Whoa, careful! I’d hate to punish you for doin’ property damage! Someone might get hurt!”

“Out.” He all but roars, while at the same time scrambling. He nearly trips as he goes, narrowly avoiding stepping on the razor, hands scrabbling at the door frame to keep himself upright. He’s still dressed in his pajamas, and he digs through his drawers for a clean change - he can hear Monokuma cackling, delighted, but he hardly has time to pay the bear any mind as he fumbles with the buttons of his shirt, haste turning his fingers clumsy.

“Better hurry! They’ve been waiting awhile, and I made sure they couldn’t leave ‘til you showed up!” Monokuma taunts from behind him, somewhere near the entrance. He turns over his shoulder to spit something, some insult, but-

He blinks, pausing. The backdrop of his room greets him, yellow and green and mahogany and maroon, but no jarring black-white. The bear is gone, as suddenly as it had appeared, and he actually glances around, as if expecting to see it hiding somewhere ridiculous. Under his bed, maybe, or in his wastebasket? Waiting for an opportunity to jump out at him again.

He’s so distracted by this for a moment he almost forgets the more pressing issue at hand, which was trying to retain some of his ruined dignity, as best as he could possibly manage. He dresses as quickly as possible, no time for his tie, suspenders, or jacket; he’s slipping on his shoes while smoothing down his shirtfront at the same time, trying to make sure his buttons were properly matched, and is halfway down the hall before he realizes he hadn’t even heard Monokuma leave.

—

He makes it to gymnasium in record time, taking only a few seconds to calm his breathing and try and work his hair into something presentable, and to wait for his face to stop feeling so warm. There’s something large, rectangular and olive-gray pointed towards the doors, set up on a tripod, and for a moment it reminds Byakuya of a telescope - and then he nears it, and reflects that it might actually be a turret, aimed directly at the exit doors.

‘Made sure they couldn’t leave’, was it? He thinks, remembering Monokuma’s words, though he gives the thing a wide berth as he steps around it.

The others are already there, and they turn to him as he pushes the door open. They all look-

…Well, more or less the same as usual. Shapes and colors. Though Fukawa is sprawled flat and cross-armed on the ground like a child in a tantrum, and has her tongue lolling, so she’s probably Syo at the moment; that suspicion is confirmed when she sits up and spouts a stream of crude nonsense at him in greeting, which he immediately tunes out. And Asahina and Ogami are pressed shoulder to shoulder, or as much as they can be, with their height difference. Owada stands stiffly at a parade’s rest, hands clasped behind his back, facing dead ahead. His biker jacket is gone, as is his pompadour; his hair is limp and tied behind his head, and he’d somehow colored it black. It also looks much shorter than it should be. 

“You’re late!” Owada barks as he enters, which he also ignores, though it’s much harder than with Syo. He doesn’t like looking at Owada, or hearing him for that matter, but his loudness and size made both things rather difficult.

Kirigiri looks utterly unchanged. Standing a little distanced from the rest of them, arms crossed. She’s not facing him, but he has the feeling she’s watching anyways, peering from the corner of her eyes. Besides her is Makoto, standing maybe a little meter away, and much less subtle in his watching. He jumps up as Byakuya nears, making a half-aborted sound like he wants to say something, but then stifling it at the last moment.

Byakuya hesitates for an instant, caught by the inexplicable urge to go up to him, when-

“To- dude!” Someone calls from behind him, and he almost jumps, whipping behind him to scowl. At least Hagakure had hesitated before finishing whatever stupid nickname he was about to bestow on him, on top of Monokuma’s public humiliation. “Where were you? We were buzzing your doorbell and everything!”

Were they? He hadn’t heard a thing; he glares up towards the stage, to the only possible reason why that may be. Monokuma was already perched at his podium, rocking side to side and looking as innocent as can be.

“What’s the meaning of this,” He demands, ignoring Hagakure entirely. His throat still feels reedy, his voice a little too hoarse for his liking, but it carries loud and clipped in the hollow ceiling of the gymnasium, making it sound much more steady than he feels.

“Didn’t you get the memo, Mr. Togami? I delivered it myself ‘n everything, you know!” Monokuma puts its hands on its hips, shaking its head. “Really, just ‘cuz you’re in the prime of your life, doesn’t mean you oughta slack off, y’hear!”

