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Kokichi wakes up. More accurately, he jolts up with a dying scream in his mouth, so fast that he tumbles from the bed and breaks a few of the IV tubes stabbed through his skin. The cold tiles feel like the cold touch of the hydraulic press on his back and he flinches violently away, scrambling off the floor with gasps clogging his throat. Because it was just a heartbeat ago that the press was coming down and the droning of the machine was all around him and he might as well be at the press, he might as well be dead and where is he, anyway?
Doctors rush in. He figures they’re doctors because of their white lab and the white floors and the white bed and, oh, this is a hospital, he should’ve realized it before when the smell of antiseptic clung to his skin like ants (he hates bugs), but he was a little busy thrashing around all over the place and maybe he should stop because he’s still doing it now—the smart thing to do would be to stop, to stop hitting the concerned faces with his flailing limbs, but he’s lost control of everything a long time ago and all he’s ever done is drive people away so why would he stop now that—
(The killing game is over)
They don’t offer comfort. They don’t even offer a sedative, the fuckers, or not even a knife to his throat to just end it already, he doesn’t want to be wrapped up in anything else, he’s made the decision to die the moment he pretended to lift the bottle of antidote to his lips (or maybe even before that, when Monokuma announced the time limit motive when everyone was still alive, or when he fell through the floor and his head was dripping with blood but he didn’t feel a thing), why can’t he just die already—
The last part comes out as a screech from his mouth, like the desperate words of a dying man instead of the words of someone who wants to be that; but they don’t offer him death either. They ask him if he wants to remember a Kokichi Ouma who wasn’t all this: a paranoid mess, a babbling child on the ground, a killing game participant—
(a murderer)
—and it sounds like an escape. Every other part of his rationale is screaming don’t but the begging, screaming part of him that wants to just leave consumes all of that.
He thinks he says please.
Danganronpa plays on the TV in the common room from morning to curfew. Kokichi doesn’t know if it’s another one of the doctors’ therapy tactics or just some sick joke (he wouldn’t put it past them). Most of the time it’s muted—the one bit of mercy the doctors give them—but he steals a couple of glances out of the corner of his eye from time to time and it’s enough to make him feel queasy for the rest of the day. He mostly solves milk puzzles in the corner of the room surrounded by plush armchairs, ignored by most of his classmates that pass by. He’s tried to throw out a couple teasing comments, his usual type of banter from the game accompanied with his trademark shit-eating grin that would get everyone riled up—but they glance at him with looks of fear or nervousness and hurriedly walk away. He doesn’t mind. It means he gets the puzzles to himself.
(It means it’s easier to keep up the facade)
If it were up to him, he’d just stash all the puzzles and puzzle books in his room and never come out, like a hermit. Nobody would notice anyway, and it’d be more convenient. But there’s a rule that says nothing outside can be taken into their rooms. He needs the puzzles to keep himself busy, to keep his thoughts at bay, so he needs (needs) to be out here. Kokichi thinks that it’s either another one of their therapy tactics, or the more morbid alternative: so they don’t hurt themselves with anything in the privacy of their rooms. There’s cameras out here but not in there. A strange way to value their privacy, considering everything else.
The latter is probably the true reason. There’s nothing in the rooms except for a bed, pillows, sheets, and a chair. Not even windows, not even a bathroom (the bathrooms here are communal, and Kokichi showers as quickly as possible on the days he has the energy for it). Not even a ceiling light that you can hang yourself from. Boring.
It’s not as if sharing a common space will help break the icy silence hanging over them all. There’s a few that mutter quietly amongst themselves or play silent games of chess or monopoly. On rare occasions, there’ll be a burst of laughter and it’ll be extinguished within seconds like a flame without oxygen. Laughter has no place in an atmosphere of despair, he thinks.
Surprisingly, the most extroverted people from the game—Kaede and Kaito—are the ones that never come out of their rooms. Not even for meals, because you can chose to have your meals in the common rooms or in your room with a nurse observing you—and apparently they prefer the company of faceless hospital employees rather than those they considered friends in the game. Kokichi wonders if that’s because they decided to remember, too.
