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It was 7:26 PM when the bomb was raised up so that everyone could see. The metal glistened under the gymnasium lights, and on one side of it was a decal of a cartoon mouse. A matte black trigger adorned the top like a macabre Christmas ornament. Horrified faces of six of the seven remaining students warped in the fish-eye reflection. Kokichi balanced the bomb on the tips of his fingers. He lifted it with an air of carelessness, like it didn’t matter if he dropped it. If he dropped it, that would be the end. “I thought maybe I should kill everyone!” he crowed. The corners of his lips drew back in a smile, and his eyes were alight with rabid excitement. He swung his feet and tightened his grasp around the handle of the dolly cart. No one dared move, but the stares he was receiving were fantastic. An electric shock ran up his spine as he looked to Maki, whose hardened gaze was busy boring holes into his brain. “K-Kill everyone?” Shuichi piped up. The color had drained from his face, and though the others likened him to a kind of leader, he trembled where he stood. Kokichi’s focus shot to him, and he nodded enthusiastically. “Well,” he began, looking to the weighted sphere; it glistened an innocent bubblegum pink. Nothing colored so vibrantly should’ve been that deadly. “Except for me and, like, one other person,” he offered, looking over at Shuichi. His classmates hung onto every word he spoke. He was like a false prophet among sinners, awaiting each verse he proclaimed with baited breath. In those precious few moments, with a bomb in his hand and a smile on his face, he was their god. He chose who lived and died. “If I did that,” he continued. “I’d be able to end the killing game and still abide by school rules, right? Well then, who wants to live?” The tension in the air was as thick as mud. Anxious glances shot across the gym as everyone pried for reassurance that they were right to stand together. Muscles twitched as each prepared to make a split-second decision to save themselves, but no one stepped up. Not a single hand was raised. Kokichi tilted his head. This was the reaction he was expecting, but not the one he desired. In a life-or-death decision like this, surely morals would falter. The weakest link would crumble under pressure. Yet as he scanned the room, the only movement he could detect was the furrowing of brows and the straining of jaws as they decided in unison that he was the enemy, not each other. A low chuckle escaped him. “No takers?” he teased, palming the bomb with both hands like a basketball. The clock above the gymnasium doors read 7:27. He was determined to get his way. The killing game had lost its charm since they’d decided he was the mastermind. He’d grown bored of the passing threats made on his life and listening to their constant suicidal plights. The halls were barren of any life, and the killing game had lost its bite. It had been a mistake to grant them memories of the outside world. The manufactured memories he’d given them, packed tight into flashback lights, had revealed the crippled state of society. Buildings were smoldering piles of ash, remains of friends and family littered the streets, and there wasn’t a living thing in sight. Their outcry had been sensational. The first minute was comprised of their collective shock. No one could believe their eyes. He’d laughed at the sight of it; a group of high school students standing motionless in a cafeteria like mannequins. They looked like fish, with their bulging eyes, and their mouths moving wordlessly, as though they were gasping for air. A scream broke the deafening silence. There in the middle of it all was little Himiko, with her head thrown back and jaw agape. She wailed like an infant, her body heaving with each heavy sob. She choked and cried and took in shuddering breaths. Her classmates around her had shuffled closer into an awkwardly tight circle. Their bodies clumped together in a strange hug, though their arms were not outstretched and no one could make eye contact. In that hour they'd spent together, he had reveled in their true despair. Now, they were sluggish and depressed. The hope that once lit a fire behind their eyes was now a dissipating plume of smoke. The satisfaction of ripping their hearts from their chests was momentary at best, and had long since passed. He wanted more. He was starving for it. He’d spent the last few days in his hidden room, tinkering away at the electrobomb Miu had made for him. Before he’d gotten his hands on it, it had only had the power to shut off devices; it was a cell phone jammer, at best. But now? “Ooo-kay, suit yourselves!” Kokichi giggled, giving them a playful shrug. He slid off of the dolly and bent down. His fingers looped into the pin. Above them all, the clock read 7:28. He waited until the second hand hit the top before he plucked it out. Now, it was going to earn its title as an electrobomb. He rolled it towards them like a bowling ball. All eyes were glued to the ball as it rumbled across the floorboards. A minute’s delay, that was all he needed. After all, the electrobomb no longer had an instant detonation. In Kokichi’s head, a timer started.
Sixty.
Fifty-nine.
Fifty-eight.
Kaito dove to the ground, landing on top of the bomb with a thud. He curled himself in a dome-shape around it and held it steadfast to his chest; eyes shut tight, waiting for it to blow his spine out through his back and paint the walls red with his guts.
Fifty.
Forty-nine.
Forty-eight.
Suddenly, he heard himself gurgling and choking as a slender hand shot to his throat. Maki was lifting him a foot up off the ground, leaving his feet to dangle like dead weight.
Thirty-five.
Thirty-four.
Thirty-three.
Keebo stumbled to Kaito and reached out to Shuichi, who’d had the same idea. Tsumugi grabbed ahold of them both by the arms and began to wrench them back, away from Kaito. The world was moving at a snail’s pace. Each second felt like a thousand hours.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-seven.
Twenty-six.
“Aw, darn,” Kokichi squeaked, pawing uselessly at Maki’s grasp. That stupid, shit-eating grin stayed plastered on his face. “Looks like it was a dud!”
Twenty.
Nineteen.
Hate dripped from Maki’s face. She curled her fingers tighter around his throat. Stars swirled in his vision as he tried to keep from dipping into unconsciousness. “Hey,” came a voice from across the room. “It… It didn’t go off!” Maki turned to see Kaito on his rear with the bomb in his lap. It had stayed wholly intact in the chaos, not even emitting a single spark.
