Chapter Text
Another day passes, another night comes. At ten, Shuichi visits, and at one, he visits again, looking so tired. Kokichi asks how long he’ll keep visiting, and Shuichi responds with only another day or two.
That’s why he’s surprised when he’s woken next by a knock in the door, soft and polite. Blearily, he shifts around in bed to check the time— 2:47. “C’m in...” He calls out, immediately irritated by his voice. But...
Nobody comes in. They don’t knock again, either, but they don’t seem to have left, so Kokichi
sits up a little and strains his ears. And... it starts out quiet, but it’s definitely there. Kokichi stills his breath, and it’s all he can hear: that quiet, ominous scraping sound.
Gradually, it increases in volume until it’s a shrill, clanging screech. Thunk. Screeee. Thunk. Screeeeeee. Thunk. His heart is banging in his chest, and his eyes grow wet. Who is this? What if they get through? It continues, and continues, this sound, and Kokichi’s heart is wrenched by a morbid curiosity. But he thinks, if he opens that door...
He’s gonna die.
He’s scared. He’s so, scared, and he feels it, clutching a blanket to his still aching chest. As the noise continues splitting his previously dark, quiet world, he stares at the door like there’s nothing else in the room. He shivers when he noise stops it’s rhythmic clanging. Is this it? Have they found a way through? Is this how it ends? Finally, finally. Getting what he deserves. He smiles because the world is right. There’s karmic retribution for a bastard like him.
He keeps staring at the door, folding over. His cheek presses against his shaking legs. There’s no more noises coming from the door—
Just a broken, strangled cry from his chest.
Luckily only one of those gets out. Kokichi’s almost certain he won’t get any more sleep tonight.
________________________
Another morning.
His bedside timer rings. It’s five o’clock. Shuichi swears to Atua his absolute least favorite thing about this whole debacle is having to wake up before the announcement goes off. He likes his beauty sleep, dammit, even if they’re frequently punctuated by those dreams, as it was by similar dreams before(a hanging body it was always a hanging—). But what the book says, he follows. And the book tells him not to let people who’ve entered a coma sleep without being woken after each REM cycle.
So he gets up and staggers into the lobby. Blearily, he just stares at Kokichi’s door before he gasps audibly, caught off guard.
It looks terrible. Long, thin silver scratches line the surface of Kokichi’s door, carved out over and over and over again. It’s more then just tarnished the paint job—the metal itself has been indented slightly in a hundred little criss-crossing divots. Shuichi just stands and stares at at it from the bottom of the stairs. And then he explodes into movement.
Before he knows it he’s unlocked the door and at the side of Kokichi’s bed, shaking the liar awake. Kokichi eyes shoot open and he screams, scrambling away under the sheets, and then Shuichi screams in shock from the sudden noise. His heart is pounding.
The liar is propped up on his elbows, and staring at him, wide-eyed. For a few seconds, he’s breathing hard, but with a bit of a skip and a jump his breathing levels out unnaturally quickly. He skims a hand over his face, fixing his hair, and Shuichi realizes that his hands are clammy and he’s just staring. With the purple locks back into place, Kokichi gives him a glare. Words don’t come to Shuichi’s mouth.
“What the hell, y-you, you...” Kokichi blinks a few times, still disoriented, before wiping the sleep out of his eyes with the back of his hand. “You half-baked no-brained creepy emo pervert detective? What now? Are you being a deceptive detective? Despite everything, determined to be a destructive deviant detective, huh? Or are you just a disaster detective? I know you’re definitely desensitized to my evil but keep this up and our relationship is destined to deteriorate, leaving me despondent and destitute, detective. What, do you think you’re such a devilishly delightful detective you can get away with this? Huh, huh, detective? DETECTIVE?”
Shuichi only realizes his jaw is hanging open a minute into the tirade. His train of thought is totally... distracted. Deviated from it’s destination—what, what? Kokichi rolls his eyes and sighs, his face in his hands. “Why. Did you barge into my room. And shake-me awake-y. Let’s be real, that shit was Rood, Dood.”
“You...” Shuichi blinks and upon remembering reality, is forced to look away. “Th-th-there were marks on your door. L-long, silver, and I-I got, I was...” His throat tightens a little. “I’m glad... you’re okay.”
