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An accident.
That is something Ouma Kokichi is not, thank you very much. If you were to confront him about the notion, he'd laugh and scoff and spit in your face and say something along the lines of "an accident, a mistake, me? nishishi, maybe you should look in the mirror sometime!" and prance off to do some nonsense or other because that's just the annoyingly terrible way Ouma is.
That's just the way Ouma is.
That’s just the way Ouma is, fingers humming across the surface of the cafeteria table, cheek pressed against its surface as he counts the number of times Saihara reaches for his hat like it's still there. Right now he’s going on phantom touch number twenty two, and it amazes Ouma a bit how many times he can keep on going at it, turning the pages of some old book or other (why saihara isn’t in the library eludes him, but ouma’s glad nonetheless because he’s quite comfortable with the feeling of the table pressing into his cheek covering up dried rain tracks)
Numbers make Ouma laugh, and his mind skits and scutters when he thinks about them, because numbers mean order and order means ranking and ranking means--
“Heeey, Saihara-chan?”
Saihara’s gaze flickers his way. “Yes, Ouma-kun?”
“Who’s your number one person?”
The reaction is expect, but it still hurts when it shouldn’t as Saihara reaches up to touch his not there hat for the twenty third time and sputters like a spark plug. “W-well, that’s…”
“Is it me?” Says Ouma, and then, “No no no, I know it’s not. It’s Akamatsu-chan, right? That makes a bunch of sense to me.”
Saihara’s eyes trail away, and his mouth opens, closes. “...perhaps.”
“Woah! And you didn’t even deny it!” Ouma sits up in mock surprise. “A score for the heterosexuals, right? Even though she’s dead and all. Which is a bit creepy, liking her beyond the grave.”
Saihara tenses up.
“Uhm, but yeah! If Akamatsu is your number one person, let’s talk about your number two person!” He sticks up two fingers, counting them off. “That’s me! Ah, nope, I was lying again there, don’t get your boxers in a twist. It’s…Momota-chan! I’m right, yeah?”
The detective is still recovering from the blow, and doesn’t respond, so Ouma takes that as the go ahead to continue his spiel because what isn’t a better go ahead than silence?
“And theeeen...me! Except I was joking again there, because that’s Chabashira-chan. Or maybe Harukawa-chan, or Kiibaby...hmm, all those pose as viable persons to be your number three! But oh.” Ouma claps his cheeks. “I forgot about your uncle…! Maybe he could be your number three, or even two or one! Unless…”
“Ouma-kun, please, I’m not in the mood.” Says Saihara.
“Alright!” Ouma puts his cheek back down on the table but this time, it’s as hard as fast as Saihara’s glare so it smarts slightly. A more pleasant sensation than he’d like to admit, frankly, but Ouma doesn’t like to admit to many things, any things.
“I bet I’m in the lower half of your rankings of persons, if not at the absolute bottom.” Ouma says, and Saihara touches his hat for the twenty fourth time.
“I don’t think so, but if you keep that up, you might be more right than you know.”
Ouma just laughs and pushes away from the table, shoes already clicking down the hall as the noise in the back of his head gets louder and louder. He can hear Saihara frowning behind him.
“H-hey, where are you going?”
“Aw, does Saihara-chan care? Don’t worry, you’ll see me again~!”
He does not look back, nor does he specify what his state will be in, but apparently that’s good enough for the detective(?) anyway. Ouma sees him touching his hat again and a tired sigh escaping from his lips, an “alright” coming out and that’s good enough, that’s good enough.
That’s just the way Ouma is.
(by the time ouma’s turned the corner, saihara’s forgotten anyway)
.
Something tells Ouma that the bathrooms might be the best place to do it, and he briefly wonders that if he does it, if he just stays there that his body will rot away for maybe a long time, maybe forever, and that's quite a while because no one would find him in there, would they? He briefly plays with the idea that someone would notice, and he almost equivalates that with 'someone would care' but no - it's easy to notice the disappearance of an annoying someone who plagues your every day life. Not so easy to care. There's a difference between the two, better make it distinct.
Finding the bottles of tylenol and Panta are easy, and finding the box cutter is even easier. Of course it is, when Monokuma sticks murder weapons onto what's practically their plates. It's literally too easy to go through with it, and Monokuma's beady eyes (eye?) stares at him as he picks up the box cutter from Angie's talent room. "Whatcha doing with that?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Ouma half smirks, half hums, and Monokuma laughs its terrible, echoing laugh because the both of them realize fully what Ouma is going to do. Well, they can play pretend all they want.
He juggles awkwardly with the Panta and the tylenol in front of the mirror, and it takes so long for him to open all the bottle caps that he realizes his reflection is crying, now that's super strange, especially since Ouma hasn't commanded any waterworks recently, so he stares for a moment before brushing his fingers against the mirror, smudging the glass unpleasantly.
His reflection is still crying, though, and he sneers at it. It sneers back.
Let it cry, then! Not like Ouma cares. He's got a bottle of Panta in one hand and a bottle of tylenol in the other, and a box cutter with a sharpened edge on the sink (it's down the street, not across the road, remember! across the road is only if you want your arms to heal, down the street is for permanent residents to hell only) so life's going to be great.
"Or death." He corrects his reflection, and that dries up the tears just a little bit. Just a little bit.