Eighteen.
Seventeen.
She gave Kokichi one final glare and threw him to the ground. He tumbled to the polished wood, now a good few meters further away. He scuttled away from her until his shoulder blades smacked against the wall. Beside him was the exit, one of the doors propped ajar with a doorstop.
Sixteen.
Fifteen.
Oh, shit. Shuichi. He didn’t want to let Shuichi go. No, since the start of the killing game, he’d had his heart set on that gawky detective. That blue-haired boy stirred something rooted deep inside of him that no despair could ever reach. The way he looked at him let him know that he felt the very same way. It wasn’t a mistake. He could recall each and every second he’d spent thinking about him. The butterflies tickled his stomach every time he heard him speak, and sometimes in class trials, he thought he was going to keel over in front of everyone. His heart would skip beats and his hands would go clammy, but he never let it show. The wolfish hunger he felt for him was uncontainable. In his hidden room, there were drawings. Crayon and pencil sketches stuck up on the walls of Shuichi, Shuichi, Shuichi, hidden behind crudely made blueprints and execution concepts, taped up just enough so that he could tear them down if someone barged in. He’d almost gotten close enough to taste him, to feel how hot and sticky his breath would be against his collarbones, to look and see just how far his eyes would roll back when he... He couldn’t just throw that away. “And just so you know!” Kokichi shouted, bringing himself to his trembling knees, still feeling Maki’s vice-clamp touch around his neck. Heads turned back to watch him as they helped Kaito up. Idiot that he was, he was still holding the electrobomb. “Th-That bomb,” he pretended to wheeze. “That bomb… Shuichi, c’mere, I can’t… she crushed my throat, I can’t…” If there was one thing that Shuichi was, it was trusting. No one stopped him when he turned to face Kokichi from the other side of the gym, they were too busy. He seemed to be struggling between two choices – whether to help the little liar up, or leave him to his own devices.
Ten.
It took all of his willpower not to let out a giggle as his classmate walked toward him, his face contorted in confusion.
Nine.
“Faster,” he beckoned, waggling a hand at him. Shuichi ducked down to lift him up by the underarms.
Eight.
“What?” he asked, his brows furrowed with concern.
Seven.
“The bomb, it… it…”
Six.
"What?” he pushed, wringing his hands.
Five.
Kokichi hunched over and hugged his arms around himself. He coughed and sputtered, specks of saliva hitting the ground.
Four.
His act must’ve been believable, because Shuichi stooped to his level to check on him.
Three.
He could not keep himself from smiling.
Two.
“Kokichi, I –“ “No, no, I need to tell you –“
One.
The clock struck 7:30. An alarm erupted sharply through the air and bounced off the walls. The ringing was unbearable as it drilled through their eardrums and clattered around inside their skulls. They all clapped their hands to their ears; even Kaito, who dropped the bomb, letting it hit the ground noiselessly beneath the blaring of the bells. They looked to the ceiling, to the corners, to the walls, trying to decipher where the awful noise was emanating from. The fire sprinklers burst from above, showering the entire gym with water. Shuichi was no exception, as he whipped around to see the commotion. Thankfully for Kokichi, this gave him just enough time to bolt up and grab a handful of the back of his shirt collar. Shuichi gasped as he was yanked back. He found himself stumbling backwards through the exit, watching as Kokichi kicked the doorstop away and slammed the door shut. By the time his classmates had noticed the first sparks, it was already too late. The electrobomb spat and hissed as it lit up like a firecracker. Doused in water and wading in growing puddles, the students began to seize violently where they stood. Saihara shoved Kokichi aside and found himself with his face pressed against the door window, watching helplessly. His friends convulsed in place, writhing and jerking. Maki’s hands had twisted up to her chest, her nails scraping into her skin, her jaw clenched until her gums bled. Beside her, Himiko was seizing on the ground, her detached tongue beside her, blood leaking from between gritted teeth as she drowned in her own fluids. They looked funny, in an awful way, because people should not move the ways that they were moving, with their limbs cramped and curled and shaking. For the brief moment that he opened the door, the stench of burning flesh and acrid ozone stung his nostrils. He could not help but retch, bile spilling out onto the linoleum tiles. The door could no longer hold back the horrid smell, or the chorus of screams that came with it. The shrieks that came were all but inhuman. Guttural, animalistic cries filled the air, each one’s owner painfully distinct. Without any barrier to blur his vision, he could see as chunks of meat sloughed off with ease and layers of skin blacken into a crisp. He let out a horrified scream. Kokichi pulled him back and slammed the door again. Not until he pointed down did Shuichi realize that urine was dripping down his legs. “Silly Saihara-chan,” he teased. “Don’t tell me you’re getting off on this!” He clasped his legs together, his face red hot with fury, not shame. The glimmer in Kokichi’s eyes was ever-present, despite the muffled howls of agony mere feet away from them. He beamed a sunny grin at him and tilted his head with the innocence of a puppy. “Nee-hee-hee, wowie, you’re really pissed at me for this one!” “Pissed? That's not—“ he began, but Kokichi cut him off. “I took away all the fun of your class trials! No more detective work for you. Boo, that’s a real shame! Whaddya gonna do? Sic your training buddies on me? Oh, wait--” “You’re… You’re a monster,” he spat. Kokichi feigned surprise. “A monster? Me? Haha, good one, Saihara-chan! All I did was burn them to a crisp and let you watch it happen! Really, is that so bad?” Shuichi couldn’t find the words to curse him. How could someone be so aware of what they’d done and yet act so childishly? How could someone be so cruel? The gym had gone quiet. The alarms, the screaming, and the crackling of electricity were nowhere to be found. In a last ditch effort, he glanced back at the window. He could not be sure that they were dead, as their bodies