Work Text:
Miu was working in her research lab like she did for almost all her waking hours, especially recently. She wipes the sweat from her forehead and flips her goggles off.
“Ha, this invention’s gonna be the shit! Everyone will know the name Miu Iruma!” She boasted to herself. She decided to check the time and realized it was a bit past ten at night, that means it's considered night time in the academy and she should keep her ruckus down, even if she’s not too close by to anyone or anything.
“How the hell did this day fly by so fast? Well, at least it wasn’t a day wasted.” She thinks to herself and starts to clean up her stuff, deciding to maybe head back to her dorm.
She puts her tools and equipment away and lines up her latest creation with the rest. She looks at them, moving down the line left to right. Gadgets and gizmos, some named, others not. Some useful, others not, with the sole creation of them being to see if it was even possible. Miu can’t help but smile, but it was one filled with sorrow. She grabs the rest of her personal belongings and heads back to the dorms.
On her walk back, she looks up at the night sky full of stars. “For something not high-tech, what a beaut.” She says to the sky. She walks and wishes she had gone to the dining hall for dinner. She grabbed something early in the morning, but that’s it. She can’t get anything now, it's closed. She pulls out her phone, realizing she had forgotten about it all day and heads to her texts.
She has her notifications on silent so she can focus on work. A lot of talk in the groupchat, all the students in her class here have a groupchat, they had a sign up sheet passed around from dorm to dorm and she guesses she signed it? She can’t remember if she did and why she would, but she's in it. She could scroll through it, but decides not to, not like she talks in it anyways. She also has a text? Not the groupchat either. This never happens to her. She decided to check that.
Unknown:
Hey Miu!!! I just wanted to let you know that we were having a class dinner at the dining hall starting at 6pm tonight. We talked about it in the groupchat, but I don’t think you saw? Or you did and didn’t say anything. But anyways, I hope to see you there! I’ll try to keep Kokichi away from you, promise! :) (sent today at 5:05 pm)
“Oh God, not like I’d really wanna go anyway…” She says to herself and stops in her tracks, and reads the other message sent.
Unknown:
Hi again Miu, I forgot to say last time that this is Kaede just in case you didn’t know who this was, I got your number from the group chat of course. Everyone’s here besides Kaito, it seems he’s running late lol!!! We even got in touch with others like Gonta who doesn’t even know how to use his phone. But I don’t see you here? Did you get my other text? I’d love it if we all got together as a class. (sent today at 6:42 pm)
“Kaeidiot decided to bother me? Surprised but she’d seem like the type to get this sorta thing together.” Miu decides to add her to her contacts under the name she just spoke, and after that checks the last message.
Kaeidiot:
Sorry if I'm bothering you Miu :( We are cleaning up now before the dining hall closes, and almost everyone is gone besides a few people like Shuichi and Kirumi who stayed to help clean it. If you wanna stop by, I saved you a piece of cake. I don’t think you had dinner and I wish I could have gotten you something more nutritious but it’s all we had left. Again, sorry for the texts. (sent today at 9:17 pm)
And nothing else. Miu after that made a snarky remark along the lines of “Wonder if she’s still waiting, ha that loser definitely would be if the dining hall wasn't closed” though it sounded insecure of her, maybe she was hoping it was the truth. She sighed and shrugged off her true feelings as there was nothing she can do about it now, and put her phone back and continued walking to her dorm.
Once she arrived, she shuffled getting her keys to the dorm out, glazing to her right, knowing exactly who’s room that was. Her door unlocks with a click, and she reaches her hand to the doorknob, but she hesitates before entering her room.
Once she’s in, she flings her goggles onto her desk and falls back on her bed. She didn’t bother turning the lights on or getting unchanged besides taking off her heeled high boots which she just keeps shaking her foot until they fly off, once crashing into her desk with a nice bang to it and shakes the desk, luckily her goggles don’t fall off.
