Archive of Our Own ^beta

The last thing Kaito remembers is being told that when he wakes up again, he’ll be famous.

It’s pretty much the last possible thing on his mind right now, so he lets out a scoff and lies back in the VR pod without another word. Kaito closes his eyes as he lets the staff hover around him, hooking up various wires and tubes, everything necessary to keep him alive for the two months he’ll be kept in the simulation. He couldn’t feel further from excited, stomach churning with nerves as he stares up at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes, but…

Well, there’s no going back from here, and even if he could, he wouldn’t. No choice but to move forward, for his grandmother’s sake more than his own. Kaito’s goal is to kill, to win… but failing that, he’ll settle for making it to at least the fourth chapter. The payout from that should be more than enough to afford the cost of her surgery.

The excited murmuring that had been going on in the backdrop slowly fades away as one by one, they’re knocked unconscious. Kaito stares up at the ceiling through the tinted glass of his VR headset for as long as he can, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. Muscle atrophy is a bitch, so he’s heard. Recovering from this is going to be annoying.

It won’t be Kaito’s problem, though. That’s his small saving grace as unconsciousness finally takes him.

He wakes up after what feels like a long, restless sleep, to the murmur of voices and a rush of commotion around him. A low groan escapes his lips, cracked and dry, and Kaito swallows, one of his hands coming up and forcing its way between wires to rub at his throat. His fingers feel stiff and uncoordinated, like he hasn’t closed a fist in a long time, which is weird, because he swears he was just doing it… must have been unconscious in the simulation for a while, but they’d told him he would remember his time in the game…

Maybe something went wrong, and that’s the reason for the commotion outside? Kaito drops his hand to his side and frowns, hands feeling up and down his sides, all the different cables. Everything feels fine. At least on the Kaito end; every part of his body that he remembers being here is here, so at least nothing went wrong in that regard. Maybe in his brain? But aside from feeling a bit dehydrated and a mild throb in the back of his skull, Kaito… mostly feels okay, in that department.

Then again, maybe he wouldn’t be able to tell. He should wait for a worker to explain.

Despite resolving to do that—since he can’t exactly get out of the VR pod on his own, Kaito finds himself shifting restlessly until he finally hears the hiss of the latch releasing. Cold, dry air floods the pod—sheesh, it was humid in there—as light pierces Kaito’s vision. He winces. However long it’s been, it’s clearly been enough time that he was not at all prepared for that.

Hands swarm him. Kaito feels his hackles raising, but ultimately chooses not to fight as he’s guided into a seated position and his helmet is gently pulled from his head. They’re trying to help, and all, no reason to push them off.

Once Kaito’s finished blinking the gunk out of his eyes, he realises that he’s being talked to by several people at once, all wearing those same Team Danganronpa staff pins and vests, all smiling at him, broad and warm, as if full of pride. What a weird reaction to a mishap, but it occurs belatedly to Kaito that the fact that they’re talking means they’re probably explaining, so he shakes his head quickly and tries to listen.

“—all over, Momota-kun. You’re safe now. Everyone is alive.”

Kaito blinks. Well, that’s good. But also…

“Was I ever in danger?” Kaito asks, voice a scratchy with disuse. He clears his throat and winces. That isn’t an amazing feeling. “Thought you people said the VR program was completely safe.”

The staff member in front of him blinks, eyes widening slightly with bewilderment. “Um…”

“Did somethin’ happen?” Kaito looks over his shoulders at the other participants who have exited their pods. He doesn’t know any of them, outside of vaguely recognising the green-haired man who stands at the side of the room, leaned against a wall. A celebrity, Kaito thinks—probably a Danganronpa celebrity, but he’d never watched the show, so he has no way of guaranteeing. The point is, they all seem fine, if a bit emotional; Kaito furrows his brow as his eyes trail over the many embracing pairs, scattered all throughout the room. “Some kinda… tech… bullshit?”

“Momota-kun,” a different staff member prompts, frowning. “How… do you know about the program?”

Kaito’s brow furrows. He doesn’t like being made fun of. “Because you fucking told me? What kind of question—”

“Momota-kun!”

The cry of his name startles him perhaps more than anything that’s happened thus far, especially when it’s followed up by a man Kaito doesn’t recognise—probably around Kaito’s age with dark blue hair and grey eyes—running towards him, face twisted up and tear-streaked. His hair looks greasy, and mussed up as if he just rolled out of bed. He’s wearing a Danganronpa sweatshirt.

“Momota-kun, I—” The man can barely get through those two words before his voice cracks, and he drops to his knees by Kaito, an awful, wheezy-sounding sob breaking out of him. He’s shaking terribly, pale hands white-knuckling the edge of Kaito’s pod. “I-I really thought I’d lost you.”

Uh.

This guy looks really upset, and Kaito’s not such a complete monster that it doesn’t tug at his heartstrings a little, but he genuinely has no idea what’s going on. All he can really manage to do is reach out and pat the guy’s head, a bit halfheartedly, though who could blame him for that.

“You didn’t?” Kaito tries. His voice lilts with uncertainty. He’s bad enough at this with people he does know; forget about some guy he doesn’t. “Uh… guy?”

The man crying by Kaito’s pod freezes up almost instantly. Perhaps it’s something in his voice, or his touch, but when the man lifts his head, it’s with obvious confusion shining in his wet eyes. He sniffles, wiping at his reddened nose, and frowns.

“Guy…?” he repeats, before smiling awkwardly. “Um… very funny, Momota-kun?”

Kaito shifts his weight. Probably better to rip the band aid off. He has no reason to care about disappointing this guy. “It wasn’t a joke.”

“But—”

One of the staff members sweeps in with that, crouching over to peer down at Kaito’s face, her brow creased with worry. “Momota-kun, how much do you remember of the killing game?”

“The…” Kaito blinks. “The killing game’s already happened? I thought we were just put in?”

The man who had been crying at Kaito’s side rears back dramatically, as though Kaito hit him. It’s not a reaction he particularly likes, so Kaito can’t help but grimace, his eyes narrowing as he looks over at the dude. Probably not his fault for the emotional reaction, but it makes an ugly feeling churn in Kaito’s chest, bad enough that he has to look away.

“Ah…” The staff worker frowns, then turns to one of her coworkers and starts whispering. Neither of them address Kaito, which he thinks pisses him off more than the obviously-frightened response from the crying guy. Whatever. Kaito purses his lips, then decides that he doesn’t feel comfortable in this position, and if the other people are allowed to walk around, he should be too. He braces himself on the sides of the pod and tries to swing his legs out over one edge. He’s successful enough, but the moment his feet hit the ground, his knees buckle, almost sending him tumbling.

It’s lucky he still has a hold on the side of the pod. Kaito hisses through his teeth.

“What the fuck…?”

“You’ve been in the simulation for two months,” a voice comments from behind him. Kaito jolts a bit, and flips, meeting the vibrant purple eyes of a dude he hadn’t noticed. But it’s no wonder he didn’t notice; the man is positioned right where the female staff member had been standing up until a few seconds ago, and he’s short, with dark hair and dark clothes that seem to blend right into the scenery. “It’s gonna be a bit until you can stand and walk normally, you know!”

Two months…? Kaito looks down at his bent knees, then back up at the man who just spoke. That cheery tone doesn’t match the situation at all, and Kaito’s inclination is to be annoyed by that too, but that’s more straightforward information than he’s received from anyone here thus far, so he deigns to ignore it.

“What happened?” Kaito asks, leaning over as much as he can in this position. “The killing game? Who won?”

The man tilts his head to the side. “Won?”

“We did, Momota-kun,” the man from before—the crying one, this is confusing, the one with blue hair—gasps. He seems to have collected himself a bit, at least enough to have stood, though he still regards Kaito warily, like a predator that just took over his campsite. “We defeated the mastermind and ended Danganronpa… just like you told me I could.”

“I said that?” That doesn’t really sound like something Kaito would say. He’s never been very good at encouraging people. “I…”

“You people all go waaaay too fast!” the purple-eyed man chirps. He swings himself into Kaito’s pod, gracefully, as if he isn’t bothered by the muscle atrophy at all, and then latches tight onto Kaito’s arm with a big, cheery grin. “One step at a time, okaaaay? Momota-chan doesn’t remember anything from after he was put in the simulation, right? But from how stressed the staff members are looking, it probably wasn’t on purpose! So something went wrong and you don’t remember!”

His eyes glisten. He looks over towards the man with blue hair.

“Don’t suppose there could’ve been… a wire crossed, or two, while he was in there?”

“That—” The blue-haired man grimaces. “No. That couldn’t have happened. You wouldn’t have—” His eyes dart over to the staff, suddenly narrowing. “What did you do? Did you take away Momota-kun’s memories?”

Kaito shifts his weight. This guy is being pretty accusatory, and the one on his arm, while he’s smiling, doesn’t seem particularly tickled pink either—but if he’s being honest, he could take or leave his memories. The personality override had been a nice touch, a bit of a relief if you asked him, but he doesn’t like, need to remember the killing game, or anything. Especially if they’re implying that he died in it. So much for his plan and payout.

