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She doesn’t wake up for months.
No one does, for awhile, but he wasn’t upset about that. The only thing that mattered was her waking up.
The pods were all in a circle around the main hub that the Neo-World Program, both victims and blackened surrounding it, looking as though they were sleeping peacefully.
Fuyuhiko sat next to Peko’s pod every day, to the point where the others were starting to get worried about him. Sometimes it would seem like she’d moved, even though that wasn’t possible- his eyes were just playing cruel tricks on him. He talked to her sometimes too, but that felt weird most of the time, so he ended up just being in her company most of the time.
Hajime joined him every once in awhile. It was sort of unspoken that he was going to be the ‘leader’ among them. He was the most level-headed, since he had a little bit of Izuru in him still, and his logical thoughts almost freaked Fuyuhiko out some of the time. He was so different than he’d been in the simulation. But really, everyone was different. Those were different people.
The days were long. Sometimes he’d talk to Peko, and tell her how things were going. “You know,” he’d tell her, “Sonia decided she wants to learn to cook. She’s never had to because of all that princess shit. It’s kinda funny. I think you’d laugh.”
He wished she would wake up and laugh. Or just stare. It didn’t really matter. It had been such a long time since he’d seen her eyes.
****
“You should really eat something,” Hajime said, feet kicked up on a stool he’d brought in from his cottage.
Fuyuhiko was leaning his elbows on his knees, watching Peko’s still face. “I ate this morning.”
“I meant eating with everyone else, in the hotel,” Hajime said gently, “It would probably be good for you to have some conversation.”
“We talk.”
“Yeah, we do.” Hajime said, “But I talk to Kazuichi too, and Sonia and Akane go do girl stuff together. You don’t really hang out with us.”
“You miss Chiaki, don’t you?” Fuyuhiko snapped suddenly, looking over at Hajime with a sort of anger he wasn’t sure even he understood.
Hajime’s eyebrows went up and his face took on a bit of a shield. For a moment, Fuyuhiko felt guilty for bringing her up and almost took it back, but Hajime answered his question anyway.
“Of course I miss Chiaki,” he said softly, looking away from Fuyuhiko. “I miss her every day.”
“So you’re saying if she was in a pod right now, you wouldn’t spend every moment with her until she woke up?”
Hajime blew out his cheeks. “I can’t say that I would or wouldn’t, but Chiaki wanted us to move forward. She would’ve… Probably yelled at me, to the best of her ability, if I spent all my time by her side when she wasn’t awake to know I was there.”
Fuyuhiko let out a short laugh. “I can’t imagine her yelling at anyone.”
Hajime laughed too, though it was weaker. “Yeah. Me either.”
****
Though he didn’t like it, Fuyuhiko took Hajime’s advice to heart and started spending time with the others. They didn’t seem to know how to handle it first, and Akane specifically asked him what his deal was, but he just laughed them off and tried to act as normal as possible.
But then people started waking up.
Gundham woke up first, shouting about the Dark Lord never being fully able to die, but he softened up real quick when Sonia started crying. Fuyuhiko looked away when he offered her a hug, feeling a stab of pain go through him. He noticed Hajime left the room.
Hiyoko and Ibuki were next, both of them disoriented and Ibuki far quieter than usual. Hiyoko called two people stupid once she woke up, so at least one of them was normal.
Fuyuhiko fell into his old habits when the others started coming out of their comas, sitting by Peko and praying to God she’d be the next one up.
Nagito woke up.
Nekomaru woke up.
Mikan woke up, apologizing.
Byakuya woke up, though none of them could say with one hundred percent certainty what his real name was.
Hajime left each event earlier. Fuyuhiko stayed later.
Mahiru and Teru Teru woke up too, leaving just Peko. And Mahiru was too nice to him about the whole damn thing for him to even yell at her or say something snarky. She should hate him, after all.
But more than anything, Fuyuhiko didn’t understand the order of things. Peko was the strongest person he knew, and he knew she could pull herself out of this. So why wasn’t she?
A few more days passed, and Hajime started bringing him food instead of arguing that he should be hanging out with the others. If anyone got it, it was Hajime. He went on lots of long walks by himself for hours, after all.
“You know, you should probably wake up soon,” Fuyuhiko said softly one night when it was far too late for him to even be up. “I can’t do this much longer on my own, Kazuichi is driving me fuckin’ crazy since Gundham woke up. He’s loud as shit.”
He heard a huff from beneath the glass.
His eyes grew wide. “Peko?”