The liar just scoffs at that and scoots away a little further. “Whatever. Weirdo. Of course I was fine, bold of you assume I am capable of dying.”
I’m sure you wouldn’t have factored dying into so many of your plans if you weren’t. Shuichi regrets having the thought instantly as his stomach turns. He stares at Kokichi’s face, trying to read it. He looks... pissy, but not unreasonably so. Not determined-to-never-talk-to-you angry, just kinda in a tired bitch mode, the sort that passes. It looks like their relationship isn’t irrefutably and irreparably wretched apart—wait, is he doing it too now?
Shuichi closes his eyes and shakes his head as he starts to feel an unusual emotion. It’s lit in the bottom of his heart and curls around there, wickedly, growing and building before he can name it. Anger. He gives the liar, who now looks positively exhausted, a quick assurance that everything will be fine before he leaves the room with a strut, locking it behind him.
Kiibo’s awake, and in the lobby. The slamming of Kokichi’s door must’ve disturbed him. So is Maki, looking... murderous, as usual, and Tsumugi’s looking frightened. Shuichi walks over and bangs on Yumeno and Momota’s doors with the back of his hand. The two of them exit soon after, looking disheveled. Yumeno’s clothes look like she slept in them that night—and the night before, and the night before, and why not one extra night for good measure—who’s he kidding, she probably hasn’t changed her clothes all week—while Momota’s clothes look hastily thrown on. They’re clean, but red smears around his neck and chest are particularly... noticeable. Shuichi shakes his head and doesn’t let the two of them distract him a second longer.
With everyone awake and standing around the circular dorm lobby like that, the resemblance to a trial is uncanny and Shuichi tries to block the thought out of his head.
“Anybody want to take responsibility, for this?” Shuichi rubs his head as he looks around at the group, and they all stay quiet, looking astonished. Each of them mumbles their thoughts of confusion and innocence—Maki just looks off to the side, coolly. She’s standing next to Momota. Shuichi grits his teeth and words well up behind is tongue: If any of you have a problem with me and what I’m doing, take it up with me personally, don’t—
But Shuichi can’t say that. The anger stays in his guts and in his eyes. That righteous anger’s for class trials, when somebody’s under pressure. Then... Yumeno shrinks back. From the hazy look in her eyes she seems like she’s on the verge of passing out, and she looks so scared, too. Shuichi blinks, then looks away. Now the detective can’t even look any of them in the face again. Blinking sleep out of his eyes, he rests his palms on the guardrail on the top level and looks to the side. He tells them all that Kokichi will meet them for dinner; at least, he can hope that will persuade them to give him more time to get through to the liar.
Then, straightening out his spine, he exits down the stairs to the left to grab some breakfast, feeling the heat of their stares on him as he goes. But that anxiety is quickly wiped from his brain as the detective starts to rapidly analyze who was the culprit of last night’s terrorism while he walks.
This will require investigation, later. Not enough investigation to take time from his current case, but still.
________________________
...Ah. What a morning. Shuichi tells him to sit tight and leaves... leaves for a little too long, really. Kokichi starts to feel anxious as the detective’s not back in the room sooner. He grips at his sheets and squeezes.
Clench, release, clench, release. Calm down.
The doorknob rattles. Anxiety spikes and he clutches at his sheets as he stares at the door, watching it for the second it opens. It twitches and clacks robotically for painfully long, every jitter tracked by the liar’s eyes. Then, it goes still... only to be swung open, before he knows it. Kokichi flinches back, his legs catching on the sheets as he flings his arms behind himself to scramble away. His heart’s pounding as he looks at his intruder.
Shuichi, of course, and Shuichi, not looking at him, rather looking at the plates of food balanced in his arms that he needed to put down to open the door, then picked up again. Kokichi has a second to relax his posture into a comfortable slouch, propped up by his arms, though he’s still clearing the panic out of his eyes when Shuichi looks up at him. He gives a lazy smile and a languid wave to make up for it. “Breakfast in bed, fancy. I’m gonna give Happy Murders Hotel a 5 star rating, for the invigorating trials, thrill of danger, and helping me overcome my newfound life-long trauma by pampering me!”
