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Dear Amami-san,
Ultimate Adventurer is such a cool talent! When I sign up for Danganronpa, I want my talent to have taken me all over the world, too. I was thinking I could be the Ultimate Tour Guide. I wish I could go adventuring with you!
Another season fifty-three hopeful. As he moved the letter to the checked pile, Rantarou briefly hoped—for their sake—that they wouldn't get in.
Dear Amami-san,
You're my absolute favourite participant from all 52 seasons—don't tell the others ;)
It would mean so much to me if you sent a letter back with your autograph!
He narrowed his eyes at that one; he had received plenty of fan mail claiming he was the sender's favorite, but none were quite so… short and to the point as this. He couldn't help but wonder if the rest of the cast had received the same letter with the name swapped out, given how vague and impersonal it was. Autographs sell decently well, after all. The letter quickly joined the rest in the checked pile.
Dear Amami Rantarou,
I don't care how popular you are. You should have died in chapter three. Everyone knows Akiko-chan should have survived instead.
I hope it keeps you up at night knowing that it should have been you.
...Hate mail was rare for him. This one was particularly biting, and hit a sore spot.
But the sender was wrong, he knew that. He shouldn't have died in her place—none of them deserved to die. He wouldn't allow anyone to make him feel guilty for things he couldn't have possibly known. The trap was meant to kill him. Akiko got there first.
He just hoped that she could forgive him.
Dragging a hand through his hair, Rantarou glanced from the mountain of checked mail to the quickly dwindling pile of unopened letters. It wouldn't take him long to get through the remainder.
The possibility that he wouldn't find what he was looking for loomed over him in his mind. He elected to ignore the sinking feeling until he knew for sure.
Just as his fingertips brushed the next envelope, there was a knock at his door—a nurse, reminding him that it was time for dinner. He was half tempted to stay and finish, but he was hungry, and… maybe a little bit afraid to find out that the letter wasn't there.
Maybe he was a little bit afraid to find that it was there, too.
Putting it off for a bit couldn't hurt. The letters would be there when he got back.
Most of the others were already in the cafeteria, chatting and eating, by the time Rantarou arrived. He made eye contact with Akiko across the room, and his heart climbed into his throat, but she just gave him a small smile and a wave.
Tension that he hadn't realized he was carrying eased from his shoulders. He returned the wave, his own smile soft across his features, before making his way to the buffet line.
The food served at the facility was actually pretty decent. God knows the company could afford it, but Rantarou was almost surprised that they didn't choose to skimp on it. He scanned the room, weighing his options—a few people sat on their own, far from the others. He wouldn't bother them when they clearly wanted to be alone, but he could follow in their footsteps and sit at an empty table.
Then, there were multiple small groups of people eating together and talking. He didn't particularly feel like exchanging pleasantries, but he didn't want anyone to think he was avoiding them, either.
His eyes drifted back to Akiko. She wasn't alone at her table, but she wasn't engaging in conversation with the others, either.
Rantarou made his way over and she glanced up at him, eyes widening slightly. "Is it alright if I join you?"
She took a moment to respond, but nodded. "Of course."
She had never been the most talkative person during the game, and in the few times he had seen her since it ended, it seemed that she had only become quieter in its wake. They ate in comfortable silence.
Rantarou knew he hadn't been the most… present… in the last week and a half since the survivors had been awoken. Akiko might forgive him, but he felt a twinge of guilt at his self-isolation. He had no idea how well the others were faring.
Despite the casual school-lunchroom vibe, there was the unmistakable feeling that he was being watched. Rantarou paused with his sandwich halfway to his lips. He looked up. Three tables away, all by herself, was Tsumugi—the two of them locked eyes for just a split second before she hurried to look away.
They weren't friends. None of them were friends with Tsumugi, really; what with her constant cooing about how cool the killing game was. "It's just like a video game, isn't it?" she had said to him, once. She stared right through him with an odd intensity, her teal eyes seeming to glow a vibrant blue. "And Amami-kun would be the protagonist."
So maybe she wasn't far off. Didn't make her treatment of the game any less unsettling.
"Amami-san?"
