Work Text
Makoto rifled through the magazines now that Celeste wasn’t lurking in the rec room anymore. He wasn’t sure if he was more troubled by Celeste’s complacency, Taka’s catatonia, or Toko’s brand new personality. He also didn’t know whether to be glad or afraid of the fact that he was likely completely alone on the third floor as the time for exploration wound down.
A scuffling noise came from the hallway outside and Makoto froze, waiting for its source to jump out. After a long silence, he turned his attention back to the magazine shelf, which did, in fact, boast a range of genre and quality. But he could not parse what was significant about the magazines that kept him flipping through their pages as if they held some kind of answers. If they did, there were none that he could make sense of.
He huffed and slid Garden Living back into its place on his way out of the rec room. He considered visiting the art room one more time, despite being even less convinced that anything in there was relevant to the ongoing investigation. What enchanted him was the wrinkled stacks of old student work, life drawings and studies interspersed with doodles and notes. Some of the sketches were clearly from students scouted for their artistic ability, but many of the drawings looked like they could’ve been made by anybody with a desire to create. Those ones reminded him of Komaru.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sight of Kyoko leaning against the wall in the lavender-drowned hallway. Makoto approached her hesitantly, not wanting to disturb her concentration. “Hey,” he said.Kyoko didn’t look up from her notebook. “Are you done investigating?” she asked cordially.
“Yeah,” Makoto said truthfully. “What about you?”
“I need to take a closer look at one of the classrooms on this floor,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me.” She closed her notebook and walked quickly past him.“I’ll actually tag along, if you don’t mind,” Makoto said bashfully. His sneakers squeaked after the click of Kyoko’s boots. “I don’t like being alone while Toko’s, uh… while Syo’s on the loose.”
Kyoko didn’t slow her pace until she reached the classroom. She began running her gloves over every unevenly applied piece of wallpaper, and finally responded to what Makoto had said. “Syo isn’t as dangerous as she seems.”“What? She’s literally a serial killer!”“She’s bound to the rules like everyone else until we figure out a way to override Monokuma. And…” Kyoko turned her attention to the desks and began searching them, one after another. Makoto followed her lead and checked the underside of each of the chairs. He found nothing but fossilized chewing gum and graffiti. “It’s not so much that I think Syo isn’t going to kill anyone, it’s more that I trust her as much as I trust everyone else.”
Makoto crouched by a chair on which someone had scrawled T♡N, the graphite smudged and faded. “So you really think that any of us could be capable of… of, y’know?”“I prefer to keep my guard up.”“So do you think I-?”“No,” Kyoko said straightaway.“Okay, well, that’s good,” Makoto said, simultaneously relieved and miffed.
Kyoko moved on to the next row of desks. “On the topic of Syo, I had an odd conversation with her earlier.”
“Oh, me too! She was just going on about formaldehyde, it was so weird, maybe you’re right that she’s not gonna murder any of us, but she freaks me out!” Kyoko stared at him while he rambled and Makoto realized that he had interrupted her. “What were you going to say?” he prodded her in what he hoped was an encouraging tone.
“When I first went up the stairs this morning, she was coming down. She’s been all over the school, not just the newly opened floor, because being dormant in Toko’s subconscious means that all of this is new to her. And…” Kyoko trailed off.“And what?”“She greeted me like an old friend, which I would chalk up to her innately chaotic nature, but the particular words she used were disquieting.”“What did she say?” Kyoko sat at one of the desks, staring at nothing, and with a start Makoto realized that she was not asocial. She was struggling to put words together. She searched two more desks before she answered him.
“She said it was good to be exploring again after being locked away for such a long time.”“Again?” Makoto said, confused.
“That’s what I asked her to explain, and she just laughed and ran away.”
