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“You’ve reached Toujou Kirumi. I am not available to answer the phone right now, but if you leave a message after the tone, I’ll be sure to assist you as soon as I possibly can.”
Ever the dutiful maid, even after everything. Maki huffed out a sigh under her breath, pulling the phone away from her ear and just looking down at it for a moment. Her thumb hovered over the screen, on the verge of ending the call without bothering to leave a voicemail, but she decided against it at the last moment. Lifting the phone again, she forced herself to speak.
“Hey. It’s me. I’m not calling for anything important,” she said, picking at a loose thread sticking out from one of the rips in her jeans. “Just seeing how you are, I guess. How everyone is, but...mostly you.” Despite being alone in her tiny rented room, she felt her face heat up with embarrassment. She still wasn’t entirely used to being emotionally vulnerable.
“I think about you. Just in passing, I’ll wonder. I’ll just be eating or doing laundry or something stupid and I’ll wonder what you’re doing. Anyway...hope things are good there. Bye.” With that awkward ending, she hung up, tossing her phone down on the bed.
Not for the first time, she thought that going off on her own might have been a mistake. She thought that getting away from everything that reminded her of Danganronpa would make it easier to put herself back together, but maybe she was wrong. The weeks alone had mostly consisted of sinking deeper and deeper into a miasma of her own misery and pain. There was little to distract her. Going online or turning on TV was a no-go for obvious reasons. She couldn’t focus on the cheap paperbacks she picked up at the bookstore. Her rented room was small, so it didn’t take much effort to keep things tidy. There was so little to occupy her days.
With the others, it was the opposite. There was never a shortage of things to do, not with so many people in one house. Maki thought it was a decent enough idea when Kaede first proposed it, a home base while everyone got used to their new lives. Going along with it was the path of least resistance. It was the biggest house she’d ever been in — practically a mansion — but she still felt suffocated sometimes. The noise, the activity, it was too much. There was too much to feel.
She wasn’t the first one to leave, but she was close.
Now it was silent, save for the occasional muffled noises of her neighbors through the walls. She got exactly what she wanted.
Why did it feel so sad?
Heaving out a soft sigh, Maki got up from her bed. Maybe it was time to make some lunch. She was getting used to maneuvering around the cramped kitchenette, but thoughts still crossed her mind of the vast, open kitchen back home. Kirumi was there more often than not around mealtimes, cooking for everyone and struggling to accept any help.
As she watched her cup noodles rotate in the microwave, she remembered the feeling of Kirumi against her back, guiding her as she cut vegetables into little stars and hearts.
“I have plenty of experience with knives, you know,” she had said with a roll of her eyes, feeling Kirumi’s soft laughter as much as hearing it.
“Not for this purpose,” Kirumi replied. “It’s different. It’s only natural for it to take you a little time to master.” Her voice was neither unkind nor patronizing. Maki wasn’t a killer, she was just a girl who’d never tried to cut food into cute shapes before.
“Himiko and the others will like this.”
“You’ve developed quite the protective streak, haven’t you?” Kirumi smiled, and when Maki turned her head to look at her, it made her heart flutter. She shrugged before turning back to her vegetables, biting her lip.
“I survived with her and Shuichi. I guess I care about them a bit. And...others too.”
“Like who? Kaito?” Was Kirumi teasing her?
“Sure, that idiot, and also...I care about you.”
“That’s not something I’m accustomed to hearing, but I suppose you probably aren’t either, hm? I care about you too, Maki.”
She was jolted back to the present by the sound of the microwave beeping. It took only half a step to move between it and the bed.
Maki ate in silence, hardly paying attention to the taste of cheap instant ramen. She wondered what the others might be eating, what sort of homemade, cooked with love leftovers filled the fridge. When she was done, she crumpled the paper cup, throwing it in the direction of the trash can. Just as she was getting up to wash her chopsticks at the sink, her phone rang. Kirumi’s name stared up at her.
She scooped it up and answered, trying to make her greeting sound casual.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Maki, I apologize for missing your call. I was just assisting Kokichi with something. How are you doing?”
“No problem,” she said, setting the chopsticks down on the counter. “I’m...alright.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mean to pry, but you sounded rather down in your voicemail.” She could picture Kirumi pursing her lips and tucking her hair behind her ear. She wondered if there was anyone next to her, and found herself hoping there wasn’t.
She meant to brush off the concern and say she was fine, but what came out instead was, “I want to come home but I don’t know if I can.”
Kirumi’s soft inhale was as damning as anything, and Maki fought the urge to hang up.
“You’re always welcome, of course. I thought you knew that. It was the agreement we all made when choosing the house. That it would be home for anyone who wanted it to be, no questions asked.”
“No, I know. I don’t mean it like that. Well, I didn’t mean to say it at all,” she clarified, voice grim. “I just...I don’t know if I can handle it. And changing my mind after barely a month away...it feels pathetic.”
“I think you’re far from pathetic, Maki,” Kirumi said quietly. “And if you’re concerned about needing to escape sometimes, you could keep your new place as well. Nothing says you can’t split your time as you see fit.”
“I’m so sick of not knowing what I want.” Those words were mumbled into her palm, leaning heavily against the tiny counter. She wasn’t even sure if Kirumi would hear her.
“What do you think you want right now?”
Once again, the words spilled out without her permission.
“To see you.”
“Then come home. Just for the afternoon if you’d like. There are more options than always and never.”