Nobody talks about it. Who’s remembered, who hasn’t. But he hasn’t lost his touch for observation, and it’s pretty plain to see who’s changed and who hasn’t. When Gonta flips the monopoly board over, he apologizes but doesn’t mention anything about trying to be a gentleman. Ryoma and Korekiyo play chess regularly but they talk about other things—cats, mainly, and Kokichi doesn’t think Korekiyo’s ever shown a liking for animals at Hope’s Peak Academy. And Kirumi’s become a strange but fitting addition to the small circle of friends Angie’s built around herself, consisting of Tenko, and strangely enough, Miu. A different Miu, one who’s still boisterous and vulgar but with a new layer of confidence added to her, who is actually the liveliest out of all of them. Kokichi doesn’t know why she hasn’t chosen to be discharged from the hospital yet like Rantaro, who apparently left ages ago. He supposes (a little bitterly) that after four rounds of this, everything starts to look the same anyway. He supposes that Rantaro didn’t give enough of a shit about them to stick around and see each of them wake up.
He wonders if anyone’s noticed the difference in him. He doesn’t talk as much as he used to, doesn’t stick his nose in everything anymore but that’s mostly because he’s clearly unwanted. Apparently no amount of memories regained will ever convince the rest of them that he’s maybe deserving of forgiveness. And that’s fine. He still teases them (attempts to, anyway) when they pass by, and what’s not different is that everything that falls from his lips is still a lie.
Ryoma comes up to talk to him, once, the first or second day after Kokichi’s joined the rest of them. And he knows it won’t end well when he sees the clear shine of pity in Ryoma’s beady little eyes.
“It was kind of amazing, what you did before you died. We all saw it.” There’s a thoughtful pause. “I was a coward during the game, and you weren’t, even when it came down you just you verses Monokuma. Even when you were being a shit and nobody liked you. I admire you for that.”
But it’s not admiration in Ryoma’s eyes, it’s pity. And here’s another thing that hasn’t changed: Kokichi hates liars.
“Wow, what a compliment!” Kokichi exclaims. “But aw, sorry Ryoma, but I’m gonna have to stop you because you’re very very wrong.” He lets the grin drop from his face entirely. “I didn’t do it for the game, I didn’t do it for the people. I wanted to win. So kindly fuck off.”
Ryoma doesn’t react visibly but he does move away. He doesn’t come back. He clenches the puzzle piece in his hand and feels it dig into his skin. He squeezes it harder.
Kokichi hates liars.
Danganronpa season 53 comes to an end, and four more students are rolled into the hospital. None of them see it happen, but there is a small viewing party that gathers in front of the TV while the ‘season finale’ is being aired.
They cheer when Tsumugi is defeated, but there’s a sort of muted-ness to it, a question hanging in the air. Kokichi knows what it is, because he asks himself the same question when he can’t fall asleep sometimes because the sleeping pills they give him don’t work, or when he’s thrown awake in the middle of the night by his own screams.
What’s next?
He doesn’t watch the big reveal, just sits in the corner with his milk puzzles as usual while he tries to block out the noise from the TV. Tsumugi’s wild laughter and Shuichi’s attempts to throw her off-logic—it’s been a long time since he’s heard that voice, and something inside him squeezes, hard. Not the good kind, the kind he can handle—like when Maki clenched her fingers around his throat or when Kaito dug his nails into the scruff of his shirt. It’s the kind that twists your intestines until it feels like they’re doing acrobatics in there.
He wants to throw up. He does. He coughs and gags over the brim of the toilet, hands trembling on the checkerboard bathroom tiles. For a while, he stays like that, coughing and shaking on the bathroom floor as shudders rack his body. Only when someone steps into the stall beside him does he pull himself up and drag himself out, grinning all the while. Drags himself to the armchairs in front of the milk puzzles where TV-Shuichi could probably catch him in his periphery if he was really looking.
He isn’t though. No one is.
A few days later, they wake up. Kokichi knows they do when he hears the cheers from beyond the door of his room, because everyone who was a survivor was really, really loved.
Do the most likable characters always live to the end? Kokichi thinks there’s probably a statistic of that online somewhere.