The bathroom smells gross. Incredibly so, actually, and Ouma crinkles up his nose and wonders why he never took care of it. Probably because out of pure habit, he expected someone else to - like a child! What a child he was, right? Nearly the youngest, beaten only by Gonta’s hulking figure and with a cry on command trigger impulse that was a pathetic gift, at best.
Locked bathrooms won’t be checked, right? That can give him a little bit more time until nobody notices. It’s chilly in here, anyway, and he shivers. At some point, he considered setting off the alarms for this, but that would be too risky, right? Everyone would gather up and they’d do a headcount and notice that he was missing and collectively groan “oh, ouma!” like in a comedy sitcom or something. Then a search would ensue, more out of spite than anything else and something might be a little off until someone more masculine decided they needed to whip it out and take a piss--
(on him? his corpse? no, that wasn’t this kind of a story, if it could be considered a story at all)
The smell seems to grow even though Ouma knows it’s only a mind trick - because he’s played oh so fucking many of them now - and he nearly pukes in the palm of his hand when he thinks about meeting Amami all covered in blood. If he meets Amami, of course, because there’s a chance of more likely than not that he’s going to be holding hands with the devil by the end of the day.
Though Amami could...no, perish the thought. Amami and angel both started with a, after all. And Akamatsu. Those kinds of things just worked out.
“Okay, so we’re doing this!” Ouma says, and the first couple of pills are the easiest by far.
The sink water helps, even if it’s shitty sink water that is just dinosaur pee if you really think about it - all water is dinosaur pee in that retrospect - but after a while there’s a lump in Ouma’s throat and he nearly gags it all up anyway, and that’d be a waste, right? At least no one’s watching, though.
Not DICE. Not the Mastermind, not Saihara--
Thinking of Saihara is more than enough to get courage to finish the bottle off, and Ouma regrets not getting a second. He nearly considers getting one then, but that’d be stupid - though Ouma’s pretty dumb himself! He could just waltz into there with a grin on his face and poison in his throat and die right in front of everyone. Or maybe even get killed on the way there. Someone would notice that he was looking weaker than usual, and use it as an opportune time to strike.
So he doesn’t have a choice, and the bathroom gets even colder so Ouma tightens up his scarf a little and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. It’s only then that he realizes how violently he’s shaking, so so bad and there are goosebumps on his skin, like little perfect freckles. With the box cutter, Ouma pokes a few of the freckles, and marvels at how blood just plips right out and he doesn’t feel a thing.
It’s with such fascination that he forgets that he should step away from the mirror at this point and lock himself into a stall, forgetting all those things about remembering to cut deep deep deep and up and down the street and he just paints on his left arm, not exactly sure what to do at first but settling on a checkerboard eventually, like his black and white scarf-- though not just black and white anymore!
He colors in every other space a little harder, a little deeper, and something in the back of his mind says “uhm hey shouldn’t this hurt??” and Ouma wants to agree beyond the common senses telling him otherwise but frankly, there’s not a smidge in him that can make himself care at the moment. It makes sense, for the most part, in that wonderful fucked up way that he shouldn’t feel anything, not when he stares over the brim of a stock photo smile and Harukawa accuses him of not having emotions at all.
“So what if I don’t?” He challenges, and it takes all of Momota’s strength to stop Harukawa from strangling Ouma right then and there, and oh how he wishes it was just the two of them alone and she could have done it, she could have done it, she could have done it.
But then he wouldn’t get look at his own blood! So it wasn’t all bad after all!
The skin just splits and with a dumb start Ouma realizes there’s blood, there’s blood and there’s so so so much of it. It’s on the floor, and he drops the box cutter there too with a clatter. He tries to pull off his scarf, tries to mop it up with as good a job as he can but it’s not a very good job, in the end, so he curses and decides to give it all up anyway.
He tosses the scarf into the trash can as best he can, even though the scarf is the only thing he has left from people who ranked him number one. That’s okay, though, because they would understand, right? If any of them had died, Ouma would be able to meet them-- ah, wait, no, same logic that applied to Amami, the whole heaven and hell bit and who belonged where and who never did.
Ouma stumbles into the nearest stall and closes it with slippery fingers, vision already getting quite a bit more fucked than he knows is normal. So, success, right?
There’s something depressing about knowing that his last view will be the inside of a very smelly bathroom, but Ouma isn’t picky.
He closes his eyes.
.
“H-hey, Ouma?! Is this one of your fuckin’ pranks because…! Because it ain’t funny!”
Ouma decides very quickly that he dislikes Momota, even though the boy had been oh-so close to bordering onto ‘maybe you’re not exactly the most boring person around’. The stall door is swinging open, and he realizes that shit, he never did lock it, did he, and raises a weak hand as if to shield himself from the light because oh, it was so bright, so bright, so bright--
Momota gasps something along the lines of “shit you’re still alive” and rushes over to Ouma, fingers picking him up too tenderly, more tenderly than he knows he deserves. “We’re gonna rush you t-to Toujou or some shit, okay?” He says, like he’s trying to reassure some that can’t be Ouma. “I...shit, what possessed you to do this crap? You didn’t do this to yourself, did you?”
Like he always does, Ouma looks at what he thinks is Saihara and tries to smile, but it hurts, doesn’t it? “It’s a lie.” He says when he can’t think of anything else, because that’s what he’s defaulted to all his life, all his life, all his death.
And that’s just the way Ouma is.