Chapter Text
David does tend to be bad at keeping his mouth shut, when it really comes down to it. It’s because of this that he and Teruko don’t get off to the best start.
Still, they and Xander do get to spend a bit of time together before things get bad. Xander even apologizes to him for his behavior and sounds like he means it, surprisingly self-aware of how annoying he’d been for David. And—despite all odds, spending time with them, it’s nice. A moment of peace David can normally only come by while cooped up all alone in his shitty studio apartment. It’s really, really nice, actually. He thinks he’d like to do it again.
In the end, though, he isn’t able to, because Xander dies on the computer lab floor. And after the execution, he and Teruko don't get a real chance to talk privately again for a long while. To be precise, three corpses in. It's a grim and unconventional way to think about the passing of time, rather than in hours, days, and weeks, yet he finds himself thinking such things nonetheless. The lack of windows and natural light cycles in the facility is throwing off his internal clock terribly, and without any other type of structure to mark them apart, days without death pass him by in a hazy slurry, jumbling together almost as one.
At one corpse, David accuses Teruko of murder and mourns in the brief moments where it's possible.
After two corpses, he takes leadership against his better judgment and tries to ignore Teruko’s shadowy eyes, glaring knife-like, cutting right through his shiny exterior as easily as the carapace of a beetle. In the spaces between it all, he still mourns.
Once three corpses pile up, though, he can no longer find the time to mourn at all.
“Okay, investigation is over, everyone! The trial will begin shortly. Please gather in front of the elevator and go to the trial room.”
“Hey, you heard me. You should get going.” Without waiting for a reply, MonoTV scurries off to who-knows-where, presumably to prepare for whatever was in store. Nothing good, David is sure of that much.
Teruko is still glaring at him suspiciously, all of their secrets on full high-resolution display on the giant screen behind her. Unpleasantly aware that they’re not alone, the hair on the back of his neck prickles, and he looks around to catch Levi staring at both of them. There’s a curious look on his face, and David shoots him a slightly strained smile. After a few moments, the man shrugs and exits the room, presumably heading to the elevator himself.
David runs a hand over his hair, trying to smooth it. He has to give it to whoever is running the game: if for nothing else than interrupting Teruko’s pressing questions, their timing is perfect.
This thought must jinx things, because Teruko steps in front of him right then, blocking the door out of the movie screening room. He coughs, struggling to mask his annoyance. “Teruko? We need to get to the elevator.”
She folds her arms. “Not yet. We probably have a good ten minutes at least. You think I’m just going to give up and ignore how evasive you’re being right now?”
“I’m… I’m not…” He falls silent. Her distrustful gaze remains fixed on him, searching and unfriendly. No simple method comes to mind to throw off her suspicion. Teruko is smart—very unpleasantly so. Much like the rest of her. His hands clench, ragged fingernails biting into the soft parts of his palms.
Still, though, has he really done anything to deserve this level of distrust from her? Telling everyone to reveal their secrets had been a shitty idea, sure. He’d done it more on a whim than anything else. The sound of assholes yelling at each other had seriously been starting to drive him fucking insane, and it isn’t as though he hadn’t understood them, either—he was stressed about his secret, too. That much hasn’t changed. And now he’s the one being yelled at. Seriously—what does Teruko expect him to do about the secrets now, rewind time? Sue him, he didn’t even have his real fucking secret until just yesterday.
“Why are you doing this, anyway?” The words come out forceful and unbidden. Catching himself, he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to calm down. He forces his fists to unclench before he continues, trying to push the agitation from his voice. “I don’t have bad intentions, I really don’t. All I wanted was to make everyone feel better about the motive. And yet you seem determined to read all my actions in this negative light, regardless of what they are.”
“What a manipulative way to approach things. Especially when you were the one caught lying to try and gain access to sensitive information about people. Don’t you think that’s kind of despicable?” She pushes her ponytail back behind her shoulders, as outwardly undeterred as ever. Despite her words, her voice is measured and matter-of-fact. She didn’t even bother to answer my question. It annoys him more than it probably should.
“Again, I don’t intend to be manipulative or despicable,” he says. He shifts from foot to foot a little uneasily—was calling him manipulative a deliberate dig at his secret, or did his choice of words really come across that poorly? He decides it’s probably the latter; he doubts Arei was ever on good enough terms with Teruko to let her in the know. Whit is more up in the air, but with how fast the rumor mill works in this place, David is pretty sure that people would have at least started giving him funny looks if Whit had let it slip at any point.
Calculatedly melancholic, he averts his gaze. “I just want you to think more logically about this, Teruko—do you not trust me because I’m actually doing something bad, or do you not trust me because you feel like if you trust someone again, they’ll only get hurt?”
This elicits an actual response. While he’d been speaking, she’d frozen in place. He sees her lip start to curl. Score. He zeroes in on the blood in the water.
“Listen,” he says, lowering his voice conspiratorially like they’re about to discuss a secret—just the two of them. See how I do it when Levi isn’t in the room listening in? he thinks spitefully. “You’ve changed a lot since we met; that much is obvious to everyone. I know it must have been hard, to accept, to deal with—it was hard for me too.” A pause, like what he’s about to say is actually difficult for him. “When Xander tried to kill you.”