He slips out after a little bit, when the cheers and excited chattering fades into a quiet sort of familiarity, with casual conversation finally louder than the volume of a whisper. Shuichi is the first one to notice him (of course), and his eyes go wide.
“Um, hi, Kokichi.” Shuichi stutters through the words like he’s learning conversation for the first time, and Kokichi can kind of relate. He wouldn’t know what to say to himself, either. Considering Shuichi looks dead on his feet, though, he’s doing pretty well. “Did you… want to join us?”
He gestures to the monopoly board. Gonta, Himiko, and Angie are crowded around it too, and they don’t look at him. Kokichi doesn’t look at them.
“Oh wow, Shuichi! You’re here!” Kokichi grins. “And still as nice as ever, I guess. But no thanks, monopoly’s boring.” He scampers to the other side of the room and grabs a couple milk puzzle boxes and dashes back towards his room. The nurses will take it away from him at dinner time but fuck it. “See ya!” he calls to a bewildered-looking Shuichi.
That’s Shuichi’s normal reaction to him and his antics, a lot more normal than the outright cold shoulder everyone else has been giving him. He has to work hard to suppress a round of snickering, or maybe a sob of relief.
Like he predicted, they force him and his puzzles out of his room after dinnertime. Luckily, it’s just the sight he’s become so familiar with nowadays. Ryoma and Korekiyo playing chess in the corner, Angie showing Kirumi something on a piece of paper, Tenko and Miu talking with animated hand motions. No Maki, no Himiko, no Shuichi, and definitely no Tsumugi. Her presence would be more unwelcome than his, and that’s saying something.
The night drags on. The bell for curfew doesn’t ring tonight—because the show (killing game) is over, Kokichi thinks. The others head off to their respective rooms eventually; Kokichi’s positive he hears Ryoma mutter a ‘good night’ to him as he passes, but he doesn’t have the will to look up and glare at him and keeps his eyes glued to the puzzle. Even after they leave, and even after his eyes begin to sting.
It’s weird that he falls asleep. He’s gone so many nights without sleep before that he practically doesn’t sleep unless he really really wants to—but not tonight. As if some chord of tension has finally unraveled, cutting the string keeping him drawn up and letting his consciousness fall to the floor.
What’s weird is that he wakes up with a hand on his back, and Shuichi staring down at him with a concerned frown.
Oh, he thinks, feeling the beads of cold sweat on his back and the breaths heaving from his chest. Oh.
“Are you okay?” Shuichi says, and it pisses him off because he sounds genuine. “I heard—”
“Aw, Shuichi, you care!” Kokichi exclaims. “I know I’m very tempting, but no unwanted touching. They have cameras you know!”
Shuichi pulls his hand back quickly, and the blush of his face is faintly visible in the dark. “S-sorry, that’s not what I, I wouldn’t do that!”
He’s missed this. Kokichi hums thoughtfully before darting out a hand to poke Shuichi’s cheek. The grey bags under his eyes this afternoon have faded, at least, even if color hasn’t returned to his face yet. If color had even been there at all. Shuichi’s always been pretty pale.
Shuichi starts. “What was that for?”
“I get to touch you back, of course! Want me to do it again?”
“N-no?”
“Aw, disappointing.” Kokichi hops down from his chair. “This has been lots of fun and all, but I guess we better go to sleep.”
“I heard you scream.”
Kokichi stops. He’d known Shuichi had grown a lot from his first debut as a scared, meek detective, but he had underestimated how much he’d grow since Kaito’s ‘death.’ Since Kaito wasn’t around to back him up with confident assertions. “Great!” he says, turning back to Shuichi with a smile on his face. “I hope you enjoyed the show then.”
“It wasn’t much of a-...” Shuichi trails off, then finally meets his gaze. “I’m saying it again: are you okay?”
“It’s just a dream,” Kokichi huffs. “I’m not a baby, I know when things aren’t real.”
“And that’s why you figured it out first. The killing game.”