The staff still look quite stressed, though they’re now eyeing the blue-haired man with something bordering resentment, almost open hostility. It’s a look Kaito recognises pretty well from school, and he doesn’t think it’s completely fair to level at a dude who was just breaking down, so he shifts to angle his body to shield the guy a little.

“We didn’t do anything,” one of the staff members. “For now, that isn’t your concern. Your priority in this moment should be getting back to your rooms so you can begin the recovery process.”

That sounds nice, actually, recovering. Kaito frowns down at his still-weak legs, then looks over at the guy holding his arm, a bit expectantly. While he’s not huge on touch or anything, he doesn’t completely mind the clinging, but he doesn’t think he’s really in the state to be carrying someone around right now.

Two months unconscious. What a weird thought. And he doesn’t even remember it. Kaito lifts his free hand to rub at his temple.

The purple guy smiles again, almost a smirk this time. “So Momota-chan really doesn’t remember, huh? That’s so interesting! Wanna tell me all about yourself? Your dirty little secrets? I bet you’ve got a ton of them if you’d willingly sign up for a death game!”

On second thought, Kaito minds the clinging. He frees his arm—it’s not so hard to do—and turns around with another word, glancing at the guy with blue hair to make sure he’s not like, about to break down again, before he starts the slow process of heading towards the door on such unsteady legs. He’s guided and assisted by staff members, but Kaito waves them off, for the most part. Not really a fan of being manhandled.

His head is swimming. Will his memories come back later? Maybe this is just a fluke? Has it ever happened before?

…Kaito wonders if his grandmother managed to survive the past two months, or if it’s too late for his prize money to make a difference to her.

His headache is worsening. Maybe he’d better stop thinking for the moment.

It is determined by the doctors and therapists that they have no idea why this would have happened. To them, it’s like Kaito just came out of a coma.

It is determined by the lead programmers, however, that some kind of error in the data stores in the simulation caused all of Kaito’s information—his implanted personality, his memories of the game—to be corrupted, rendered practically unreadable. This could have caused a total mental shutdown, but fortunately for Kaito, safety protocols within the simulation kicked in while he was being woken up that erased all of the newly implanted personality data entirely, sending him back out into the world of the living… exactly the same as he was when he left it.

Which is fine by Kaito. The programmers tell Kaito that they’re working hard to retrieve that information, that they can give him back the memories and the personality as soon as they’ve gotten it, but Kaito waves them off. What would he even do with all of that? The worst part of all of this was always the idea that he would come home to his grandmother someone completely different. At least this way, he can try to save her as her actual grandson.

His dismissal seems to surprise pretty much everyone on staff at the facility, because he ends up having a lot of people coming in to try to talk to him about it over the next few days. Doctors, nurses, and staff, and then later more important-looking people with important-looking suits. Kaito gives them all the same answer: it truly does not make a difference to him.

It clearly makes a difference to them, though, which gives Kaito pause. What kind of person had he been in the simulation? Someone worth crying over, if that blue guy—the doctors say his name is Saihara Shuichi—is someone worth trusting. So clearly someone completely different from who Kaito was before, and is now, because he can’t imagine anyone (outside of his grandmother, obviously) ever shedding a tear over what happens to him.

Even if Kaito was someone particularly important or special… he’s hard pressed to find someone who would really care about the loss of a no-good troublemaker who can’t keep his fists to himself. Part of the appeal of this really had been to become someone worth crying over… but Kaito’s not pressed about it. That had always been his secondary objective in the first place.

After the staff finally seem to give up on changing Kaito’s mind, he’s given about a week to spend alone, regaining his strength and beginning work with a physical therapist. Sometimes a therapist therapist comes in to talk to him about his feelings, but Kaito never has much to say and she doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself since Kaito doesn’t have murder game trauma, so their sessions are always short-lived. That’s probably for the better.

Around a week and a half after he wakes up, Kaito finally receives his first non-staff visitor, in the form of the purple guy who’d been way too cheerful at his pod earlier. Ouma Kokichi, is his name.

He seems pretty disappointed when Kaito addresses him by it.

“Oh, come on! Everything there is to know about me is already on TV, but you won’t even tell me why you signed up for the lousy death game,” Ouma whines. He drops to sit on Kaito’s bed, pouting heavily. Kaito shifts, wishing he’d opted to take one of the chairs instead.

“I’m probably not gonna watch it,” Kaito offers, “just know your name since the doctors said it.” He scratches his head. Ouma doesn’t seem placated, so Kaito tries again. “I can forget it if you want?”

That, at least, gets a giggle out of his company. “Aww, don’t do that. That’d be boring.”

Is Kaito supposed to be trying to be interesting? He frowns as he watches Ouma flop onto his back, getting nice and comfortable on Kaito’s bed, stretching out and yawning like a cat. He’d waltzed in here like it was nobody’s business, already moving with incredible grace for someone only a week into physical therapy. Then again, Kaito’s been recovering well enough himself, but he’s not sure he’d be able to manoeuvre with such grace yet.

Hell, he’s not sure he’s ever been so graceful. Maybe this is what it looks like to be out of commission for a guy like Ouma. Not that Kaito even knows what that means.

“Soooo, I hear your personality got deleted!”

Kaito grunts out a vague affirmation. He doesn’t particularly want to talk about this, but it’s clear from the look on Ouma’s face that that’s the only reason he came. “What kinda answer are you looking for?”

“Hm?” Ouma tilts his head to the side. “How come?”

“Trying to figure out what to say so I can make you leave faster.”

Ouma gasps. “What! Momota-chan, that’s so cruel!” His eyes moisten almost immediately. “T-To think… you would reject me so harshly after k-killing me… I could really just…”

Okay, this is bad now. Kaito scrambles forward with his hands outstretched, reaching to try and soothe Ouma before realising that might be in poor taste with the revelation that he killed the dude. That in itself isn’t all too surprising, though; he’d been in it to win the game and get the cash prize in the first place. Figures that even a version of him without his usual shortcomings wouldn’t be able to bring it home, though.

“L-Look—” Kaito pulls a face. “Didn’t mean to be—cruel, or whatever, I just—I mean, it was for the cash prize, you know? Nothing personal.”

Just like that, Ouma’s tears dry up, though Kaito has a hard time believing it’s in any way because of his meagre attempt at comfort. On the contrary, Ouma seems more interested than soothed, tilting his head to the side and wiping the remaining tears from his cheeks.

“Oh? Do tell, Momota-chan.”

Kaito feels himself deflate as he watches Ouma’s smile grow. Ugh. “You were faking it.”

“Hm? So what if I was?”

“Get out of my room.”

“No way! You have to tell me what you meant first!” Ouma springs forward and plasters himself against Kaito’s chest. Gross. “I wanna know all about the cash prize, Momota-chan! If I was nothing more than a dollar sign to you, I at least deserve to hear that, you knooooow?”

This is so annoying. Kaito turns his head away and wrinkles his nose. “It’s not like I remember what happened,” he grumbles. “But the whole idea of doin’ the whole… killing game whatever, is to kill someone, right? There’s good money if you can win. And I needed it.” He clenches his fists so he won’t push Ouma off of him. “Do I gotta tell you why, too, or is that good enough?”

Ouma snickers. He pulls off Kaito and lands on his feet, an easy, lopsided smile on his face. “You really can’t stand the look of me, can you?”

“It’s nothing personal,” Kaito says again, “but you’re giving me a fuckin’ headache.”

It’s not very nice of him to say, but it only makes Ouma laugh again. “You’re more honest now, huh? That’s pretty interesting.” Despite his words, Ouma turns on his heel and skips to the door. “Okay! I’m satisfied. But I’m not done with you yet, so you better have a full essay on how you entered the game and why ready for me by my next visit!”

Kaito groans, not bothering to hide his annoyance at the prospect. He can hear Ouma’s tinkling laughter all the way down the hall.

Kaito’s next visit is from two people this time, one who he recognises as the blue guy—Saihara—but the other who he doesn’t recognise in the slightest; a woman their age with vibrant red eyes and low twin tails. She frowns as she enters the room, her eyes immediately narrowing when they land on Kaito. It’s a sharp enough look that Kaito actually feels a little nervous, glancing at Saihara as if to ask what the fuck, why would you bring by someone who hates me.

The responding smile from Saihara is apologetic. He rubs the back of his neck. “Um… Momota-kun, hey. Is this a good time for visitors?”

Not particularly, but that isn’t because Kaito doesn’t feel like, physically well enough to receive them or whatever. It’s just that he already knows Saihara has some kind of relationship with him—or some version of him—and that means that whatever is about to happen is probably going to be awkward.

Remembering the way Saihara had bawled seeing him earlier, though, makes it harder for Kaito to deny him, so he just sighs and shakes his head. “It’s fine. What do you want?”