Byakuya sorely wishes he had another object at hand to throw. As it is, he clenches his hands tight to keep from trembling too obviously; somehow, Monokuma had the ability to make him lose all rationality by sheer rage alone. Or maybe that was the stress, fraying all his sensibilities. Or maybe just his eyes again, the damnable source of it all.

He doesn’t get to say anything in rebuke, however. No sooner did he open his mouth, was Makoto already jumping to his defense: “You’re the one who’s singling him out!” He shouts, all fury and bluster. “You used written letters specifically to harass him!”

“Why, why, Mister Makoto, what is this j’accuse!” Monokuma gasps, as if the idea of tormenting any one student was unthinkable. “Why on earth would you think I was targeting him?”

“Because-” And then he stops, throttling himself halfway through the sentence with a choked-off sound. And Byakuya knows perfectly well why, and could almost picture the horrified, guilty look that the other boy must be throwing at him right now.

It’s a ridiculous sentiment. The damage had already been done during the trial, and avoiding any mention of it now couldn’t undo those actions; if anything, it makes him look even more fragile than before, ego teetering on his miserable condition.

“Er…” Yamada says timidly, breaking the quiet. “I’d rather not see this kind of subplot development right now, it’s kind of out of place with the current tone…”

“What’re you talkin’ ‘bout, ya uncultured chestnut! I’m eatin’ this up!” Syo snaps at him, rocking back and forth with her hands on her ankles. “This is better than my American TV-action-drama dramas!”

“Enough of this,” Ogami cuts in, firm and composed. “Monokuma. You called us here for a reason. But know whatever it is you’re planning, we will not break.”

There’s a small chorus of agreement that follows that. Asahina in particular, pipes up with a fervent “that’s right!”, and even Kirigiri nods her head, just once.

The bear giggles, hiding its stark grin behind its paws. “Now, now, no need to get all defensive, puhu! I've decided to change things up a bit this time. Up till now, I've been using sticks and the whoosh of the North Wind to get you all moving…but I think it’s the carrot’s time to shine! …Though, I’d much rather have a nice, fat salmon, but whatever!”

And it spreads its little arms, and in the next moment, something large and red falls from the ceiling and thwaps loudly onto the table.

There are gasps, some yelps, and a surprised squeal from Syo as the red flutters away to reveal…well, a mound of pale yellowy-green. Even without being able to discern any more details besides that, Byakuya can guess what it is.

“Here it is! A nice, hot sun to light a fire under your butts, in the form of a cool, ten mill-lee-on buckaroos!” Monokuma crows, barely even visible behind the stacks of bills. “A graduation gift for the lucky student that makes it out alive! Like, wowie zowie, amiright??”

So this was the next motive, was it? Byakuya feels his lip curling. “That’s hardly anything,” He says, disgustedly.

“Holey moley! S’that all real!?” Syo shrieks, completely drowning him out. “I mean, s’not like I can use it when I’m the Waldo to every cop’s where, but damn!”

“When it comes to motives, money certainly is the gold standard.” Kirigiri muses. “As is the case in most mystery novels, and the real world.”

“B-but,” Asahina speaks up hesitantly. “There’s…there’s no way we’d kill each other for money! …Right?”

It seems that some part of her was still shaken, since the last trial. Or maybe she couldn’t help being meek before Monokuma, who had killed several of their classmates in a rather violent manner at this point. In a different life he might have sneered and called that pathetic, but in the present moment he couldn’t help but feel like he understood.

It’s still pathetic though, he thinks to himself regardless. “Don’t forget what happened last time. We can’t judge others by our personal standards.” He says instead, harshly, and he doesn’t miss the way Owada flinches, composure flickering.

“Um. Well…that amount’s nothing, anyways!” Hagakure shouts, with a nervous edge in his words. “Ten million, hundred million, I don’t give a crap! Seriously!” 

“That’s right,” Ogami says, voice measured. “You can’t put a price on a person’s life.”

There are a few more similar platitudes uttered, as everyone tries to convince themselves that such an amount wouldn’t sway them. Yamada boasts something about ‘comiket’ and his subscriber count. Celeste chuckles as she describes the accumulation of her personal winnings. Syo…declares that she has no need for it, given that ‘Gloomy makes enough outta her little scribblings to keep us both in velvet if she really wanted! ‘Sides, if that ever tanks I could always just find some handsome fellas and bleed ‘em dry!’ which reassures no one.