Thrown off-guard again. “If that’s what you want to think,” he says after a moment. “Anyway, I appreciate your concern, but I’m a big boy now, don’t worry~”
He gets away with a few steps before Shuichi speaks up again: “You got your memories back, didn’t you?”
Thrown for a third time. That’s Shuichi for you. “Sorry? I’m the same ol’ me, if that’s what you’re talking about. Liar, leader, remnant of despair—”
“That’s a lie,” Shuichi says. And it stings, having his own phrase thrown back in his face at such a suitable moment. Kokichi falls silent.
The detective continues. “You’ve been acting off since this afternoon. And I’ve been talking with the others, they’ve told me some facts that only point to you having changed. And there’s only one reason why.”
“You don’t know that,” Kokichi retorts.
“Maybe not. But you do.”
Shuichi’s not stupid, he knew that from the beginning, but have other people noticed, too? Have they been suspecting his charade this whole time? He’s losing it. He’s been losing it this entire time.
“I didn’t want my memories back.”
Kokichi, still reeling, doesn’t respond. But he listens as Shuichi continues, “I saw the clip of my past self, the interview he did… I realized that I wasn’t a good person. I saw him on the screen and he… he was disgusting. Revolting, even. And I didn’t want to be that person,”
“But I kind of… regret it now. Even after everything, I’m still running away from the truth, in a sense. Seeing everyone, especially the people that’ve changed, maybe I should’ve—”
“Easy for you to say,” Kokichi spits, and even he’s surprised how much venom is laced in his voice. Shuichi doesn’t even flinch, just keeps a measured gaze on him. “You don’t have to be carrying this weak thing inside you, this burden that won’t let you be how you were before. Even if Supreme Leader Kokichi Ouma was a horrible human being, at least he didn’t need—”
He barks out a laugh. “Are you listening to me? Danganronpa Kokichi would’ve never said all that. He would’ve hidden it till the end. This—” Kokichi jabs a finger at his own throat, at the tremble in his voice, “This is what I wanted to get away from when I auditioned in the first place. But now it’s back and it’s weak and I’m stuck with trying to be a liar when I can’t even do it right.”
A sob spills from his mouth and as if it’s a signal, the floodgates open; he finds himself having to be ushered into a nearby sofa by Shuichi as he buries his face in his sleeves, leaving behind dark, wet splotches on the fabric of his hospital gown. “For a little bit, I wasn’t weak,” he says, voice muffled. “I was a supreme leader and the world was my plaything. A part of me is saying it still is but that part’s just a lie from some dumb show. The parts of me that aren’t utterly pathetic are just some lie.”
His sobs come in stuttered gasps from the throes of his lungs. A pretty guttural sound, even to his own ears. That goes on for a few heartbeats before he feels the seat next to him sink down a little, and a now-familiar hand on his back. It pats him tentatively, awkwardly even, as if it’s not quite sure what to do with itself. Classic Shuichi. It makes him feel a little less like shit, and his shudders dissolve into soft hiccups.
Shuichi scoots a little closer when he finally stops trembling. He can feel the boy’s side pressing against his, giving warmth to the emptiness in the space beside him. “I don’t think it’s weak to need people. Or comfort. Or trust.” He pauses. “You didn’t finish your sentence from before, so I don’t know which one it is but. I can guess.”
Kokichi laughs. It’s a wobbly sound. “You’ve always been pretty good at that, Shuichi.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Kokichi can hear the smile in his voice and again, it makes him feel a little less like that. Shuichi, it seems, is good at a number of things.
“It’s pretty pathetic when you want people and comfort and you can never get it. Did you know I didn’t have any friends before Danganronpa? Even myself in the game, he didn’t trust anyone and somehow managed to… Me? I can’t talk at all. Or, couldn’t at least.”
“What friends did you have in the game?”
“Gonta, but I guess he was everyone’s friend.” He pauses. “You. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Shuichi shifts a little closer, his arm completely wrapping around Kokichi’s shoulders. “I was. And I still am. And… well, we’re talking.”
“...Yeah.” And his voice is smaller than anything Supreme Leader Kokichi ever said in the game, even while being grabbed at the neck, even while dying of poison. It’s weak. But it’s him.
…
They stay there for a long time.