Shuichi rolls his eyes at the tasteless joke and sets the plates down on the table. Kokichi clambers out of bed, carefully watching his own feet. One step, two, three... and he can collapse into the chair. Adjusting his body for comfort, the liar stares at his waffles, knowing that he shouldn’t eat them because they could be poisoned. The liar decides he doesn’t give a shit if it’s poisoned, and for good measure steals a bite off of Shuichi’s plate to test if that’s poisoned before the detective digs in.
It wasn’t poisoned, it just tasted pleasantly of strawberry syrup. Shuichi sighs like he’s twice as old as he is—he’d probably get grey hairs by age 20 if he survives, huh—and digs into his plate. But he stops before taking a bite, making a stressed out groan. Kokichi looks at him questioningly, and Shuichi shakes his head. “I—i don’t get how you can do—stuff like that. Just—stealing the food off my plate. So casually.”
Kokichi laughs and wiggles his eyebrows. “Oh, I can do a lot more then that casually. Like. Oh, y’know. My... beloved.” He jokes.
Shuichi stares at him like he’s a filthy piece of 3-day old splatted flatted roadkill, and that’s the way things should be. Kokichi smiles.
Conversation is stilted after that, and Kokichi forces himself to resist making a cock waffle joke.
——————————
It’s that time of day when Shuichi sticks around for some god-damned reason, ask questions and just hanging around. It likely has something to do with the fact that Shuichi’s convinced that Kokichi’s the most interesting brain-teaser in the entire facility and is now has the time to spend hours each day looking for answers and solutions. Before it was alright but now it kinda sucks, since Kokichi knows he needs to get started on his plans again very soon. But since Shuichi’s been sticking around, he’s usually too tired by the end of the day to do anything.
Shuichi places his hand on his chin, watching Kokichi’s expressions carefully. But, it’s a waltz two can play—Kokichi pretends that his poker face is poorly-veiling disappointment, and reads excitement in the detective’s tense shoulders. Checkmate. Well. Cards checkmate, whatever.
As Shuichi loses another round, Kokichi cackles with delight. They agreed to play to the best of 3, which Kokichi badgered Shuichi into making the best of 5, which then became whoever could get 2 points in the lead would win. But now, Kokichi’s just manipulating the games so that they take turns winning and the game will never end. Currently the score’s 14/13, now In has favor, and the despondent detective is sighing. “I really thought I’d got you that time,” he says with a knowing smile. “Your defense is just too strong.”
Kokichi just grins. “Being extremely offensive is the key to a good offense, Shuichi!” He chirps. “As if a supreme leader would ever show weakness in front of a lowly detective. I’d never cry!”
“You cry like, all the time.” Shuichi scoffs, dealing out new cards.
“Mhmmm?” Kokichi tilts his head, still smiling. The challenge makes Shuichi place his hand on his chin, thinking. His cards are laying on the table in front of him.
“You cried the day you earned your concussion.”
“No I didn’t.” Kokichi’s genuinely a little confused. He feels colder.
“Yeah, you did,” Shuichi insists, and that’s what it takes for the liar to remember. The hanger floor was cold and Kokichi’s eyes were wet—it didn’t feel like crying, because he hadn’t been wailing like when—not thinking about that. Not thinking about any of those times. When he was in the hanger, it hadn’t felt so much like crying as a steady leakin—ah, fuck it, he doesn’t want to think about that time either. His brain goes blank as he scrambles to grab for the first thing to fling out of his head.
“I wasn’t crying. My eyes were bleeding tears.”
“yOUR EYES WERE—” Shuichi then sighs, dramatically, and pinches the bridge of his nose. It takes him a second, but after a moment of silence he chuckles the most brief chuckle in existence, just a brief huff of breath. And that chuckle makes Kokichi’s heart swell as he watches a small smile cross Shuichi’s face and god damn it he better not be letting how he feels show on his face right now—
Good. His face is perfectly blank, he’s just staring at Shuichi right now. That’s, uh, acceptable. And Shuichi is staring back, ok. Shuichi was thinking. Now Shuichi is talking.
“You... are a compulsive liar, right?”