were still twitching on the floor. Dread welled up in his stomach like a balloon filled with oil. “Don’t worry about them, just worry about me!” Kokichi laughed, snatching up Shuichi’s hand and swinging back and forth on his heels and toes. “Now that the killing game is over, we can go home together! And you probably don’t have anywhere to go, do you?” “Go… home?” “Yeah, dummy! You really think the world is that bad? That was just another lie! C’mon, I wouldn’t let that happen now, would I?” Shuichi stared at him slack-jawed. Kokichi waited for his response, but nothing came out. Always happy to carry a conversation, he rattled on. “I know that you probably think I’m a terrible person for letting this all happen, but really, they were getting in the way! You knew that, didn’t you? You didn’t want to go to all those training sessions, you just wanted it to be over!” He hadn’t noticed Monokuma dawdling in from the outdoors. The bear was now standing beside him, touching something cold to his forearm. He ripped his arm away, but not before a slight pinch had pierced it. “I saved you,” Kokichi croned, his voice lowered from his usual shout. “I gave you totally-not-boring cases to solve and you said you hated them. So, I did what nice people do and I ended the whole thing. Isn’t that right?” Shuichi was trembling. The world was beginning to spin; purple and white splotches filled his vision. “And now, you’re gonna repay me for everything I’ve done for you, exactly the way I want you to.” The last thing Shuichi saw before the world went dark was Kokichi leaning over him, and the awful grin painted on his face.Kokichi, the only person he’d be seeing for a while.Kokichi, the promise of a whole new nightmare.Kokichi, his new best friend.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Kaede toyed with the brim of Shuichi’s hat between her fingers. He said nothing, admiring the golden backlight that washed over her and surrounded her with a glowing halo. A shimmering fog passed between the two of them, enveloping them with a thick blanket of mist. It had ethereal warmth that hazed over his senses and soothed them into submission. Shadows obscured her face, even from only a few feet away. He could not see if she was smiling, or if she was looking at him at all. It felt like hours had passed before the silence was broken. “You haven’t worn this since I left,” she said, her voice as gentle as the music she once played. That was true. He hadn’t touched the baseball cap since the day after her trial. He’d left it sitting there on his dresser, a reminder of the fear that had once haunted him. It had started gathering dust. “I made the right choice believing in you.” He looked down at his feet, trying to peer through the golden mist that clouded around them. Was it really the right choice? He’d broken his only promise to her; everyone was killed, and the mastermind had won. Surely, Kokichi was somewhere nearby, conjuring a new hell for the next set of unlucky ultimates. Would he be forced to join them as the Ultimate Survivor? Would Kokichi scrub his memories away and create a fresh new slate out of him? Shuichi couldn’t bear to face her. He avoided her eyes, or where they should’ve been. “But – “ “But,” she interjected. Her hands picked at the loose fibers of the hat. “But, the game isn’t over. You’ve been fighting for a really long time and it hurts a lot, I know. I can see it in the way you stand, and how you clench your jaw, and how you look at people like they’re gonna hit you.” It came to his attention just how tightly he was holding himself. He relaxed his shoulders and unfurled the fists he hadn’t known he’d been making. He wondered why he was so scared to see her. Maybe it was the looming failures that hung over his head. Still, Kaede continued. “But… you have to stay strong. Everyone’s gone, but… but you’re doing this for yourself now.” Her words hit him like a punch to the gut. He had been carrying on for her. The weight on his shoulders growing with each passing day was bound to break his spine, and the only thing he’d had to ease the burden was the reassurance that he was doing something right. Not for himself, but for those around him. Was that gone forever? “Do you need this?” Kaede asked, offering his hat out to him. Shuichi hesitated. The worst was yet to come. Hiding felt like the best option there was; the people he’d been fighting for had fallen to the very thing he’d sworn to defeat. It had been weeks since he’d last seen her; the bubbly girl who’d taken his hand through the battle. She had been his first true friend, and the first one to break down the thinly-veiled walls he’d put up. Her passing was the best and worst thing that had ever happened to him. He could’ve holed himself up in his room and wasted away into a corpse. Shuichi had seen how mourning could smother a person, dulling the life behind their eyes, wasting them down to skin and bones until the curtains were drawn. The first case they’d given him as an apprentice was of a woman who’d committed suicide in the weeks following her lover’s death. The photos of her body had looked so peaceful, picturing her splayed out across her bloodstained bedsheets, curled up against where her husband might have slept. He could’ve done the same, fading into a ghost in the background. The days would pass him by, and soon his classmates would wonder if they were going to have another empty seat at the breakfast table. In death, Kaede had instilled in him an inferno of hope. With the little time he was given to recover, he found himself mustering up the courage to stand a little taller and smile a little brighter, even if he had to hold himself at gunpoint to do it. He’d relied on the dwindling reserves of willpower that Kaede had left behind, and scrambled together a haphazard persona he could draw himself into. He could become the person Kaede had believed him to be. To throw it all away now would be a slap in the face to the very girl who’d saved him. She kept her arm extended. He did not take the cap. “Good,” she said, the telltale sound of a smile lifting her voice. “I didn’t think so.”