“Actually, you know nothing about that. Don’t say another word,” Teruko grits out. Zero to a hundred, straw on the back of a camel: rather than simply looking annoyed, she looks downright furious, and the twitch of her hand towards something in her jacket implies she’s considering doing something about it. Again, the rumor mill in this place works fast, and J hasn’t exactly been quiet with her complaints about something apparently dubbed ‘the dressing room incident.’
Even still, he’s not about to let this go. He’s always been too spiteful for his own good: always wanting to have the last word, even if it gets him in trouble. David keeps pushing.
“Maybe I don’t know,” he says. “But it’s clear to me it must have hurt more than you’re letting on, right? You really did trust him.” He doesn’t wait for a response before continuing. “It’s not just that you resent us because of the last trial. It’s also because of him that you’re avoiding all of us now, right? You think if you choose to trust me about my intentions now, I’ll only betray you.” He sighs. ”Just like Xander did.”
She gives a bitter grin, sharp like a dagger and just as dangerous. “You think so? You really wanna play that card with me, David? Maybe I’ll start trusting you when you stop lying about the kind of person you really are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” David says blandly.
She shrugs, infuriatingly confident. Infuriatingly relaxed. Like she’s no longer even taking him seriously. “Deny it all you want. I know you, David.”
“You know me? Okay, what’s my secret, then?” he challenges. He knows it’s petty, but nothing about this conversation has been anything but.
To his surprise, Teruko merely shrugs. “Don’t know. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care what the truth is, I care that you are a liar, and that even now you refuse to admit it.” Her eyes narrow. “Unless you were the one who killed Arei. Which I am starting to suspect, with how this conversation is going.”
“Save the accusations for the trial,” David says coldly. Fucking asshole, he doesn’t say.
“Fine. I will.”
With that, Teruko finally turns away from him, beginning to make her way to the door. It strikes him that he shouldn’t antagonize someone who single-handedly solved the last trial by herself, even if that someone does happen to be an obnoxious asshole. For a moment, he struggles between pride and the desire to preserve his reputation, and the latter wins out, albeit narrowly.
David gives a calculatedly awkward little chuckle, brushing his bangs out of his face. He paints on a forlorn expression. It’s easier lately than it has been for him in the past. “Hey, Teruko… we shouldn’t be enemies. I don’t want to leave bad blood between us. I’m sorry for giving you a hard time about not trusting me,” he says. Sighing heavily, he adds, “I don’t want to upset you, I’m… just worried. About everyone.”
In return, Teruko merely gives a mocking laugh. “Funny, David.”
David grits his teeth. It would be smarter to back down now, he knows. He just can’t bear giving her the last word.
”Hey… do you really hate me that much?” he asks.
He already knows the answer. He wants to make her squirm, to make her say it to his face; he wants her to deny it, however unconvincingly. He wants to force things out into the open to burn under the sun. He doesn’t want to afford her the courtesy of leaving things unsaid. Spitefully, he wants her to feel backed into a corner. Just the way she makes him feel.
She half-turns, looking back at him. “Yeah, David. I do,” she says. Her gaze is far away: utterly detached from the words coming out of her mouth. It’s surely not a lie, but it sounds like one. For some reason, the utter lack of feeling in her voice causes him paradoxical ire. “I feel differently about this than you do. I don’t mind us being enemies in the slightest. Just as long as you stay as far from me as possible.”
He’s not sure what to say to that, and he lingers along behind her, pensive, as they finally make their way to the elevator.
If you ask David, this trial goes even worse than the one before it. In short, things get ugly. In long, secrets are exposed to burn under the sun, and David is exposed right along with them. Teruko is just as obnoxiously smug about it as he would have expected her to be. He can almost hear the I-told-you-so dripping from her words.
He’s just pretending to be a good person, she says. You can’t possibly lower my opinion of you further, she says.
I know you hate everyone who isn’t you, he says. Go die alone, he says.
Despite all his best efforts, the vote is, in the end, just as correct as it had been the first time.
Of their class, only a few of them remain at their podiums for the execution. Teruko is among them. Eden too, glued to her podium beside Teruko, unwilling or unable to leave her side, gazing up at her dewy-eyed, like she expects her to be able to do something about what they’re about to witness. Eyes fixed on the screens surrounding them, David leans against his own podium with an affected ease he doesn’t feel.
When the execution starts, he observes with keen fascination, taking in the expensive-looking stage props, the almost loving customization of the affair, the splashes of blood painting the screens and glowing ersatz magenta in the magnified and neon-filtered pixel glare. If not for Teruko, he would be dying right now in a similar fashion, right alone with everyone else, with nobody to observe it but alleged faceless millions (which he’s starting to doubt actually exist) and a single, ostensibly satisfied murderer.