“What? No.” He lies. Where did that come from? Shit. Oh, shit, is he a compulsive liar? He goes back and thinks over his actions, conversations. His thought process for lying was always just and attained his means. That meant that he controlled his lies, not the other way around. But... could that be a lie?
“...You knew that, right?” Shuichi laughs but doesn’t smile and takes another bite of his toast before meeting Kokichi’s eyes unsteadily.
“What? Of course. Though I’m not a compulsive liar.” He lies. He did not know that. He totally is a compulsive liar. This is... a considerable revelation. Before, he’d always figured he was just being tricky, that it was satisfying to toy with the others, that it was all just a game within the game. But then he thinks about some the lies he told while panicked, how he struggles to tell the truth, there appears to be some reactionary or involuntary level to his lying. Damn. As if he wasn’t having a bad enough week.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, because it’s not like he can trust anybody for real this late in the game. Or is that a lie? Maybe he can trust the detective, and the two can fill each other in on some gaps in their knowledge. That’s can’t be true, though, because he doesn’t want to put the pressure of learning The Truth of the game on his beloved Shuichi. That would be too cruel. But... isn’t that—
“...okay.” Shuichi plays a few more cards, and Kokichi takes two. They play a few more rounds like that, just calling out their moves. It’s awkward. It’s certainly productive? Something about it feels... comfortable. Almost. “I’ll be back for lunch. And then, I was thinking... would you like to come eat dinner with the rest of our classmates?”
Kokichi bites his lower lip. He gives Shuichi a bit of a sideways glare, and the detective sighs. “Listen, they... they don’t like how much time I’ve been spending with you. They’re concerned you’re like, manipulating me, or—” Agitated and a little angry, the detective shakes his head. “It’s stupid . But, you really would be doing me a favor.” In that moment, he looks incredibly tired. Kokichi knows how draining it can sometimes be to deal with their stubborn, stupid classmates. So he tilts his head and smiles evilly.
“Oh, Shu-mai. I never said I wouldn’t go.” He lets his loud, whinnying laugh ring out, and it’s met by an apologetic, expectant smile from Shuichi. “I’d never do you a favor. I’m just glad you’re willing to help me get back to tormenting those idiots even sooner!” Smugly, he folds his arms behind his head.
“Right, right.” Shuichi nods, relaxing a little, and Kokichi’s heart sinks. He probably laid it on with the lies a little too thick, there. The detective picks up the trays. “Thank you, Kokichi. I’ll be bringing you lunch today. Take care of yourself in the meantime, alright?”
Nervous. This voiced, undisguised concern over his own well-being makes Kokichi incredibly, edgily nervous. Contempt breaks his heart—no it doesn’t, actually, that’s a lie— but either way, this behavior makes his gut twist and his hands grow clammy. So he grins wide and nods, and watches Shuichi gently close the door behind himself.
As silence overcomes the room, Kokichi almost believes that he could also chalk up the nervousness to being alone again and the boredom returning.
——————————
Maki doesn’t feel bad.
There’s nothing to feel bad about. Kokichi got what he had coming, and smashing his head against the hanger floor sent a euphoric relief sizzling up through her hands and into her chest. She did it. She saved Momota, and she didn’t need anyone’s help to do it. She would’ve done more—would’ve smashed his head a few more times so he would never had gotten up again and Shuichi wouldn’t have had to waste his time. But something stopped her—a greedy feeling, in the bottom of her gut, that asked for...
She saved Momota. She gets to spend more time with Momota—talking about stupid, stupid things, and... not so stupid things. She gets more advice from Momota and she feels like she’ll always need more advice from Momota. The time she spends with him is so, precious to her. Here, she can have precious things.
She hates having to take care of Momota, though. It’s because he hates being taken care of—he’s so resistant to showing weakness and telling her how bad he really feels, that it makes it way more stressful and nerve wracking. She wishes he was strong and healthy and he wasn’t probably going to....
