Work Text:
but when I show you my play
will you pretend you didn't know
if I make a mistake?
it's gonna get really, really, really, really bad
before it's okay
“The first thing I ever wrote was a p-play.”
Fukawa spoke quietly, her face tipped downward, gaze fixed on her own hands where they were tangled together on the tabletop. She fidgeted uncertainly when Togami lifted his eyes from his book of Shakespeare and regarded her for a moment.
He still had the instinct, sometimes, not to engage. But Naegi and Kirigiri had been on his case about that, lately. She’s come so far, they’d admonished him. She’s working so hard. Please just try to be nicer to her. We only have each other.
“I thought the first thing you ever wrote was a love letter,” he said finally.
She looked up sharply, seemingly astonished that he was responding. Then she swallowed and tried to school her face into a more neutral expression. “I-I didn’t think I ever… t-told you about that.”
Togami shook his head. “You didn’t,” he explained. “Jack did. She… likes to overshare, sometimes.”
She winced slightly, flushing. “I-I’m sorry. Even aside f-from the obvious, there’s s-so much she did that I h-have to apologise for.” She licked her lips. “That’s… p-part of why I’m trying so hard to keep her under c-control.”
“You don’t need to apologise for her actions. I wouldn’t,” he heard himself say. Fukawa seemed startled. In an attempt not to show that he’d surprised himself, he cleared his throat and continued, “Not even the most powerful person in the world can truly control another person’s behaviour. Jack might share your body, but she is another person. That’s how it works.”
“I… I guess,” she agreed softly, staring.
And there was his opportunity to end the conversation. By rights, he should. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d shown too much, and it would be wisest to put a stop to things now. Instead, he closed his book and leaned forward, just a tiny bit. “Was Jack lying to me, then? If you wrote other things before the love letter?”
“W-well, not exactly.” She flexed her fingers, twisting them more tightly into each other. “I-it’s just that the letter was… the f-first thing anyone else ever read. A-and, I had that teacher who saw it, and t-told me I wrote well, and to… to k-keep working at it. But I’d wr-written things before.”
“Like a play.” He propped his elbow on the arm of his chair and rested his chin on his fist. He had no idea why he was doing this with her, but at least Naegi and Kirigiri wouldn’t have any grounds anymore to claim that he hadn’t given her a chance. Yes. It was practical, if he looked at it that way.
Fukawa nodded. “I-I was… seven or eight, I think. No one ever really p-played with me very much, so I had to m-make my own fun a lot of the t-time. Somehow, I g-got it in my head to write a p-play. I think the idea c-came from school, or something. I was… c-convinced that if I performed a g-great play for them… my p-parents would be impressed with me.”
“And were they?” Togami prompted, when she petered out. It was a banal question. He had no reason to ask, and no interest in her answer, really. Then he added, “What was it about, anyway?”
“I-it… it was about a superhero who rescued a little g-girl… and then a-adopted her. And all of his superhero f-friends helped him take c-care of her.” She looked down again, this time low enough that her hair fell across her face and completely hid her from view. When she continued, her voice was even quieter than before. “I-I asked everyone in the house to c-come watch me, but n-no one did. They… p-probably would have hated it, a-anyway.”
And just like that, Togami was wildly out of his depth. There were hundreds of things in this world that he could do far better than anyone else he knew, but this… this was not something he’d ever been taught to handle. It was true that ever since Hope’s Peak, he’d come a long way, as far as understanding the value of connecting with other people. He’d learned first how to rely on others, how to let them rely on him, and since then he’d begun to learn what it really meant to have friends, rather than just strategic allies. But this was well outside of his realm of expertise. Naegi, maybe, would know how to handle this in a rational manner.
And then he remembered something Naegi had said to him, once, and the other Killing Game survivors, besides Fukawa herself. Komaru didn’t tell me everything Fukawa told her, he’d confided in them. But what Fukawa went through as a kid… I know sometimes it feels like we’ve been through the worst the world has to offer. I know we made it through the Tragedy and everything else, and it feels like we know what it means to really suffer. But I think maybe Fukawa had already survived that much pain before we ever even met her.
Togami hadn’t cared very much at the time, so evidently he hadn’t even bothered to remember it all that well, until this conversation jogged it back to the surface. Now, it seemed more important. It also seemed embarrassingly obvious, given that most of the literature on her disorder agreed that it was typically the result of considerable trauma. He supposed it hadn’t made a difference to him, when Naegi had shared this, what she had been through; he had no patience for her either way.
He was a little surprised that it made this much of a difference to him now.
And maybe, over all this time she’d spent working so hard to gain better control of herself, he’d been losing some of his own once-tight self-control. Because before he even realised what he was doing, he swallowed and reached out, brushing a hand against her hunched shoulder, and said, “My parents never loved me, either.”
Yet again her head snapped up, and she stared at him in shock, this time with eyes shining and tears beginning to track down her cheeks. Togami was uncomfortably aware that he was staring straight back, his own confusion and uncertainty beginning to show on his face. He couldn’t seem to help it.
They looked at one another for what seemed far too long. Then Fukawa sniffled, bringing a hand up to her face and scrubbing at her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m not really… much of a p-performer,” she managed, voice still a bit thick. “B-but if I decided to write a-a new play… would you r-read it, Bya… um, T-Togami-sama?”
His mouth felt dry. “I… yes,” he answered, very slowly, and yet again he didn’t know why. Why on earth would her decision to be vulnerable with him – for far from the first time, too – trip him up so much? Why was he indulging her this way? What was wrong with him? “Yes, I think I would.”
She began to smile, and something, certainly, must have been very deeply wrong with him. Because he began to feel better.