-- Shuichi woke up to a cottonmouth and an alkaline taste on his tongue. The air was dingy and tainted with a foul musk that stung his eyes when he opened them. The darkness swallowed his surroundings with fuzzy static that encroached on the corners of his vision. He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust, but the room was devoid of light. Tactile sensation took over where vision failed him. His body ached all over, and he could feel plastic sticking against the exposed parts of his waistline. The tips of his fingers and toes were numb from the chill of the room. Something old was crusted over the fabric in patches. There was a deflated cotton pillow beneath his head. When he squirmed, broken springs from the old mattress beneath him scratched his skin. Shuichi remembered the old horror stories they used to tell in secondary school about tetanus. There had been rusted gates at the far end of the school field where the grass caved down into ditches and filled with water in spring. In the fall, more and more dark brown spots appeared where the paint was scratched away. The older children would torment the younger ones by pretending to prick their hands and go mad, drooling on themselves and baring their teeth, chasing after each other. Shuichi had always been sure that it was rabies they were thinking of, not tetanus. He watched them from the fences, where he could hunker down by a gnarled old tree and read alone. Their recess games came to an end when one of the kids scraped their knees and ended up in the hospital a few days later. Rumors ran rampant through the halls that he had gone mad with their imaginary version of tetanus, but Shuichi stayed late enough after his classes to hear one of the teachers speaking to another about it, mentioning the spasms he’d been having in class. Spasms, he repeated to himself. The mental image of his friends jerking and writhing to their deaths flooded his vision. The excruciating pain on their faces was impossible to erase from his memory. He shifted uncomfortably, and exhaled sharply when a mattress spring jabbed at him. He tried to reach his hands to nurse the wound and found them bound tightly to the naked bed frame behind him. His wrists rubbed against each other, and the skin beneath his leather bindings already felt raw. Tugging on them did more harm than good; struggling split the raw skin, sending a rivulet of warmth running down his forearm. How long had he been out for? There were no windows to tell him if it was night or day. Even now, the only vague shapes he could make out were the foot of the bed and the doorknob across the room. The door popped open. Shuichi jumped at the sound, making the weak bed frame rattle. Through the crack, a sliver of light shined through, illuminating the grime on the floor; much of the light was eclipsed by a hunched silhouette, casting a colossal shadow into the cramped room. What looked to be a hand clamped over the doorframe, gripping on tight as the head peered in to see him. The intruder slipped through the crack in the doorway and shimmied across the wall, groping blindly into the dark in search of him. In the brief glimpses he could catch of his face, all he could see were how tightly its lips were pulled back against its gums and the unnatural whiteness of every tooth, every single one of the dozens he could count gnashing hungrily. The worn floorboards complained with each burdensome step it took. Perhaps it was the shadows it cast that spanned the entire height of the room, or his own body cowering into a tight ball, but the figure towered above him, staring down with vacant, glazed eyes, beady and black like a doll’s. Everything but its eyes and its grin were too intangible to make out. Maybe it had nothing else at all. The smell of something burning wafted from it, growing stronger with each step; it couldn’t have been meat, it was astringent, foul, and foreign. Shuichi opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out but a hoarse squeak. His joints were locked solid. The figure’s head lulled to one side. Was it going to end like this? Surviving a killing game, only to die to a monster? He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that death would come quickly. Minutes, maybe hours passed like this, his heart pounding in his ears, feeling something hot and damp tickling the back of his neck. When nothing had ripped him open, and his molars ached from clenching, he dared to look. A draft must have swept through the hallway, because when he opened his eyes, the bedroom door had been thrown wide open and the room was saturated with light. The demon had vanished. Shuichi scoured the room ravenously in search of it. It was nowhere to be found, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was lurking just out of his field of vision, awaiting a moment of inattentiveness. He couldn’t face what might happen if he looked away again. If he blinked, it could come back. The cold nipped at his face now more than ever. His state of hyper-vigilance lasted for hours, or maybe only a few minutes. With eyes straining open, dry and stinging, the still, cold silence seemed vast. A scrawny boy with a cherry-cheeked grin peeked into the room, holding a plate of burnt sweet corn and canned peas, with a folded blanket tucked under his arm. How do you burn peas? “Nee-hee-hee! You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Kokichi teased, setting the plate down at the end of the decrepit mattress. He draped the blanket across his captive and tucked it in at his sides. The plush, weighted blanket was a godsend. It hugged him tight and sheltered him from the bite of the frigid air. The fabric was still warm from Kokichi's body heat and gave off the scent of fresh lavender. Shuichi breathed a sigh of relief, but his teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. He swallowed thickly, and found that the lump in his throat wouldn’t disappear, either. With the outdoors shining in from beyond the door frame, he could finally see the squalid state his room was in. Mold sprawled across the ceiling in clusters, reaching out like spiderwebs. There was an absence of furniture, save for the ancient bed frame and filthy mattress he was bound to. Dust and debris covered every inch of the room, concealing stains/splatters that decorated the floorboards. It definitely wasn’t a lived-in room, he concluded. Perhaps once welcoming, the room had evidently been vacant for years, any sign of former residents lost beneath accumulated layers of dust. “What’s the matter, Saihara-chan? Did you see someone get resurrected, Jesus-style? Ooh, tell me! Was it your dead girlfriend?” Kokichi poked again, crawling