Archive of Our Own

Rantaro is hiding something.

Kokichi knows this from the beginning. It isn’t hard to read him—not as hard as everyone else makes it out to be, anyway. They just aren’t trying. Maybe because they don’t trust him. Really, they don’t trust Rantaro any more than they trust Kokichi. (Maybe they like him better, though. He’s pretty and gentle. He doesn’t go out of his way to push anyone’s buttons. He’d be boring, probably, if he weren’t such a puzzle. Kokichi’s favorite puzzle.)

Rantaro has a persistent twitch in his left hand. It’s subtle, but Kokichi watches. He’s good at watching. He learns fast, thinks even faster. Rantaro gives him smiles but they’re tight and placid, dewy pink intimations of keep away. Kokichi’s never had the taste for phrases like that; no phrases, don’t phrases. Not when the risk looms generative. Not when he can taste a promise. Anti-phrases have no place here, anyway. This game will reap bodies. The end of it won’t come by grace.

Kokichi can play the villain. He can solve the puzzle, even if no one will thank him. He’s a good liar.

“Hey,” Rantaro rumbles, sleep-swept hair shaded by dark blue night. It’s late. The left hand twitches against the door frame. “What’s goin’ on?”

“I had a horrible dream,” Kokichi whispers. He curls his shoulders forward, makes himself small. “I needed to see somebody.”

Rantaro studies him thoughtfully. “What kind of dream?”

“The horrible kind,” Kokichi reiterates. “Shapes and melting faces and screaming.”

Rantaro shifts, foot to foot. “Kirumi could probably make you some tea. To help you sleep.” He’s lukewarm, off-kilter. The night diminishes him. It’s almost disappointing.

“I hate tea.”

“That right? You drink it every morning. I’ve seen you in the dining hall.”

Sharp enough to catch the little things, then. Kokichi giggles, “Caught me.”

Rantaro’s eyes flicker. “Yeah. Sorry about your dream, anyway.”

“I bet you know all about bad dreams,” Kokichi hums. “I bet you know how to take care of them, too. You’ve got brotherly instincts. It’s obvious, you know.”

The lines of Rantaro’s body pull taut. Bullseye. “That why you came to me?”

“Mm-hm. Could I sleep with you? It’s boring when I’m alone. Scary and dark, too.”

“You don’t strike me as someone who’s afraid of the dark, Kokichi.”

“Oh, I’ve got lots of stupid little fears. The dark, bugs, heights. But that’s a lie. Supreme leaders don’t get scared.”

“They just have scary dreams?” There’s a lilt in the words, quiet amusement.

“You got it.”

“Look,” Rantaro glances back toward the shadows of his room. “I’m not having much luck sleeping tonight, either. How about we walk around for a little bit? Best to get some air.”

It’s an obvious deflection. Kokichi would normally push, but Rantaro isn’t the type that responds well to pushing. Agreeable as he is, he’s iron-guarded. Kokichi may not be getting into his room tonight, but spending time with him is something—another means, another end.

And so they go, and the courtyard is eerie in nightfall, soundless and still. No bugs, birds, or wind, only the press of their feet across grass and cobblestone. Rantaro walks on Kokichi’s left side. His footfalls are steady, even leisurely. It’d be easy to knock him over, Kokichi thinks, pin him down and lick the secrets from his mouth.

“You’re awfully relaxed for someone who’s about to be murdered.”

Rantaro stops. Kokichi twirls on his heel; their gazes meet at his command.

“Is that why we’re out here?”

“Obviously. Only an idiot wouldn’t use an opportunity like this,” Kokichi clicks his tongue, “You didn’t even wake anybody up to tell them where you were going, or who you’d be with. Nobody’s seen us. I could make this the perfect crime.”

“All right,” Rantaro murmurs. He’s perfectly unflinching. It’s annoying. “You’ve got me, then. What now?”

Kokichi puffs out his bottom lip. “You could at least scream. Or run. You wanna die that badly?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, no.”

“You think I’m lying?”

“I can’t really tell, man. You’ve got a great poker face. This just doesn’t seem like your style.”

“My style? I’ve killed lots of people before,” Kokichi frowns, “Even my own brother! The path of a leader is a bloody one, you know.”

“Sounds like a hard path to tread.”

“It is, if you’re weak. I’m not.”

“No, I don’t think you are,” and Rantaro has the gall to look as though he understands, “Which is why I don’t think you’d kill me out in the open, or warn me before doing it. You’re a better strategist than that.”