Disgustingly enough, the thought doesn’t send any sort of chill down his spine. It makes him jealous. After all, it’s the exact same fate or worse that awaits every single one of them sooner or later. The ultimate prize for snuffing out the life of someone like Arei, who had tried to change and dared to hope, luxuries that no longer existed for any of them. And here her killer was, rewarded by the easy way out—a mere one or two minutes of suffering, instead of hunkering down days and weeks like the rest of them, huddled rats in a cage, just waiting to die.
He glances at Teruko. Her face is blank and her hands are concrete and unshaking as they white-knuckle the bar of her podium.
The execution is punctuated by screams, curses, fearful whimpering, and a diverse variety of other sounds from his classmates he’s gotten all too used to over the past few days. In his ears, it all blends together into a grim chorus of discordant white noise as everything comes to an end. The screens in front of him shine crimson. He observes the cooling corpse with clinical calm.
The sounds of somebody sobbing suddenly steal his attention away from the grisly scene in front of him, an all-consuming, choking wail. Horrified, his hand hastily rises to his own face, but mercifully comes away dry a moment later. For the first time since the vote, his face shifts from its carefully calibrated blankness as he winces, ears overwhelmed and aching. Bizarrely, the crying bothers him more than even the sounds of whirring machinery and tearing flesh, playing on his frayed nerves like the whine of a mosquito.
He glances around. The source of the noise is Eden, clinging to Teruko’s side like a lost child. To her credit, Teruko looks embarrassed by the pitiful display, but she doesn’t try to push Eden away like she had pushed Min—in fact, as he watches, her hand raises, hesitant but gentle, before slowly settling to rest on the other girl’s back. Her expression looks as pained as he’s ever seen it, more so than it had been at the sight of the execution, and infinitely more so than it had been during her examination of the cold lump of flesh that had once been Arei. As David watches, hatred rises in his throat like bile.
He claps his hands together once, twice, and even after everything, he still has it in him to bring a room to expectant silence, just like that. He gives a practiced clear of the throat.
“Sorry to interrupt you all from your yelling and crying and whatever else, but there’s something important I forgot to mention earlier,” he says.
He glances over at Teruko and Eden again, and is irritated to see Teruko isn’t even looking in his direction. But Eden is, wet shiny face turned earnestly his way, gloved hand clamped over her mouth to muffle herself so he can speak. The sight causes an odd, irrational pang in his chest, and he averts his eyes from her.
“By the way, you all can take this however you want. I’m sure most of you will assume I’m lying, without even bothering to consider it rationally,” he continues with feigned casualness. “But the secret I got wasn’t actually Xander’s. It’s Teruko’s. That’s all.”
Rather than the previous cacophonic mix of crying, yelling, and arguing, the room lapses into uneasy mutters. Eden doesn’t stop clinging to Teruko as Charles shakes his head. Across the room, Hu is openly glowering at him, probably not even paying attention to a single word out of his mouth, and he fights the urge to make a rude gesture at her.
Directly across from him on her podium, finally nudging Eden off her, Teruko folds her arms. She doesn’t make moves to deny it or defend herself, but neither does she have the decency to look ashamed. Or even surprised, for that matter.
“Hmmm, that’s probably true. I suspected it,” she says.
“...You confirm what he’s saying, then? You actually believe you’re responsible for the killing game in some way?” Ever clinical, Charles pushes his visor up his nose, conveniently smoothing over his clear disbelief from mere moments ago. David isn’t fooled: the asshole is already firmly cemented as a member of Teruko’s orbiting clique, and outside of cutting into their debate earlier (which Teruko had definitely been losing), his so-called genius and objective thinking only ever went as far as believing whatever bullshit she was feeding him at a given moment. And they all called him the manipulator.
“I mean, I don’t know for sure. But that does line up with what I’ve been telling you guys this whole time,” says Teruko. She shrugs, completely flippant. David narrows his eyes. She’d been furious when they’d all accused her of murdering Xander—was this some kind of attempt to take back autonomy, knowing she had no evidence to fight back with this time? “My luck tends to cause terrible things to happen to me and everyone else around me, so in all likelihood, this is just another case of that.”
Charles groans, slapping a hand over his face. “Oh, I see. You’re just talking about that absurd superstition of yours. Teruko, there is absolutely no scientific basis for such a thing, so if that’s your only evidence—”
“That’s not true!” Eden squeaks. “Teruko, even if your luck did cause all this, it wouldn’t be your fault! It would still be the fault of whoever is making us do this… It’s the fault of whoever executed Min, and… and…”
She falls silent, sniffling. David observes her dispassionately, wondering if she’s about to dive back into clinging to Teruko, but she remains where she is, scrubbing at her wet face. Speaking of… there's an odd look on Teruko’s face. Her eyes are wide, painted with an unguarded question.
“Hmmm, that is a good point too. There’s only meaning in assigning blame in the case of actions being deliberate and preventable.” Charles cracks open his little notebook and scrawls something down, as though it were some kind of grand revelation he’d just come up with.
As easily swayed as usual, the muttering around them sounded to have mostly turned from doubtful to reassured. Seemingly, Teruko’s impromptu damage control squad were pretty good at their jobs. And she hadn’t even had to lift a finger.
Irritated, David smacks his hand down on his podium.