up onto the mattress. He grabbed a hold of Shuichi’s hips and righted him on his tailbone, provoking a gasp out of him. He straddled Shuichi firmly with the plate in his hands, and nudged his chest with the spoon. “Hey, can you hear me? Hello? Hellooo?” Shuichi refused to respond, keeping his lips tightly sealed. A glare should suffice, he thought, as a spoonful of scorched vegetables was mashed against his lips. “Here comes the airplane! Pshewww!” “Stop,” he tried to say, but in the split second it took him to open his mouth, Kokichi jammed the spoon inside. Shuichi shot up and gagged, drawing a giggle out of his captor. “Aww, how pathetic! You can’t even eat properly. Y’know, if this keeps up, I might just have to switch to sticking a tube down your throat instead.” He quickly shook his head. Spoon-feeding was humiliating, but drinking a blended smoothie of vitamins and lard would be worse. It was infantile at best and brutish at worst; he'd much prefer the metal spoon clacking against his teeth than the plastic tubing violating his esophagus. Kokichi Ouma as a child caretaker. He shuddered at the appalling thought. He pictured himself as an infant being cradled by Kokichi, slowly rocking into a peaceful slumber. No, that was too out of character for a self-proclaimed supreme evil leader. He tried again, but imagined Kokichi holding him up upside-down by the leg and shaking him like a doll. That’s more like it. “Huh? Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout? Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout? You thinkin’ ‘bout me, huh? Hey, Saihara-chan!” came that heinous voice buzzing in his ear, and Shuichi suddenly realized he was smirking at his daydream. He contorted his face into an unconvincing scowl, trying to find the right expression to settle on. “Say something, Saihara-chan! I wanna hear your voice! Even if it makes my eyes go all blurry, I’m sort of a masochist with this kinda’ stuff!” He opened his mouth to respond with an embittered retort, but another spoonful of peas was thrust into his mouth. He swallowed quickly and tried again, but Kokichi was quick on the draw. The peas were vile and the corn tasted like arsenic. Bile began to rise in his throat. He clamped his mouth shut, pressed his dry tongue to the top of his mouth, and sunk his fingernails into the palms of his clammy hands with strain, shaking his head vigorously as he tried to choke it back down. The nausea could not mask the pain of hunger pangs. Kokichi stuck out his bottom lip and tilted his head. “Aw,” he mocked, holding the plate to his chest. “Do you really hate my cooking, Saihara-chan?” Crocodile tears welled up in his eyes. “Do you really… hate me? Is it gross? Am I gross? How could you be so mean?” Shuichi refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction, watching as Kokichi threw his head up back and wailed piteously. A few seconds passed with nothing but his ridiculous cries to disrupt the dusty silence of the room. Still sniveling, but with a Cheshire smile, he shuffled himself off of Shuichi and planted his feet on the floor. “Stay right here, I’ll be right back – not that you could leave, even if you wanted to! And you wouldn’t wanna leave me all alone, right?” The tone of his voice was direly mischievous, but his captive had no choice but to nod. He gave his wrist restraints a playful tug and bounded out of the room with the plate in hand, but not before he ripped the blanket away, robbing Shuichi of the one thing that was devoid of the filth that tainted the rest of the room. Another empty time gap began, leaving Shuichi alone with his thoughts. The loneliness was as pervasive as the cold. He tried to recall what Kaede had said, but the dream was a golden blur. What was it? Something about… everyone being gone. No, there was something more important, but that was the only part that’d stuck. Eventually, Kokichi emerged from the hallway, his missing blanket in one hand, and the other held behind his back. Shuichi gulped. The blanket was thrown over him again, but Kokichi only used his free hand to tuck it back in. He stepped back, and smiled. “Do you wanna kiss me?” His question was out of the blue. Shuichi was stunned. He put his head forward, as if to try to understand him better, but he’d heard him perfectly clear. “What? No!” he said in exasperation. Kokichi’s smile was empty, and his eyes were vacant. He seemed to be waiting for something. “What do you want from me?” he barked, but there was no reply. Wrong answer. Shuichi tried to peer behind Kokichi’s back, but he couldn’t stretch far enough. Kokichi stepped forward. Shuichi began to tremble. “Do you wanna kiss me?” he repeated. He rolled his shoulders back. Shuichi’s stomach coiled into knots. He pushed himself to try again, to try and see what he was hiding, whether it was blunt or sharp, whether it would be used to club or shank him, but Kokichi refused to budge. “No,” he said. Without another word, Kokichi took the blanket, stepped backwards out of the room, and shut the door behind himself, letting darkness engulf the room once again.-- Morning came, or what must’ve been morning, because it was bright in the hallway when Kokichi opened the door. He arrived with the blanket, a bottle of water, and a box of puppy training pads, which Shuichi would soon learn was the only way he would be relieving himself with dignity. When he complained, Kokichi simply giggled and draped the blanket over himself, saying, “Don’t worry, I won’t look!” At least he didn’t leave the soiled pads to fester, but he took the blanket each time he left. The blanket was the only thing he had to look forward to whenever Kokichi decided to pay him a visit. That, and food. But he hadn’t seen any since day one. Kokichi would ramble for hours during some of their encounters, babbling on about anything and everything, and stay completely quiet during others, leaving him to wonder what he was planning. Shuichi kept his comments to himself, only offering answers to the occasional pointless question or pointing out the absurdity of his statements. Every time he asked to be fed, Kokichi just laughed and changed the subject. He could never tell what was going to leave his mouth. Besides the blanket and the puppy pads, only one thing remained consistent. Each and every time, Kokichi ended their time together by holding something just out of Shuichi’s sight and asking the same question. Each and every time, his answer was the same.