Work Text:
Momota screws his eyes shut and holds his breath, listening as the press comes down.
He knows Ouma isn’t going to kill him-- if he had wanted Momota to die, he would’ve just drank the antidote back at the window, rather than faking it-- but it’s hard to stop his stomach from clenching when he watches the dark steel inch closer and closer, so he closes his eyes. He almost wishes the press would move faster, so he could get this over with, but at the same time, the thought of a press coming down so quickly…
Or maybe none of this is ideal, actually. Maybe there is no good alternative. Maybe what Momota wishes for is to be somewhere else, anywhere else, away from the killing game and his disease and every other awful thing that’s happened at this godforsaken academy.
He hears it when the press halts its journey, but he lingers for a moment anyway, his eyes still closed tight, his breathing ragged. He doesn’t want to pull himself up, in part because his body aches, and he can’t remember the last time he got to lie down properly, unyielding though the cool metal is, but also because once Momota takes himself across the room, once Ouma lies himself down underneath the press and sticks out his arm, he… he’ll…
“Hey, Momota-chan,” Ouma’s voice is a lot weaker than Momota is used to, breathless and irritated, and Momota finally opens his eyes, peering up to where he stands by that red button. “I’m not getting any younger, here.”
Yeah, yeah. Momota edges himself out from under the press, trying not to think too hard about what he’s about to do with it, even as his shoulder brushes against the underside. He leaves his jacket in place, careful not to disturb the sleeve, and walks painfully to the stairs, sucking in a breath before he mounts them.
Ouma is barely standing, supporting himself against the hand railing. His expression contorts as he coughs weakly into his shoulder. As Momota approaches, he cracks open an eye, a rueful grin appearing on his face. Even now, dying from poison, shuddering and shaking over the button, he looks every bit as in-control as he always has, his fingers curled into tight fists. Momota is about to offer him help, but Ouma pushes himself upright before he can speak, plucking the remote and the electrobomb from the floor and starting unsteadily down the stairs.
“Ouma,” Momota utters. He keeps pace with the other boy, one of his hands extended, as though to support him. It would be easy to just pick him up, but Momota doesn’t want to move without permission. “You got it? I can help you.”
“Think about it like this, Momota-chan,” Ouma mumbles. His voice is tight, like he’s trying not to let on how much pain he’s in. Momota doesn’t really see much of a point in it now. “I’m, hah, dying slowly from the most brutal poison in Saihara-chan’s lab. I’m leaving my plan in the hands of… of someone who can only really lie to keep other people from w-worrying about him.”
“Hey,” Momota protests, frowning, but Ouma doesn’t spare even a glance, stumbling the rest of the way over to the press and dropping Iruma’s inventions with a clatter, leaning his forehead against the dark metal.
His entire body shakes with the effort it takes to keep standing. “What’ve I got left other than m-my dignity, huh?”
Momota stares at him for a moment, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. It’s like staring into a funhouse mirror, gazing at his own twisted, warped reflection. It’s not like Ouma is his spitting image, or anything, but… in the end, when Momota reveals himself, he’ll barely be able to stay on his feet. He knows that. He can barely stand right now, much less in a couple hours, when his illness will have worsened. But he’ll be damned if he has to let even a single person hold him up.
Still, Momota puts out one of his hands. “There’s a quiet dignity in allowing other people to help you,” he murmurs, his brow lowered. “Especially right at the end. I already know so much, right?”
Indistinguishable emotion flickers Ouma’s eyes. He stares at Momota’s hand for what feels like an eternity, and then moves his eyes to Momota’s face. After another moment he laughs bitterly, “Hypocrite,” but he takes Momota’s hand regardless, allowing himself to be pulled upright. Momota brings around his free hand to cradle the small of Ouma’s back, easing him down to sit on the lower half of the press.
There is quiet as Ouma unties his scarf, holding it out for Momota to take. Next, his shaking fingers undo every intricate buckle and pop every one of the multicoloured buttons of his jacket and drapes the garment over Momota’s arm with the scarf. He pulls up his undershirt last, hissing as he lifts his arms over his head. Momota feels his lips pressing together, his stomach churning at the look on the other boy’s face, but when Ouma’s arms are lowered again, he’s grinning with pride.
“Make sure you get rid of those,” Ouma mumbles. Momota nods, and considers asking Ouma if he needs help lying down, but decides against it, instead turning to start back towards the stairs. They only have so much time to spare. And-- well, it’s the end of Ouma’s life. There’s already so little that he’s going to be able to do, in his final moments. Momota should allow him this at the very least.
The thought freezes him in his tracks, one of his feet hovering over the first step. This is the end of Ouma’s life. It’s not as though… Momota is unfamiliar with death, not after all this time, but this is the first time… and the last time… that Momota is going to be the one causing it.
His stomach turns, and he swallows, thickly. There’s no way he can back out of it now, not when the killing game could happen again, not when Ouma’s already dying, not when Momota himself is already dying. They’re both done for, anyway, so they might as well just… get it over with.
And yet…
“Momota-chan,” Ouma speaks up, annoyed, “what’s the holdup? You want me to die of the poison or somethi--”
“Do you have any last wishes?” Momota turns around, Ouma’s clothes falling from his arm, save for that scarf, which he clutches in his fist as he stares across the hangar. Ouma is half lying down, half sitting up, one of his hands still gripping the upper part of the press.
