Work Text:
The knock at his cottage door startled Kazuichi so much that he yelped, the screws he was holding between his teeth scattering to the floor, and the screwdriver in his hands falling into the depths of his disassembled air-conditioning unit.
“Shit!” He muttered, grasping at air as he dropped pretty much everything he was holding.
It’s been months since he and the others had awoken from the Neo-World Program, but no matter how many therapy sessions he attended, a wave of paranoia always managed to wash over him whenever a knock sounded at his door or if someone snuck up on him. It didn’t help that he was a rather nervous person to begin with.
He raised his arm and wiped the sweat from his brow and stretched his back, hearing the bones in his spine crack unhealthily after being hunched over his current project for hours.
“Coming…” He called out.
He debated putting on a shirt but decided against it. Despite it being October, it was still too fucking hot, especially since his AC was currently in a million different pieces on his workbench.
He had been trying for hours, trying to figure out how to increase the unit’s power level. With the amount of nightmares he experienced at night, he awoke many mornings in a pool of his own sweat. And since he didn’t know when or if the nightmares would fade, he might as well try to make the aftermath of them less uncomfortable. But he never thought it’d be giving him this much trouble.
What the fuck even happened to his Ultimate Mechanic talent? This should have been easy.
Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and tightening his ponytail, he nervously made his way to the door, eyeing the baseball bat he kept beside it to assure him that it was there… just in case.
He began making work of the many locks, taking deep breaths to calm his nerves. He should really work to create a peep-hole on his door at some point but that was another job for another day.
Pausing once more, he finally opened the door to find…
“Miss Sonia?”
The Ultimate Princess smiled warmly at him and held up her hand in a friendly wave. Suddenly, all of his anxiety just faded away.
“Why, hello, Kazuichi. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Uh… No, not at all,” He blinked at her. This was probably the first time she’s ever visited his room, ever. To say he was surprised would be an understatement.
He looked her up and down. He couldn’t help it. Her beauty astounded him every single time he saw her that it was almost an instinct to take in the sight of her.
She looked just as poised and perfect as ever. However, he could see a few bags collecting beneath her pale blue eyes, as well as something else that was missing from her appearance that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He refrained from mentioning his notices of change.
“Can I… help you with anything?”
“Yes, actually. Do you mind if I come in?”
He almost forgot to reply, he was so dumbfounded, “Y-Yeah, totally,” Before gesturing her to come inside. Closing the door behind her, he spoke once more, “S-Sorry about the heat. I was working on it.”
She held up her hands to silence him, “No worries. I welcome the heat nowadays.”
Kazuichi frowned, suddenly reminded of one of their earlier group therapy sessions, when she revealed her tendency to get uncontrollably chilly whenever her anxiety spiked. They were opposites in that regard…
“W-W-Well, what can I help you with?”
Sitting primly on the edge of his bed, she reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a tarnished blue brooch. He recognized it as the one that usually held the bowtie on her collar together.
So, that was the difference he noticed.
She held the gem in her hand with a solemn expression on her face, “It’s my brooch… It was a birthday gift from my family when I was a little girl,” She fiddled with it in her hands a bit, “If you press this button up here,” click, “It reveals a tiny clock on the inside, you see?”
Sonia held up the piece of jewelry up for him to see. Kazuichi adjusted his glasses once more and leaned in to look at it. Hidden within the scuffed silver was a beautifully-crafted watch, just as she said. The delicately thin arms of the clock pointed to the Roman numerals lining the edges. The background was engraved with the official seal of her home-kingdom of Novoselic.
The jewel in combination with the clockwork made for one of the most beautiful pieces of machinery he had ever laid his eyes on. However…
“It’s not ticking,” Kazuichi pointed out.
“Yes, and I was hoping if maybe you could help me fix it.”
She extended her arm further, encouraging him to take it from her. Once he held the brooch in his hand, he looked at the time it had stopped on: 9:42. Whether it stopped in the morning or at night was unknown.
From there, he glanced at the clock hanging on his cottage room wall.
Whether it stopped in the morning or at night was irrelevant. What mattered now was the fact that it was currently 7:27 in the evening, meaning it had stopped ticking hours ago.
“Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
“I…” Color rose on her cheeks and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. She evaded her eyes from him. She looked like she was on the brink of tears.
With that expression alone, he knew the answer to his previous question. Anxiety, fear, the very same reasons he had a hard time leaving his own room.
He suddenly regretted asking her, heart aching at the thought of him causing her any unnecessary pain.
Kazuichi closed his hand over the brooch.
“I’ll fix it.”
“Really?” Sonia perked up. Her eyes held back joyous tears as she rose to her feet, clapping her hands together.
“Of course. It shouldn’t take very long, if you want to stick around. It just looks like it needs a new battery and I think I have once it might need lying around here somewhere.”