He thinks that’s a pretty charitable reply, so he’s a little put-out when the woman’s response is to frown deeper, her gaze sharpening into what is almost a glare. Feeling a little cornered, Kaito shifts to hang his legs off the side of the bed and watches the two who just came in, waiting for them to speak. They probably have something, if they came by.

Apparently oblivious to his companion’s hostility, Saihara smiles a bit wider and comes by to claim the seat by Kaito’s bed. The respectful choice, much preferred to Ouma’s earlier overly familiar gesture of taking the bed. The woman doesn’t come any closer, lingering by the door with her arms folded, eyes now boring into the back of Saihara’s head.

“So… how are you feeling?” Saihara asks.

Kaito shrugs. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to be feeling. A little sluggish, pretty tired. Worried about his grandmother. None of that is information he particularly wants to divulge to a stranger… though from the look on Saihara’s face, it’s evident that he really wants to know. Maybe in the game, they had the kind of relationship where Kaito would have told him.

…Well, it’s not like Kaito is that person anymore anyway, so Saihara shouldn’t get his hopes up.

After a somewhat awkward pause, Saihara seems to realise Kaito isn’t going to speak and clears his throat. “R-Right… well, I hope you haven’t been bad. I understand you don’t remember anything in the game, so I assume you’re just… working on physical therapy, and such…”

“Yeah.” Kaito looks away. He doesn’t know what Saihara wants from him. Surely he didn’t just come by to make small talk. He’s tempted to just cut to the point, but something about Saihara’s body language—the way the man’s shoulders are slightly curled inwards—tells Kaito that raising or even sharpening his voice might frighten him, so he just holds his tongue. He figures if he stays quiet for long enough, Saihara will spit it out without having to be asked.

And eventually, his strategy pays off. Awkwardly, Saihara continues, “Umm… I’m sorry to barge in on you like this. I wanted to see you… even if you don’t remember me.” His grey eyes dart down, seeming to focus on something on the floor. “And I hope it’s alright that Harukawa-san is here too, we were your… sidekicks, during the game, and—”

“Sidekicks?” Kaito repeats, unable to help himself. “That’s stupid.”

His tone is a little more abrupt than he means it to be (he’s never been very good at controlling how harsh his voice sounds) but Saihara doesn’t flinch. Rather, his eyes harden, and his shoulders square.

“No, it’s isn’t,” Saihara argues. His voice isn’t angry or anything, just firm. “It helped us through a lot of hard times in there— you helped us through a lot of hard times in there. I-I know it’s unconventional, but it meant a lot to me. To both of us. So… don’t call it stupid.”

Kaito tilts his head. He doesn’t feel abashed or anything, but he doesn’t mind Saihara speaking up like that either. Better to know where the line is than have to puzzle it out himself. Out of curiosity, Kaito can’t help a glance at the woman, Harukawa, but she doesn’t appear to have anything to say. Her entire head is turned away now, hands clenched into fists at her sides. Maybe that’s for the better.

“...Okay,” Kaito says eventually. He wants to add b ut it wasn’t me who did that, but that feels insensitive when Saihara is clearly already emotional about this. In Saihara’s position, Kaito can’t really imagine how he’d react or what he’d do… he’d probably be pretty crushed. So he holds his tongue again and waits for Saihara to say more.

The anger seems to drain from his shoulders at Kaito’s lack of argument. “Ah, sorry.” Saihara’s cheeks colour. “I know it’s… eccentric. You were—rather, the you in the simulation—was very unique, in how you held yourself, and… terms like that were how you encouraged us, and helped us through the killing game.” His eyes soften, and he looks down at his hands, now smiling warmly. “It means more to me than I could ever say, and even if you don’t remember… I thought it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t at least try to thank you.”

What a weird thing to say. Kaito looks away. Not that he doesn’t believe Saihara or anything, but he also knows that he killed someone—was Saihara dead for that? The way that he was talking at Kaito’s pod, it kind of sounded like Saihara was around to witness Kaito’s death, so he has to know about the murder, right? Why would he still feel that way? Did Kaito stick around to get their hopes up and then kill someone?

On the other hand, Harukawa won’t even look at him… so maybe Saihara’s the weird one here. Maybe Kaito should cut this short, just for her sake.

“Okay,” Kaito says again. “Is that all?”

Saihara looks up, obvious hurt flashing over his features before he quickly schools his expression into something more stoic. “U-Umm, well… I had a few questions I wanted to ask you too, but if you wanted to be alone…”

Kaito could probably field questions, but he’s not sure that he wants to; it’s not like anything he has to say will be what Saihara is hoping to hear. On the other hand, that hurt look… Kaito’s stomach twists a bit with guilt at causing it. Saihara seems like a sweet guy, even if he’s a bit of a tool for continuing to care about Kaito after he killed someone for a cash prize, and… the least Kaito can do is hear him out.

“Keep it short,” Kaito decides. Saihara nods, running a hand through his hair, brushing it out of his eyes.

“Of course. I guess I only really need to ask one of them, which is… um, Momota-kun, do you think you could tell me… why you applied for Danganronpa? Was it for… I mean, just, why would you sign up for a killing game?”

This grabs Harukawa’s interest. Kaito can’t help a mild frown. Wouldn’t he have said so within the game? It made sense for Ouma to ask, given he was the victim, but Saihara lived through Kaito getting exposed and executed, so he should at least know that much. On the other hand, maybe the memory alteration software gave him a different motive… but what kind of motive could it have been that Saihara still wants to thank him and talk to him and ask him about himself? Kaito scratches his head. At least this answer, he doesn’t have to think about.

“For the money,” Kaito says plainly. “Pretty big cash prize involved if you can win.” He shrugs. “Hopin’ I’m still eligible for a big enough payout, since I know I biffed it before I could see it through and kill everyone.” It’s pretty to the point, but Saihara deserves an honest response, right? Kaito considers elaborating, talking about his grandmother, but… he doesn’t really want to go around sharing that with people he doesn’t know.

Saihara’s face falls. That clearly wasn’t the answer he’d been hoping to hear. His mouth opens and closes, but he doesn’t speak, apparently not sure how to respond. Kaito supposes that he wouldn’t be, either, in Saihara’s shoes… but seriously, what did the guy expect? It’s not like the consequences of murdering within the simulation are permanent, in the first place.

Because Kaito is distracted with Saihara’s reaction, he almost doesn’t notice the blur of movement by the door, not up until Harukawa is already darting across the room with her hand outstretched. She’s fast enough that were Kaito someone else, he might really have gotten caught in the crossfire there, but he’s used to people coming at him looking for a fight. Even fresh out of a virtual reality program, Kaito’s still able to dart sideways off the bed before Harukawa can wrap her hand around his throat. She hits the bed hard, and Kaito’s knee slams against the cart next to it, spilling medical equipment across the tile.

Kaito’s heart pounds, adrenaline racing through his veins. Harukawa doesn’t move from her position for a moment, hair falling into her eyes. When she turns her head, Kaito sees that there are tears on her face.

“Uh,” Kaito says, a perfectly eloquent and tactful reply, given the circumstances.

“Fuck you,” Harukawa spits out. “Is this some kind of twisted joke? Was everything you said in there a lie?”

“Harukawa-san—” Saihara starts. He reaches out for her, but Harukawa slaps his hand away.

“No. Stop it. Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to react,” Harukawa snarls, even though Saihara hadn’t done anything of the sort. “You…” Her eyes narrow on Kaito, tears glistening under the pale hospital room lights. “You’re sick in the head. How could anybody sign up for a game like that? Just to kill?”

Kaito looks away. He wouldn’t have done it if he had any other options, but sick in the head still feels like a bit of an overreaction. It’s not even real. That doesn’t feel like the right thing to say in this situation, but he’s not sure what the right thing would even be. This woman seriously hates him, to have come at him like that.

“Think you should get out,” Kaito mutters.

“Y-Yeah, that’s—” Saihara scrambles to his feet. “Harukawa-san, let’s—”

Once again, he reaches for her, but this time Harukawa doesn’t slap him or anything. She just jerks her shoulder away from his touch and shoots Kaito a violent glare before spinning on her heel and storming to the door. Saihara trails meekly behind, but not without glancing once over his shoulder, eyes wide and wet and full of disappointment.

The look makes Kaito’s insides squirm. He figures he deserves it—it was a lot realer to them than it was to Kaito, he’s sure—but there’s no way he’ll ever possibly be able to relate to their turmoil. The truth of the matter is, Kaito auditioned because there’s only one way to get rich quick in this world, and that’s to win Danganronpa. He wasn’t going to lie about it… and he doesn’t even remember it. He’s not sure what else they wanted him to say. That he was forced? He wasn’t forced.

Whatever. This is probably better for them, anyway. The door falls shut behind the two, and Kaito lowers himself down to clean up the mess he made when he knocked into the cart. It’s not like Kaito is the person Saihara and Harukawa cared about, so getting close to him probably won’t be what they want it to be… even if Kaito wasn’t a selfish enough person to have signed up for a death game.