Kokichi huffs out a sigh. He was hoping to get a rise out of him, at least, though this isn’t too far off from what he’d expected. Seemingly-well-adjusted-with-mysterious-baggage types like him carry so much weight with them all the time, they’re harder to stir up. “You’re no fun.”

Rantaro shrugs, “Sorry to disappoint.”

That stings, somehow. “It’d have been more disappointing to see you run. I hate cowards almost as much as I hate lies.”

Rantaro laughs, cool and low. “You’re sort of funny, you know.”

“Every good king should know how to play the fool.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Playing a part?”

Kokichi shakes his head. “The best kings,” he brings a finger to his lips, “Are born fools.”

“Haven’t heard that one.”

“You shouldn’t think too hard about it. You shouldn’t think too hard about anything a liar says.”

“I think you’re a better actor than a liar.”

“There’s a difference?”

“In intention.”

“And what do you suppose my intention is?”

“I don’t know,” Rantaro stands sure, “But I’m game to find out.”

A tremor skids down his spine. This, admittedly, is outside the realm of what Kokichi had predicted. He accounted for Rantaro’s curiosity; he underestimated, clearly, the tenacity of his cunning. It’s a beast of its own, sharp shiny teeth and all. It’s nearly like he’s trying to put a puzzle of his own together.

(Of course, he’s got no chance at finding all the pieces. Kokichi, walking contradiction, king of cards, serpent of deceit, will see to that.)

“It’ll be a boring game for you,” he says, “There won’t be a prize at the end. And I’m not very complicated. I can’t lie about what’s in front of you.”

Rantaro pauses, as if to ponder. Like solving an equation. Kokichi wonders if he’s any good at math. “So what I see is what I get, huh?”

“If that’s what you think I meant.”

Rantaro gives an easy grin, then turns. “Well, feel free to kill me on my way back to my room, if you’re set on it. And tell me if you have any more bad dreams.”

With a smile sharp as a knife’s edge, Kokichi promises, “You’ll be the first to know.”

It’s not that he hates Kaede. She’s not boring, at least. But she’s reckless, and she carries the same starry-eyed naivety Kaito does, and she speaks in melodies that might sound sweet to fragile people like Shuichi, but Kokichi knows the only place she’ll get them all is either down or dead. She’s a pusher, and impulsive, and of course an exit wouldn’t be as easy as a tunnel under the garden, but she gets them to try.

And they fail. And fail, and fail, and fail, and she picks them back up every time, as if there’s a chance, as if they hadn’t lost even before they started. The trap is built to break them, and it doesn’t take much. Kaede can call for friendship all she likes, but it’s a flimsy affectation. They don’t know a thing about each other. With just a little desperation, someone will break. It’s only a matter of time.

Kokichi’s fury rises as faces fall, as hope dwindles, as Kaede keeps fighting—the whole point of the impossible tunnel is to establish that no one’s getting out of here without spilling blood, and every loss they take is further proof that that’s true. He doesn’t care so much about the others’ emotional toll as he does about what it might drive them to do (give up, give in) and so it has to end. Kaede’s had her chance.

He conjures up tears, says his piece, gets other weary, swayable voices to join his own. Kaede stumbles under the blame—Kokichi hisses, when you say we can’t give up, you’re not inspiring us, you’re strong-arming us—and the rest of them fragment, catalyzed and pointing fingers. The storm rolls in.

“We shouldn’t have to push ourselves,” Kokichi’s cheeks are stiff with dried tears, lips tight as they stretch to simper, “Let’s just find another way out, okay?”

And Rantaro, who’s yet to speak even amidst the cacophony of other voices, clouds up and looks at him through thick, dark lashes. “…You’re talking about the killing game, aren’t you?”

It’s startling. It shouldn’t be. Kokichi recovers, “Oh, so you’re gonna interpret it like that, huh?”

The storm kicks up again, and there’s rainfall in Kaede’s miserable apologies, thunder in Kaito’s declaration that it isn’t her fault, pulses of lightning in Shuichi’s insistence that they shouldn’t fight. All the while, Rantaro’s eyes never leave his own, and it’s a cold wind right through Kokichi’s chest, ceaseless and unbending.

The nighttime announcement sounds out. It’s an excuse to walk away. Rantaro says something about a fresh start, and he’s not looking at Kokichi anymore. Everyone agrees to leave it for tomorrow. Kokichi returns to his room and doesn’t think about any of it, not at all.