“Even if you think her intentions are good, realize that defending her isn’t going to get you anything,” he drawls. “In the end, the way things are going, you’ll be dead and she’ll be alive. And she’ll just shrug your deaths off and forget about you, like she has for everyone else so far.”
Teruko looks stricken. Unexpectedly, seeing that expression on her doesn’t feel victorious for David, or even cathartic. He just feels embittered and detached.
“...Teruko, you shouldn’t listen to any of that,” says Whit. David blinks. Even he was getting in on the action now? Frankly, David hadn’t even thought he was paying attention. He’d have figured Whit would be far too busy cracking jokes about the corpse still haunting the screens in front of them—or, on the other hand, maybe it did make sense he’d be backing up Teruko. The guy’s snide, frivolous attitude gave Veronika a run for her money. David rolls his eyes.
“Don’t listen to me? Is that really the best you—”
“‘Cause, he’s obviously saying that because he’s jealous of you,” Whit continues in a singsong, speaking over David as though he hadn’t said anything. Teruko stares at him in utter disbelief. As does David.
“Excuse me?” he says.
“I mean, think about it!” Whit says, voice steeped in inappropriate cheer. “He’s been acting pretty similar to you, hasn’t he? All like ‘I hate everyone, don’t come near me,’ you know? But most of us like you, Teruko. Nobody likes him. He can see that, so that’s why he’s jealous.”
David grits his teeth. “What the actual fuck are you talking about? No. That’s stupid.”
It really was. It wasn’t like he was ever under any illusions in the first place that he’d be accepted if people knew the real him. Teruko and everyone else might enjoy bitching about him being a faking, lying piece of shit, but it wasn’t as though he didn’t have any basis for doing it. Though… come to think of it, Teruko actually had also been putting on a fake nice act when they’d first met—fucking hypocrite.
Teruko sighs. “David is right, though, about what he was saying about me before. You might not like it, but it’s true.”
“Mmmm. Nah,” says Whit.
“‘Nah,’ you say? Seriously?” Teruko raises an eyebrow, looking almost as pissed off as David feels. “Have you even been listening to a single thing I’ve been trying to tell you, all this time? I’ve been trying to warn you all away from me for a reason.”
“Nah. It might sound reasonable, but when you think about it, what David’s saying isn’t actually rational like he’s pretending like it is.” Whit glances sidelong at Charles. “He’s being cynical about why we shouldn’t trust you or treat you well because you might not care about us or you might be responsible for the killing game, or whatever, but the opposite is also true, yeah? Treating you well isn’t going to get us into a worse place, either. Not to mention, you’ve kinda saved our butts in both this trial and the last one, figuring everything out like you did…” He thumps a hand against his chest, grinning. “So I trust you, Teruko! And I’m grateful!”
Teruko hesitates. “That’s…”
David glares. “That’s—”
“Whit’s right, Teruko,” Charles says, cutting him off. “Once again: even if everything really is because of your luck, what’s done is done. Holding it against you would be pointless.”
The others chime in with their own agreements this time. David can’t get a word in edgewise. Nor does he even really want to: it’s only now hitting him how exhausted he is; how much he no longer wants to deal with any of this. The situation has clearly slipped out of his control—a disturbingly common trend where Teruko is involved. David might have trouble accepting the best time to back down, but he’ll never fight a completely losing battle. Meddling at this point isn’t going to do anything for anyone, least of all him. Nor has it ever.
He slinks out of the courtroom alone, Teruko still surrounded by their classmates. Their voices, oddly enthusiastic in their reassurances and a far cry from their earlier gloom and despair, follow him all the way back to the elevator.
He wanders aimlessly back to his room after that. In the absence of anyone else, and no talking (or shouting, as was becoming more and more commonplace) coming from any of the rooms, the facility feels oddly surreal: fluorescent and abandoned. In a better mood, he might consider it almost pleasant, but as is, the artificial light feels like it’s burning holes through his retinas. He’s tired. He’s so, so very tired.
He’s also sweaty and kind of gross, so he goes to take a shower. He turns the water up to almost scalding, hot as he can bear. Not for the first time, he notices that the products provided for him are the exact same ones he likes to use at home. They’re as mediocre as most things in his personal life tend to be—cheap bar soap and 2-in-1 shampoo—but. Still. He really doesn’t like to think about the implications of such a thing.
He really isn’t a fan of people entering his apartment—that’s his space, a quiet little sanctuary he can use to be himself and recover from work, and someone else being there kind of defeats that point. To that end, he’s unable to think of a single time he’d had visitors over since he’d moved in. If he wanted to see family, he visited them, not the other way around. And he’d never dated anyone before, either. If he had, he’d at least have a suspect to point his finger towards for the death game knowing his preferences to this degree, but as is, thinking about it just leaves him feeling confused and unsettled, with vague ideas of stalkers and home invaders. Whatever the answer really was, the illusion of privacy was definitely long shattered for him, dead and buried. There’s probably a hidden camera in here with him even now.