So what Maki feels is anger— that quiet anger that stirs in her stomach and comes out in her abrupt movements and irritation with interactions. Cut people off, shoot people down, tell Momota that he’s dying again and again and again, which can’t make him feel good even though he ricochets back with assurances of his own health. With... Kokichi, there was an artfulness to the way he spoke that she absolutely hated—and was absolutely jealous of. Kokichi could make people feel whatever way he wanted. She wishes she could talk like that. She wishes she wasn’t so brutally honest. She’d hurt people less.
Shuichi’s also honest(sometimes.) Sometimes she can’t tell, and she has to stare at him, but she still can’t tell. It makes her angry.
“I mean, it wasn’t really subtle. They’re knife marks, clearly, I made some myself to see if they matched, and they matched. So unless—” Shuichi had saw her in the hall and pounced. He’d clearly been looking for her.
“It wasn’t me.” She cuts him off and he blinks, once, twice. She’d said before, but he was continuing insisting that she was the culprit. She channels her anger into striding down the hall faster.
Shuichi’s quiet disappointment is evident. He scrambles to keep up, and tries again.
“Maki, it’s.... okay, if it was you. Just please, tell me it was you.” The way he says that, it’s very clear it wasn’t okay but he’s trying and her blood just boils—
“Do you want to die?” She hisses, feeling half-guilty at the way he recoils and looks away, at that spot on the floor he likes so much. What a wimp. C’mon, Maki, use your words, use your people skills. She clears her thought and brings to mind the emotional energy of Momota that makes people believe the words he says, but all she can do is repeat what she said before. “It... wasn’t me.”
“....right. Right.” He... doesn’t believe her. He doesn’t believe her. Whatever. What the fuck ever. Momota will believe her. Momota will—
“It wasn’t me.” Maki spits.
“Oh, I believe you.” And she looks at Momota, looks him carefully in rhe face, and he absolutely does. That’s why she loves Momota. He’s so easy to read, so... pure. So positive. And when he does lie, “I’m okay, I’m okay,” it doesn’t even matter, because even if she can’t believe in his words she can believe in him. In his character, that he never wants hurt her, never ask her to do anything she wouldn’t want. And she....
When she realized she loved him, standing in a shower, she cried. She cried for the first time in years and years and years, because it was... so new. So long devoid, and now, so little time left...
Maki Harukawa absolutely adores Kaito Momota, in every way.
And that’s the truth.
________________________
“Annnnd— up!”
A shambling, four legged-contraption of tangled limbs, one side leaning on the other, struggles upright. His arm around the boy’s side, Shuichi stares at Kokichi’s face, looking for any wrinkle or sign of weakness. Another blow to the head could send them back days or even further, and Kokichi’s shown himself especially adept at hiding when he’s feeling ill—even when he’s about to throw up. But Kokichi just smiles back at him today, half-disguising his swaying as intentional idle and movement. ...as long as Shuichi doesn’t leave his side, the liar should be fine. Will be fine. Everything is going to be okay.
They will understand that Kokichi is not a threat. Not anymore, at least. And from there, maybe he can convince them that there’s something incredibly important that can be gained from working with him.
It may not work, but at least, Shuichi’s got to try.
________________________
With Shuichi physically and mentally dragging Kokichi, they’ve managed to stumble to the dining hall. Yumeno’s already sitting in there, eating what appears to be cereal—lucky charms, actually—for dinner. Kiibo’s scolding her as he’s... making food? He’s wearing a perfectly clean apron over his chunky body, and has a bandana tying his artificial hair back.
“Yumeno, while that may be a balanced breakfast, it is one unbalanced dinner! I am making food for everyone already, so you can’t fill up on it!” He puts a hand on his hip and shakes a spoon at her.
“Nyehhh... b-but it’s the most magical food of all, it restores my MP...” She stirs the bowl and takes another bite, causing Kiibo to stiffen in irritation. He takes the bowl away from her, dumping the soggy charms into the sink. They’re so wrapped up in their stupid shenanigans that they don’t even notice the tangled contraption of limbs until Kokichi laughs at them. He makes sure to drop some pointy knives into his laugh so that they freeze and look at him with apprehension. Kiibo nods towards him shakily, pulling out a chair, and Shuichi drops him roughly into said chair. Looking away, the detective uncomfortably brushes off his arms to get gross sicky off of himself. Hehe.