(Except that he draws a picture. He uses a green crayon for Rantaro’s hair and a black one for his eyes, and even on the page they dig a hole in his heart, and he decides he hates this feeling.)

Kokichi is second to arrive at the dining hall the next morning. Rantaro is first.

“Want some tea?” He asks from his perch at the table, as Kokichi approaches. There’s a kettle nearby, and Rantaro pours him a small, steaming cup, pleasant as ever. Like nothing’s happened. “Probably not the best you’ve ever had, but it’ll get the job done.”

“You could’ve totally poisoned this,” Kokichi glowers, “That’d be a pretty lame murder. You’d get caught super easy.”

Rantaro chuckles, a small rush of breath through his nose. “Want me to test it for you?”

Kokichi extends the cup to him, just to see what he’ll do. True to form, he brings it to his lips and sips carefully—Kokichi’s still holding it, so Rantaro’s fingers come to rest over his own as he drinks, his touch warm, barely-there. The rise and fall of his throat rolls like a wave. Kokichi’s stomach writhes in tandem.

“All good,” Rantaro swipes a thumb across his lip, and Kokichi takes the cup back, “Poison free.”

Kokichi wrinkles his nose, “But now it’s got Rantaro’s germs on it.”

“Brushed my teeth this morning,” Rantaro assures him, teasingly, “Promise.”

The others file in, soon after. Kokichi’s fingers are still tingling.

He prods at Kaede again. He doesn’t hesitate to remind everyone of the previous night, of how quick they were to gang up on her (and sure, not without his interference, but if one well-timed comment is enough to get them all daggers-drawn, they won’t last long). He gets pushback, which is promising. He doesn’t care where the blame goes, just that it settles, and with Kaede’s dovelike mea culpa, it does.

“Did you know half my lies are actually told with good intentions?” It’s an admission he gives in confidence that nobody will believe him. It’s only fair to give them a chance, though. Games are boring if they aren’t played fair.

Mostly nobody buys it. Maybe Kirumi hums, maybe Tsumugi gives a contemplative tilt of her head, maybe Shuichi’s pensive, cap-cloaked gaze lingers on him for a handful of impetuous seconds. But when it’s Rantaro who looks at him again, he feels all at once that he’s said too much.

Kokichi starts stealing candy from the school store. It’s an old habit. He used to do it in the city all the time. He taught DICE all his tricks—they’d spend weekends nicking handfuls of bubblegum and soda from every place in town. The thrill is sort of absent here, though. Nobody’s ever in the store to catch him.

He wonders what Rantaro’s favorite candy is. Something strawberry-flavored, maybe. Or cinnamon. He ends up grabbing a dozen different things, since nobody’s around, and drops them all at Rantaro’s doorstep. Everybody’s asleep by then, but Kokichi slips back into his room and lays wide, wide awake, veiled beneath his sheets.

Rantaro catches him in the hall the next afternoon. “Thanks for the candy.” The flower-petal skin around his eyes crinkles when he smiles.

“What candy?” Kokichi blinks.

He can tell Rantaro isn’t fooled, and that still he plays along. “Somebody left candy at my door last night, is all. You were my best guess.”

Kokichi picks at his nails. “It was probably Tsumugi. Or Himiko, since they’ve both got big fat crushes on you. They told me themselves. They’d probably do something pathetic like that.”

“I dunno,” Rantaro offers meaningfully, “I thought it was sort of sweet.”

And it’s stupid, because the words are soft, and soft things aren’t meant for people like Kokichi.

“I’m bored,” he huffs, “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure thing.”

Rantaro finds him after dark, this time.

Kokichi pulls the door open. “Having bad dreams now, too?”

“Not quite,” (two twitches in his left hand) “Wanna walk around?”

They’ve done this a few times now, as the days have crawled on. Often enough to have a favorite spot in the courtyard—they don’t walk around so much anymore. Sitting is simpler. Kokichi doesn’t sleep well but these moments in the green are the closest he gets.

Rantaro’s the restless one tonight. He’s quieter. He tucks his hand between his knees to keep it still. Kokichi thinks about what it’d be like to take it in his own, properly, without a teacup between them.

“Your hand is jumpy,” he prods instead, “Like a fish I once pulled out of a pond. They squirm for a long time before they die.”

Rantaro doesn’t comment. He looks down at his hand as though it were separate from the rest of him. “Yeah. I don’t know why it does that. I probably knew, once. I just can’t recall. It’s far away.”