He focused on the source of the sound with a slight jerk of his head, clearing his throat before responding. Akiko's eyebrows were drawn together, her lips slightly parted as though she wanted to ask something but wasn't sure how. He must've been gripping the sandwich too tightly—a tomato slice snuck out and plopped onto the table. Avoiding her gaze and offering an apologetic smile, he started, "Sorry, I…"
Over Akiko's shoulder he could see three empty tables. The third of which was where Tsumugi had been. Inexplicably, Rantarou's heart sank to his stomach.
"I lost my appetite."
The statement did nothing to assuage Akiko's apparent concern—far from it—but she allowed him to get up and leave without protest. He paused, tray in one hand, to wave goodbye. "I'll see you again soon."
Rantarou tossed the food in the trashcan near the exit and left the tray on top, walking as briskly as he could without attracting attention. As he turned down the hall with a racing heart and ice in his veins, he couldn't find an explanation for the sudden urgency he felt. He'd kept an eye out for Tsumugi all game, more suspicious of her than anyone else, but the game was over now and she hadn't killed anyone. She had survived.
Just like him.
Two weeks in the game. A week and a half out. Maybe it was too soon to expect the dread to leave him, but he was worried that it never would.
Rantarou approached the door to his own room with caution, like…
Like… what? What was he expecting, exactly? A pool of blood, a body, the discovery noise, Monokuma's hideous laughter?
She wouldn't even be there. It's stupid, it's all so stupid, there's no reason she would've gone to his room—there's nothing he has that she would want. But he opened the door like he expected to find her there, anyways.
Shirogane Tsumugi was just as surprised to see him as he was to see her, if not more. She held a single envelope in her right hand.
Tension thick in the air, she shifted to face him with an appeasing smile. She could tell he spotted the envelope; her fingers twitched, but she made no move to hide it.
"Amami-kun! Sorry, this is awkward… I was hoping to be finished before you got back."
Rantarou's head spun. Was she openly admitting to stealing from him? Her placating expression and chilling eyes suggested otherwise. He stood firm, blocking the only exit. "What, exactly, were you hoping to be finished with?"
"Well, I was going through my own mail this morning when I noticed some of it was actually addressed to you. The company must have mixed a few letters up." Tsumugi pushed her glasses up with her left hand, keeping the letter safely tucked at her side with the right. Her grip was firm, but not tight enough to seem nervous. "I didn't want to bother you, really. I figured I could return them while you were gone, but when I got here, I realized you might have received some of my mail, too."
She stated it with such certainty that, had his mind not been blaring alarm bells for the last ten minutes, it almost could've been believable. "Is that so?"
"Yes."
"And the envelope you're holding is addressed to you, then?"
Her eyes flickered back to the piles of mail. There was a brief pause, a moment of deliberation; yet she still didn't seem troubled. "It is."
"Can you show me?"
She knew, she had to know that there was no point in trying to talk her way out of this anymore. Still, her eyelashes fluttered, and she responded with indignation. "Well that doesn't seem appropriate. I didn't look through any of yours."
"Shirogane-san." Her lips drew into a small, flat line. With her smile finally gone, Rantarou found it easier to breathe. "I don't need to see the letter. Just the name on the envelope."
"You were never going to believe me, were you?"
He froze.
Tsumugi sighed, her stance becoming defensive, as though she thought he might try to take the letter by force. "It's addressed to you." Even caught red-handed, she clearly wasn't planning on giving it up.
"Bold, to admit that and still refuse to give it back," he said.
"Will you hurt me for it?"
Eyebrows shooting up, Rantarou shook his head with a slight frown. "Of course not," he started, before turning to shut the door behind him. "But neither of us is going anywhere until you give it back and explain what this is all about."
Tsumugi sighed again, her shoulders relaxing a bit. "Fine. I was hoping to have a bit more tact, and to have this conversation on my own terms, but I suppose it's unavoidable." Her eyes narrowed. "Do you know who this letter is from?"
A lump formed in his throat. He only had one guess, though he still didn't understand what Tsumugi was playing at. "One of my sisters."
"That's right. You've been waiting to hear from them, haven't you? Twelve half-sisters but this is the only letter in the pile from any of them. Did you think that they'd abandoned you?"
None of them had abandoned him—not by choice. He felt the urge to correct Tsumugi, to defend them, but he kept his mouth shut. The less she knew about him, the better; and she clearly already knew too much.