Kaito doesn’t get any visitors for a while after that. He’s okay with it. It’s not like there’s anyone here who he wants to see, since he doesn’t know any of them, and he’s used to not having any friends, so he does fine keeping to himself.

It does give him more time to worry about his grandmother, which he tries not to think about so much, but it ends up creeping up on him more and more the more days go by without any communication with the world outside. Kaito asks more than once when he’ll at least be given his phone back to contact her, but the staff are a bit evasive about the returning of their personal belongings. Ugh. Kaito bets there was some clause in the contract about this too, he just didn’t read it front to back, figuring he wouldn’t remember it later anyway so what was the point.

He’s really regretting that decision now, though. The worst part is his gran would laugh at him if he admitted her advice about always reading the fine print ended up coming in handy.

With nothing really to do and no particular desire to leave his hospital room, Kaito ends up doing a lot of personal training, hoping to get back in shape once his body is cooperating with him enough that he can work out. His hospital room is a little cramped for much more than push-ups and sit-ups, so he eventually starts going for runs through the halls during the later hours of the evening, generally aiming for times when people will be at dinner so he doesn’t get interrupted. The change in scenery is nice, even if there’s not much to see in the building itself, and Kaito’s glad to be building his stamina again after so much time lying still.

Unfortunately, avoiding people around the facility is a little difficult when there are fifteen of them, and Kaito hadn’t accounted for people who don’t take dinner with the rest of the group. It’s been about three weeks since he woke up from the simulation when he jogs right past that green-haired man he recognised as being some kind of celebrity or something when he first woke up.

Kaito has no intention of stopping. He doesn’t even know the dude’s name. But he sees the dude do a double take in the corner of his eye, and he only gets a few more paces away when his name is called, and Kaito figures it would probably be disrespectful if he just pretended not to hear it and kept running.

He’s a little tempted anyway, but Kaito decides he can at least humour the dude’s questions or whatever he wants, so he stops with a huff, turning around and wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead.

The man is handsome, with long lashes and piercing green eyes. He’s smiling mildly, which offsets the intimidating stare somewhat, but Kaito still thinks he looks a little formidable. Not dissimilar to Harukawa, though from that smile, Kaito doubts this guy is about to lunge at him—at least so long as he doesn’t say something like he said to Harukawa.

He’s been staring for a moment too long, though, so Kaito clears his throat and asks, “What do you want?” voice a bit breathless from his run.

“Ah, sorry. I don’t want to take up too much of your time, since you’re busy,” the man says, eyes crinkling apologetically. “I just realised I hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to you since you woke up.”

“Right.” Kaito shifts his weight. “Guess that’s fine, uh…” He trails off expectantly. He really doesn’t know any of these people. For some reason, the reaction gets a surprised look from the man across from him.

“Amami Rantaro,” he says, obliging, before frowning slightly. “You… don’t know who I am?”

Really now. Kaito raises an eyebrow. “You late to the program? I don’t remember shit from the simulation.”

“No, I—I know that.” Amami rubs the back of his neck. “I guess I just assumed, because you signed up… sorry about that.” His smile turns slightly sheepish. “That was a little presumptuous of me.” Quickly, that embarrassed look is turning into something more curious. “So you really don’t know who I am?”

“Am I supposed to?” Stupid question, when Kaito already clocked him for a celebrity. Kaito huffs through his nose. “I mean, guess I thought you looked like—someone, or somethin’, but…”

For some reason, Kaito’s response only gets a broader, warmer smile out of Amami. “I guess you could say that,” he agrees, teeth showing now through his grin. “It’s really no problem, though. I take it you weren’t much of a Danganronpa fan before you auditioned?”

Oh, so that’s what he was famous for. Kaito shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t get off on that shit. I was just in it for the cash.” That’s probably a bit worse than signing up out of passion, right? Harukawa had seemed pretty upset. Kaito braces for a similar reaction, but instead Amami chuckles, hand dropping to his side as he nods.

“You’re a pretty honest person, aren’t you, Momota-kun?”

Kaito grumbles. “Would you people quit saying that?”

“Am I not the first? Sorry about that.” Amami is still chuckling, though, which makes his apology sound a little insincere. “Well, I’m sorry for disrupting you while you were exercising. I really just wanted to say hi. You can get back to your run now.”

That was barely a conversation. Kaito eyes Amami suspiciously as he turns around, but Amami only keeps wearing that curious almost-grin, waving a little as Kaito takes off.

Weirdo. Kaito shakes his head and breaks into a jog again. He probably doesn’t have to think too hard on it. No reason why he should waste any time or energy trying to analyse a guy like that.

Unfortunately for Kaito, the issue of ‘what is Amami’s deal’ becomes dramatically more pressing the very next day when a light rap at his door precedes another visitor, this time Amami, who comes in with a book tucked under his arm and a charming smile on his face.

Kaito stares at him, not bothering to hide his bemusement. Amami, in turn, doesn’t clarify anything, lifting a ringed hand to wave.

“Hey, good morning, Momota-kun,” Amami says. His voice is warm. Kaito turns to eye the clock above the door; it’s just past noon, which means it’s not morning anymore. Lucky for Amami that Kaito isn’t the type to get caught up in semantics, and also, that there’s something a lot more pressing going on right now for him to turn his attention to.

“Do you need something?” Kaito asks, staring openly as Amami comes over and takes the chair by his bed. Amami doesn’t respond right away, spinning the chair around to straddle it, inarguably the worst possible way a guy could sit in a shitty plastic hospital chair. He seems comfortable like that though, leaning his chest against the back and opening his book.

“Not particularly.” Amami is already flipping through, green eyes half-lidded with focus. “Was hoping to get some reading in, though.”

What. Kaito stares, waiting for Amami to reveal more of his intentions, but the guy seems to be done talking, eyes darting across the pages as a loose, easy little smile plays at his lips. Kaito hates that he finds it kind of attractive; this dude has no right to just burst into Kaito’s room and sit down like that.

“Okay.” Kaito articulates the word slowly, not really sure what he’s supposed to do with this. “Why… in my room?”

Amami shrugs. “People keep coming to talk to me in mine, and I wanted to spend some time with you.” He doesn’t so much as spare a glance away from his book, flipping a page. “Is that surprising to you?”

A little bit, but it would piss Kaito off to say as much now that Amami’s asked. He puffs out his cheeks and leans against the head of his bed. The thing is, he’s not sure Amami would even leave if he demanded it. Kaito knows nothing about him, except that he’s apparently really dense, and there’s no telling whether he’d really listen if Kaito wanted him to go. The other thing is, if Kaito raised his voice and told Amami to fuck off, he… doesn’t think his heart will be in it.

Augh. That’s embarrassing. Kaito turns his head away. It’s not that he wants Amami here, really, because how can you want to be around someone you just met? But Kaito also doesn’t mind his presence. Maybe it’s just that Amami’s not trying to talk about what happened in the game.

Kaito tugs at his sleeves.

“What if someone saw you come in here?”

“Guess that’d really suck for both of us.” Another page flip.

“Yeah, and it’s gonna suck when someone eventually finds you and starts comin’ in here and nagging me.”

“I guess I’ll just have to make the most of it until then.” Amami sighs. He glances up at Kaito finally and has the audacity to smile, eyes crinkling like he knows something Kaito doesn’t. “You don’t mind, right?”

Kaito seriously considers punching this guy, but decides it’s not worth the damage to his knuckles. He groans, waving Amami off. Whatever. Like it makes a difference to him if the fucker is just going to read. He has no idea how he’s supposed to get anything done with this dude just sitting in here, but Kaito hadn’t really been doing anything before Amami came in the first place, so it’s a pretty lame excuse.

Even just doing nothing with someone else in the room can be irritating, though, and Kaito finds himself sneaking glances at the green-haired man more than once, a persistent crease in his brow. He buys that Amami just wanted some space or whatever, but he doesn’t get why Amami thought it was a good idea to come here. Maybe he just figured nobody would predict he’d be in Kaito’s room? It’s a fair enough assumption given that Kaito struggles to think of a reason why anyone would want to be around him… but that goes for Amami too.

Maybe Amami was his friend in the simulation, like Saihara and Harukawa? But he doesn’t look at Kaito with any specific emotion, treating him much like you’d treat a classmate or a friend of a friend. Doesn’t seem to be any baggage there.

Kaito squints over at Amami, but the man is completely inscrutable, totally zeroed in on his book. Dickwad. If he’s going to be acting all confusing, the least he could do is emote about it.

Eventually Kaito resolves to just stare hard at Amami’s face, willing some kind of change in expression or really any other cue that might give Kaito a hint as to what the fuck is going on in this dude’s head. Nothing comes, of course—Amami seems much more concerned with whatever’s happening in his novel—but eventually Amami almost seems to sense Kaito’s gaze on him, because he looks up, a single eyebrow lifting.

Shit. Caught in the act. Kaito turns away, feeling his neck warm, and pretends like he wasn’t looking. Based on the way Amami chuckles next to him, he can tell that the attempt was pretty lame.

“Did you need something, Momota-kun?”