Kokichi wants to know what’s wrong. Not the way he does when he wants the satisfaction of an answer; the way he does when he wants to solve a problem. (It’s barely a game, in moments like these. Kokichi knows the risks, and still, and still, he takes them).

“Well, if you frown any harder, your face will crack,” he tuts, “You should probably tell me what’s bothering you before that happens.”

Rantaro’s brows rise. “It… doesn’t really make sense to me right now. I can’t really tell you. Not yet.”

“That’s too easy. I hate a cop-out.”

“That’s not it.” Rantaro fiddles with one of his rings. “It’s just not worth listening to a guy who can’t even remember his own talent. Everything’s mixed up. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Are you afraid I won’t understand?” Kokichi’s pitch dips, “Or that I will?”

Rantaro whispers, head down, “Both.”

That won’t do. Kokichi tells him, “A snake will still find grass in concrete, Amami.”

“And are you the snake?”

“No. But I probably look that way to you. Everybody probably does. That’s how it is when you’re holding onto a secret.”

Seconds of leaden silence, and then, “It’s not that I want to hold onto it. I’m getting close, I think. To figuring it out.”

“Then get closer,” Kokichi says, “And tell me when you win.”

Rantaro meets his eye, star-lit. “You’ll be the first to know.”

In the morning, a motive emerges.

The first murder’s free, they’re told. No class trial required. What’s more, they’re on a time limit. Someone’s got to die by nighttime, two days from now, or they all die. It’s hardly any time at all, hardly any time for Kokichi to get a handle on fifteen different minds, even less to figure out how to trick them all into cooperating with each other. The corners of the dining hall crimp and contract, every breath too close and every voice too loud, and they’re all saying stupid things about dying, about last stands, and Kokichi doesn’t want to die, not here, not in some empty, forgettable way, not as one helpless face among many.

Even Kaede and Kaito look like they’re at a loss, tense like wire, obstinate optimism stamped down and silenced. He can sense the threat of surrender among them all. It’s an infection, spreading fast.

And so Kokichi acts, because he best performances are fueled by half-truths. “Are we really gonna die? I don’t wanna die yet.” He yowls, “I’m gonna survive! I’m gonna make it no matter what!”

Kaede seems to bring herself around, at last. “No matter what?” Her eyes blow wide, “Wait! You can’t do that, though! Even if you make a mistake, you can’t—”

“Then you’ll accept the blame?”

“Huh?”

“Will you accept the blame if I die? I have people who will be said if I die, you know.”

Kaede falters. Kokichi waits, then giggles, “I’m lying. No one will be sad if I die.” He glances around the room. “But I don’t know if the same can be said for everyone else.”

If unity isn’t an option, he can at least make them all dwell on their reasons to survive. Families, friends, and partners in the outside world; everybody’s most predictable weak spots. It might have the opposite effect he’s vying for, might make killing look like a twisted sacrifice for love, but for now, he just needs to buy some time. He needs to make sure nobody gets too prepared to lay down and die—he’s not keen to be forced into martyrdom on their behalf. He’ll waltz down to Hell on his own terms. Nobody will take that from him.

Kokichi’s smart, and fast, and a good liar, and he isn’t going to die here. He just needs space to think. “Anyway, I’m gonna take off now.” He makes to leave for his room, and—

“Take off? Where are you going, Kokichi?”

Rantaro catches his arm. Not hard, not a demand, and still it’s red-hot, teeth-grinding, completely maddening. His touch makes Kokichi mortal, makes him want to be rational. He can’t afford to be either of those things.

His chest stutters. Kokichi yanks his arm back, more ferociously than he ought to. “Oh, I don’t knooow. Maybe I’ll go back to my room and just think things over. Alone.”

He doesn’t look back, not even as Rantaro’s heartsore expression haunts him down the corridor.

It’s around four in the morning when someone comes knocking on Kokichi’s door.

His first thought is that someone’s come to kill him. Nobody’s ever up this late, and Rantaro doesn’t usually visit after midnight. Kokichi hasn’t slept yet, too busy scribbling master plans in his notebook and across his whiteboard. He stands very still in the center of the room and makes no sound at all, staring at the doorlatch like the weight of his gaze might bolster it against an attack. The knocking stops, after a moment, and then there’s shuffling, and something is being slipped under the door, something that crinkles.

Kokichi steps out of his shoes. He treads silently across the room, on his toes, to get a closer look.

It’s candy—something grape and gummy, sealed in a glossy purple wrapper.