“Do you wanna kiss me?”“No.” The hunger gnawed at him like a starving dog, begging to be listened to. It howled and wept and brayed until all he could do was shake and cry, but never in front of Kokichi. He kept his emotions buckled down and away from him, where they could be taken, warped, and twisted into deadly weapons. He had begun to bear with their one-sided conversations for the blanket alone. Eventually, it would be the only thing between him and dying of exposure. On the seventh day, Kokichi went about his standard routine on autopilot. He gave Shuichi a moment to relieve himself, wrapped him in the blanket, and talked aimlessly at him. Too weak to listen, Shuichi drifted off. His teeth clicked against each other absentmindedly. When was he bound to die? Kokichi could barely use him as a viable audience, having to nudge him awake every other minute. This couldn’t possibly be entertaining. Any moment now, he’d grow bored of him and throw him out onto the streets. At least then, he’d be free. Dying, but free. “Hey, Saihara-chan?” Kokichi whispered, holding one hand behind his back. “Huh?” Shuichi groaned bovinely, his eyes not making contact. He knew it was coming. “Do you wanna kiss me?” That same stupid question. Figuring he had nothing left to lose, he looked up. “Okay,” he mouthed. Kokichi smiled and loomed over him, barely close enough. Using the last ounce of his strength, Shuichi arched his back to bring himself closer and placed a benign kiss on his lips, then slumped over, drooling on himself. Kokichi laughed. He cupped his face and lifted his head up to show him what he’d been hiding. From behind his back, he produced a single chocolate chip cookie. Kokichi placed it in his captive’s mouth. Shuichi felt his jaw moving, grinding it down into a paste. He barely had the strength to swallow; his throat was hoarse from screaming the night before, knowing no one was coming to feed him, wanting to slip into a coma already, needing anyone, anyone but Kokichi to grab him, hold him close, kill him, anything at all. When he was done, Kokichi bent down to whisper to him. “Do you wanna kiss again?” he asked. “Yes,” Shuichi coughed. He salivated at the sound of his voice.He was going to survive.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The days flew by as fast as seconds, and with every second came colder nights. Shuichi learned not to squirm, lest he rip open his wrists again, though he could not help the full-body tremors that set in during the night. Even his dreams were wracked with frigid air and blue skin. Kokichi had stripped him down to his bare skin after complaining that he’d started to reek; what little warmth he’d had without the blanket vanished in an instant. Whenever Kokichi paid him a visit, Shuichi would cross his legs like a schoolgirl and await the onslaught of snickering. He hated how vulnerable it made him feel. But beyond that vulnerability had sprung up something new. Shuichi couldn’t quite place it. It was something… carnal. It was nauseating. Overwhelming. It swirled in the pit of his stomach whenever his captor entered the room, and it grew even stronger whenever he spoke. It was ripe and all-consuming. Maybe it was hunger. No, no, hunger was an empty, clawing feeling, like rats squirming between his intestines. This particular feeling was something intoxicatingly sweet, like a poisoned perfume. It was something great and beckoning that he couldn’t push down far enough to get away from. And still, he tried. He hatched brilliant plans by nightfall on how to suppress the butterflies in his stomach and the ringing in his ears, all the horrible symptoms that came with that feeling, so that he could focus on getting out and away, far away from here; but by daybreak, Kokichi would arrive just on time and he’d bubble up inside, falling hopelessly victim to his own emotions. Even so, he feared Kokichi, and he feared the apartment. Menacing black and purple blots manifested just behind his vision, even in the light. He’d snap his head around, hoping to catch a better glimpse, but the visions stayed beyond his sight. If he listened closely, he could hear the noises they brought. He eavesdropped on unintelligible whispers. One night, there was a scream in the distance. Shuichi rubbed his cheek raw up against the wall trying to make out the voice. He knew it belonged to a girl, he could tell by the begging and the crying. And then there was another scream, this one lower in pitch and much more rugged. And then another, higher now. One right after the other. It only happened once, and then never again. He could not be sure, but they sounded familiar. Shadows lingered in his room for hours, and in them, figures shifted and grew. Outlines of hands, fingers, and heads morphed all around him. They crept and they crawled wherever they pleased. Shuichi would stare at them until his eyes dried out, keeping them at bay in the corners of the room. Nothing would touch him, if he could help it. Not even when he craved physical touch so deeply that it put him in sobbing fits. It was better to be safe than to be sorry. When the lights came, they would banish themselves back into the crevices of the room, and there would be Kokichi, standing proudly in the doorway. The end to the darkness and the hissing and the howling was always Kokichi. It was always Kokichi. Today, the door opened, and Kokichi flung the blanket with careless ease onto the bed. Shuichi flinched when it landed at his feet. He could have caught it with his legs, but he was fearful of accidentally batting it out of the air. The last time the blanket had fallen onto the floor, Kokichi had refused to pick it up. No, he’d said. That was your fault. Pick it up, clumsy boy! “Good morning, Saihara-chan!” Kokichi sang, bounding into the room with open arms. He had a skip in his step, and his clothes smelled freshly laundered. He reminded Shuichi of a big, white jackrabbit. “I brought a suuuper special gift for you!” he chirped. Shuichi’s gut twisted. What sort of a gift would he bring? Knowing Kokichi, it couldn’t be anything good. One time, he had opened his fists to show him the pulverized remains of a pigeon. Red mush and feathers. Nothing intact enough to eat. When Shuichi had started to retch, he’d laughed hysterically and sprinted off down the hall. His gifts were vile. His reactions