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“If a murder doesn't occur, everyone forced to participate in this killing game will be eliminated.”
Ouma laughed, kicking his heels up in the air as he tossed himself backward onto the bed.
He should have seen through it back then. Score one point for Monokuma… or Shirogane, rather, because who would’ve guessed, right?
Well, obviously, Saihara had.
His beloved Saihara-chan, who was likely now settling back into some semblance of a normal life…or being hounded by the press and disgruntled remaining fans, but Saihara was smart, he would find a way to lay low until he figured things out.
Without Ouma.
He sighed, flopping over to lie on his stomach, face mashed into the pillow until he could feel his own breath, hot as it surrounded his nostrils, unable to pass through the cheap fiberfill stuffing that god knew how many other ‘participants’ had been made to sleep on before him.
Had Akamatsu been locked up in this cell too? Amami?
He wasn’t sure how the staff had pulled it off. Body doubles? More brainwashing tricks? Either way, the two of them had been kept alive behind the scenes, tucked away like guests at a surprise party, on the off chance that Angie’s ritual would ‘work’, only to be done away with when Angie herself was murdered before it could be completed...or maybe they had escaped, for all he knew. Either way, they were no longer around.
It had been the same with Ouma.
Life wasn’t some kiddy show where you woke up in the Shadow Realm after being squashed into the consistency of strawberry jam. There wasn’t anything after you died, and that’s why the life you had now needed to be enjoyed to the fullest.
Ouma had woken up to the on-staff doctor glaring down at him, haloed by harsh white lights like an alien autopsy scene out of a sci-fi. Apparently the network did have a rule about there being a doctor available, only for the show contestants to have waived all medical intervention in their contracts.
Whatever motive it was that he had been kept aside obviously didn’t pan out, and soon after the entire staff had high-tailed it once the set had been blown up, leaving Ouma still locked up tight.
It was probably a good thing that he still knew how to pick locks. Muscle memory stored deep within the tissues of his hand told him that he known how since before the game, although he still couldn’t remember why or how he had learned it.
Although Ouma could pick locks, he was still yet to pick this one.
Momota and Harukawa, Chabashira and Yumeno…Saihara and that brief flash of something with Akamatsu- their interest in each other had all been scripted, cherry-picked, matched together and paired up by Shirogane, like a little girl playing dollhouse.
What were his feelings for Saihara, then? Something implanted within him, just to make the game more interesting? If that were the case, he had to hand it Shirogane. Being around his beloved Saihara-chan had certainly made things more fun for a time.
Ouma rolled off the bed, stretching out his arms as he scanned the room. There. He snatched the framed Monokuma photo off the wall, plucking the wire from the back, before sliding it into the lock.
Saihara was out there. No matter what, his beloved Saihara-chan was real.
Saihara blinked, disoriented by the sudden darkness of the room, the television having been clicked off, removing the soul source of lighting.
“Harukawa-san?” Saihara questioned, rubbing at his eyes as he turned toward where his now roommate stood by the side of the couch, look of concern becoming clear as his eyes returned to focus. How long had she been there?
“Saihara,” she frowned, crossing her arms, “You were doing it again.”
“Shit…” he groaned, burying his face in his hands, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyelids until he saw fireworks.
Every time he turned on the TV, he told himself it would just be for a little while, one show, just to calm his mind. The constant news coverage about them was mostly over, but instead Saihara now found himself glued to true crime shows for hours, transfixed by the images of the crime scenes. They filled something inside of him that had been torn open to bleed ever since escaping the show, a jagged hole that he now began to suspect had been there for years beforehand.
Memories- his, Maki’s, Himiko’s- had begun to return not too long ago, however, unlike the fake memories from the flashback lights, this was painfully gradual, like waiting for the last of the honey to drain from the jar, only to find that it had crystallized into something inedible.
He still had parents, it turned out, ones that might have been more available than the ones from his backstory, but they weren’t the sort of people he thought he really wanted to go back to. Apparently there was a reason that he had been drawn to less than savory coping mechanisms in the first place.
Hiding out in a small, one bedroom apartment on the wrong side of town with Maki and Himiko had been the best option for now. They understood, at least.
“Get some sleep,” Maki demanded, tossing Saihara the throw blanket off the back of the threadbare recliner.
“Thanks,” Saihara smiled, although unsure if Maki could see it in the dark.
As Maki returned to the bedroom where she and Himiko had managed to cram two twin beds, Saihara cocooned himself into the thin blanket.