When he opens the door, Rantaro is there, half-turned as though he were about to walk away. “Woah there,” he startles, as much as he ever does, as light spills into the hallway, “Sorry, did I wake you?”

Kokichi runs a hand through his hair, mussed from his own incessant tugging. “Obviously. And I was having such a nice dream, too.” He tosses the candy from one hand to the other. “But that’s a lie. Supreme leaders don’t have time to sleep. What’s this for?”

“It’s an apology. For grabbing you earlier.” Rantaro explains, “Wasn’t sure what your favorite was, but I figured purple made sense.”

“Apology? That’s silly. I’d forgotten all about that. You should, too.”

“Oh. You just seemed…” Rantaro seems to decide something. “One of my little sisters is like that, about touch.” (It strikes him that Rantaro’s never mentioned his family, though Kokichi figured he had siblings. Fraternal habits are easy to spot.) “She’d only give hugs and things like that if she was the one to decide when they happened. It really bothered her if somebody touched her without asking—"

“I’m not like that.” It’s not that Kokichi doesn’t like touch. He just isn’t used to it, the gentle kind.

“Right. My bad, didn’t mean to assume anything. I just should’ve respected your space, is what I meant to say.”

Kokichi’s jaw clicks. He stuffs the candy in his pocket. Contrite isn’t a good look on Rantaro; if he wants to talk about space, Kokichi wants to know what it’d be like to have him in his room, among his things, his mess. If Rantaro would stop being so careful, so curious, so witlessly kind. If he’d back out. If Kokichi would find it in himself to do what’s better for the both of them and shove him out.

Kokichi locks his fingers around Rantaro’s wrist. “I think Rantaro should come inside and play with me.”

Like always, Rantaro indulges him. “What’s the game?”

“The rules say I can’t tell you.”

Kokichi pulls him forward and kicks the door closed, and he can see Rantaro’s gaze start to drift around the room, to the whiteboard, his stacks of drawings.

“Don’t look,” Kokichi snaps, tugging his wrist hard. “If you look, I have to kill you.” He isn’t serious. But also it feels like he is.

Rantaro shuts his eyes, effortless, without a second thought. “You gotta guide me, then.”

Kokichi swallows. He’s secured an advantage, now, and yet somehow it feels like Rantaro’s already won. Nobody ever puts up with him like this. Nobody ever risks it, but Rantaro courts danger like he was made for it, like his flesh and blood meld with the want of it.

“You shouldn’t give something like that up so easily. You can’t escape what you can’t see.”

“I don’t think I need to escape. Do you?”

“I could kill you.”

“You won’t.”

“You could kill me.”

“I won’t. You can trust me.”

Kokichi can’t trust anybody. But Rantaro’s good at making him believe impossible things.

He gets the urge to try something—maybe because he figures Rantaro will let him (won’t hurt him). Kokichi leads him to the edge of his bed, makes him sit, then settles cross-legged beside him. The mattress creaks as it dips beneath their weight.

There’s a breath between them, a loose thread unraveling. Kokichi hovers. He reaches out, trails his fingers from Rantaro’s wrist, down his open palm, from fingertip to fingertip. He maps his kingdom and heeds its paths.

Rantaro shivers. “Don’t look,” Kokichi whispers again.

On a whim, like the rise of the tide inside of him, Kokichi picks up his hand and slots it against his cheek. It’s warm. Real.

Rantaro’s eyes slide open. His thumb starts to sweep along the bone, back and forth.

“I told you the rule.” Kokichi stays rooted in place, lost in misty green.

“I hope you can forgive me for breaking it,” Rantaro murmurs. Then, like an afterthought, “Your skin is really soft.”

Kokichi thinks about biting him. My teeth aren’t. Shouldn’t that scare you?

“You’re not used to this sort of thing, are you?” Rantaro’s thumb stops moving.

“That’s a stupid question.”

Kokichi pulls the hand away from his face, and it’s barely any effort at all. Rantaro lets himself be moved, easy, and easier still as Kokichi takes hold of both Rantaro’s arms and folds them around his own narrow frame, leans into him, hooks his chin over his shoulder as if it were meant to fit there. Hugs don’t count unless they’re returned; and this one is, almost instantly, as strong arms claim his back, as tender fingers press across his shoulders. It’s a fierce, rare thing. It’s misguided and precarious. It’s surely more than Kokichi’s allowed to have.

“These, my mom used to give me these all the time,” he babbles, buzzing, wary of the silence, “I had a normal mom. She always smelled like syrup. But she stopped hugging me after I killed my brother.”

