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It’s chilly outside when Sonia steps out of her cottage, and the cobblestones are scattered with pale grains of sand, such that every step she takes sends uncomfortable shivers up her legs, but she doesn’t turn and head back. She just grips her elbows tighter and quickens her pace, moving around the pool and keeping the restaurant in her sights the entire time.
She isn’t sure what time it is. There isn’t a clock in her cottage, and she left her student handbook behind in a rush to get out. Perhaps she should’ve taken it, but, Sonia worries that if she turns around and goes back, she’ll get caught up in all the shadows that dance in her room.
Ghh. She should’ve at least brought the Dark Devas with her. They’ll probably be confused as to why she’s leaving so quickly, and their presence would probably be stabilising right now, in the way that the large, empty restaurant won’t. They remind her of Gundham, also, but the difference between them and the restaurant is that the Devas are warm, and they have small, compassionate eyes, and they remind her of what she still has (them) rather than what she’s lost (almost everything else). Sonia doesn’t even know why she’s going to the restaurant in particular, it’s not as though seeing that photo of Gundham making a sand castle is going to help her shake off the memory of her nightmare, but perhaps she can find something to eat.
…
Eating reminds her of him, too. Of his sacrifice. Sonia clenches her teeth and steps inside, moving past the benches and the arcade machines, and then mounts the stairs, her hand shaking as it ghosts over the railing. The railing is cold too, and the fabric of the stairs is rough under her bare feet. Perhaps she should take to sleeping with socks on, if this is a thing that’s going to happen. It isn’t as though Sonia usually goes places when she has nightmares-- usually she just reassures herself that it was a nightmare and then falls back asleep-- but tonight she just had to get out, away from all the ghosts, from all the memories, and who knows, perhaps that will remain consistent from here on out.
Ugh, though. Sonia enters the restaurant. It’s too late at night for there to be food laid out yet. Sonia steps into the kitchen, looking around wildly, and then leans herself against the counter. She baked in here with all the other girls, back before everyone was dead. She can almost see Mahiru at the counter, guiding them through the instructions, or Ibuki, making that miniature version of herself. The memory makes Sonia laugh, but the sound is warbled, and there are tears in her eyes.
God. She misses everybody, not just Gundham-- but at least last night, when they were trapped in the Funhouse, Gundham would’ve been here to talk to her. Tell her some story about Heaven and Hell, and how he knows they’re all watching over her, as a Supreme Overlord of Ice tends to do. Sonia presses her hand against her eyes. She should really just grab a box of cereal.
The kitchen light flicks on, pale and yellow, and Sonia startles, turning around. For a moment she almost expects it to be Gundham, but, it isn’t. Gundham is dead. And it’s Chiaki who’s standing in the doorway, wrapped in a pink blanket, her hair tied out of her face in a messy little braid.
Chiaki doesn’t say anything, she just looks at Sonia for a moment, her head tilted. This is par for the course for Chiaki, but Sonia doesn’t even know what to say, how to explain why she’s in here, crying over people who she’ll never see again. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, but whatever words she could say just end up drying out on her tongue, and so Sonia holds it, furrowing her brow a little bit and blinking back tears.
Eventually, Chiaki says at length, “You should help me make something, Sonia-san. If you want,” and makes her way over to the fridge, opening it up. Sonia watches her, bewildered, chewing her lip. “I’m hungry, so I’m gonna make an early breakfast… probably. If you want something else, we can do that instead. I can’t do anything fancy like they always have, but I can use a rice cooker.” She looks over at Sonia, very briefly, her pale pink eyes crinkling at the edges, her lips curling in a smile. “Might just prepare tamago kake gohan. Can’t burn raw egg.”
At that, Sonia clears her throat, and she’s intending to ask,
aren’t you wondering why I’m here?
but instead all that comes out is, “Won’t we get salmonella?” even though she understands that the rice cooks the egg as you stir it. She thinks the only reason why she asks is to have something to say.