The pressurized inside of the pod disengaged and the glass on the pod slid back. Fuyuhiko didn’t even breathe for several moments, leaning forward to stare into her face. After a few moments, she opened her eyes, staring up at him.
Fuyuhiko felt himself tearing up. “Peko?”
She blinked, opening and closing her mouth. She sat up a little, struggling to support herself. “Young master?”
Unable to help himself, he sat next to her on the bed and pulled her into a loose hug so she could get out if she wanted to. She was stiff in his arms for a couple moments, then wrapped her arms around his waist, settling her cheek against his chest.
“Do you remember what happened?” He asked her.
She nodded against his chest. “Everything.”
He let out a shaky sigh and pulled back to look at her, still holding onto her shoulders. Peko’s arms were still around him as well, and once she got a good look at him, she reached up and touched the skin under his eye with delicate fingers. He’d almost forgotten that his eye, or Junko’s eye, rather, had been removed from the socket, and he was actually needing to wear an eye patch again.
“Is it gone?” Peko asked softly.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s gone.”
She snatched her hands back suddenly and sat up a little straighter. “My apologies, young master, I seem to have overstepped-”
“Nah, you can cut that shit out,” he said softly, cutting her off. “I don’t want you to call me that. Not anymore. You and me, we’re equals.”
She nodded, though she seemed unsure. “Then would it be alright… If I hugged you again?”
He didn’t even answer, just pulled her up against him once more. She sighed almost inaudibly and hugged him as tight as her feeble muscles would let her. Fuyuhiko wasn’t sure what he had expected from their reunion after all this time, but this was the best possible outcome, in his opinion.
“Do you want anything? Like some water, or something to eat? Or maybe you want to go back to sleep?”
She shook her head. “No. I want to get up.”
“Okay, yeah, we can do that. I can help, if you want. We could go down to the beach?”
“We’re on a beach?”
“Yeah. Jabberwock island. It’s real, we were just on a… Virtual one. I’ll explain later.”
She was wearing a thick grey nightgown, so Fuyuhiko didn’t ask her if she wanted to change, but he helped her to her feet and helped her drape one arm around his neck. Their height difference actually made it easier for her to lean against him. He led her down to the beach slowly, hoping no one else would see them. He wanted her to himself for a little while longer.
Peko sighed when they got out into the sun. She stopped walking and tilted her head back, letting the sunlight kiss her face. Fuyuhiko watched her, once more in awe of her. Not that he ever really stopped feeling that way. After a few moments, she felt him staring at her and glanced down at him, blushing lightly.
“I’m sorry,” She said, “Let’s keep walking.”
“No, we can stay still if you want to. I don’t mind. You don’t have to worry about what I want anymore, you know.”
“Ah… I’m not sure I can do that.”
She looked a little unsure, and he watched her for another few seconds. “Man, I fuckin’ missed you.”
She blushed, rather uncharacteristically, but Fuyuhiko thought it was cute, so he didn’t want to say anything drawing attention to it. Instead they just kept walking, down to the beach, and Peko started to direct him towards the water.
“Whoa, be careful,” he reached around to take her hand that was farthest from him. They were very close now. “Your muscles probably aren’t what they used to be.”
She sighed. “No, they aren’t.”
“Hey, don’t be discouraged. Nekomaru was bedridden for a day before he could get up. You’re already doing better than him.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” Peko said softly, as though she hadn’t heard his last words at all. “In the end, I wanted to save you. I wasn’t expecting you to come after me, during the execution. It… Surprised me.”
“Well, you would’ve done the same for me.”
“Of course.”
He knew what she meant- he knew she was sincere. She would’ve done it for him even if she hadn’t been a tool. They’d been friends before her training, they’d grown up together. “No, like, I mean… Shit, I mean if I’d done it, killed Mahiru, it would’ve been to protect you.”
“My life is not that-”
“Peko, I would die for you.”
She blinked hard, like she hadn’t expected that and didn’t know if she could believe it or not. He kept eye contact with her so she would know that he was serious.
“Forgive me, young master, I think it would be best if I sat for a moment. I’m getting dizzy.”
“Hey, you don’t have to say sorry,” he replied, helping her to sit on the sand. She let out a sigh and sagged forward a bit once she was sitting.
He shifted a little uncomfortably next to her. “I… I would get if you don’t wanna be around me anymore, you don’t have to, but if you do, you don’t have to call me that shit. Just Fuyuhiko is fine.”
She turned wide eyes upon him. “Why would I not want to be around you?”
“Uh…” He hadn’t expected this question. “Uh, well, I mean, you were basically forced to hang around me and serve me. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do that.”