Makoto shivered. “She gives me the creeps.”“It’ll be important to keep an eye on Syo, because she’s an entirely new person. She may be a criminal and her words may be foul, but you can never discard new information when you’re investigating, no matter how unhelpful it seems at first. Perspective is everything, and Syo’s perspective is inherently different from everyone else’s, including Toko.”Kyoko’s hands were occupied with pulling scraps of note paper from a distinctly messy desk and arranging them to see if they would fit together. Makoto gave up inspecting chairs and sat in the middle of the room, watching her. “You’re really good at this,” he admitted. “I’m so slow when it comes to noticing any new clues.”The scraps of paper did not fit together. Kyoko moved on to the last desk and said, “You do have deductive skill, of a different sort. You understand people and their nature very well. Not everyone has that ability.”Makoto blushed. “I don’t know. How did you get so good at this stuff, anyway?”Kyoko inspected an eraser that someone appeared to have taken a bite out of. Makoto wondered in what situation that could possibly qualify as a clue. She returned it to the desk, looked at Makoto, and opened her mouth, but closed it without forming any words. Her normally perfectly blank face was somehow frayed around the edges. “I… um.”“Kyoko?” Makoto said nervously.“I… hngh.” She wobbled and planted one hand on a desk.
Makoto stood up, alarmed, but she was already exiting the room, walking extremely fast, albeit unsteadily. Makoto shoved his way out of the disorganized line of chairs he’d left in his wake, afraid that when he made it out of classroom Kyoko would have already vanished. But she was right there in the hallway, keeping a hand on the wall for support, heading for the stairs. Makoto rushed to her.
“What’s happening? Are you okay?” She pressed the heel of her free hand against her eye.
“Please leave me be.”“What? No!”“Makoto,” Kyoko said. There was a warning in her tone that Makoto refused to heed.
“I’m going downstairs, too. You can’t just send me in a different direction.” Kyoko opted to try and outpace him. Two steps down the stairs, she fell forwards.Makoto caught her by the back of her jacket. She gasped, a delayed reaction, and fumbled for a grip on the handrail. Her hands shook and Makoto’s heart pounded in his ears. She tore away from him, but he stayed beside her as they both descended.“Has this kind of thing happened to you before?” he pressed her. “Are you low iron? Do you need something to eat?” Kyoko looked paler than normal and was still digging her hand into her head, and he stopped asking questions.
Nearly at the second floor, she looked a little more normal, but still Makoto stopped. “Please sit down with me.”“We need to get to the dining hall to share our findings,” Kyoko said sullenly.
“Just rest for a minute so you won’t fall down the next flight of stairs.”
Kyoko gave up and lowered herself, refusing Makoto’s offered hand of assistance. She removed her hand from her head and curled down to her knees, burying her face in her arms, her hair spilling onto the steps. Timidly, Makoto reached out and placed a hand on her back.
She jolted upright and Makoto withdrew and looked away in shame. After a moment he heard Kyoko shuffle closer to him. “I’m sorry,” came her quiet voice.“Huh?”“I’m just not used to… that kind of thing.”“Sorry I didn’t ask first,” Makoto said softly.
“Mm.”
“Is it okay? If I…?” Kyoko closed her eyes and nodded. “The art room reminded me of my sister,” Makoto whispered to fill the silence as he rubbed Kyoko’s back. He kept his voice low, but it echoed in the stairwell regardless. “She liked to draw. Likes. I’m worried about her. And my parents. I… I’m worried about you, too.”“I don’t want you to worry about me,” Kyoko mumbled.
“I can’t help it,” Makoto confessed. “You don’t have to explain what just happened, but I want to know because I care about y-”“My head hurts almost all of the time.”Makoto’s hand stilled.“Most days I can get over it and sometimes it goes away, but often it is unbearable and I can barely think at all. Painkillers don’t help. It’s been this way since the day we all woke up in different classrooms. I’m afraid I might be dying.”Makoto gripped her shoulder unintentionally. “You can’t be dying,” he said blankly. The ground was falling away.“I understand that this hurts you.” Instinct flooded Makoto’s body to wrap himself around Kyoko and shield her until the danger had passed. “The reason you’re able to connect with people in a way that I cannot is that you feel others’ pain like it’s your own.” How was she so calm? “I never wanted to tell you about this because I don’t want to add to the burden you already carry.”