Byakuya hardly pays them any mind, instead focusing on how Makoto and Kirigiri have stayed silent this whole time. The latter is to be expected, but the former…

Surely he’s not considering it. He’d refused Byakuya when he first offered him whatever wealth he wanted, back when they were initially agreeing upon the deal. There couldn’t have been anything that would’ve changed his mind since then-

No. There would’ve been. Byakuya feels his blood running cold. Hadn’t he rescinded his initial promise to ensure the safety of Makoto’s family, immediately following the second trial? Despite whatever good intentions there had been behind Makoto’s actions, hadn’t they gone punished instead of rewarded? Would that be enough to break his resolve about killing?

No, he still has Kirigiri. And he still has some kind of regard for me, if he’s so insistent on his meddling. The bread at his doorway, and Hagakure’s intervention was proof of that. He wouldn’t cast us aside so readily…would he?

“Wow, really~?” Monokuma giggles, drawing him out of his thoughts. “It’s sooo cute watching y’all try to act tough…well, good luck then! Have fun with your pure and communal lives!” It cackles, hops off the platform, and waddles off to disappear backstage. The money stays where it is, gaudy with the sheer amount of it. Byakuya has the irrational temptation to walk up and shove it all off the table.

The others are beginning to talk amongst themselves again, exchanging uneasy reassurances and nervous accusations. Owada is loudly declaring how ‘money is the root of all evil’ to an uncomfortable Hagakure. Syo is demanding proof that Ogami doesn’t have some debt racked up over illegal doping, with Asahina having to be held back. Yamada is being dragged off by Celeste, his protests going unheard.

None of it is of the utmost importance however, as he turns towards the door. Kirigiri and Makoto are already making their exit, so he follows them, just a few meters behind.

< previous - from start - next >

[hey-heigo]

Chapter 23

ohhh baby we back in it now

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

byakuya pov finally

bonus headcanon coming into play here: byakuya being Wasian

shoutout @digitaldollsworld for helping me conceptualize byakuya's mom! both of us are Sick about her

Content warning tags: wall-punching, grieving/mourning, unreality (dreaming)

< previous - from start - next >

There’s a woman standing in his office.

Byakuya stands behind the cracked-open doorway, peeking through - though, part of him does rile up with the indignity of having to spy into his own office - at the intruder, standing in front of his desk, back facing the door.

He can’t see her face. But he can see her flax-yellow hair, tied back with a wrinkled, silken scarf that’s probably the most expensive thing she’s wearing. Her cotton jumpsuit is so stained and faded that hardly any of the original blue is still there. Her canvas shoes are discolored with mud.

She would look more out of place, if the shabbiness of her hadn’t seeped into her surroundings. The carpet is splattered with crusted clay, and shards of stone stick out of the plush threads like thorns. The mahogany surface of his desk is creaking and bent under the weight of a large cube of fleshy, white marble, splintering under the lacquer.

As he watches, she lifts her bare hands - ugly, roughened, thickly muscled fingers, nails cracked and filthy - like a conductor before an orchestra. She pauses, head tilted like a bird, thinking, and Byakuya inexplicably finds himself holding his breath; and then, she places her palms against the stone.

The surface of it warps and distends beneath her touch, first like a swollen balloon, and then like clay, twisting and following her hands like a swimming fish. And he watches, fascinated despite himself, as she bends and shapes it, twisting pieces off, smoothing edges down. She pinches out a piece in the middle for a nose, smoothes down a sharp edge for a sloping curve of a cheek, flicks her nail sharply beneath the brow to pull out a crease for an eyelid.

It’s magic. In seemingly no time at all, there on his desk is a bust; the head of a man brought to life, caught in a soft, gentle expression. The sculptor pauses, and steps backwards to take in her work.

There’s something reverent about it, and Byakuya suddenly has the feeling that he’s witnessing something not meant for him to see.

But he creaks the door open slightly more to get a better look, finding it strange how he was more curious than angry, even despite the intrusion. As he approaches, the bust’s eyes suddenly flick towards him, and immediately the serenity is replaced by a solemn, pinched brow, the smile replaced by a severe slash of a frown. And Byaukuya realizes he recognizes this face.