“You motherfucker!” She sits up fast and literally yells at her boot. “Think you could’ve outsmart me, but you can't, the inventor lives another day aha!” she laughs until she's pushed back down onto her bed due to her laughter.
Once her laughing fit dies down, she stares up at the ceiling, and that ‘genius’ brain of hers starts thinking. She tries closing her eyes and sleeping it off but it’s no use. Not like she sleeps every really anyway, she hasn’t gotten at least eight hours of sleep night for at least two years. Usually she’s up by her choice, but tonight she’s not.
She pulls out her phone, hoping to maybe doom scroll the night away, but she ends up finding herself back to Kaede’s texts. She starts to type an ‘I’m sorry’ slowly, before deleting it immediately.
“What do I have to be sorry for? Not like I wanted to go anyway, I had more important things to do!” She talks to herself. She reads over the texts again, keeping the part in her brain where Kaede said she would have loved it if they all got together as a class.
“She doesn’t mean she wants ME there, it means I’m just one of what sixteen dumasses? She just wanted it to look good for her little miss perfect reputation she's got going on. ‘Oh look at me! I got the whole class together. Aren’t I amazing?’ I mean, no one understands this genius! This beauty! This…” she trails off after mocking Kaede.
Her fingers slowly hover over the letters on the keyboard. ‘I’ then a space, then ‘A’ then ‘M’ before she stops.
“What am I?”
So many thoughts fill her head. a god, a failure, an icon, a bitch, a genius, an idiot. Her head wouldn’t shut up, she had nothing to drown it out.
"If only I could hear Kaede play…" “WAIT WHAT.” She chokes on her breath and coughs. There's no way she just thought that.
“I don’t need that I’m Mi-” she stops herself. “I-I’m lonely.”
Miu never really had friends growing up, acquaintances with her yes, but never by choice. They’d come and go. She never had anyone stay by her side. Even now, she didn’t have anyone to talk to. They had to do introductions and Miu wasn’t afraid to let her personality show through, but it didn’t flatter anyone. Kokichi made fun of her and laughed, a few others laughed with him, some looked in disgust. She can remember though, a smile. One smile she got from the crowd, and she still believes it was genuine. A beautiful smile. From the same person, the only person, who decided to reach out to her.
Miu had lied to herself, with shaky hands and a guilty conscious, she opened her deleted messages.
Kaeidiot:
Hi :) I’m Kaede Akamatsu. If you didn’t remember me from introductions a few days ago, I’m the piano girl lol, but here’s my number, feel free to reach out if you need anything! <3
(sent 12 weeks ago)
Kaeidiot:
Hey Miu! I noticed our dorms are right next to each other, a little late but I’ve never seen you go in and out, so yeah I guess that's why I didn’t notice lol. If you ever wanna hang just knock and I might be around or feel free to text me or ask in person! I’d love to get to know you better :)
(sent 10 weeks ago)
Kaeidiot:
Hiii, you must never check your phone or have it on you or be charged lol should have asked today. I loved hanging out with you at lunch today! I never see you in the dining hall. You’re not skipping meals right? If anything is wrong you can talk with me, even if we aren’t that close <3 I also decided to text you and just see if you see it, I didn’t want to bring it up in person and embarrass you or something. (sent 5 weeks ago)
Kaediot:
Miu, are you doing alright? This is Kaede if you haven’t put my name in your phone or forgot. Anyway, I have not seen you around for a few days now and I’m getting worried. Sorry if this annoys you but I was asking around and nobody’s seen you recently. I really hope you’re okay Miu.” (sent 1 week ago)
Miu feels tears fill her eyes, she can’t take it. She knew someone tried to reach out, and what did she do? Ignore them and delete the messages like they never happened. She starts to cry loudly, and tries to shut herself up by shoving her face into her pillows.
“You’ll never make friends, you’re not deserving of them anyway you fuck! You’ll always be ordinary and forgettable, everyone will find you disgusting and crude! You’re not some sex god, you’re a loser! Why would people want you around, you’re better off dea-” Miu's muttering into her pillow when she hears a knock at her door and then it opens slightly.