He goes to bed on autopilot after getting out of the shower. His subsequent sleep is dreamless, and he wakes up feeling groggy and disoriented, mouth dry, unsure of how much time had passed. If there had been an announcement of the time, either morning or night, he was out of it enough that he’d completely slept through it. When he cracks open his door, the question is answered, more or less—the halls are quiet and someone had turned off the light in the hallway at some point, though the lights in the adjacent rooms appear to still be on. Definitely the middle of the night.
He pads down the hall towards the kitchen—only to stop short in his tracks when he hears soft voices coming from there. Whit and Charles, from the sound of it. Were the two of them always together? Again, it was the middle of the fucking night. Maybe that was the real reason Whit had stepped in to defend Teruko after the trial—he didn’t want to see his boytoy Charles humiliated by somebody like David.
David debates with himself for a bit whether it’s worth walking in there to get food, or even just eavesdropping on whatever Whit and Charles are talking about. He eventually decides against both. He’s not that hungry, anyway. Mostly he just feels ill.
By the time he heads back to his room, his eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the halls, and the flash of his lights turning back on momentarily blinds him when he flicks the switch. He squeezes his eyes shut, rakes a hand across his face and through his hair as he leans back against his door.
He opens his eyes, stares up at his ceiling, blinking hard as he tries to get used to the light. Because of the brightness, it takes him a moment to notice it: his vision is quivering and blurring. An unpleasant heat is growing behind his eyes. Damn it. Shit. Was now really the time for this? He’d been holding it together fine for the rest of the killing game. And nothing had even fucking happened. He didn’t think the stress had been getting to him this much. He feels fine.
“...Hey, you. I have a few questions for you.”
He stiffens. Shit. It’s Teruko. He’s not alone after all. He snaps to attention and automatically slaps on a smile with the practice of years, only belatedly remembering he doesn’t even need to. The smile lingers anyway, and he finds himself hiding behind it like a barricade.
It should have been the first thing he’d noticed, really, and after he takes a second to unscramble his thoughts, it hits him full force: Teruko is in his room. She’s in his fucking room. When the fuck did she get inside his room? How, even? Did he leave the door unlocked? As if that weren’t bad enough by itself, she’d already made herself at home in the short time he was gone, sitting on his bed cross-legged. He doesn’t know if it makes it better or worse that she’s left her shoes on.
“By the way, I think I broke your door lock,” she says. “I was trying the knob, and it made a weird noise. You should probably let MonoTV know.”
He massages his forehead. “...Great. Well, I sincerely appreciate you sticking around to let me know.”
Teruko squints in confusion. “You’re pretending to be polite again?”
“It’s called sarcasm, genius,” he snaps. “Get the fuck out of here.”
She frowns. “Why would I leave now? Like I said, I have questions for you.”
As one of the least charismatic people he’s ever met, it remains an utter mystery why she’s still managed to hang onto so much more popularity than he has, even with his reputation as tanked as it is. At times like these, he has to question whether it is her simply being apathetic or some level of genuine social ineptitude shining through.
Still though. Not like he has much of a choice but to entertain her if he wants any peace. He’s worried that if he attempts to drag her out, she’ll bring a lackey or two next time—or worse, physically overpower him herself. The knife comes to mind again. Reluctantly, he leans back against the door, folding his arms over his chest.
“Go on,” he sneers.
“WelI, first of all, I always knew you were a sketchy liar, but that display in the trial was beyond the pale. What was your aim there, anyway?” Her dark gaze pins him, stoic and unimpressed. “First you claim to want Arei’s killer dead, then you pretend you are her killer, seemingly for no purpose but to get us all killed. You’re always inconsistent like that. It makes no sense.”
The list of people he feels like dealing with right now is blank, but her name is somehow still at rock bottom. Even if he can’t throw her out, it doesn’t mean he has to entertain her insipid interview questions.
“Is that really something you’re asking me about right now? Fuck off,” he bites out. “If you’re so obsessed with becoming better at solving murder trials, why don’t you figure it out yourself?”
“I do have some theories already. One, you’re suicidal, which is the idea I’m currently leaning towards. Two, you were having some kind of psychotic break. Three, you actually were working with the killer for whatever reason…” Her frown deepens. “I have been thinking a lot about what Whit said, too.”
Of course she has. He can’t find it in him to be surprised. After all, he has too: something in the bastard’s words has lodged itself in the back of his skull like an impacted tooth. Still, he has to guess at what exactly she’s referring to. “Congratulations, I guess? I’m an asshole trying to make everyone hate you for no reason?” Seriously, what does she even want him to say to that one?
“That’s obvious. I don’t need an idiot like Whit to tell me that, actually,” she snaps. Well, Whit definitely is an idiot. Finally, something they can both agree on. He had been starting to wonder if such a thing could exist in this world. Though frankly, if he were really getting nitpicky with it, sketchy might also be a fitting adjective to tack on. “No, David. I was referring to the other thing he said.”
He raises an eyebrow. There’s no reason she should have any right to be privy to what he’s thinking. It didn’t matter what Whit thought. He’s not jealous. “That being…?”
“That we’re the same,” she says.
David blinks.