Somehow while spending his nights trapped in a killing game, Saihara had managed to sleep more easily than while in relative safety. Perhaps it had been from the exhaustion brought about by constant stress, but whatever the reason, each night since his escape, Saihara had lay awake, gruesome images marching through his mind in a macabre parade. Sometimes, it was Amami or Angie, lying in pools of their own blood. Other times, it was Kaito coughing up red, but more and more frequently, it was the press.
Mercifully, an odd scratching sound banished grisly image.
“Harukawa-san?” Saihara called out softly, pulling the blanket back and sitting up. “Yumeno-san?”
No reply.
Cautiously, Saihara ventured out into the kitchen.
It didn’t take a detective to notice the slip of paper that had been slid underneath the door.
In big, bold letters was scrawled the phrase ‘this world is mine’.
Nearly dropping the paper, Saihara rushed for the door, throwing it open all the while his heart feeling as if it where about to jackhammer through the floor into the apartment below.
“Ouma-kun!?”
No one was there.
Saihara slunk to the floor, his legs suddenly feeling as if they been ripped out from under him.
Anyone who had watched the show could written it, Saihara reminded himself. Some fan had likely tracked him down finally, playing a prank.
A surprising number of viewers had been routing for Ouma, Saihara discovered from poking around at blogs and fansites after the game. Not for his schemes, so much as his relationship with Saihara.
Whether it was part of some script or not, the Ouma Kokichi had been in love with him. Those feelings must have felt real to Ouma, and yet Saihara hadn’t been able to see them- see his own feelings for the boy- until it was far too late. Some detective he was…not that he ever really was one to begin with, he realised with a wry laugh that rang out far too loud in the otherwise empty room.
He had seriously considered just picking the lock, and waiting shirtless on Saihara’s bed until he came home from his walk, but as funny as it might have been, there was also the distinct chance that he wouldn’t want Ouma around, not after all he had done. He couldn’t do that to him, intruding on what was most likely the only place he had felt any sort of safety in quite some time.
As Ouma waited in front of Saihara's door, he undid the knot to his scarf, letting it flutter to the floor.
“C-coming!” At the sound of Saihara's voice through the door, Ouma took off down the stairs, taking them two at time, all the while mentally cursing his short legs.
“Ouma-kun, wait!”
Footsteps pounded behind him, as he picked up his pace, running like he had wanted to do so many times during the game- when Saihara didn’t understand, when he knew that he never would, when Gonta had been executed, when he had been shot and poisoned to the point where could hardly have dragged himself away.
One step, two, four…his legs fell away from under him, pain exploding in his head as he crumpled on the landing, like discarded pages of the script he had written what felt like a lifetime ago.
“Ouma-kun!!”
Ouma attempted to pick his head up, tears rapidly welling in his eyes. Fake tears, totally one-hundred percent fake tears, of course. Not even remotely real, just like the feelings that had been programmed into his skull for the sake of ratings…right?
Saihara crouched beside him, shaky hand stopping just before Ouma’s forehead, as if a mere touch would cause him to disappear, a bubble bursting into oblivion. “It’s you, isn’t it?” he asked softly. “...How?”
“Uwaaa!” Was all that Ouma wailed in reply. Although the Supreme Leader was one to withhold many things, tears were not one of them. “Why are you chasing me, you creep? Who are you?!”
Saihara scuttled backward, eyes wide. “You don’t…”
Ouma sighed, pushing himself into sitting cross-legged, although his head still throbbed. At least it wasn't bleeding this time.
“Of course I remember you, Shumai! How could I ever forget?” Ouma began to rock side to side as he recounted the tale, “I was a daring phantom thief, and you were the detective hot on my tail…in more ways than one, of course.” He waggled a brow for emphasis.
“How are you here?” Saihara asked again, leaning forward, as if trying to make out the picture on a snowy TV screen.
“You failed to apprehend me! Duh!” Ouma answered, rolling his eyes, the motion causing a wave of dizziness to wash over him.
“I saw…I saw the press. You were…There was so much…” Saihara sputtered, seemingly no less dizzy himself.
“It’s the magic of television, Saihara-chan!” Ouma chirped. “Or at least as magical Yumeno-chan’s tricks ever were-“
The rest of his words were muffled, swallowed up by the soft fabric of Saihara’s t-shirt, Ouma’s body going rigid in his sudden embrace, as the spinning in his head launched into a death spiral.
Saihara was babbling something, perhaps an apology, but Ouma found that his brain wouldn’t tune in, registering only the gentle and familiar sound of Saihara’s voice, a favorite song played on a poorly tuned radio, as realisation enveloped him. There was no longer a script, no drooling fans at home to appease, yet his heart still felt as if it were about to detonate inside of his chest, matching Saihara’s own, firmly pressed against his cheek.