The marble-wrought head of Kijo Togami is sitting on his desk, scowling at him.

“Byakuya?”

He turns to the woman. She’s facing him now, though she has no face to speak of - it is blurred and unfocused, like a distant background character of an impressionist oil painting, the features mere shifting smears against a flat plane - but he knows her. He knows her.

“Byakuya,” She repeats, the syllables awkward on her tongue. She’s speaking French, and she sounds distant. Muted, underwater. But her voice still has the same, oddly musical quality to it that he remembers, making everything she said sound like a lullaby. “Bijou. Did I not tell you to stay out of my studio?”

Her studio?

“This is my office.” He protests back. He can’t tell if he’s speaking Japanese or not; every word feels clumsy and foreign, like he’s just learned how to talk. “What are you doing here, Mother?”

She just sighs. Shakes her head, her featureless face. There’s no anger in it, no loving exasperation either; just a neutral disapproval of his presence. His unwanted existence in her space. “Bijou,” She says again, and the nickname irritates him. A sweet-sounding endearment that was ultimately empty, a placeholder for her to refer to him by, because his own name was too clumsy to speak with her accent. “When did you become so grown? When will you stop being so cold?”

The stone Kijo Togami is still frowning at him. In this instant, both the man he calls ‘Father’ and the woman who had birthed him - one painfully-detailed stone, the other indistinct flesh - stand before him. One silent and forever displeased, the other sweet but hollow-sounding and entirely uncaring that they shared any blood at all.

“How strange it is, that you look so much like me,” She sighs, raising a hand to his face. He flinches away from it, the sandpaper sharpness of her palms, the filth that stains the creases of her skin, the heat that comes off of it like a kiln. “And yet, you are so much like him.”

—

He wakes up with a gasp, eyes snapping open.

He’s greeted with the pitch darkness of his ceiling, cut through with a thin slash of white from his bathroom light, streaming through the cracked-open door. A reminder he had taken to preparing for himself before he went to bed, that his eyes were still there, and he sighs and presses a palm to his chest as he stares up at it. Feeling his heart pounding beneath his fingertips, then slowing, in time with his breaths.

A dream. He can’t remember the last time he dreamed so vividly, but he had been subjected to some unpleasantly…shocking events the last few days (he won’t call them traumatic, he’s witnessed far worse in his life). The details of the dream are already slipping away as he tries to recall it, like sand between his fingers. It’s hardly important.

He lies in bed a moment longer, trying to see if sleep will come, but even with the adrenaline fading he’s wide-awake. Annoying, but not surprising, considering how he had spent much of the day before napping in short, fitful bursts. He pushes himself upright, reaching under his pillow for his handbook; may as well make use of the time.

The clock on his handbook reads: three AM. His neglected stomach gurgles as he squints at the dim glow of the screen, and he sighs. He hasn’t eaten since Celeste’s little tea party the day before, and he might as well go to the kitchen now. There likely wouldn’t be anyone wandering around to disturb him. And with Ishimaru gone, there was no one left to seriously uphold the nightly curfew; he drags himself out of bed with a grunt, grabbing his bathrobe off the end of his bedpost as he goes.

He’s not expecting the trap that he finds when he opens the door, however. The first step he takes past the threshold is accompanied by a loud, startling crunch, and he jumps backwards, just barely stifling a shriek. He throws his hand against the light switch, digging it into his palm as he flicks in on, and at once the yellow glow streaming from his room illuminates the something round, brown, and somewhat deflated sitting in the hallway.

For a moment, he thinks it's some kind of rodent, dead and trodden under his foot. But closer inspection reveals it to be packaged bread, only slightly crushed in its plastic wrapper. There’s no note, but he can guess who the offering is from.

He sighs, picks it up by the corner, and tosses it behind him towards his trash can as he leaves.

The hallways are dim, and almost silent if not for the dull hum of the school’s inner machinery. The whoosh of air conditioning, the muffled clang of pipes. None of the construction that Hagakure had reported days ago, not even when he strains his ears.

But he does catch the quiet murmur of conversation as he passes the bathhouse, and he pauses, staring at the light that streams from behind the curtain, the quick-flicker of shadows moving from inside.

