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Kokichi’s head pulsed where it pressed against the plate below him, his makeshift death bed even colder and less inviting than he had imagined it.
Or maybe that chill up his spine was self-inflicted, all his mounting worries and second guesses and fear hitting him all at once as he faced his decisions. All that time planning and preparing for this moment and yet he could never prepare himself for what his final moments would actually feel like.
Don’t they say there’s supposed to be some kind of comfort in facing your own death? What a joke. All Kokichi’s poison-flooded brain could conjure up were samples from the mountain of regrets he’d been willing himself to ignore for fear of backing out of his own plan.
“Okay, ready?” Kaito’s voice was raspy and it shook from where he stood just outside the press. And Kokichi simply nodded his affirmative with his signature toothy grin. Kaito didn’t believe him, it was painfully obvious from how long he hesitated just outside the press, wracking his brain for some way out of this. But Kokichi, deceitful to the bitter end, didn’t let his practiced smile break until Kaito finally sighed, accepting his situation, and turned away, his heavy footsteps echoing throughout the hangar. Kokichi found it fitting that his last human interaction would be someone literally turning their back on him.
He tried not to be reminded of Shuichi.
God, Shuichi.
He thought about a million things he could have said, wanted to say, will never say.
Kokichi wanted many things from Shuichi, but the only thing he could bring himself to ask for was for him to survive this long. And whether the detective liked it or not, he had. Though it's not like Shuichi had much of a choice, especially not with Kokichi’s attempts to force the issue. Kokichi almost laughed. It was a stupid plan, really, but it had worked. The ‘love triangle' he'd created between the two most important players in Kokichi’s plan had apparently been interesting enough for whatever sick audience was out there to want them all alive a bit longer.
Kokichi really wished that that had all been a lie. That there wasn’t some truth to the whole dynamic he’d made up. He wished he wasn’t actually jealous of Kaito, wished he didn’t desperately want to be close with Shuichi, closer than their self-assigned roles would ever allow.
He wished he didn’t love him.
It would be so much easier not to. His mind wouldn’t be so bogged down at every corner of his process, wondering what Shuichi might think, how his beloved might react to the agony Kokichi knew was waiting for him. Shuichi, who had been through so much already, who had seen so many of his so-called friends kill each other, and yet he still held onto them. Shuichi, with those piercing copper eyes that always led him to the truth.
Shuichi, who would always see Kokichi for exactly what he was, who could never look past his horrible, vile actions long enough to ever reciprocate. There had been countless times when against his better judgment, Kokichi had indulged in wondering what reciprocation from his beloved would even look like. Would Shuichi hold him close, whisper sweet nothings under his breath, just loud enough for the two of them, and nobody else? Would those clammy hands card through purple locks with the same tender care with which he’d bandaged his hand all those days ago?
And yet strangely enough, Kokichi could never find it in himself to actually want Shuichi to feel the same way about him. He had certainly fantasized, of course he had, but Kokichi fantasized about a lot of things he knew he could never, and should never have. Because loving Kokichi now would mean looking past everything he’d done, forgiving him for the two people he’d already killed. For the third about to join them.
No, the Shuichi Saihara that he loved was somebody who saw through facades, and saw killers for what they really were. Shuichi was willing to prosecute even his close friends, and Kokichi himself had confirmed that when he made Shuichi solve Miu’s case. It was the outcome Kokichi had wanted, even, because he needed Shuichi to be willing to make sacrifices for this plan to work. If he could send Gonta of all people to his execution, what must he think of Kokichi?
Kokichi Ouma loved Shuichi Saihara for the person he was. And that wasn’t a person who could ever love Kokichi Ouma.
The hangar fell deathly silent. Kaito had reached the top of the stairs.
He thought of Kaede Akamatsu, who for all her clumsy leadership and misplaced enthusiasm, had embodied such a genuine warmth within their group, the group that she had clung so tightly to that she could throw away everything to lessen her friends’ pain at her demise. Would Kokichi’s actions be at all comparable to hers? Was there any way he’d be remembered as anything but the hideous villain that this place had turned him into?
No, he thought. There was just no way. Because Kaede’s intentions had been purely selfless, bloodying her own hands to keep others’ clean, letting her friends understand what she did, giving them as much closure as she possibly could. But despite all that she’d still had that bright, blinding light of hers stomped out of her and hung to dry in front of everyone as just an example of this game’s blind cruelty.
The same cruelty that Kokichi had already decided to embody.
No, Kokichi Ouma was nothing at all like Kaede Akamatsu. If her heart was on her sleeve, then his was in a locked box buried six feet under. Because, for all her faults, all her mistakes, Kaede Akamatsu was the type of person that Shuichi Saihara was bound to fall in love with. She was a good person. And good people don’t last long in this game.
A mechanical whirring started up, and it was so much louder up close.
If he’d had the chance, could Kokichi ever have been that kind of person? If he’d met his detective under any other circumstances, could Shuichi ever have fallen in love with him instead? Kokichi wanted to think so. That there was a world out there where he hadn’t had to resort to this, where he hadn’t sent two people to their brutal deaths. Where he wasn’t about to kill a third. Could Shuichi and Kokichi have ever worked out in that world? Would they have walked to school hand in hand, sneak a kiss outside their homeroom and pass cheesy notes all period? Would Shuichi have laughed at his stupid jokes if they weren’t contextualized by a slow massacre playing out before them? Could Kokichi have been a better person, one that Shuichi would have been able to look at without seeing a perfectly crafted facade of pure malice and spite?
But Kokichi didn’t exist in that world. In this world, He was alone.
And he always would be.
Kokichi almost laughed. If only Shuichi knew how true those words would be. Those words that, in the moment, had torn Kokichi to shreds, now only solidified his resolve in his plan. He was the only one who could pull this off. Was the only one who could end this heartless game for good. Everyone would escape, and nobody would bother to mourn for their story’s villain. They’d be living their lives, free from this school, free from this game, and free from Kokichi’s cruelty. He just needed his beloved detective to carry the final stretch. Shuichi would make the right choice, Kokichi was sure of it. He needed to.
As cold metal overtook Kokichi’s field of vision, his eyes screwed shut. Desperate for any small comfort he could find, and brain swirling with a million words still unsaid, he selfishly pictured clammy hands against his, soft blue locks that framed those piercing copper eyes that he could never tear himself away from. Imagined that the imposing press below him was actually a gentle and lean frame holding him close, coaxing him to just relax, it’s ok to fall asleep here.
And in his very last moment, drowned out by the roaring of the press, Kokichi Ouma found the courage to be honest with himself, just this once.
“I love you.”