“So what do we have here? Witch bitch and Astro boy playing house? Boy, you too are really desperate for human interaction, huh. Oh wait! At least, Yumeno is, Kiibo’s just fulfilling—”
“You know, you say all this stuff about ‘being entertaining’ and not boring but....” Yumeno yawns mid-sentence, looking at Kokichi with an empty expression. “This is like the 15th time you’ve told the same ‘oh wait Kiibo’s a robot he can’t do human things...’ and EVERY time he loses his shit in the exact same way. Your a repetitive routine exhausts me. So could you like.... refrain.” Her eyes are listless as she stares him down, like she doesn’t even know what she just said.
“A what.” Kokichi blinks. A what.
“Ughhhh.... I’m... not gonna... repeat myself.....” No more cereal to eat from, Yumeno clenches her spoon and drops her head onto the table with a thud as dull as her intellect.
Oh, he’s NOT gonna let that fly. “Oh, goodness. Now the magician fancies herself a critic, some comedic analyst. Oh? Did all that sugary cereal go to your brain? Was your attempts to be a magician so utterly fruitless and devoid of joy that you’ve decided to take a new life track, demeaning others and bringing them down to your pathetic level? Because—“
But NOW they’re both ignoring him. Kiibo’s stupid ugly dead-ass lens eyes are sparkling slightly like he’s a dammed anime boy and his bashfulness sensors have activated his fake-ass blush. “Y-yumeno... are you... standing up for me....!?” He sounds timid and hopeful. Yumeno sends him a empty glare and Kiibo smiles softly, nodding appreciatively.
Disgusting. Kokichi’s not even going to comment on whatever the hell this B-list anime shit is happening here.
“Uh, anyway, everyone’s food is done!” Still smiling that weak smile, Kiibo starts serving mashed potatoes and a mystery meat into perfectly evenly sized proportions on plastic trays. Kokichi doesn’t think he can eat this much. The food tastes like fresh microwave dinner—it’s actually utterly bizarre how perfectly uniform and canned the food tastes, like a machine made it. Because a machine did make it.
Huh.
The defective detective seems to like it, anyway. “Thank you for dinner, Kiibo. It’s good. Have you seen Maki and Momota?” The robot nods appreciatively, turning to Shuichi.
“They’ll be coming in a few minutes. Maki is trying to make some medicine for him, he’s supposed to eat it with dinner. She said she’s almost done.”
Kokichi snickers. Nice excuse not to come. Shuichi tries to talk over him. “What about Tsumugi?”
“She is working on new sweats for Ouma. I will bring her dinner compactly stored in a tupperware later.” Kiibo’s pupils swivel around and dilate as watches Yumeno poke at her food. “Eat the carrots, too. They’re good for you,” he states.
Yumeno stubbornly refuses, and Kiibo keeps insisting, and the babble goes on for a while. Ouma’s brow creases as he realizes that the robot forgot to provide them with drinks. STUPID robot. Tugging on Shuichi’s sleeve, he whines at him. “Shuiiiimaiiii. Get me some Panntaaa.” The detective looks annoyed, and Kokichi smiles. “Come onnn!!! I can’t go get it for myself can I?? You gotta, Shuuumaiiii!”
“No he doesn’t.” Oh, great. Now the robot’s friggin staring at him, so Kokichi sends him a disgusted face back, but the thing doesn’t even flinch. “He doesn’t have to get you that. Kokichi, can you not walk?”
Kokichi sputters as he feels his heart rate increase. Shit. They know he’s vulnerable. “What? Of course I can walk. Ran twenty laps around the town this morning, felt great,” he rolls his eyes. “Telling Shuuumaiii to get drinks for me is just so much more entertaining. You peasants world never understand the pleasures of having a henchman.”
Yumeno tilts her head, having found something to distract from her uneaten carrots. Bitch. “But even if he weren’t here, you could still get yourself something to drink, right?”
“Listen, he’s still sick, he can’t—” Shuichi’s objection is cut off by Kiibo’s mechanical voice.
“No, I’m curious too. Why don’t you go get yourself a drink, Kokichi.” The robot looks at him with those big blue eyes, analyzing him just like he did Yumeno. For a moment, Kokichi is baffled that a creature so supposedly smart and logical can be so blatantly transparent. Disguise your intentions like the rest of us, creep.