“Still don’t really get why you’re here,” Kaito grouses. Amami smiles, and for a moment Kaito thinks he’s going to be obtuse about it again, but this time he actually closes his book, marking the page and leaning back to set it down in his lap.

He folds his arms atop the back of the chair and rests his chin against them before speaking. “Truthfully… everyone here is starting to remember a bit more of the life you remember, Momota-kun. It always happens after the simulation. The memory suppressants wear off and people start to turn into more of… I would say a tasteful mix, of who they were before and who they became in the killing game.”

Kaito blinks. “Sounds kinda disorienting.”

“It is. I was a mess when it happened to me.” Amami’s eyes close. “It also means they’re starting to remember me, though, and this is a bit selfish of me, but… as much as I know my experience could be really useful to everyone, and I should be giving them advice… I really value my space, haha.”

“That doesn’t sound selfish,” Kaito says. Amami cracks an eye open. It’s barely a reaction at all, but Kaito still feels a little embarrassed by it. “W-What? It’s true. Even if your experience is… helpful, or whatever, it’s not like you didn’t go through a killing game too.” No, that’s not quite accurate. Kaito looks away. “Or uh… multiple. Right? That’s why I recognised your face.”

Amami’s responding smile is almost dry. “That’s right,” he agrees, before exhaling. “I guess you have a point… one person can only do so much… but I’ve barely done anything to be feeling tired about it.” He runs his hand through his hair. “The truth is, I died first, and it was pretty instant, so aside from the occasional headache, I’m not going through as much as everyone else here is. I should be more available to help them out.”

That’s just not correct, no matter which way you cut it, but Kaito’s a little more curious about something else that Amami said.

“...Going through as much?”

“Mhm.” Amami closes his eyes. “The ramifications of the killing game simulation and the personality altering technology. Just the trauma from what happened alone would be bad enough, but dying in the simulation causes pretty awful consequences for your body… I’ve heard of phantom pains and even people who straight up didn’t wake up from the simulation. On my end, it’s really just the headaches, and…”

Amami trails off, smile flickering for a moment.

“Well, nevermind. But the point is, everyone else here probably has it a lot worse.”

Kaito doesn’t respond right away, not for lack of things to say or reply to, but more because the weight of everything he just heard makes his stomach drop. Was that… in the contract? Did he really miss something that big? There’s no way he could’ve missed that—he still read it, just not as carefully as he should’ve… you would think something like that would be on the news, wouldn’t you? But Kaito swears he’s never heard anything even remotely like that.

“I thought…” Kaito’s voice comes out a little small. “I thought it was just… in and out. It’s all fake in the simulation. You’re tellin’ me that your guys’ bodies—”

“They remember,” Amami says. For some reason, he says it gently, like this is news he’s breaking to Kaito, and not something Kaito should have known all along before committing to murder someone. “It’s not pretty. I’ve seen some pretty awful episodes, even just while being here.”

Kaito realises he’s digging his nails into his palms. That’s funny, because he hadn’t even noticed he was making fists. He relaxes his hands, feeling his heart beat against his ribcage, and smoothes down his pants in an attempt at calming himself. It doesn’t really work.

Ouma. How did he kill him? How is Ouma currently suffering for Kaito’s decision—Kaito’s selfish decision to try and win a game show rather than take on another job? He’d been pretty much at his limit when he signed up, but still, if he’d known—

No, that doesn’t matter. However he died, Ouma is actively suffering for Kaito’s decision, and he’d seemed so… chipper about it. Kaito leans back in his seat and blinks when he sees that Amami is frowning at him, for the first time looking almost worried.

“Momota-kun, I’m sorry,” Amami says softly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Are you fucking stupid?” Kaito’s voice sounds embarrassingly emotional. He takes a breath to try and tone it down, but it still comes out shaky when he continues. “I don’t—don’t fucking apologise to me, man.”

Amami nods. He shifts in his seat, picking up his book again and tucking it under his arm, then looking up at Kaito.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Now he asks that? Kaito thinks this dude needs to get punched in the face. Just once. Just one time.

No, he doesn’t think that. He’s just angry right now. Not at Amami, can’t shoot the messenger, but unfortunately the messenger is the only person Kaito can actually rage at here; not like he’d do much good by punching himself. He finds himself clenching his fists again, lacking a much better outlet.

“It’s fine. You can stay.”

Kaito, though, swings his legs out of bed and steps into his shoes, stomping to the door. Amami says something behind him, but Kaito doesn’t hear it, pushing his way out into the hall without another word.

The only problem is he actually doesn’t know which of these doors is Ouma’s. Kaito considers just trying every one until he finds the guy, but he doesn’t want more people involved with this than there needs to be, and he’s not sure he wouldn’t just hit someone right now if they tried to nose into his business. Ideally, Kaito would be able to avoid injuring anyone here after he already tried to get them all killed and traumatised for fucking life.

Fuck. Kaito doesn’t know what to do. He scans the doors, biting his lip as he looks for something that would Ouma’s stand out, then eventually turns back around with a groan and puts his head back in his own room.

“Which door is Ouma’s?”

Amami had apparently gone back to reading. He looks up and thinks for a moment before saying, “This side of the hall, two doors down.”

Kaito thanks him before letting the door fall shut. He’ll touch base later, if only to make up for the abrupt exit, but this feels more important right now. Kaito barely even knows what he wants to say, he just knows he needs to say something— just so he can do something with this awful feeling in his chest. He didn’t know. But what difference does that make, when Kaito dove into something without doing any actual research about it? He just signed up. He just assumed it would be fine.

He doesn’t knock. He just grabs the handle of Ouma’s door and pushes inside. Ouma’s seated on the floor, surrounded by sheets of paper; sketches, practically unreadable notes, balled trash. He seems deep in thought, but when the door opens, his head snaps up, expression blank but almost surprised-looking.

It’s quickly replaced for a grin. “Wow, Momota-chan! That excited to see me again after last night? I must say, I didn’t know you were so impa—”

“Shut up. How did I kill you?”

Ouma blinks, his smile falling. “Why would you wanna know something like that?”

“Answer the question.” Kaito shoves his hands into his pockets so he won’t do something stupid like grab Ouma, keeping his feet firmly planted by the door. He’s glaring, he thinks, but Ouma doesn’t look intimidated, so he doesn’t bother trying to school his expression. Maybe he should. He killed the guy, after all.

After an almost calculating pause, Ouma speaks quite frankly. “You crushed me alive with a hydraulic press.”

Kaito bristles. “That—” It feels too specific to be a lie, and Ouma’s expression remains unchanging. Kaito has to take one of his hands out of his pocket to catch himself on the wall when he stumbles, stomach churning. “Seriously? Why would I—”

“Because I asked you to.” Ouma pulls himself to his feet. He moves with the same grace he’d had when Kaito first saw him after waking up, but it’s kind of… slow. Like he’s being deliberate. Kaito hopes he’s just reading too much into it. “I was bleeding from two places and poisoned and gonna die anyways, and Momota-chan was a little too noble. It was pretty easy to get you to kill me.”

That feels like way too much information at once. Kaito doesn’t even know where to start. “You… asked me to?” Noble? Kaito’s been a lot of things in his life—always the same theme, out of control, scary, temperamental—and noble doesn’t really fit the bill. Just what kind of person did they make him in the simulation?

“Yup! See, Harukawa-chan was the one who shot me. If I died from the poison, she would’ve been pinned as the culprit and executed! And if you lived to tell the tale, she definitely would’ve came clean to save you. So you took responsibility for your sidekick!” Ouma giggles. “Buuut, that’s a lie. I mean, I think it is. You said it was. In fact, Momota-chan said he did it to help me end the killing game.”

“How the hell would I have ended the killing game by killing you?” Kaito croaks, unable to formulate any other response.

Ouma smiles again, tilting his head to the side. “Want me to show you? It might be faster.”

“You mean the show?”

“Uh-huh!”

“No.”

Kaito reaches for his temple, sliding down the wall. A fucking hydraulic press— and Ouma wanted it? This guy sounds insane.

“Did you—did you know it was virtual reality?”

“Nope.”

“So you were just ready to die.”

“Yup! I mean, at that point, it was get with the program or die for nothing, you know?” Ouma tilts his head to the side. “But Momota-chan’s apology earlier was pretty silly. He had no idea there was a cash prize involved for winning! Even if he had, I doubt he would’ve done it. He was just the heroic sort, you know?” Ouma sighs. “Total pain in my ass. But he was interesting, at least. And I wasn’t mad in the first place, so it’s not like you needed to say sorry.”

Kaito wants to argue that Ouma had cried when he talked about getting killed, but he recalls that Ouma had been faking it at the time, so it might not be any real indication of how he’d actually been feeling. Even now, it’s almost impossible to tell, with Ouma’s violet eyes seeming to dig into him the longer Kaito meets them. This is unbearable.