From this distance, it’s hard to tell, but it seems like the question surprises him. “Uh, duh? End the killing game? What else could I--”
“I mean,” and Momota stops to catch his breath, ignoring the way emotion chokes him up and the familiar itch in the back of his throat that tempts him to start coughing, “something I could say? To the group? A message I could pass along?” Anything? Momota understands, he does, that this is all Ouma wants, to put an end to the killing game, but… but to die so young, so misunderstood, so hated… it just feels wrong, to have his last wish be more to do with the universe than himself.
Maybe Ouma deserves to be selfish. Maybe he deserves to win, just this once.
“I mean, I’m gonna be dead soon,” Momota continues, frowning, “but if there’s someone out there you want to say goodbye to, I could ask one of my sidekicks to carry along the message, they’ll probably--”
“Nobody I remember is real, Momota-chan,” Ouma says flatly, his face so utterly lacking emotion that Momota nearly does a double take. The thought alone makes Momota’s stomach turn, but Ouma is completely unfazed, speaking like he’d explain the solar system to an elementary schooler. “Those motive videos give you this feeling, like, that’s right, how could I have forgotten what’s most important to me? You wouldn’t know that, since, heh, since you never saw yours, but I watched mine.”
Momota mumbles, “I wanted to watch mine,” and Ouma gives him the quickest of smiles, his eyes crinkling at the edges, before he sobers.
“They’re like the flashback lights. That’s how T-Toujou-chan forgot she was the prime minister, and how I supposedly forgot my little gang of clowns.” Ouma shrugs. “They were never real to… to begin with. The videos made us think they existed, so that we’d kill for them. It’s that simple.”
“So even if you wanted to say goodbye to somebody,” Momota says quietly, “they wouldn’t exist for the message to be passed along.”
Ouma nods. “So just forget about it, okay? There’s… nothing more you can do for me, I’m,” he sucks in a sharp breath and winces, his knuckles paling where they hold him up, “I’m done for, y’know?” He laughs. “So just end all of this. That’s all I want.”
It doesn’t feel… right, to just kill Ouma, not when he’s thought the worst of him all this time, not when this is the first time Momota’s ever really seen him, or understood him. But insisting on doing something else, prolonging the inevitable, leaving Ouma to be in pain even longer than he has to be… that would feel worse. So Momota turns, reluctantly, and bends down to pick up the clothes he dropped, swallowing down the lump in his throat.
“But y’know…”
When Ouma speaks, Momota looks back again, holding his breath.
“If Momota-chan, hah, really wanted to do something for me,” Ouma grins, “he could come over here and kiss me.”
Heat spreads from Momota’s face down to his neck, and his eyes widen, his grip on Ouma’s clothes tightening. “What?”
“I’ve never kissed anybody before, y’know,” Ouma continues, casually. He closes his eyes and gestures with the hand that he isn’t using to hold himself upright. “I’ve always dreamed that it’d be with some seeeriously h-homoerotic detective, or something, and they’d, hahhha, kiss me so good I forgot my name, but given the circumstances,” he opens his eyes again, “I guess I can settle for you.”
Momota stares at Ouma for a moment, blankly, his heart pounding in his chest.
Giggling weakly, Ouma says, “But that’s a lie, of course! I’ve actually kissed l-leagues of people, I have women aaaaall around back home who are just dying to get a piece of this,” he gestures up and down at his body, “so I--”
Before Ouma can finish, Momota’s dropped the clothing on the stairs and headed back over, reaching down to pull him up by the waist.
The moment before their lips touch, Ouma’s eyes go wide. “Momota-chan, I was just--”
Momota goes into it too head-on, he thinks, because their noses bump together, and it’s uncomfortable and wet and Ouma’s lips have got that taste, like he hasn’t eaten in far too long, and one of Ouma’s hands fists itself in Momota’s shirt in what should be a tender gesture but his grip is so weak that he barely makes a difference, fingers shaking against Momota’s shoulder. Ouma’s lips are cold, too, much too cold, like the life is already draining out of him as he stands in Momota’s arms.
When they pull back, Ouma’s eyes are closed, but he laughs, resting his forehead against Momota’s.
They’re quiet for a moment.
“What’re you gonna tell your girlfriend about that one, Momota-chan?” Ouma asks, opening his eyes again. They’re a striking violet, even in the green lighting, and hell, Momota doesn’t love him, doesn’t know how to love anything right now, but he tastes something bitter in the back of his throat nonetheless, at the thought that he’s never going to get the chance to.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Momota mumbles.
“She’s not?” Ouma raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like there’s no consequences, in that case.”
With that, he leans forward for a second time, and this time his face is tilted so their noses only brush, and Momota closes his eyes, leaning into the kiss like it’s the last thing in the world that matters. They’ll have to face the reality eventually-- soon, even, that electrobomb won’t last forever and Momota has so much to do-- but right now Momota cherishes the closeness, craves it. Ouma’s lips are sweet against Momota’s bitter, bitter mouth, and he wants nothing more than to forget that they’re both about to die, that in less than ten minutes Ouma will be gone and Momota will be alone.
He’s not alone right now, though. Like this, with Ouma closer to him than Momota’s been to another person in weeks, he can’t remember the last time he felt less alone.