Makoto’s heart shattered into dust and sank into the cracks in the staircase and he yanked Kyoko into his arms. She made a strangled noise.
“You’re not a burden, you’re my friend,” Makoto said brokenly. “Everyone here is my friend. Everyone deserves to have someone they can lean on.”Kyoko was dead weight against him. “That responsibility should be on the shoulders of adults. You’re a victim like everyone else. Whatever is wrong with me is no more deadly than your cancerous compassion.” She pushed herself away. “The only thing I want you to do is make sure, in the event that I die, the mastermind cannot use my corpse to frame someone or allow an unsolvable trial to take place,” she told him firmly.“How am I supposed to do that?” Makoto choked.
“Explain what I’ve told you to everyone else.”
“Why not tell them yourself, right now?”
“Not only would that make me more of an easy target than I previously was perceived to be, it would be seen as simply a lie to those who don’t think I’m trustworthy.”Makoto wiped furiously at his eyes with his sleeve. Kyoko stood and smoothed her hair away from her face and Makoto hoped she hadn’t noticed he was crying. “It’s time to reconvene downstairs,” she said. “I’m sorry, Makoto.” By the time he got to his feet, she was gone.
Monokuma sprouted out of nowhere and Makoto barely held back a scream. “What the hell do you want?” he demanded.
“Oh, the usual,” Monokuma said. “That was a real cute chat you just had with Kirigiri.” Makoto began walking away.“Don’t be rude, I’m talking to you!” Monokuma snarled and waddled into his path. Makoto took a deep breath.
“You need to get Kyoko to a doctor.”“Bossy, bossy! What do you think this is, summer camp? No doctors are setting foot in this establishment.”“You want all your students alive so they can play your game,” Makoto countered. “Isn’t someone passing away from a brain tumor too boring for you?”Monokuma tittered. “What are the odds your girl is gonna last long enough in here for that to be her cause of death? In fact, why don’t you kill her yourself if you want to see her head cut open so bad? Put her out of her misery? Crack open her skull and see what’s left of her mind?”
Makoto’s fists shook. “I won’t hurt anybody.”“Of course you won’t. You’re a little bitch boy. But remember, if you want answers, you have to find them yourself!” The bear ducked out of sight and Makoto was left to collect his wits.In the boys’ bathroom, he stared at himself in the mirror after splashing cold water on his face. Talking to Monokuma face to face reminded him how none of this was the inevitable unfairness of life. This was an artificial environment designed to wear him down. He would find a way to help Kyoko, if it was the last thing he did. He dried his face.
“What did you do to my body?”Makoto’s chest stuttered. Something had changed.After Monokuma dodged Kyoko’s question and left the students alone, her eyes met Makoto’s from across the courtroom. With the key Celeste had given her before being taken away in hand, there was no trace of the fear he saw in her a few days ago.Next to Kyoko in the elevator, Makoto breathed, “Were you talking about your…?” She nodded. “Did you figure out what it is?”“Not quite. But I know whose fault it is.”The elevator returned the seven who were left to the halls they were doomed to wander and Makoto knew that there was only one foregone conclusion. Kyoko Kirigiri would not die in Hope’s Peak.
I’ll get you out of here myself! No matter what it takes!
No matter what it takes? Sayaka said.
“Makoto.”
Kyoko stood in front of him. The others were already heading for the dressing room. “We’re going to go check if Celeste’s key opens a locker, right?” Makoto said distractedly. Kyoko put a hand on his shoulder and his breath hitched.
“Are you with me?” Kyoko said.
I can get through this as long as you’re here with me, Sayaka said.
“Yeah,” Makoto said. “I’m with you. No matter what.”