“Would you shut. Up.” Kokichi hisses. Yumeno just mwehs in response, shutting up. Without her nasally voice taking up space, his nausea lessens til’ he’s able to actually eat a few more bites of the robot’s stupid probably poisoned with joint lubricant food. “Apparently, I was gone for so long, ya’ll forgot, so here’s a reminder—I don’t do what dumbasses or tin cans tell me to.” He sneers at them. “Supreme leader’s tell OTHER people to do. Oh, Shuichi-chan~~” Kokichi sings. “Panta. Now.”
Shuichi gives him a withering stare of utter and complete disappointment, though Kokichi knows he can’t have expected any better of him. If he did, then the detective would have to be dumber then he gave him credit for. “Shuichi?”
“...No.” Shuichi looks off to the side aimlessly, and with a somber sigh, he takes another bite of the robot mush. Kiibo rattles uncomfortably in the awkward silence. Kokichi’s throat scratches slightly.
The door opens. It’s Maki, trailed by a slow-moving Momota. She pauses and her faces tightens as she sees the liar, and he smirks back. Her eyes pinned on him, she circles around and into the kitchen, disappearing from sight. Momota, on the other hand, glows like a big stupid puppy dog and sits down next to Ouma, rattling the table as he plops down.He’s got a nasty smile on his face. “Hey, ya little shit.”
Kokichi returns the smile at full force. “Nice to see ya, ya big dumb bastard.” His tone is dripping with sarcasm. Wow, this dinner just got ten times worse! Great. Why did he agree to this again?
“It’s a good, thing, you two are feeling well enough to eat with us!” Shuichi forces a smile, and pokes at his dinner again.
Kaito’s sooooo easy to read. He winces and nods. “Yeah, I’m feeling. Great. I think this thing might clear up in a day or two, the rest has been good. For me.” He clears his throat awkwardly and Kokichi giggles at the terrible lie. Shuichi, who he knows is reading *exact* same thing, shrinks further into his seat. Yumeno and Kiibo, on the other hand, congratulate Kaito on feeling better. The morons look happy.
He’s talking to the two of them about some inane bullshit when Maki comes back out. She sits down next to Kaito, setting a glass of water down in front of him, glancing at him briefly at the man before returning her murderous gaze to Kokichi. Great. Kokichi puts on a sharp smile before pulling apart his chopsticks with a clean snap and digging into his rice.
Everything surrounding them breaks down into noise. Like birdsong but more annoying, like the whirr of machines running, as Maki stares at him. It makes Kokichi sick how nobody here can spot the murderous intentions in her eyes, the stains of blood on her calloused hands. Momota, who if he wasn’t so dammed sick, would be the only one capable of *maybe* stopping her from snapping and just killing everyone here without giving even slightly a damn. But there he is, looking at her with big, stupid trusting puppy dog eyes while blathering on about something inane. Does he just not care, about all the innocent lives she’s snuffed out? Would he be that shallow, that vapid? Or just does he not believe she even could, due to his trashy biases towards women?
So Kokichi eats his potatoes stubbornly, and stares right back into her blood-red eyes. He’s never been one to back down from shit and he never will. Maybe everybody else will forgive her for the things she’s done but he’ll loath her for the people she killed. It’s not a challenge he’ll ever back down from.
Shuichi seems nervous—he to have noticed the two glaring at each other. He clears his throat, but Maki cuts him off. “I don’t know why he’s here and I don’t think he should be here.” She states. Kokichi grimaces back at her, snapping another pieces of potato off his chopsticks. He’s not going to dignify that with a response.
“Oh—that’s—I wanted—” Shuichi fumbles. “I thought it would be good for him and us. See, he’s not—I don’t—” Unfortunately for him, Shuichi’s extremely inconsistent spine isn’t working right now. Maki slams a palm down onto the table, making Yumeno startle.