She reached up and clasped her hands over his, the very hand he was holding her jewel in.
“I cannot begin to describe how grateful I am for this.”
“Anything for you,” He gulped, eyes locked on their connected hands, “L-L-Like I said, it should only take me a little while, if you wanted to make yourself comfortable.”
She nodded and returned to where she was previously seated on his bed.
He took a moment before moving to work on the watch in his hand. He rifled through his many drawers, trying desperately to find where he stored his batteries.
“I… I truly appreciate this, Kazuichi. This brooch… means a lot to me.”
“I understand,” He responded, sifting through a random junk drawer, but alas, nothing turned up.
“Like I mentioned before, it was a birthday gift from my parents. It’s… one of the only things I have left… to remember them by on his island.”
That made him pause.
Kazuichi pursed his lips, and a sick feeling resembling jealousy began brewing in his chest, making the muscles in his heart feel tight.
He wished he had something from home too. Something to remember his old life by, the life before the Neo-World Program, the life before the Tragedy, the life before Junko Enoshima.
Unfortunately, he had nothing. He only had his memories, of his old friends who abandoned him, of his family’s bike-shop, of his old man.
He shook his head. No. This wasn’t about him. This was about Sonia. Sure, he didn’t have anything precious to him on this island, but that didn’t mean he could take away something precious from her, no matter how jealous he was.
“Then, I’ll try to get it fixed up right away.”
“I don’t typically use it to tell the time but it does make the most delightful ticking noise.”
He hummed, just listening to her talk. The way her voice exuded such a level of passion and enthusiasm made his heart soar. He swore he could listen to her talk about what made her happy all day.
“I know a lot of people might find the ticking to be annoying, but for some reason, I find it to be rather relaxing.”
Humming once more, he opened yet another drawer to find a sandwich bag full of various batteries. Ah-ha! Pulling one out, he approached his workbench and finally began tinkering with the device.
“When I realized it had stopped ticking, I couldn’t sleep. The silence became too loud. I hadn’t realized how dependent I had become on it until it was gone. It’s silly, isn’t it?”
He stopped unfastening the screw on the back of her brooch.
“It’s not silly,” He answered, voice stern.
While he didn’t look up, he could still feel her eyes on him. He heard a shaky inhale come from where she was seated and he wondered if she was crying. But he didn’t dare look up. He didn’t want to stop working on this brooch for a single second. The sooner she got it back, the better.
“I…” Her trembling voice sounded after a while, “I miss them… a lot. My parents…”
He bit his lip to keep it from quivering, “Me too.”
“I wish… I knew if they were okay.”
“Me too,” He repeated.
They were told in therapy about the mind’s tendency to repress memories in response to immense amounts of trauma. For them and many of their other classmates, their memories of their days as members of the Ultimate Despair were full of holes.
It was both a blessing and a curse.
While it was nice not remembering all the terrible things they did, it left them with a lot of questions that may never be answered.
“I mean,” Kazuichi could hear Sonia openly crying now. He continued to keep his head down. He couldn’t bear to see her cry, “We were told some of us killed our parents… What if I—”
“Sonia.”
The lack of honorifics caught her off guard.
“We have to have hope… that they’re still out there… waiting for us…” He spoke slowly, holding back his own tears with all his might… for her sake.
“Kazuichi…”
“Here,” He slowly approached where she was sitting on the bed and knelt in front of her. He began delicately pinning the brooch to her bow-tie, right where it was supposed to be.
They both sat in silence, listening to the gentle tick of the clock together.
Without any warning, Sonia leaned forward, throwing her arms around his neck in a warm embrace.
“Thank you… Thank you so much…” She sobbed.
He wrapped his own arms around her and took a deep breath, closing his eyes, cherishing the moment.
“Anytime.”
When she eventually let go of him, she began wiping her tears from her face. She exhaled, composing herself as if she had done so hundreds of times before. Within moments, she was back to her normal self.
“Alright, that is enough wallowing in sorrow,” Sonia rose to her feet. Kazuichi followed soon after, “Kazuichi, do you…” She paused, a bit of blush rising on her cheeks, “Would you like to accompany me to dinner?”
He gaped at her. That was the last thing he expected to hear her say to him, “I… I… Y-Yeah… Sure. Of course, I… I-I’d just have to get cleaned up first,” He spluttered in response.
“Why, of course,” She sat back down on the bed and crossed one leg over the other, smoothing out her dress, “Now, make haste. It is impolite to keep a girl waiting, especially on her birthday.”
Kazuichi’s eyes bulged out of his head and he froze in place, “T… Today’s your b-birthday?”
“It is, and I crave a nice delicious burger and a milkshake from the diner. Now, if you will,” She shooed him with her hands.
“Y-Y-Yes, Princess,” He automatically turned on his heal and began getting ready for his date with the girl of his dreams.