“And why’d you kill him?”

Kokichi never had a brother. He never knew his mother. He’s bored of this lie, so he says, “I don’t remember.” Then, quietly, “You hug better than my mom.”

“That’s sweet.”

“But maybe it’s a lie.”

Rantaro hums. “That’s all right. I don’t mind if it is.”

“You should, though. You should mind my lies. The only kinds of people who let others get away with lies are liars themselves.”

“Maybe so.”

“And you’re okay with that? That sort of thing will get you into trouble, you know.”

“I’m not here to change you, Kokichi,” Rantaro straightens up and pulls back. “You are who you are. It’s not my place to tell you who you should be.”

Kokichi’s face flushes hot. “But do you like me?”

“Yeah, I do,” Rantaro says, easy as anything, “You don’t hold back. You aren’t afraid to get close and take me apart. That’s plenty good.”

“You sound lonely.”

“Not when I’m with you.”

Kokichi’s lungs fill with honey. He blinks. “Is this the part where we kiss?”

Rantaro’s fond laugh blows through Kokichi’s hair. “Not tonight. I think if I kissed you, it’d be hard to stop.”

Kokichi scoffs, “Nobody kisses anybody thinking they should stop.”

Rantaro looks exhausted, suddenly, boulders in his bones. “There’s… so much I can’t remember. And so many questions. And all of it I can’t control. If I’ve got a chance to do this right, with you, at least, I want to.”

“You talk like an eight-ball, you know, all vague,” Kokichi knocks their shoulders together, “So it shall be. Signs point to bullshiiiiit. When do I get to know all your dirty secrets?”

Rantaro’s face darkens with something like conviction. “Soon. Really soon. I’m gonna end all of this.”

Kokichi grins. He doesn’t know what Rantaro means, or what he’s planning, but he likes that look. “Good. Not much time left, anyway. That whole ‘do this right with you’ thing doesn’t matter if we all end up dead, and how lame would it be to die without kissing me?”

“Fair point.”

“Make me a promise. If your big bad plan fails, kiss me before time’s up.” Kokichi scowls, “If you don’t, I won’t forgive you for leaving me to die all alone and unkissed—seriously, when we’re dead, ghost-me totally won’t even speak to ghost-you.”

“All right,” Rantaro’s tiny smile blooms like summer, “Promise.”

He glances at the clock beside the bed. Time isn’t waiting, not for anything. “You probably need some sleep.”

“You’ll have to leave,” Kokichi sighs. Though he’ll be awake for hours more, it’s best to close the curtain. He’s broken enough of his own rules tonight.

“That’s all right.”

Rantaro slips away, stands from the bed, leans down to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind Kokichi’s ear. “I’ll see you around. Assuming we all make it past—tonight, I guess.”

And the world must be lighter, because Kokichi wants to laugh. He’s not ready to die, but he thinks if they get an afterlife, nights like these wouldn’t be a bad way to spend it.

And then Rantaro is dead.

Kokichi’s in his room when the body discovery announcement sounds. The monitors have been lighting up for a long while now, some horrible acid techno tune blasting from the speakers endlessly, infinitely, a constant quake in his eardrums. Library, the static tells him now, gather, library. Somebody broke, somebody died. Kokichi stumbles from his bed. It means the game has started, which means Rantaro failed, which means—or, or. Kokichi hates being wrong but as he takes the basement stairs two at a time, he hopes somebody laughs in his face, cuffs his ear the way he hates and says of course not.

And it isn’t fair when nobody does. And it isn’t fair when it’s Rantaro there on the ground, blood-wet scalp pooling into the carpet, Rorschach splatters across the bookcase, melting into dusty pages. Something hot licks at the back of Kokichi’s throat. Something hot and hopeless and wrong.

Somebody told him once that dead people look a lot like sleeping people. He didn’t believe it then, and he doesn’t believe it now. Sleeping people breathe. Sleeping people don’t lie coiled up like it’s all the pain would let them do before they couldn’t move anymore, knees bent, frozen fingers locked in fists, vacant eyes peering out between clotted bangs.

Shuichi is bent down with a hand near Rantaro’s mouth, searching for breath he ought to know isn’t there. Kokichi wants to saunter over and snap his wrist. Kokichi wants to scream at them all until they get out, until they stop looking at him. Shuichi looks sorry. There’s motley panic from all the other bodies around them but Shuichi looks at him under that stupid coward’s cap like he’s sorry.