“He fucking admitted to being the murderer of our friends. He’s lied and toyed with us and is going to try to kill us again. I know we can’t kill him because of the repercussions but I don’t see why he deserves anything more then—”
“Maki.” Shuichi cuts her off with tense civility. Ah, there’s the spine. “If you have a problem with how I’m trying to do things, bring it up with me outside of dinner. Some of us are—” He attempts to gesture to Kiibo, who doesn’t have a plate, then to Yumeno, who’s barely touched her food anyway. “Some of us are trying to eat. Or, in Kiibo’s case...” Shuichi pauses, for lack of a better word to describe why Kiibo completely pointlessly spends their mealtimes with the rest of them. Kokichi disguises his laugh as a cough into his hands, before setting his chopsticks on top of his bowl and giving Maki a smug smile, steeping his fingers devilishly. “Okay, anyway, he’s not giving the damaged little shit death glares from across the table. Just try to tolerate it right now. For me. Please?” Shuichi sounds so done. He lets out a long, depressed sigh.
Maki gives Kokichi one last bitter look before wrinkling her nose, and staring daggers at her own food. The table goes quiet, as everybody pokes at their food. Golly, be it depression, injury, or illness, or the affliction that it is being a robot, it seems nobody here has an appetite! Except for Maki, of course, who seems too pissed at her food to eat it.
“Uh.” Kiibo is the first to break the silence.
“Um. You guys... are slowing down. If you’re done, eating, t-there’s dessert! I-I made a treat and a delicacy!” He cracks a pathetic, crooked, needy smile and pulls out a rectangular dish, quickly holding it upside down above a cutting board. A red gelatinous cube with bits of fruit captured within slides out painfully slowly, slapping onto the board with a wet plop. Kiibo’s lenses shift as he begins sliding pieces of paper underneath the board, one at a time. Soon he stops, and hovers a knife over the jello, his face tensed with focus. It’s like watching someone play a claw game. Then, all at once he chops the jello into bits, slicing it horizontally and vertically. Kokichi’s almost intimidated until Kiibo beams at everyone sitting at the table. He’s made these peculiar, jiggly, jello cubes.
“Atomically perfect jello salad cubes!” Kiibo exclaims.
Himiko takes out a tiny paraffin figure and shoves slowly it in her jello salad. It hovers sadly in the viscous substance just like the fruit, it’s dying screams muffled by layers of slime. “Kiiiiibo, your gelatinous cube killed my level 5 adventurer in one hit, I can’t eat it now...”
Kiibo makes a vulture screech, reaching right in front of Momota’s face to pull the toy out of her food. He holds it with a pair of tweezers extended from one of his fingers, so the jello has returned to it’s perfect state. “No playing!! More slurping!! Listen, Yumeno, this food takes minimum effort to eat. You don’t even have to chew!”
Yumeno drops her head on the table and sticks out her lips, slurping down her jello salad. Kiibo folds his arms looking smug, and triumphantly pulls the scarf off his head in one smooth motion, folding it into another perfect square and placing it gently in a pocket.
“Oh, my god. You people are fucking moronic.” Says Kokichi, finally.
The world explodes into movement as several things happen in very quick succession. Maki stands up and sets a foot on her end of the table as if to spring across it and put her chopsticks through Kokichi’s brain then and there, Momota leaps forward between the two of them and the sudden movement causes him to hack out a large glob of dark, red blood directly into Shuichi’s jello salad. Shuichi stands up very quickly, pointing at Maki accusingly.
“You WILL sit down and you WILL eat your jello salad,” he declares abruptly, before turning to Kokichi. “And you.” He turns to Kokichi, giving him a disappointed look that makes his guts turn in a good way. “Please, please shut up before Maki makes you.”
Kokichi literally can’t help himself. “then get me some fucking water, bitch boy.” He mumbles, quietly enough so that it’s obnoxious, but loud enough that just about everyone can hear him.
Shuichi groans, ever so softly, before looking down and seeing the blood in his jello salad. He wordlessly passes the plate to Kiibo, who sadly goes to throw it away, and confiscates Kokichi’s desert, moodily jabbing, then eating a piece. “I’m confiscating this. You’ve lost desert rights.” He claims, as Maki steps off the table. She has one palm across her face, and Kaito is mumbling something to her the rest of them can’t hear.
The rest of dinner is very, very quiet. He never gets his fucking water.