“Can I do that and still be around you?”
“Yeah! Yes! I just, uh, I don’t want you to think you owe me anything, or, shit, I don’t know, I just don’t want you to feel trapped.”
She dug her toes into the sand. “I don’t.”
“Okay, yeah… Good.”
“I feel… Happy, I think.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” She cocked her head to the side. “I am also aware that we have done many awful things. I want to feel worse about that. For now, I think I am just happy to be alive.”
He shoved the toe of his shoe into the sand, watching it intently and trying not to smile. Peko didn’t often speak of how she felt, mostly because his parents hadn’t wanted her to feel anything, so it was nice to not have to guess what she was feeling.
“Hey, I wanna say sorry.”
She turned surprised eyes onto him. “What for?”
“For not sticking up for you more, when we were kids. For not forcing my parents to understand that I never wanted a tool. Because I… I meant it, you know, what I said before…” He heaved a deep sigh. “I just wanted you.”
Her gaze softened. “You do not have to apologize for that. When we were the ultimate despair, we were equal, I suppose.”
“We were also killing people.”
She leaned closer to him. “We were killing people before that too.”
He laughed. “I guess you’ve got me there. God, we were fuckin’ stupid, huh?”
Peko rested her chin on her knees, looking out over the ocean. “Hm. I think… Perhaps, there is more to it then our intelligence level.”
He nudged her shoulder with his. “Do you… Do you forgive me though?”
She looked over at him again. “I would have given my life for you. Not just because you were my master.”
That took him by surprise. “I never wanted that.”
“Not wanting it doesn’t make it any less true. I very much would’ve done it. I did, in fact.”
“That’s because-”
“Not because I felt an obligation,” She said firmly. “I did not.”
They sat in silence for a bit, just listening to the ocean and watching it. Fuyuhiko wanted to say something else, anything. He’d been sitting and waiting for her to wake up so he could talk to her. Tell her, you idiot, his mind screamed at him. He looked over at her, watching her, curled up in a ball. She was so perfect. He should tell her that, right? He sighed and looked away from her again.
“I feel like we’re both dancin’ around the real question,” He said. “I care about you. A lot. I don’t wanna live without you.”
“I-”
“I want to be with you in whatever way that looks like. I don’t want you as a tool, I want you as my partner in crime- or, no, let’s not do anymore crime.” He knew he was rambling now, but he couldn’t stop. “I just want you to know that I don’t know when I fell in love with you, I just know that I did and to be honest I think I might actually die without you. Doing life without you… In the simulation… Even if there weren’t any more murders, that was the hardest shit I’ve ever had to do.”
She didn’t seem to know what to say, so his mouth caught up with the nervousness of his brain and he kept talking.
“Shit, I didn’t mean to put on that pressure on you, that’s super uncool. You don’t have to answer right now, or ever, really. I’m okay with us just spending time together in whatever way possible, we can just… Yeah.”
She laughed. It was a real laugh, one that came from her gut, one that he hadn’t heard since they were kids. After a few moments, it died down, but he felt the reverberations of it for hours.
“That was… Very nice.” She looked at him, smiling. “I do feel… Strong feelings for you, as well. I never knew how to place them, and I was always told they were wrong. I suppose I am in love with you. I don’t know how to do that.”
“However you do it is the right way,” he said softly, ignoring how his heart was exploding and putting itself back together all at once. He scooted a little closer to her. “Cause for the first time… We get to be us.”
She smiled. “Us.” She seemed tired all of a sudden, or maybe just content. She leaned against him, head on his shoulder. “It will take some… Getting used to. I am very used to serving you.”
“I’ll be… Ahem,” he cleared his throat, “Serving you, every once in awhile. You deserve that.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that.”
“I’ll just have to prove it to you.” He tilted his cheek against her head. “I’m so glad you woke up.”
“Me too.”
The others flooded the beach then, pulling both Peko and Fuyuhiko to their feet and chattering loudly. Ibuki was crying the loudest, hanging onto Peko, and Peko didn’t seem quite sure how to react or where to put her hands. She was graceful with everyone who approached her, trying not to show too much emotion, it looked like, and finally, Mahiru stood before her.
“I’m sorry,” Peko said, her voice strong.
“We all did what we thought we had to,” Mahiru replied, and gestured to everyone. “There’s no blame on this beach.”
Peko’s eyes welled up with tears then, and she turned back to Fuyuhiko. They became the center of a massive, very loud group hug, and Peko was crying harder than he’d ever heard her cry. But that was okay. They were all going to be okay.