And Kokichi is smart, and fast, and a good liar, the best, and there is nothing anybody can know about him, because he is unknowable and unshakeable and untouchable, and he knows lies can be so good they can even trick the person speaking them, and when he sobs and calls Rantaro beloved it is all an outrageous imitation of every bad performance he’s ever seen, ever given, and nobody buys it because it is not meant to be bought. They turn away, roll their eyes, let him be. They do not look deeper.

But there is Shuichi, and he dares again, and Kokichi bares his teeth—at his artful word, around and around the blame begins to go, voice to voice, and soon Shuichi doesn’t have time to look at him anymore, quickly caught up giving speeches about trust, cooperation, retribution. Kaede’s beaming at him as he takes command of the room. It figures, Kokichi thinks. Shuichi is metamorphosizing, and Rantaro is rotting at his feet.

Nobody claims the no-first-trial benefit. It’s a waste, but maybe it’s better this way. He imagines if they spoke or stepped forward, he’d claw the killer’s eyes out and suck their brain matter from his nails.

He makes himself scarce when the investigation begins. He has nothing he wants to give. When he shuts the door to his room again, he sinks to the floor and holds himself about the middle like if he can squeeze hard enough to make the pressure break his ribs Rantaro will appear just to snap them back into place, and he’d smooth his icy mouth along the bruises and let Kokichi spit blood into his palm.

He wants the moon again, and arms around him. He wants Rantaro here. He wants him here so badly.

In the short hour leading up to the trial, Kokichi manages a return to the library. Rantaro’s body is still there, empty, unmoving. Kokichi does not run, like he wants to, but puts his back to the bookcase and sits, staring into the spiritless curve of Rantaro’s back.

“Stupid,” he says, even if he doesn’t mean it, even if he does. “You told me you’d win. You told me.”

Nobody speaks back to him—but the door clicks, once more. Footsteps scuff and shuffle. He knows it’s Shuichi even before his face appears around the corner.

“What are you doing here?” He’s delicate, for a detective. Kokichi doesn’t want delicate.

He relights himself, readjusts. “Looking for more evidence, obviously!”

Shuichi studies him. “You don’t have to… do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend.” He adds, like it’s a kindness, “You can grieve. I won’t tell anyone.”

“That’d be silly. I didn’t even know him,” Kokichi throws his heel out. Blood catches the tip of his sneaker. “And it seems like he was pretty dumb, anyway. If he told us what he’d been doing, maybe his nasty blood wouldn’t be all over my shoes!”

Shuichi winces. “But that’s not… true, right? I saw you both together. Lots of times.”

Kokichi can’t stand it. He snaps toward something other, something to chase Shuichi away. “I have to wonder what the pain was like. I wonder if it killed him right away. I wonder if he laid here writhing—”

“Kokichi,” Shuichi stops him, as if he has the right, as if he understands, “We’ll figure out who did this, all right? We won’t let them get away with it.”

“And who’s ‘we’? You, Mister Ultimate Detective? Most of you haven’t got two brain cells to rub together. And you, you’re Kaede’s little boy. You can’t do anything without her patting you on the head like a dog.” Kokichi spits, lets spite and laughter slither out, “I don’t care about Rantaro. I never did. I don’t care about any of you. I’m here to enjoy the game.”

And it works, he knows it does, because Shuichi finally steps back with his pale clenched jaw and says, “Fine, Kokichi. Fine.” And then he’s gone, and the worst part is that it doesn’t make Kokichi feel any better. Not at all.

It’s Kaede. Kokichi knows its Kaede, and Shuichi knows it’s Kaede. But he won’t speak. It drives Kokichi mad, mad enough to make his skin shake and squeeze three sizes too tight, but he keeps his mouth shut and lets the trial go on because Shuichi needs to learn that loving somebody won’t stop them from letting you down.

It isn’t justice, even as she’s torn away, even when she hangs.

Kaito’s fist cracks into Shuichi’s cheek. He tells him clench your teeth; he tells him she believed in you!

Shuichi stops crying, but as the night ends, the sound sticks in Kokichi’s dreams.

He comes to breakfast the next morning without his cap. There’s a mulberry bruise blooming beneath his left eye, but through long lashes and smoky kohl liner, his gaze isn’t fixed to the ground anymore.

Kokichi wonders what Rantaro would say. Good for him, maybe. He looks good.

You shouldn’t be dead, Kokichi would say back.

It takes him three days to go back and sit in the courtyard. It’s only a courtyard, he reminds himself. Just a courtyard. Memories are not places, but mimics. Memories can be forgotten.