“It wasn’t your fault!”

He freezes, standing just outside. That was Chihiro’s - no, Alter Ego’s - voice. 

“I know Master wouldn’t resent you.” It continues, earnest and bright. “And based on my data…I don’t think Kiyotaka would blame you either!”

“But it was my fault,” Mondo’s voice is strained and hollow, grieving still. “If I hadn’t left them alone - if I’d tried to just talk to him -”

Byakuya shifts slightly. He doesn’t want to be here, to have to witness Mondo’s continued breakdown. He still hasn’t forgiven the other boy, but having to see him stuck in the depths of misery was…unpleasant. And he’s not so petty to want retribution while the target of his ire was in such a state.

He tiptoes past, giving the bathhouse entrance a wide berth. From inside, he hears more indistinct voices, one low and gravelly from crying, the other electronic and gentle. And then-

“Brother, what are you looking so down for?” This one was new, but chillingly familiar. Loud and overeager and belonging to someone who was supposed to be dead. “You-”

Crash.

The sound of crunching metal. In the quiet of the hallway, it’s as loud as an explosion, and it makes Byakuya jump. Before he can reconsider, he’s sprinting into the bathhouse, throwing aside the curtain.

It takes him a moment to process what he’s seeing. Owada is standing, partly-hunched, one hand punching against the wall of lockers hard enough to warp the thin metal door. Someone is standing beneath him hands raised in self-defense - it takes Byakuya a moment to recognize that it’s Makoto, dressed in the white and dark blue of his pajamas, lacking the signature green of his jacket - and from somewhere behind Makoto, there’s a dim, neon-green glow, and a confused, worried voice.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-!” 

“Don’t do that,” Owada snarls, drowning out Alter Ego’s stuttered apology. The locker door rattles where his fist is pressed into it. “Don’t just- wear his face, don’t you dare-”

“M-Mondo, it didn’t mean to! It was just trying-” Makoto breaks off, apparently noticing Byakuya. “B-Byakuya-?!”

Byakuya was immediately beginning to regret his decision to involve himself in the first place. “What is going on here?” He demands, crossing his arms and glaring imperiously.

Instead of replying, Owada pulls away, withdrawing his hand and retreating to slump over on the bench, despondent and unresponsive once more. Makoto twitches, turning between Owada, then Alter Ego, and back to Byakuya. “Um…”

“It’s not their fault!” Alter Ego pipes up hurriedly, its voice echoing tinnily from inside its locker, and Byakuya could feel a corresponding vibration from the handbook tucked in his shirt pocket. “It seems Mondo wanted to ask me a question, and Makoto was just helping to convey that-”

“I don’t care.” He snaps, and Alter Ego falls silent. “Neither of them are supposed to be here in the first place, and especially not after hours. Are the two of you trying to draw Monokuma’s suspicion? Endanger Alter Ego?” Makoto flinches a bit at that. Owada doesn’t even move. “Don’t you care about getting out of here at all?”

He’s not really expecting a reply, so he’s surprised when Owada speaks up. “ ‘Course not.” He rasps, so low and hollow that it was like he was speaking from the depths of a pit. Or maybe he was the pit, swelling with black-matter misery. “I…don’t care about anything anymore.”

Well. That’s to be expected. But even despite that, he finds himself a bit rattled. He’s been at the receiving end of anger, venom, screaming anguish and even vehement hate at this point. But this emptiness Owada is exhibiting was new; It seems like this school is insistent on teaching me new things, he thinks, and feels his lip curling up with the bitter irony.

“So you’re content to waste away? Throw away that anger that you were so proud of?” He raises a scathing eyebrow. “Go ahead and do that, then. I won’t stop you. But at the very least, spare the rest of us the dramatics of your little episode.”

“Byakuya!”

He twitches a bit, irritated. Makoto’s voice is shrill despite being hushed, and laced with anger; he’s standing stiffly next to Alter Ego’s open locker, hands trembling at his sides.

“What, Makoto.” He snaps, and only belatedly realizes that this was the first time he’s actually spoken to the other boy since the trial; in his irritation, he went and broke his own self-imposed vow of silence against him.