“Eden really seems to have taken it to heart for some reason. We were talking about it earlier,” Teruko continues reluctantly, after it becomes clear he’s not going to say anything. She groans, massaging her forehead and muttering something half-audible about the girl’s ‘terrible taste’ and ‘worse survival instinct.’ There’s a familiar crease forming in her forehead.
So much for not getting attached to anyone here again, he thinks. But then again, even he’d failed at following that principle. There’s a twist in his chest at the thought, so sudden and painful it almost takes his breath away, and he grits his teeth against it. There was no point in mourning someone like Arei, anyway. Even if she was alive, she would have long since turned against someone like him.
“She keeps comparing me to you. To you. Unfortunately, she’s taken completely the wrong message from an idea like that.” Teruko glares at him, like it’s his fault. ”So, long story short, she’s been wanting to talk to you. She wants to understand why you’ve been acting like you have been. She’s hoping you and her can be friends.”
The words sound forced as they drip from her mouth like bile.
David forces himself to yawn, hoping the bored flair is convincing enough. “So… remind me of the reason why you’re here, again?”
“That is the reason I’m here!” She pounds down her fist in frustration, though the effect is diminished somewhat by it landing on his bed with a gentle thump. Her lip curls as she looks at him. “I wanted to spare Eden the trouble of talking to you.”
David raises an eyebrow, and he turns to study his fingernails. They’re bitten short and look like shit, as always. “Wow, how thoughtful! Didn’t know you had it in you to be this charitable, Teruko,” he says. “I’m impressed—and here I thought you were immune to any sort of positive influence.”
She gives him a scornful look. “You think you’re so witty.”
“I do! I do,” he says. He gives an unpleasant grin. “You know, I’m touched by your kindness. Reaching out to me like this. Spending time with Eden has clearly done a lot for you. And truth be told, I am tempted. I might go and talk to Eden myself, if she’s willing to give even an asshole like me a chance to redeem himself!” He sighs heavily, falsely contemplative. “But… who knows what could happen if that didn’t pan out? I might just lose my temper and make a bad decision… And poor Eden, she wouldn’t be able to do a thing…”
He’s talking just to talk, probing where it hurts for a reaction, trying to annoy her enough that she leaves him alone. Hell, let her carry his words back to Eden. He’d be thankful to be left alone by her, too.
He does get his reaction, but not one he’d hoped for. Teruko’s eyes flash. In a second, she’s up from the bed. Her fingers find an iron grip on the lapels of his shirt, and barreling into him, she practically throws him backwards against the wall. His head smacks painfully against the door frame. Out of habit, David bites back a swear before it can surface.
“My,” he groans, head spinning. “You’re forward, Teruko.”
“Shut it,” she growls, leaning forward, hands still wound in his shirt, elbows levering him solidly against the wall. “Don’t go near Eden. If you have something to say to her, you go through me instead. Got it?”
“...Why, what’s the matter, Teruko?” Her sheer closeness is freaking him out, and his heart pounds. There’s no way he can fight back like this. He can feel her breath on his cheeks, and it smells like some kind of fruit—apples, maybe? His mouth waters involuntarily. When was the last time he ate, exactly? It had been a bad idea to skip getting a meal from the kitchen. He must be a lot more hungry than he’d thought earlier. “Can’t handle me talking to another girl?”
“Even if she liked men, she wouldn’t be interested in you.” Teruko’s eyes are like black holes boring through him. “No, David. You’re the one with intentions I’m worried about.”
Is she actually taking him seriously right now? He’d have thought she’d be smart enough to see through his bullshitting by this point. Things were probably going a bit too far. Actually, scratch that, it had gone too far the moment she’d trapped him against the wall like a pinned butterfly. He was merely responding in kind, though that still doesn’t mean he wants her to get weird ideas about how he feels about her short worshipper. He grimaces. “What are you trying to imply with that? Listen. I don’t like Eden at all, actually. She’s almost as annoying as you are.”
“That’s the problem.” Her apple-smelling face is still uncomfortably close to his, and swallowing roughly, he tries to breathe through his mouth instead. “I don’t trust you, David, never have. I can’t just write it off when I hear you make a threat like that. And,” she continues in a growl, “your constant avoidance of explaining things to me has made me even more convinced. Of all of us remaining, you’re the most likely person to murder someone.”
“What happened to me being suicidal?” he sneers.
“If you kill someone while I’m here, that is tantamount to suicide.” She sounds almost bored saying it, as though reciting an immutable, well-known fact. “With how the trials have been going, I’m sure you’ve caught on to how it will work from now on. If you kill someone, I will find out, and I will get you executed. Also, you can’t kill me, either, so don’t even try it.”
He pushes experimentally against her iron grip. It doesn’t budge. At some point his other hand had come to rest on her upper arm, and the bicep presses solid as stone against his fingers. He finds himself begrudgingly impressed by her physical prowess. She’s shorter than him, but just barely—also lean enough that he probably has the edge on her in terms of weight, though once again, not by much. Admittedly, his slenderish physique is more a result of a lack of eating than spending any amount of time exercising, but it’s more than a little embarrassing the extent to which she’s able to physically overpower him. For a moment, he visualizes her at the gym, powerful arms on full display as she bench presses something—then banishes the image from his mind as quickly as humanly possible.