were cruel. “Can I have food?” he asked, in a desperate attempt to skirt around the question of the dreaded gift. “Aren’t you gonna ask me what I got for you? Jeez, a little appreciation goes a long way, Saihara-chan, you’re not gonna get anything good for Christmas if you don’t say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’!” Shuichi shook his head. “May I please have food?” he tried again. He could smell the sticky sweetness of chocolate in the room. It made him awfully dizzy. For a brief moment, it looked as though Kokichi was going to comply, but he laughed and shrugged again. Dealing with his antics was agony. “I want a kiss,” squeaked Shuichi. “From meee?” “I want to kiss you.” Kokichi shoved his lips against Shuichi’s. They were warm and slimy. Shuichi tried not to make a sour face when Kokichi pushed his tongue against his teeth. For a brief moment, Shuichi swore he could feel Kokichi’s teeth move when they knocked against his own. Kokichi pulled away and jammed a cookie into Shuichi’s mouth. He stepped back, and his hands slipped around the back of his own jacket and fumbled with metal buckles – buckles? – that were holding it together. The jacket Kokichi was wearing was not his usual one; that one was hidden underneath. Kokichi took it off and held it up. It was a plain white garment with bulky sleeves that had been newly hemmed at the cuff. Around the back were a set of brown leather belts for fastening. It reminded Shuichi of something he’d seen used on rowdy patients in old mental hospitals. “Your old clothes were boring,” Kokichi explained. He approached Shuichi, took a fistful of his hair, and wrenched him up to eye-level. Shuichi inhaled sharply. He paused, then shook him again, hoping for a better reaction. Shuichi gave him nothing. “So I made you this! It’s something I picked up from an old friend. Isn’t it just to die for? God, I’d be grateful, if I were you. You must be so cold without me to come rescue you – don’t you start crying, your bitching is so hard to stomach! Now, sit up!” Oh, so Kokichi had acknowledged the cold. Okay. Shuichi scowled as he arched his back away from the mattress. Kokichi clambered on top of him and fiddled with his restraints. His aching wrists pulsated, but he could not feel his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of his fingers. They were dark purple. He gasped. “Sit still,” Kokichi grumbled. He tangled his fingers inbetween the leather straps. He had just undone the final knot when Shuichi’s brain granted him one single bright idea. For her, he thought. Here is your chance. Shuichi shot up immediately and knocked his head against Kokichi’s pelvis. Kokichi howled in pain and fell back, giving Shuichi just enough time to roll off of the bed and hit the floor. His feet hit the cold cement and he stumbled over himself trying to stand. The muscles in his legs had atrophied a little, and he wobbled when he stood. He scrambled to pick up the jacket, but his fingers were too weak to close around it. In a flash of thoughtlessness, he swooped down and clenched the fabric between his teeth. He dashed out of the room in a funny galloping run, leaving Kokichi squirming on the bed. The winding corridors were filled with dust and decay. Rooms upon empty rooms met his every turn, each more decrepit than the last. Some lacked walls; others had opened up entirely to the floors below. Only a few of the rooms had windows. Several rooms had been furnished; every piece of upturned and discarded furniture bore the same smudged metal stamp that Shuichi couldn’t quite make out, but knew had once been important. There were areas that had fallen through to time, but a few places in particular caught his eye where it looked as though someone had taken a bulldozer and rammed it up against the walls. A strange green chair with a broken headlamp hung from a crater in the ceiling. Wooden planks lay scattered around windows where they had been put up, torn down, and their splintered remains frantically nailed up again. Something bad happened here, he thought. Shuichi stopped to stick his arms through the holes in his new garment. The hem of the collar dug sharply into his neck, so he took it off and turned it around. His backside felt terribly exposed, but it seemed to fit better this way. Behind him, a gentle pitter-patter echoed through the hallway. He started off again, scanning every room for an exit. A stinging in the sole of his foot his foot stopped him in his tracks. Lifting his heel, he saw tiny bits of loose tile stuck in the soft skin. Looking back, broken linoleum squares covered the floor. The muddied foundation beneath the tile contrasted the peeling paint of the dingy off-white walls. Tiny markings were etched into the dirt and stone. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to form words, but they were too crude to make out by eye. Shuichi ran the heels of his hands over the dips in the paint; his fingers were too numb. OUT, begged one jagged carving. STAY, another commanded. The words grew in number, scratched more sporadically across the walls. They turned from pleas, to threats, to names, and some lined up in weird phrases. CAN’T SLEEP.
THEY KEEP STEALING THINGS FROM ME.
IT’S A ZOO! Tighter still the corridors became, if not from the rubble, then from the darkness clouding him. His jutting hips scraped against the walls as he pressed himself around every corner, feeling for the pitfalls and faulty flooring with his feet. He could not see beyond the slivers of light granted from the boarded-up windows. In the bright gaping holes he peeked through, he could see stained white coats, flimsy blue hospital gowns, and jackets just like his own. The scent of old blood faintly lingered as he passed by. Dried puddles and vicious splatters were the worst perpetrators of the smell. Shuichi did not want to think where they had come from. The pitter-patter quickly drew closer, but the hall was barricade with furniture and smashed concrete. Shuichi sucked in his stomach and squeezed between the wall and the rubble. The broken glass and metal refuse dug sharply into his fragile skin. He could not even spare the breath to cry, or else risk giving away his location. Closer to the wall than ever, he felt his way along the carvings. The words were getting harder to discern from the many shallow scratches.
BORED.
FEELS LIKE HELL.
GOT RID OF EVERYONE NOW I’M JUST BORED.