“Amami said…” Kaito swallows and clears his throat. “Said there’s—after effects. Your body remembers. From being crushed, do you—”

He can’t even formulate the whole question. Just seeing the way Ouma’s expression goes blank again is answer enough. Kaito looks away with a hiss, and only catches Ouma’s cheeks puffing out in his peripheral.

“Okay, I didn’t even say anything,” Ouma protests. When Kaito doesn’t respond, though, he sighs, and pads over, dropping down to sit in front of Kaito. He doesn’t reach out and touch or anything, but he does lean forward a bit, propping his chin up in his hand. “I think they kept it a secret on purpose, Momota-chan. That’s what you’re upset about, right? Traumatising me forever and ever?”

Kaito grumbles. “Obviously.”

“Why would you care so much about a fictional character?”

“Don’t play games with me.” Kaito sweeps his hand through his hair. “Just because you have fake memories doesn’t mean you’re fiction.”

“Hm.” Ouma is smiling again, though Kaito doesn’t find what he said to be particularly funny. “Well, anyways. The point is, it’s part of their evil, you know? Team Danganronpa keeps it a huge secret to get applicants! Then people come in, they kill, they die, they suffer. Easy entertainment!”

It’s fucked up and Kaito has always thought so. He was just desperate, and everyone seemed so sure there were no real consequences. That it was all in fiction. Of course it wasn’t. Kaito finds his knees and grips them tightly.

“You know you wouldn’t even question that you were a victim too if you just remembered what happened,” Ouma points out. “Everyone here got manipulated and drawn into it—just so happens you got lucky.”

Yeah, he did get lucky, huh. Kaito knits his brow. “Maybe I should remember. Seems like whoever the hell was here before would be a lot more helpful than…”

Well, than Kaito as he is now. As nice as it would be to come back to his grandmother exactly as the guy she remembers him being, it’s not like he’s any good to the people here now. Saihara and Harukawa miss the fake him—Ouma apparently relied on him enough to try to stop the killing game with him. If he was able to encourage people, put a plan into action… maybe he was a better person. Maybe he knew how to formulate a sentence, control his temper, sustain a friendship—maybe he was just better.

When Kaito looks at Ouma, he sees that the other man, for once, has a straight up frown on his face. He shakes his head.

“Momota-chan can do whatever he wants,” Ouma says. “But don’t pretend like it’d be good to do for anyone else. People are always gonna want you to be someone, you know, but I think it’d be super boring if you just went and did that instead of being who you want to be.”

What Kaito wanted to be was different, though. Ouma has to get that, doesn’t he? If it weren’t so intensely humiliating, Kaito would say as much, but instead he holds his tongue and digs his fingers into his knees. Then he pushes himself to his feet.

“Cheesiest shit I’ve ever heard.” Kaito tries to spit it out, but it sounds a little more pathetic than he hopes. Ouma doesn’t seem bothered one way or another, shrugging.

“Thought the situation called for it! Or maybe I was just lying because I find you more interesting like this.”

Kaito grumbles and turns around, reaching for the door, but has to stop before his fingers make contact. Ouma is being annoying again, and Kaito wants to be alone, but before he leaves, he…

“...Ouma, I’m sorry. If I’d known—”

“You would’ve done the same thing, because the situation was more important,” Ouma cuts in, bluntly. “Don’t be stupid, Momota-chan.”

Kaito grits his teeth. He doesn’t want to watch it, and he doesn’t want to know—but a part of him wishes he’d just been the guy who remembered in the first place. Everything would probably be a lot better if he was.

“Whatever.” Kaito grabs the door and steps out without looking back. He wants to add something else, a goodbye perhaps, but he doesn’t even know what he’d say. Ouma probably gets it, anyway.

Ugh. Kaito has no idea what to do.

What Kaito ends up doing is finding a closet somewhere to curl up in a ball while he calms down, and then returning to his room to eat and sleep. He’s expecting to be left alone the next day, but Amami shows up at his door again sometime after noon, offering as little explanation as he did the first time as he takes his previous position and opens his book.

This time, Kaito is too tired to question it, grumbling a little and looking away. The only words they exchange are brief, perhaps an hour in to Amami’s stay;

“You better not be here because you feel bad for me.”

“Not in the slightest.” Amami’s tone is cool and collected. Kaito wishes he had half the composure.

It’s whatever, though. He keeps himself busy by doing pushups and later napping, and Amami leaves before dinner. The following day, Kaito is pretty much already expecting Amami to come, except this time he arrives with two books in his hands.

He passes one over without a word, offering only a smile by way of greeting, and Kaito takes it. Some science fiction book he thinks he’s seen on shelves before, space-related. It seems awfully cheeky, because Kaito knows he was the Ultimate Astronaut back in the game, but it’s not like that talent came out of nowhere. Kaito already liked space.

Kaito frowns at Amami, wondering if he should thank him, then looks back down again. It’d be awkward to. He opens the book instead, hoping that will communicate his gratitude.

They keep things up this way for a week, barely conversing, mostly consumed in their respective books, but Kaito finds himself glancing at Amami from time to time. The man is so curious. He watched Kaito practically melt down and had nothing to say about it, just a cool, passive acceptance of Kaito’s intense emotions before silently moving on.

It’s… nice. Kaito wishes people in his life were so easygoing. But it almost makes him curious about Amami; is he that unflappable because of what happened in his games, or because… because he just is?

This curiosity builds until Kaito finds himself sneaking more glances at Amami than he is at his book, and then eventually he just has to mark his page and huff out a sigh, putting the damn thing aside and clearing his throat.

“Oi. You…” Shit. Kaito knew he wanted to say something, but he hadn’t quite decided what. He chews the inside of his cheek, feeling his face warm when Amami looks up. “You—uh, you remember shit about your life before, right?”

Amami tilts his head. Smiles. “Sure I do.”

“What… was that like?”

“Hm… nothing special.” Amami rests his chin in his palm, his other hand still holding his book open. “I had two younger sisters, spent a lot of time taking care of them. No real friends or extracurriculars. I was a bit of a homebody if anything. That’s why I signed up for Danganronpa. I wanted to be someone who did things.”

Kaito watches Amami’s expression carefully. “Did you get that?”

“Oh, yeah. They made me the Ultimate Adventurer.” Amami chuckles. “I got all these memories of different places around the world… and I died. Full spectrum of experiences, really.”

Right. Kaito’s gaze drops down into his lap. Of course it’d be… not worth it. Amami was probably insecure before, but… whatever bullshit he was going through wasn’t worth the pain he must be in now. Kaito wonders if he could say the same of his own situation, thinks about the way his grandmother clutched his hand and promised him she’d lived a long and fulfilling life.

She’d better still be alive. Kaito needs to at least say goodbye if he can’t afford her treatment.

“Thank you for asking,” Amami says, softer. Kaito looks back up at him. “What has your life been like, Momota-kun?”

“Nothing spe…” Kaito starts, before trailing off when he realises that’d been Amami’s exact wording. He pouts, and pouts even more when Amami laughs, though thankfully the guy seems to choose not to comment. “I mean… you know. Live with my grandparents, go to school. Worked a couple jobs to pay the bills and shit, but then the bills stacked up.” Kaito’s never shared anything even remotely close to this with anyone before, not even the Team Danganronpa staff who were present for his audition. He swallows. “I uh… I dunno. I would’ve toughed it out, but my gran got really sick, and…”

Amami’s gaze is gentle. “You were counting on that prize money, huh?”

Kaito nods. He’s not sure what else there is to say.

“People have all kinds of reasons to sign up.” Amami sighs. “Devotion to the series, wanting to escape… or a noble reason, like you had.” Kaito almost protests the use of the word noble— seriously, hearing that word applied to him twice in a week is just too much—but Amami keeps talking, and he doesn’t want to interrupt. “The truth is… people just get desperate. They’ll do dangerous things to stay afloat… that’s why Danganronpa is so insidious. They parade themselves as harmless and entertaining, you come, and… it leaves you miserable and traumatised for life.”

…Strangely, it takes Kaito back to what Saihara had said before. We did it, we ended Danganronpa. What did he mean by that? Ouma had said he was trying to end the killing game, but Saihara specifically mentioned Danganronpa. Was that on purpose? How did he even know what Danganronpa was at that point?

“I hope you aren’t beating yourself up over it,” Amami adds, and Kaito blinks, snapping back to the current conversation. Oh yeah. “You got desperate because someone you loved was in danger… that’s admirable, more than anything, Momota-kun.”

Kaito grumbles. “I wouldn’t call it admirable.” He looks away. “But… dunno. Ouma made a point that if I remembered the game I wouldn’t feel as shitty about it. Maybe he’s right. Either way, I don’t… I mean, I don’t know what good it’d do me anyways. What happened happened.”

Mm, but it’s not really fair of him to say that to Amami, now is it? What happened happened, sure, but for Kaito, there were virtually no consequences. He doesn’t remember a thing. For someone like Amami, who did it more than once…

“I bet you probably regret it, though,” Kaito adds in a small voice.