"There are more letters from the others," she said. Rantarou's eyes widened but she continued to speak; "I told the company to withhold them from you. This one slipped through the cracks. So troublesome that they all have different surnames…"
"What?" He couldn't have heard her right. "You… told the company—why? Why would they take orders from you?"
Tsumugi's smile returned, but it was different than the placating one she had given him when he first discovered her in his room. He recognized it as the same look she had given him when comparing their situation to a video game; the same toothy smile she had upon waking up from the simulation, all bright eyes and pure excitement.
"Because I'm going to be the mastermind of season fifty-three." A shock ran through his system, shaking him to his core. There was no time to recover before she pushed onwards. "And you—" she attempted to place a hand on his shoulder, which he quickly recoiled from, "—you're going to be my Ultimate Survivor."
"I wo—"
"You have a choice, but it isn't much of one. Participate and the letters are yours. They all have return addresses listed, so you'll be sure to find your sisters. If you want to fight back, and scream about mail fraud, well… see how far that gets you with Team Danganronpa's lawyers."
"Why me?"
That gave her some pause. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Because the fans love you. Because… you survived. Because I have leverage over you, and because it can't just be me—one character returning is suspicious, but two is an interesting season gimmick."
The word "character" stuck out in Rantarou's mind like a sore thumb.
"You told the company at your audition that you were just trying to catch your sisters' attention by appearing on their favorite show, in the hopes that they would want to reconnect. What's one more season to reach your goal?"
He couldn't, he couldn't go through it again. The Rantarou of six months ago didn't understand what it would be like. Not really.
Tsumugi flexed her fingers, the paper envelope bending in her grasp. "I'll give you some time to think about it. As soon as you sign the contract, the letters are yours."
She was awful, Rantarou thought; she was a participant just like the rest but she carried the attitude of a Team Danganronpa employee. She was an employee now, he supposed. Tsumugi witnessed as much death and suffering as he had and came out the other side looking for more.
"Get out of my room."
"With pleasure."
He stepped away from the door, sick of looking at her and her wretched, soulless eyes. To his dismay, she paused once more, with her hand against the doorframe. "A man present in body but lost at heart, searching for his lost family. That would make a great backstory this time around, wouldn't it?"
"I don't care."
She simply shook her head. "Next time," she said. "We'll discuss it next time."
And Tsumugi was gone, shutting the door behind her and leaving nothing but turmoil in her wake. The letter was gone with her.
Rantarou crumpled to the floor with his back against the door. He wanted to cry, or scream, or—something, he wanted to do something but his body just trembled lightly without a sound. The executives he had sold his life to the first time were cautious and charismatic and so very careful with their words. He was already cornered and Tsumugi knew it, and she didn't give him the luxury of softened words or the illusion of freedom. With a pained laugh, he wondered if he should at least be thankful that she was honest about ruining his life.
He tensed up at the sudden muffled call of his name through the door—"Amami-san? Are you alright?"
It was Akiko, and although he was grateful that it was her and not Tsumugi, he wasn't ready to face anyone else, either. There was no use in pretending he wasn't there; she had definitely heard him. "Sorry, I'm… not feeling well. I don't want to get you sick."
They both went quiet for a minute and he was starting to wonder if she'd just left without responding, when she finally said, "I'm leaving something in front of the door for you, then. I hope you feel better."
Rantarou strained to hear the light sound of her footsteps fade away down the hall. He remained still for another few minutes, clutching his knees to his chest, before his curiosity won out. He opened the door to find a few packaged snacks he recognized from the facility vending machines, with a folded piece of scrap paper resting on top.
He brought them into his room and shut the door again, fingertips tracing the folded edge of the paper. Akiko had her own issues, he knew, and he wasn't particularly close to her before her death. But he hoped they could become friends for real, now, and not just by association—the way every season's cast were "friends."
Rantarou unfolded the letter.
Dear Amami-san,
I know what people are saying about my death, and I want you to know that I don't blame you. I was never cut out for a killing game. If it wasn't then, I'm certain I still wouldn't have made it til the end. I watched the sixth trial when it aired, and I'm glad you were there to lead the others out.
I hope you can manage to meet my eyes again someday.
Please eat something.
Sincerely, Akiko.