“Shit.” She thinks to herself. She didn’t lock her door.
“Miu…” A quiet voice speaks.
Miu looks up from her pillow, tears in her eyes and lip quivering, and sees a blonde ahoge, then slams her face back into the pillow. She knew who was there.
“GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT” She screams into her pillow.
“Miu, it's okay, I'm here to help.” Kaede slowly gets closer to the bed, Miu can hear her but doesn’t choose to look up again, and is flailing her legs thinking she’ll hit her and she’ll go away. Kaede sits on the bed despite the kicking, and it stops one Miu realizes she can’t win.
“I heard you crying from my room, since the bed frame is right by the wall, and these walls aren't the best.” She laughs. “I also saw you texting for a while now, it popped up and kept going off, and I got really worried. Now please tell me what’s wrong, unless you’d rather cry it out first, but I’m not taking ‘get out’ as an answer.” Kaede sits patiently with Miu, who’s still avoiding her.
After a good minute, Miu looks up. Kaede makes a quiet but audible “aw” feeling sorry for her, and she let Miu do what she wanted, but held her arms out. Miu looked down at her arms, then up at her face. It was that same smile she remembers from what was a decent time ago, but it feels so familiar and safe.
Miu, without thinking, accepts Kaede's gesture dives into the pianist's arms, pushing both back. She's clutching Kaede’s shoulders with cold hands and crying into the crook of her neck. While Miu’s doing that, Kaede reassures her with sweet nothings such as “It’s okay, I’m here for you.” and “let it all out.” while rubbing her back with soothing circles, holding the inventor close to her.
This goes on for a while and Kaede before more silent the quieter Miu becomes. Miu breaks the silence with a sniffle and a weak “I’m sorry”.
“There’s no need to be sorry Miu, you were feeling this way for a good reason.”
Miu moves back and looks into Kaede’s eyes. “I… I just never have had any f-friends. You tried reaching out many, many times but I fuckin’ deleted them and ran like a pussy!”
Kaede frowns a bit making Miu feel guilty but she just holds onto her tighter. “Is there a reason why you did that?”
“I… I was scared. I want friends. I just… I don’t know how to act. I scare everyone off with my facade but this is me deep down… an insecure bitch with no one.”
“You have me.” Kaede butted in quickly.
“But why…” Miu trailed off, sniffling more
"Cause I care about you Miu.” She sounded sweet as always, but more serious.
“Don’t you care about everyone?” Miu snaps back with a grunt.
“Well yes but, you’ve caught my eye from the beginning, you’ve always confused and intrigued me but finally, here I am getting to talk to you for longer than just a lunch period or in the halls.”
“I... have? Really?" Miu says with a distinct pause and starts to wipe her tears away
“Yeah, you’re definitely not an ordinary girl Miu.”
Once she heard that, she felt something inside her again, and Miu laughed. “Of course I’m not, I’m Miu Iruma!”
Kaede let out a relieving sigh. Miu was back to being Miu, or at least some of her.
“I’m glad to hear that gorgeous girl genius.” Kaede giggled, playfully teasing Miu with her chosen title for herself.
“You got that right Kaeidiot!”
“Now, should I get going or-”
“NO” Miu hugs her tight so she can’t escape. “I mean, not that I care what you do.”
“I guess there’s truly no way to know what’s gonna happen when I’m with you” Kaede jokes. “And I’ll stay the night then, but please let’s get some rest. I have the cake for you as well, hopefully it’s still good, maybe you can have it tomorrow BUT you are accompanying me to the dining hall so I know you get a good meal in.”
“Whatever mom.” Miu jokes and yawns, snuggling closer to Kaede. Luckily Kaede didn’t mind, she was pretty affectionate after all and was the one who started this when trying to help and calm Miu down.
The last thing Miu heard before drifting off to sleep was “Goodnight Miu, sweet dreams. You deserve them.” and seeing that beautiful smile Kaede possessed.