For a second, he stopped to listen to the rhythmic sound grow louder. The steady beat was like a blaring drum inside his head, but it could not drown out his racing thoughts. Who had lived here before? Did Kokichi write this? With one final push, Shuichi burst out to the other side of the hallway. He took a deep, gasping breath and steadied himself. Just around the concrete bend, Monokuma laughed. Shuichi shot back against the wall. His heart plummeted like an anchor. He clapped his hands over his mouth to prevent himself from retching. Every inch of hair covering his body stood on end. Monokuma laughed again. This time, it sounded tinny and muffled. Shuichi waited for the inevitable toll of the bells. Kaito had begrudgingly named them corpse-bells, since whenever they played, a body followed shortly thereafter, whether through discovery or execution. He waited for his headmaster’s shrill voice. Any moment now, a wave of his classmates would rush into the hallway and crowd around him in a blaze of terror. Nothing followed, at first. Then, a hissing noise, followed by a screech. He had to see. Someone could be in danger. Someone he could save. Shaking like a leaf, Shuichi peeked around the corner. A small television screen flickered in the dim light, sitting at a slant on top of a rusted metal table. Papers defaced with chicken scratch handwriting were scattered all across the room, covering every bare inch. Cables ran from the television set through the cracks in the walls and ceiling. Something brown was crusted over the edge of the table. The papers were scrawled with lists and plans, and some included poorly drawn schematics for deadly contraptions. Some of them were recognizable from the killing game, while others were scribbled over and unintelligible. This room must have served as a planning room, Shuichi thought. This is where he decided how we’d die. The white noise that sputtered from the screen masked Shuichi’s footsteps just enough for him to inch closer. The television made a clunk, and suddenly Shuichi was face to face with a crying Kaede. Her hands clenched around a metal collar stuck on her neck. From the strange top-down angle, Shuichi could see her squirming and kicking as she was raised fifty feet up and dropped down onto the floor again and again. Pale and asphyxiating, the blood vessels in her eyes were beginning to pop. Instantly, he knew that he was watching her execution; but in his stomach, that strange feeling was churning up again. His lips and cheeks were numb and tingling, and he thought that now of all times it might just be stress, but still his heart fluttered and a rush of electricity tickled his spine. It was not the same gut-wrenching experience that had wracked him the first time he watched her die. Monokuma – no, Kokichi had taken great joy in making the class stand beneath her as she struggled. There had been screens surrounding them at eye-level that showed her face as she fought for every breath. She had not gone quietly. Every moment was made to suffer. At one point during the execution, the rope had flung her particularly hard, and a teardrop from her landed on his cheek. Tears of his own spilled over to join it. Like some sort of sick joke, the camera panned over to show his face, splotchy and wet with heaving, quiet sobs. The television cut to static again. Shuichi jumped. Now, it was showing him Korekiyo as he was boiled alive. Red, angry blisters pockmarked his skin. His execution took the longest – twenty-four minutes, as opposed to Kaede’s seven. Monokuma had tried to speed it up by dunking his head under the water. When he came up for air, Korekiyo had looked Shuichi dead in the eye with pure, unbridled terror. It was the first time he’d ever seen him show fear. And then there it was again; his petrified expression immortalized on tape as he watched Korekiyo sink into the cauldron. Shuichi didn’t realize how close he’d gotten to the screen until it cut to black. The fading ring of light sizzled out around the edges, framing his reflection. In the videos, he had been healthy. A little thin around the edges from stress, but nothing compared to the sunken eyes and ghostly frame staring back at him in the glass. The darkness concealed most of the damage done, but not the cracks in his lips or the patches of missing hair. His teeth were yellow, and his nails gnarled and warped from fidgeting. Once a lean and timid boy, he now stood crooked and thin. Shuichi lifted his hand to his face. Barely visible, his fingers were bloated and a ghastly plum color. They were as stiff and unfeeling as a corpse’s, and he could barely wiggle the joints. He stuck his fingers into his mouth and bit down hard. No feeling came through. A frightened sob stifled itself in his throat. Something gently tapped his shoulder. Shuichi turned to look, and promptly received a face full of metal colliding with his head. His knees gave out from underneath him, and down he went, collapsing to the ground beneath his assailant. Kokichi towered over him, crowbar in hand. He beamed from ear to ear and moved his mouth to talk, but Shuichi could only hear ringing. Kokichi gave him a swift kick in the ribs to rouse him and knelt down beside him, but stars spun in his eyes and he knew he was going to be out soon. The last thing he saw was Kokichi’s open mouth and the shallow dips where his molars should have been.----- “Did I die?” Shuichi awoke with a start, but a pair of gentle hands urged him to lie back down. He found his head in Kaede’s lap, gazing up at her face. Weeks had gone by since he’d last spoken to her. This time, he could see her violet eyes, shining like gems. They seemed darker than he last remembered. He figured he must have been wrong before. “Why do you keep running?” she asked, ignoring his question. “To get away?” “I thought that was obvious,” he murmured. Death would be a lesser punishment than living under Kokichi's rule - no, it would be a relief. “After everything you’ve been through, you’re just going to let him go?” Let him go? He was the captive, not Kokichi. Kokichi could leave anytime he wanted to – he rarely bothered to drop by and feed him every other day! “Stay and fight,” she said. “Fight?” he asked. “You heard me.” Everything she said sounded strange coming out of her mouth, but Shuichi nodded anyway. “You’re right – I have to stop him.” “You know he’ll never stop.” “Then I’ll –“ Shuichi hated to suggest it, but he spoke anyway. “I’ll kill him.” He did not expect Kaede’s eyes to scrunch up in a smile. “If you can find where he sleeps, you can smother him,” she said. “Or stab him. Or strangle him, or poison him, or drown him, or bash his head in. But you know what I think?” Shuichi tilted his head. He did not know where Kokichi slept, let alone if he lived in the building, but he was certain that if Kaede thought it necessary, he would do it for her. She only wanted what was best for him – for both of them. “I think,” Kaede said. “I think he should be hanged.” Shuichi felt the urge to laugh. Kaede’s gaze hardened. He averted his eyes as his laughter turned to shameful chuckling. “You can do that for me, can’t you, Shuichi?” He took in a shaky breath. He had told himself for weeks that he would rather die himself than witness one more death. Maybe it was time to slip into something a little more open-minded. “I’ll do anything for you,” he replied. “I know.”