“No,” Chiaki frowns, pulling a carton of eggs out of the fridge. “Don’t think so. Hmmm.” A little wrinkle appears in her nose, and she pouts a bit, looking at the eggs as though they offended her personally. “I dunno, actually. Uhm, Monomi-chan?”
The rabbit in question sticks her head in from the doorway, peering into the kitchen, and one of her ears flops over. Sonia blinks at her, gently befuddled, gazing over. Her brain isn’t working properly right now, and even though Monomi has done this before, where she’ll come from nowhere at the call of her name, it still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to Sonia. Especially not right now, when her head feels all foggy, and she’s still expecting Gundham to come out from every corner.
“Do these eggs have salmonella?” Chiaki asks, holding up the carton for emphasis.
“Oh! Of course not,” Monomi shakes her head, ears flopping around. They remind Sonia of Hiyoko’s pigtails. “I would never supply food that would potentially harm my students!”
“Okay,” Chiaki nods, putting the carton down on the counter. Monomi stands there awkwardly for another moment before pulling back and slipping away. Sonia stares at the spot where Monomi was standing for what feels like much too long, until Chiaki speaks again. “Do you want something else? I can…” she trails off, her brow furrowing, “try, to fry fish. I can’t promise it’ll taste good, but I can try.”
Something about Chiaki’s expression is so earnestly befuddled, and so sweet, that it coaxes a bubbly little laugh out of Sonia. She lifts a hand to cover her mouth when the laugh lasts longer than she expects it to, and then it gets all shaky and thin near the end, and she blames that on the narrowly avoided threat of tears. Ahh. That’s embarrassing. If Chiaki notices, though, she doesn’t say anything. “No, tamago kake gohan sounds just fine,” Sonia says, quietly. Chiaki flashes her a smile. “Actually, I’m quite interested in trying it! It is a common Japanese breakfast, isn’t it?”
“Yup, think so,” Chiaki nods, digging in a drawer until she finds a bag of rice. She sets it down on the counter, too, then reaches up to one of the cupboards. Sonia thinks she’s aiming for a measuring cup, as that’s where her fingers keep grazing when she pushes herself up onto her toes, but Chiaki is so short that it’s difficult for her to reach. Or-- well, she can’t reach it at all, actually. Sonia suppresses a smile, thinks for a moment, and then moves over, reaching up to take the measuring cup down from the shelf. She places it into Chiaki’s hands.
Their arms brush as Sonia does so. For some reason the touch makes her shiver. Chiaki is incredibly warm, and Sonia has been fighting off chills since she woke up from her nightmare.
“Oh,” Chiaki intones, pink eyes darting between the cup and Sonia’s own, grey eyes. “Thanks.” She smiles, bumping their shoulders together, and Sonia shivers again, but she manages to disguise this one, rolling her shoulders back. Again, if Chiaki notices, she doesn’t comment, choosing instead to make her way over to the rice cooker, plugging it into the wall. “Can you bring the rice over here?” she asks, looking over at Sonia.
“I can!” Sonia affirms, still a little bit jittery, lifting the bag of rice from the counter and slipping over to Chiaki’s side again. She watches Chiaki measure out rice, and notes how very still her hands are, how very precise. She must have wonderful instincts, to be so good at video games. Sonia hums, eyes sticking to the rice as Chiaki pours it into the cooker. The grains make soft clinking sounds when they hit the bottom.
Then Chiaki returns the measuring cup to Sonia’s hands. “Fill it to here with water,” Chiaki instructs, pointing at a line on the cup. “The ratio of rice to water is one to two.” She smiles. “I think.”
“You think?” Sonia repeats, walking over to the sink regardless. “What, ah, what happens if you’re incorrect, Nanami-san?”
“‘pends,” Chiaki pouts a little bit. “If the ratio is one to three rice to water, then our rice is gonna be really dry. But if it’s one to one, then it’s gonna be really wet and gross.” She lets out a quiet giggle, and it brings a smile to Sonia’s lips as she fills the cup. “It’s okay. If I’m wrong, we can just make more rice. We won’t run out.” She eyes the bag. “Probably.”