“More than anything,” Amami admits. “But… well, like you said. No use in dwelling. All I can hope for is a peaceful life now.” He smiles, this one softer and almost crooked compared to the others he’s offered thus far. “You’ve been helping with that a bit, these past few days.”

Kaito exhales. “Can’t imagine how.”

“Not a lot of people will just let me exist next to them,” Amami says, shrugging. “There’s always something to talk about… not that I mind talking, but it does feel like there are less expectations with you, Momota-kun. That’s nice.” He pauses, then adds, “But I’m sure it’s unfair of me to feel that way about everyone else.”

Well… Kaito understands why Amami feels that way, but he also doesn’t think it’s that unfair. Not when he thinks about how upset Saihara and Harukawa had been when he was just honest with them. Granted, given their situation… of course that honesty hurt, but… it probably hurt more because they wanted Kaito to be someone else. And as much as it would be nice if Kaito was that person… there’s not much he can really do about that.

“You should stop doing that,” Kaito says.

“Doing what?”

“Callin’ yourself… selfish, or unfair, just for having annoyed feelings at people.” Kaito opens his book and looks for his spot on the page. “Makes you out like a total pushover.”

Amami doesn’t speak right away, so Kaito assumes that’s that and actually manages to get back to reading for a bit before he hears Amami chuckling. When he glances up, he sees that Amami’s looking away, covering his mouth with a hand.

“What’s so funny?” Kaito frowns.

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just…” Amami’s eyes crinkle at the edges. He glances over. “Everyone is so upset because the kind and caring Momota-kun they knew from the simulation is supposedly gone… but I don’t think he went anywhere. I think he’s right here.”

Kaito blinks. Amami doesn’t look away from him this time, gaze steady and so damn intense that Kaito has to be the one to break eye contact, his face warming. That’s just… not true. Caring, Kaito might accept—he cares a lot, about a lot of things—but kind…? There’s no way.

Amami sounded so genuine though, and he doesn’t seem like the type to butter Kaito up for no reason. Kaito grumbles.

“Think you’re just saying that so I won’t kick your ass out of here.”

“Is it working?”

“Ha ha.” Kaito shakes his head and squints at his book, ignoring the way Amami laughs again as he does. This fucking guy.

…Despite himself, Kaito feels a slight smile threatening to break across his face.

It’s late at night when Kaito is woken up to the sound of knocking on his door, frantic enough that it cuts through his sleepy haze to get him moving on autopilot, clambering out of bed and jogging over. In his house, knocking like that could mean a medical emergency or worse, so his brain is up and running quick as he hits the door frame and yanks the door open.

Bluish light floods Kaito’s room from the hallway, and he remembers that he’s not at home but at the Team Danganronpa rehabilitation facility, and the person standing in front of him is Saihara, not one of his grandparents. It coaxes a bit of a grumble from Kaito’s throat, but his irritation dissolves quick when he notices the tears glistening on Saihara’s cheeks.

Not fast enough to stop Saihara from hearing the grumble, though; he winces.

“S-Sorry. I—” Saihara takes in a hiccuping breath. “I probably woke you up, Momota-kun, I didn’t mean to, I just—” He cups his mouth with a hand, shoulders trembling. “I needed to—to see you. Know that you were—”

He doesn’t get to the end of the sentence, but Kaito figures he can fill  in the blanks. It’s enough to make him feel kind of like shit for being annoyed, so he frowns, then takes a step back.

“Uh, it’s fine, I was half awake anyways,” Kaito lies. “You can… come in, if you want.”

Saihara sniffles. He shuffles inside, and Kaito shuts the door behind him, not sure really where to go from here.

The thing is, the person Saihara wanted to see is gone, lost to some lines of computer code and a big fucking error in the personality altering software. He’s probably gone forever, not that Kaito completely wants to be him again, and so… this exercise is a little pointless. The guy Saihara is crying over really is basically dead. Kaito won’t be able to soothe him, not like this.

It’d be heartless to just kick him out though. Saihara ends up seated on Kaito’s bed while Kaito slinks away to the bathroom for a cup of water, and by the time he comes back, he sees that Saihara has calmed somewhat, only hiccuping occasionally now. His eyes are reddened and his nose is too, his lower lip trembling still as he stares up at the ceiling. Presumably to keep from crying more.

That’s idiotic, so Kaito bonks the water cup against his head before he hands it over. “I don’t care if you cry.”

“Th-Thank you.” Saihara doesn’t seem upset by the bonk, accepting the cup and taking a long drink from it. Some of the trembling in his shoulders seems to subside as he lowers his hand. “I… I know you probably don’t, but um… I’d rather not be, um, crying in front of you like this when I’m already imposing…”

Well, Kaito won’t deny that. It’s pretty early. But he still frowns a bit as he sits down on the bed a comfortable distance away from Saihara.

“Still don’t really care,” Kaito says, before shrugging. “So uh… bad dream?”

“Yeah.” Saihara’s hands tighten visibly on his cup. “I’m really sorry to bother you, I didn’t—”

“Stop apologising.”

“O-Okay.” Saihara sniffles. He shakes his hair from his eyes. “You… probably don’t have any context for it, but you were um, sick in the game. With a lung disease. You coughed up blood and… in the end, that was what ended up killing you, but I didn’t know about it until that point because you hid it from everybody.”

Kaito takes in that information with a frown. “That’s pretty cliché.”

“A-Ah, I mean, I guess.” Saihara clears his throat. “It didn’t feel that way at the time, though… it was awful. You must have been in so much pain, and so scared, and… all that time you were putting on a brave face for me and Harukawa-san, and then I failed you and you died and—”

“Saihara, fucking relax,” Kaito interjects, eyes a bit wide with panic as Saihara’s breaths become shorter and more strained. Saihara only seems to curl away more at the request, though, expression screwing up, and Kaito exhales. He doesn’t know what to say—what he could possibly say to fix this, being him—and there’s not a lot he can really do like this.

Not a lot, except, well…

Kaito pouts, but he leans forward, draping an arm gently over Saihara’s back and pulling him in. Saihara stiffens, making Kaito think for a moment that he made the wrong choice, right up until Saihara lets out a shaky breath into his shoulder and seems to melt into him. It almost feels a little nice, though Kaito’s trying not to think about that right now. Kind of the wrong time to ruminate on that shit.

“Seriously,” Kaito mutters. “You need to chill… I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

One of Saihara’s hands creeps around to grasp Kaito’s shirt. “S-Sorry. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.”

“And stop apologising,” Kaito complains. “Like that even means anything to me… listen.” He pats Saihara on the back a couple times. “I’m not the guy you wanna be saying this to, okay? I’m basically like… his clone, or something. I don’t mind you being here, but… all those apologies and shit, and your regrets… you can say them, but it probably won’t do much for you. I’m just not him.”

Saihara doesn’t respond to that immediately, but he doesn’t pull away either, which… Kaito isn’t sure whether he should call it a good thing or a bad thing. He just kind of has to wait while Saihara thinks, which is fine. Not like he’s exactly in a hurry right now.

Eventually, Saihara sighs. Kaito feels it more than he hears it.

“You’re right. I don’t know why I keep expecting talking to you to give me closure.” Saihara’s voice is sullen. “It’s not fair to you to treat you like the friend I had, or to expect you to be that again when you don’t even know me… I just…”

He doesn’t finish. Kaito hates that he doesn’t, because he’s terrible at guessing shit like this, but whatever.

“You… miss him,” Kaito suggests.

“Yeah.” Saihara sighs. “I miss him more than anything. I—I’m sorry, you don’t need to listen to—”

“If you say sorry to me one more time, I’m kicking you out,” Kaito warns, eyes narrowing. It isn’t a joke, but Saihara giggles anyway, which is… probably a good thing? Kaito pouts slightly.

“Right, um… all I wanted to say was… he was really there for me. He was the only reason I survived. If I could just thank him one more time, or… I don’t know. Even just see him, really… it feels so unfair that everyone else is here, and alive, and he’s just… gone.” Saihara’s shoulders have tensed beneath Kaito’s arm. “That isn’t fair to you, though… you deserve to be here.”

Debatable. But Kaito will let that point rest.

“Not getting too hung up on it,” Kaito says instead. “Not like it’s gonna change how you feel if I get pissed.” It’s not an amazing feeling, but Kaito has stopped expecting shit about this situation to feel nice. “Sucks ass for you though, man.” It sounds kind of dismissive, but Kaito means it. It does suck ass. He wishes there was something better he could say to Saihara to make it up to him, but there isn’t.

Saihara sniffles again. Then draws back, blinking up at Kaito with still-watery eyes. His lashes are so long that they stick together, weighed down with the moisture from his tears.

“It does,” Saihara agrees, before clearing his throat. “Um, but I wanted to ask you another question, if that’s alright… not really related to this, more…”

Kaito tilts his head. Last time that didn’t go so well for him, but Harukawa also isn’t here now, so maybe it’s safer. “Go ahead.”

“Why… did you audition? I mean, why did you want the money?” Saihara looks away. “Did… you just want to be rich and famous?”