He doesn’t respond immediately, but doesn’t immediately shrink away either at the acidity of Byakuya’s tone. If anything he stands up a little straighter. “It’s only been a day since…you know.” He says, and his words are slow and careful, meticulously chosen. Like he’s in a trial again, trying to soothe skittish tempers - though Byakuya feels the exact opposite of ‘soothed’ by it - “Mondo asked to talk to Alter Ego. I went with him. It got a little heated-”

“A little? Is that what you call this?” He points at the locker next to his head; the one that Mondo had punched, the dent a clear, dark blotch of shadow in the middle of the flat green surface.

“That -” Makoto winces slightly. “We weren’t really expecting-”

“No, clearly not. And not thinking either, I imagine.”

“I-”

“I suppose safety and logic took second priority over trying to be helpful, hm? Since that’s all that’s important to you?” He’s not sure where these words are coming from, filled with acid. But it feels good to talk, to spit out every miserable thing that he’s feeling, that he’s felt because of Makoto. “You were so very kind to help me during that trial, after all.”

“Okay, that’s not-”

“That must be why you’re here now, I imagine. Sneaking out at this late hour past Kyoko, just so you could babysit this useless mess.” He sneers. “Did you decide to make Mondo your next pet project, trying to be his little assistant like you were mine?”

“Oh, for-” Makoto takes a deep breath, presses his hands to his eyes. “Can you shut the fuck up?! For one second?”

Whatever else Byakuya was about to say, dissipates like smoke out of his slack-jawed mouth. Even Owada seems to twitch up at this, the only sign of surprise he could give, compared to Byakuya’s shock.

Makoto is quiet for a few seconds, and the only sound is the quiet hum of pipes, and the sound of his breathing, shaky but slow. He pulls his hands away from his face after one more shuddering breath. “Okay. I’m okay now.” He says this part quietly, as if it were more for himself than anyone else. Then:

“It’s not fair,” He addresses Byakuya, and his voice is almost steady. “I’m trying my best, I’m trying to keep us all alive.”

“Yes, and you’re doing-”

“No! Shut up! Just listen!” He snaps, and Byakuya’s teeth click as he shuts his mouth, effectively cutting off the rest of his sarcastic remark. “Right now, the best thing we can do is to survive together. We’re just going to play into the mastermind’s hands if we can’t trust each other. Why doesn’t anyone get that?!”

His voice actually cracks on the last syllable, and he sounds close to hysterics. Byakuya simply stares, dumbfounded for a moment, before:

“...You’re going to say that? After what just happened?” It’s so ridiculous he could almost laugh. Trust? In this school, in this game? After everything that’s happened? “We all trusted Ishimaru. Where did that get us? Where did that get Chihiro?”

No sooner has that name left his mouth, does he try to bite it back. Feeling all at once mortified that he would stoop so low, that he would let himself be pushed to such a level. But it’s too late to take it back - at the sound of those names, Owada jerks again, and Makoto actually takes a step backwards, as if struck - so Byakuya keeps going. “This isn’t some-some fairy tale where everyone can learn to get along by talking about our feelings. None of us have any unity left - if even Ishimaru can snap, then there’s no telling who might strike next.”

“Stop,” Makoto grits out. “Taka - it was an accident. Just a stupid accident.” And that was the worst part, wasn’t it? That none of this was supposed to happen at all; if the coincidences hadn’t lined up terribly, horribly perfectly. “He didn’t mean for Chihiro to die!”

And Chihiro didn’t mean to get killed either. But he manages to swallow that thought, bitter and heavy in his throat. “His intentions didn’t change the outcome.” He says instead, cold and flat and utterly, completely empty.

Silence falls on the room. The lights buzz, the pipes hiss; the old, outdated screen of Alter Ego’s computer hums softly, contemplatively. There’s the muted, metallic thump of the water heater, somewhere inside the wall.

And then Owada speaks up.

“What should I do?” He asks hollowly. He’s looking up now, directly at him. His hair is limp, pompadour undone and falling over his face, obscuring it in streaks of dirty yellow. “I…they’re dead. I couldn’t-” He takes a slow, shuddering breath. “It was my fault. But I don’t know what to do.”

His words are pleading and genuine, as if Byakuya could give a proper answer; he hesitates, still uncertain of what to do with this…empty shell of a punk.

He glances towards Makoto, and then the dim green glow still emanating from the open locker. “Do you care what you do with your life at this point?”