Trying to mask the warmth rising in his cheeks, he smirks at her, saying idly, “Hmmm, are you sure? I’m sure I could take you out if I wanted to. I don’t, though, so you shouldn’t worry so much about it.”
It’s bait, but disappointingly, she doesn’t rise to it. “Anyway, we’ve gotten off track. Next question. Why did you think it was a good idea to insist everyone reveal their motive secrets?”
David clicks his tongue. “Wow, Teruko. You really ought to pay more attention,” he says. “I already told you during the trial—I wanted to speed up the killings, so I made everyone reveal their secrets to ensure the motive was effective. That’s all there is to it.”
“Yeah, right,” she says. “It’s clear that nothing you do is well thought out at all. I would be surprised if you could plan out what you’re having for breakfast tomorrow. Do you just do everything on complete impulse?”
He rolls his eyes. “Why even ask me questions in the first place if you’re just going to make up your own answers?”
She ignores him.
“You’ve been pushy, lately,” she mutters. “You’re almost like Ace—even if you don’t admit it, you seem to love antagonizing me. But from how you’ve acted in the past, it also seems like you enjoy having peace and time away from people more than anything else. I want the exact same thing. So why, then? Why not just leave me alone? Why drag things out even after the trial?”
Is he really hearing this from her? Hearing this from her while pinned up against the wall in some kind of romcom mockery of an interrogation, so she can roleplay like she’s on a fucking detective show for her delusional friend? He gives a mocking laugh. “Don’t talk to me about pushy now; you think I wanted you to come and ask me these moronic fucking questions?”
“Shut up,” she snaps. He’s already flush with the wall, but she gives his shoulder another forceful shove for good measure. “Whether you admit it or not, you press and you press, David. Me asking you hard questions is just a taste of that. It seems like you’re only aimlessly trying to get a reaction out of everyone, but most of all me. So, again, what’s the end goal with that? Are you interested in fighting me like this until one of us breaks? If that’s it, I’ll warn you right now: the one will be you.”
“Oooh. Scary.” His smile doesn’t waver, but his heart is hammering so hard he feels like he’s going to be sick. “Let me ask you a question, now. What exactly is the point of cornering me just when I finally think I’ve earned myself some time to myself? I don’t owe you your fucking answers.” He gives a sneer. “Even when I’ve torched my whole career, it seems pests like you just can’t stop orbiting me. I would have thought you of all people would understand how annoying it is. So here’s a question for you: why did you think it was a good idea to break into my fucking room to interrogate me about this stupid bullshit?”
“You might not like it, but taking you by surprise was the best way to have this conversation. I didn’t want to risk you having a weapon on you. Nevertheless… I meant what I just said. I’m stronger than you are, David, and I’m not talking about this. You’re not the only one willing to push things where you shouldn’t.” Hand still resting on his shoulder, she digs her fingers in for emphasis. “I can break you. So, David, you can give me answers, and keep the pride you value so much. Or not. It’s up to you.”
In turn, still smiling, he shows her his teeth, all barbed wire and razor blades. “Oh, I see… You’re doing all this because you think I’m unarmed and defenseless, hmm? You think I’m the one at your mercy? Kind of a bold assumption to stake your life on. I’ve never trusted you a single bit more than you trust me, Teruko.”
The bluff is supported by the desperation starting to involuntarily edge his voice, and he’s pleased to see she actually looks a little discomfited, though not enough to back away from him.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, though not with absolute conviction. “If you actually had a weapon on you that you intended to use, I’ve pushed you around enough by now that you would have gone for it already.”
“...I see you’re just baselessly assuming things as always.”
“It’s not baseless. You confuse me, but most of the time, you do seem like exactly the person I thought you’d be on our first meeting. I’ve mostly been able to predict what you will or won’t do, even if you thought you were hiding your true self fine. You don’t scare me, David.”
His breath catches. “Maybe hindsight’s just a bitch. Ever think of that? You didn’t seem to mind hanging out with me at all when Xander was still alive.”
“I thought we could still be friends,” she mutters. “Even if you are a liar. Most people do worse than just lie. Xander definitely did.”
And he had too, hadn’t he? Done worse than just lie, that is. She didn’t actually believe the words she was saying. Something grows weighty and heavy in his chest.
David swallows hard, throat suddenly rough as sandpaper. “If that’s really true, then—then at the trial, why did you say—”
“Stop. We’re getting off topic again.” Her finger rises to his mouth to shush him. And all of a sudden, as though the ceiling is toppling in on itself, he’s struck with the full weight of it—the true absurdity of the situation he’s in right now.
His attention painfully hooks around the hand still pressing his shoulder to the wall, the shallow breath still ghosting across his face. Trapped like a dog in a cage, his heart feels like it’s about to leap from his mouth, and he worries his composure might fracture.
Is he scared right now? Is that it? Scared of Teruko, of all people? Is that the feeling that’s turning his stomach? He needs to end this quickly. A number of methods bounce into his head all at once, each more insane than the last.