It is late, and he does not know why it is Shuichi who finds him again. He does not know why it is always Shuichi. He does not know why nothing here ever feels like an accident.

The grass makes his thighs itch. “Sleepwalking, detective?” he croons, “Like a ghost.”

“Uh, not exactly,” Shuichi ducks his head. “The opposite, really. I don’t sleep well.”

“It must be sad. No Kaede around to tuck you in anymore.”

Shuichi doesn’t entertain that with a response. “I can leave you alone, if you’d prefer.”

Kokichi isn’t sure what he’d prefer. He fixes a look to Shuichi’s broad, knuckle-shaped bruise. There’s more yellow in it, now. “I bet that still stings. You look like somebody who’s never been punched before.”

He brings his fingers to it with a sardonic smile. “Yeah. It was only a matter of time, I guess. I don’t mind. I think maybe I needed it.”

Kokichi sours. “The only thing I hate more than a liar is a masochist. You freak me out.”

Shuichi frowns, “Sorry.”

Still soft, still sensitive. That hasn’t changed. He’s sharp as a whip in the court room and altogether pitiful outside of it. “That was a joke,” Kokichi huffs.

Shuichi looks like he might apologize again, but then sits down, as if to stop himself. His legs are long and lean, next to Kokichi’s. They bend and arc like swan’s wings. His knees don’t even pop.

Kokichi side-eyes him. “You should be careful. Somebody could be waiting around out here to finish you off, make you meet Kaede again,” He pulls up a handful of grass. “You’d probably like that, though, huh?”

“No, I… there are reasons for me to be here,” he sounds irritatingly certain, “She wouldn’t want that.”

“Geez, it sounds like she dug real deep into your head. Made you feel special. Made you looove her.”

“I don’t know if it was love.” Shuichi fidgets. “I didn’t get to know her, long enough. But maybe it was something like it. Or something better.” He pauses. “You probably know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“You and Rantaro—"

“I don’t know why you keep saying his name. I told you I didn’t know him.”

He didn’t, really. If he had known him, Kokichi might understand now why things ended up this way. They didn’t get time.

Shuichi is unsatisfied. “A lie is still a lie, no matter how many times you repeat it.” There it is. A flash of teeth, the tip of a claw.

Kokichi leans into it. “Well, I liked it better when you weren’t here,” he hisses, “And that’s the truth.”

Shuichi is unsatisfied, and still, he is reasonable. Another pause. “…I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. I didn’t mean to pry. I won’t talk about it anymore if it bothers you.”

“Who said it bothered me?”

Shuichi sighs.

“I wish I’d gotten to know him better,” he offers, a moment later, like a courtesy.

Kokichi doesn’t know what draws it out, but he nearly wants to talk about what it was like to hold him, hug him. He only ever got the one, but it was his. Theirs. Perhaps that’s exactly the reason he decides to keep to himself.

“He was lonely,” he says instead, “And like all lonely people, he wanted somebody to figure him out.”

“That’s what you were trying to do, right?”

“That was the game. Before Kaede smashed his skull in.”

He wonders if Rantaro thought of him before he died. It’s probably stupid to wonder. He probably spent the last of his energy thinking about how he wanted his brains back in his head.

“I hate her for it,” Kokichi’s fists tighten where they rest at his knees, “I don’t care that she’s dead. I hate her so much.”

But Rantaro would probably forgive her. He’d forgive anybody. Even Kokichi.

“I won’t argue with you,” Shuichi murmurs, “She was trying to do what she thought was right, but it got somebody killed, in the end. I don’t think she’d blame you for being angry.”

“I don’t care what she’d think.”

Shuichi just nods. At least he knows when to quit.

“You should go,” Kokichi suggests.

“Yeah,” Shuichi stands. He takes a step, and then one back. “Um, I just. We don’t have to be friends, or anything. I’m just sorry for the way things happened. And for what you lost.”

He’s sweet, really. He is, and Kokichi wishes he could be sweet, too.

“We never had this conversation, Shuichi.” He doesn’t turn around. “You do your job, and I’ll do mine. You’re starting to grow, you know? Into something big. You’ve got your eyes off the floor. Nobody will come out of this game human, but maybe you’ve got a chance. And you’ve got an even better chance if you stay out of my way.”

“Okay... okay.” His footsteps fade. “Good night, Kokichi.”

Kokichi lies back and studies the stars. It’s odd. They never seem to twinkle.