“Well,” Sonia turns off the sink, walking back over to Chiaki and the rice cooker, carefully pouring the water in when instructed, “I believe in your rice making abilities! So I’m sure one to two will be correct.” She pumps the fist that isn’t still carrying the measuring cup, and the smile that comes to her lips feels genuine, actually, genuine and warm. It’s startling how easy Chiaki can pull those out of her, even in the wake of her nightmare.
Chiaki gives her a smile of her own, soft eyes crinkling at the edges. “Nice. With that, I can finally claim my true talent. Super High School Level Rice Cooker.” She closes the lid on the actual rice cooker, pressing the button to get it started and then patting it on the lid. “It’s you and me, buddy.”
Giggling, Sonia leans herself against the counter, watching Chiaki, feeling her chest warm. She’s glad it was Chiaki who woke up, rather than anybody else. Not that Sonia would’ve minded seeing Akane or Hajime or Fuyuhiko at all, because they’re all her dear friends and they’d probably find a way to make her feel better, but Chiaki has a very simple, understated way of speaking and moving around a space that makes Sonia feel all fuzzy inside. It’s soothing and familiar, and despite the fact that they haven’t known each other for that long, it feels as though they’ve been doing this song and dance for years.
After a moment, Chiaki joins Sonia against the counter, and unwraps the blanket from one of her shoulders, shuffling it and holding out the end to Sonia. It takes Sonia a moment to process the offer, a small frown on her face as she looks over, and then she lets out a soft, “Ah!” before accepting that side of the blanket, tucking it around her shoulders.
Accordingly, Chiaki tucks herself into Sonia’s side, and Sonia shivers for the third time, because Chiaki is so incredibly warn, and soft against her, and she smells like vanilla and chamomile tea, and even when Gundham was alive Sonia never felt anything like this, because Gundham didn’t like touch, he didn’t like embraces and brushing shoulders and sharing a blanket, and it was fine, it was fine, Sonia didn’t mind, the comfort he provided was more than adequate, but this, this--
She’s been craving this, she realises, deep and desperate in her soul, ever since waking up here, ever since Byakuya and Teruteru and Mahiru and Peko and Ibuki and Hiyoko and Mikan and Nekomaru and Gundham, ever since the Funhouse and everything else and ever since realising she can’t go home, and not only can she not go home, she doesn’t even have everybody else here anymore, she just has four friends and a stalker and… (well, she doesn’t know how to describe Nagito), and she’s so afraid that someone else is going to die, so afraid that one of them is a traitor, that things are just going to get worse, and--
And Sonia is crying, now, crying again, really crying, but Chiaki doesn’t say anything, she just curls her arm around Sonia’s waist, pulls her in close, buries her in the smell of vanilla, in the warmth, in the softness of her hair. It’s so much, everything is so much, Sonia doesn’t know how to deal with it all, and she misses Gundham so much, she misses all of them so much, and she aches in every part of her with the thought, that she’ll never see any of them again, that Akane won’t see Nekomaru and Fuyuhiko won’t see Peko and they’re just all gone, and it hurts so bad, like she’s known them for years, like they’re a part of her, like her heart and her blood and her soul.
Even after the rice cooker beeps, indicating that their rice is ready, Sonia keeps on crying, and Chiaki keeps on holding her, keeping her enveloped, wrapped up in a safe, soothing warmth. It’ll have to end eventually, because the sun will rise and Sonia will have to keep moving, make sure Gundham’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain, but.
For now, she just. She just cries, hard and long, into Chiaki’s hair, hoping that maybe if she closes her eyes hard enough, it’ll all be okay, and they’ll all be back again.
(Much, much later, when everyone is out of the Neo World Program, and Hajime has loaded Chiaki’s AI onto a computer while he and Kazuichi make her a body, Sonia realises that maybe she wasn’t all that far off, that night in the kitchen, and maybe everything really will be okay.)