“Byakuya…” Makoto starts warningly, but Owada interrupts him.

“No.”

“Then use it to protect Alter Ego.” If Owada has any sort of misgivings or protest about this, Byakuya ignores them. “That’s Chihiro’s last work, after all. It’s the least you can do to guard it.”

“Is…” Owada’s head turns towards the locker, then back. “Is that…okay?”

His hesitation is understandable. Even if Alter Ego was nothing more than a clever program, it did still wear the face of the boy who Owada’s friend inadvertently killed, and whose corpse Owada had tried to conceal. And that wasn’t even considering if Alter Ego would be cooperative in being protected by him, though there wasn’t much it could do about it.

But Alter Ego is the one who speaks up. “I hope we get along well, Mondo!” It chirps, a smile clear on its voice. And Mondo simply stares for a moment, before burying his face in his palms, and begins to cry.

__

“Are you going back to your room?”

He stops, and turns. They’ve left the bathhouse, Mondo departing first after sobbing his eyes out, and Makoto insisting he go rest in his room - though he probably would’ve ended up staying in the bathhouse all night if he could’ve gotten away with it - and Byakuya, having ended up spending an hour more than he wanted to dealing with it all, is tired once more..

“Where else would I be going?” He scoffs. Makoto is standing just in front of the bahthouse curtains, his face entirely concealed by shadow.

“I…” He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself. “I noticed you didn’t really…eat a proper meal yesterday. I could go make you something?”

It’s tempting, for a moment. Byakuya clenches a hand in his robe, pressed against his stomach to stifle any unwarranted growls. “No.” He says firmly. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Oh…are you sure? Because-”

“Makoto.” He falls silent. “I told you that there’s no need for us to uphold the deal we made. Your assistance is no longer needed.”

“...But, this isn’t because of the deal, I just-”

“I’m not so low that I’d need charity from you.”

He goes quiet again. Quiet and still, and there’s something off-putting about how he looks. Outlined by the yellow lights of the bathhouse but otherwise completely in darkness, his silhouette sharpened without his jacket. “...Is it really that hard, trusting someone?”

For as angry as he’d been in the bathhouse, now he’s more like his usual self. Quieter, and unsure. The one person out of place in this school, designated unremarkable and then made remarkable because of that.

An unremarkable life. No wonder he couldn’t understand.

“You’ve never had to worry about it before,” He says. “I imagine your life is like a sheep’s. Completely oblivious to the danger around you, as long as you stay inside the fence.

“But the world isn’t as kind as you think it is. And people can always be swayed, no matter how much you trust them, or how much you think they trust you.” He’s seen it happen. He’s exploited it himself, even. “At this point, it would be safest to stop associating with anyone. If you had any brains at all, you would do the same.”

Makoto lets out a sigh that’s almost a laugh, though it’s bitter and mirthless. “Kyoko said the same thing,” He mutters, half to himself. “So you won’t feel safe unless you’re alone? Even though there’s only ten of us left?” He shakes his head, and the motion is a little dizzying, the messy shape of his hair blurring into a dark mass. “How many more people need to die for you to feel safe?”

He sounds angry again, but it’s a colder kind of anger. Resentful and resigned. When did you become so cold?

“...I won’t be safe until I’m out of here.” Byakuya replies steadily, though the hand clenched in his robe tightens slightly. “Even if I could keep everyone in my sight, it’s not like it’d be easy to tell if they were holding a weapon.”

Silently, he adds: And thanks to you, they know that as well.

Makoto doesn’t say anything in reply, so Byakuya leaves. Quickly, in case his stomach threatens to grumble again; his hand doesn’t leave his robe until he’s safely inside his room, door locked behind him.

He almost treads on the bread again, stepping on a corner of the packaging and jumping at the sharp, crinkling sound. It takes a little bit of fumbling in the dark until he finds it, squeezing it through the plastic.

He’s tempted, for a moment, his fingers already searching for the serrated edge to tear it open. But the image of Makoto standing at the bathhouse entrance jumps to his mind; still and shrouded in darkness. A strange, statuesque parody of his usual self.

He throws the bread across the room and climbs back into bed.

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[hey-heigo]

brief break from the Grind to doodle some thp art with a way better title i thought up of just now ripp (not gonna change the title im too attached to the tag)