Her finger is still up, shushing him, inches from his lips. Her finger is still up. Shushing him. Like he’s a child.
And for some reason, this is the indignity that breaks his already limited impulse control. Baring his teeth like an animal, he tries to bite her outstretched finger. She snatches her hand back, only just in time. “Augh! Wha!? What the hell do you think you’re—!?”
“Get off me!” he spits. Furiously, he shoves at her. His hand finds her hair, and he yanks it as hard as he can, clawing at her skull with his other hand. He manages to dislodge the tie from her ponytail, and her hair cascades loose around her shoulders as the tie falls to the floor. Yelping and slapping his arms down, Teruko stumbles backwards several steps, hands clutched to her head.
“Ow, ow, owww—That really hurt!” she says, massaging her scalp, almost petulant. “What’s your problem!?”
“You have to ask me that!?” he snarls. Her reaction spurs him. Finally, he’s the one in control again. “Hey. Hey. Teruko Tawaki. You’re obviously not experienced in things like this, so maybe you wouldn’t know, but coming to talk to me alone and putting me in a compromising position such as this, it sends a certain message.” His breath is coming out quickly, too quickly, and he swallows hard. “What a pathetic piece of shit you are. I want nothing to do with you, so leave me alone and go to hell.”
“...Could you stop messing around? Distracting me again won’t work; I’m not finished with you yet.” Having recovered from both her shock and pain in record time, she refuses to grant him so much as a disgusted look for the display. She stands impassive with her arms crossed, no longer acknowledging her mussed hair, now tumbling freely around her shoulders. The scale of control has once again tipped flawlessly back to her.
David almost swears, he’s so frustrated. Somewhere, he’s made some misstep, some miscalculation of her. But where? In what world were the words he was just saying less offputting to her than literally just trying to fucking bite her like a rabid animal? Was she unaware enough that the implications of what he’d been saying didn’t hit her, even now? Or…
“Well, I’m finished with you,” he says through gritted teeth. “I don’t care if you have more questions. I’m not answering them.” He waves a hand in her face, trying to shoo her off. “Goodbye. Come back another day. Or don’t, actually.”
She studies his face for a few moments longer, and he holds her gaze stubbornly, trying to stop feeling so much like a trapped animal. Then she sighs, combing a hand through her loose hair. She massages her forehead as she says, “You’re right. I’m sick of dealing with you, too. Talking to you has given me a headache. Though it also might be because you pulled my hair…”
David clasps his hands together and gives her a cloying smile. “You think so? Wow, Teruko. You do know just how to cheer me up!”
“I assure you, it was completely unintentional.” She steps past him to open the door. David grins, optimistic that she’s about to leave, and she turns her head to glare at him.
“By the way,” she says. “If you kill someone, or if someone else kills someone before we can finish this conversation, I will get everything I want to know out of you at the trial, and it will be even less pleasant for you than what I have done so far. Goodbye.”
“...Charming as ever, I see. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
As soon as she’s outside, he shoves his back against the door in question and leans his full body weight into it, slamming closed behind her. Judging from the thump and the muffled swear he hears, it does indeed hit her. For all his previous sarcasm, the sound actually does manage to cheer him up immensely.
Energy and adrenaline bleeding out of him all at once, his legs crumple beneath him, and he slides down to a kneel. Even though he’d slept, he still feels drained from the events of yesterday. His nerves are completely shot, and he doesn’t know that they’ll recover any time soon. At least he won’t have to put on a face in front of the others anymore. LARPing that he had his shit together like he was on the job all day, every day had been utter hell.
Something catches his eye—Teruko’s hair tie, lying abandoned on the floor. David reaches out and slides it over his wrist like a bracelet.
He grimaces when he remembers what just transpired—her shoving him around like a grade school bully while he just pathetically stood and took it—and resentment simmers in his chest. He clings to it, stokes it like a flame. Being angry is easy. He knows how to be angry. Anger lives with him like an old friend, smoldering in the back of his smile and flaring to the surface in the scant moments of his life between shaking people’s hands and giving vapid speeches meant to reassure morons even more pathetic than he was.
And okay, he’s definitely angry now. At her. But also at himself. For fooling himself into being enough of an idiot to try that same insipid inspirational bullshit on everyone in the middle of a life or death situation. For pretending like he had a plan, under the mistaken assumption that it would somehow pan out well. Like he actually had any idea on how to stop people from committing fucking murder.
Of course, he had to face reality at some point. Arei paid for his hubris with her life. He swallows hard at the thought, sick to his stomach. His eyes are burning again.
And Teruko still had the balls to claim, with a straight face, that not only did she see the person he really was from the very beginning, but that she saw through it and still believed he was worth being friends with.
There’s no mistaking it. She’s as much of a liar as he is, the lowest of the fucking low. But she isn’t above him. She isn’t better than him. She isn’t stronger than him, not in the ways that matter. She isn’t smarter than him and she doesn’t know him like she claims to; he can take her off guard easily. Her hair tie sits on his wrist as proof: a token of victory over her, however small.
Next time she comes to confront him as promised, he’ll be ready.