“Huh? Nah.” Kaito frowns. “I mean, rich wouldn’t be bad. Fame just sounds annoying.” He scoffs. “But… I just needed the money.” When Saihara gives him a side eye, he grumbles and elaborates, “For my grandmother. She got sick.”

Saihara’s eyes widen. Then dart down to the floor. “Oh.”

Oh, indeed. Kaito rubs the side of his neck. It feels less natural than it did with Amami, but he still doesn’t regret saying it. Not like he has any real reason to hide it.

Eventually, Saihara sighs. “It must have been a hard choice. I’m… sorry. I was judging you a lot in my head because I was comparing you to the version of you I knew in the game, but…”

“Like I care what you do in your fucking head,” Kaito grumbles. “Just gonna make yourself miserable like that, since that other guy isn’t coming back.” He breathes out and shakes his head. “Whatever. I don’t want you pitying me. Sure your sob story is way worse than that anyways, so—”

“Th-That’s not it,” Saihara insists. He clears his throat. “I mean, I don’t pity you. But… I want to understand you.” His brow furrows. “Because… even if you’re not the person I knew in the game, you’re still… Momota-kun, and I still want to be friends with you. N-Not because of what another person of you did in the simulation. Just because… I want to.”

His eyes dart away. Kaito wonders if he would have said that before, when they were talking initially, if Harukawa hadn’t jumped him. Maybe not. Tensions were pretty high then and Saihara seemed upset.

Still, though… Kaito huffs out a sort of laugh, reaching to tousle up Saihara’s hair. “Don’t get your hopes up. I’m no Ultimate.”

“You don’t have to be,” Saihara reassures. “But… you didn’t have to let me in, either.” He smiles slightly. “I think someone who would try to comfort me while I’m upset is still someone worth knowing.”

Who says this shit? Maybe Saihara and Amami should be friends. Kaito grumbles and turns away, feeling his ears flare red. At least Saihara has the grace not to laugh about it.

Ouma comes and finds Kaito around a week later, hands on his hips, a big dramatic pout on his face as he storms inside.

“Momota-chan! I’ve been wasting away in my room and you haven’t come to see me once! Not once!”

Kaito swallows his mouthful of cereal. “You wanted that?”

“Uh, duh? I’m like Juliet, you know. Stuck in a tower covered in ivy.” Ouma, as he did before, plops himself right down on Kaito’s bed, up close and personal. Kaito frowns at him. “You have to climb my hair to get to me!”

“That’s Rapunzel.”

“Tomato potato.” Ouma yawns. “Anyways, you need to pay attention to me right now! I already told you I’m wasting away out here.”

Kaito glances at the clock. “Whatever you want, make it fast. Amami’s gonna be here soon.”

Ouma’s head tilts. Then he gasps. “So that’s it! You’ve been cheating on me with that stupid green fellow! Oh, I knew your heart wasn’t in it when we last met!”

Despite the fact that Ouma is well and truly full of shit, Kaito still ends up blushing. He hates himself just a little bit.

“Th-That’s not—can you just fuck off?” Kaito groans, only sighing more when he hears Ouma burst into a round of giggles. What an asshole. Kaito drags his hands down his face and contemplates the best way to eject Ouma from his room—the guy’s little, maybe Kaito could just scoop him up and toss him out—but before he can finish thinking on it, Ouma speaks again.

“Buuut, really. I didn’t want anything, I kinda just wanted to come by.” Ouma tucks his arms behind his neck. “Like I said, you’re interesting! I wanna cut you open and dig into all your dirty little secrets.”

Kaito wrinkles his nose. “Gross.”

“Nishishi! Maybe not that graphic. But I do wanna know.” Ouma leans over to latch onto Kaito’s arm. “I might even leave if you give me something to work with.”

This is awful. Release, right at Kaito’s fingertips, and Kaito doesn’t even know the kind of secret Ouma would want to hear. Even if he did, Kaito’s awful at volunteering information about himself on a whim; he had to come up with a full script for his audition, being just that bad at talking about himself. He pouts while he thinks about it, then eventually reaches with his free hand to grab the back of Ouma’s shirt.

“What if I just tossed you out instead?”

Ouma’s eyes widen. “You would really do that to me? That’s so cruel!” To contrast his words, he’s beaming. “Just one secret, Momota-chan, please?”

Kaito grumbles. “Fine. Here it is: I fucking hate you.”

Another wave of giggles, but at least this time Ouma hops off Kaito’s bed and darts over to the door as if to leave. He pauses on the way though, glancing over his shoulder and smiling.

“It’s no wonder you’re so honest, since you’re such a shitty liar,” Ouma chirps.

Kaito sputters. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t lying!” Ouma only laughs again before darting out. “Ouma, seriously—! Damn it!”

That jackass. Kaito furiously dives back into his cereal. His face feels so fucking hot for no reason. Amami’s definitely going to laugh at him when he gets here, too. This sucks.

There’s about three weeks left of their stay here. Kaito’s settled into a pretty solid routine, between Amami’s regular visits, Saihara’s more infrequent stops, and Ouma’s absolutely unpredictable pattern of arrivals, but he’s starting to grow a little restless again. Like there’s more he could be doing… but he struggles to think of what. Making friends, maybe? With people who know him as someone else? Pass.

On the other hand… Kaito glances over at Amami, who is once again immersed in another book. The people he’s been talking to thus far haven’t been so bad. With the exception of Ouma, that is. (Though even he isn’t terrible, just a headache.) Kaito fidgets with the edge of his bedsheet.

Amami’s eyes slowly drift upwards, as they often do. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Kaito looks down. “Just thinking.”

“About what?” Amami’s already putting his book away, marking this as another serious conversation. “Anything I can help with?”

Kaito pouts. But he probably could; Amami’s particular brand of rationality has been helpful to him on more than one occasion by now. “I guess… I was just wondering what if I started going to meals with everyone else. You know, in the cafeteria and stuff.”

It sounds laughable out loud. Kaito presses his lips into a thin line. Amami doesn’t laugh at him though—he never laughs at Kaito when it’s something this seriously humiliating.

“Hmm… well, if you did that, then…” Amami tilts his head. “I would probably join you.”

“You would?” Kaito blinks. “You don’t already?”

“No.” Amami shakes his head. “There’s nobody for me to see in there… but there would be, if you went.” He smiles. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Friends. Kaito looks down at his blankets. When he looks up, Amami’s already reading again, but it’s fine. There isn’t anything else that really needs to be said. Kaito’s chest is already glowing with warmth.

Eating with the whole group is fine. Weird, but fine. Kaito learns that everyone in this place is kind of a freak, and way too loud, but they seem to be pretty much willing to accept Kaito as he is, which he’s grateful for.

The only exception to this is Harukawa, who seems to be trying to avoid him. Kaito is perfectly fine with that—he’s not exactly keen on talking to the girl who tried to jump him either—but he also finds that he isn’t all that bothered when Harukawa catches up to him one morning on his way out of the cafeteria. Amami’s already with him, but Kaito still slows to let Harukawa join, tilting his head at her.

Harukawa’s cheeks puff out. She looks away. “Saihara told me what you said. About your grandmother.”

Kaito finds himself huffing. Loose lips sink ships, Saihara. Not that it was a secret, but Kaito still would’ve liked to be in control of where that information went. On the other hand, Saihara and Harukawa are close, so maybe giving that information to him had been the same as passing it to her.

Whatever. Kaito gives a short nod. “So?”

“So,” Harukawa exhales through her nose, “I still… don’t trust you.” Her eyes narrow. “Not after the video I saw. But… I don’t think he’d want me to hold a grudge against you for not being him.” Harukawa looks away. “So. Yeah.”

Kaito blinks. Harukawa falls back before he can say anything, disappearing down another hallway. Probably embarrassed; Kaito would be too. That’s not really what’s on his mind right now, though.

“...Video?” Kaito looks over at Amami, who shrugs.

“Beats me. Maybe ask Saihara?”

Well, Kaito’s not that curious. But he might bring it up anyway. Saihara seems to like explaining stuff, and it really passes the time if he can just get Saihara talking about something. The dude has a pleasant enough voice for it, so it’s not a bad time killer.

That’s for later, though. Kaito shrugs too, and Amami shoots him a smile as they return to Kaito’s room. What’s done is done.

A week before their release, Kaito’s approached with news: They retrieved his simulation memories. He could have them back.

With how well things have been going for him recently—or at least, relatively so—Kaito had expected his answer to be instant. No, I don’t need them. There are plenty of reasons not to take them on, after all; top of the list being that voluntarily exposing himself to the same pain and trauma that he’s been watching everyone else go through for the past four months really doesn’t sound… pleasant. Or smart.

But for some reason when Kaito opens his mouth to deny it, he finds his insides cooling instead, some kind of weird dread-confusion mix churning in his gut, and he swallows, curling his hands at his sides. It should be automatic. He’s about to leave this place and go back to his grandmother, he has friends—or people who would call him that—and… again. It just seems stupid, to reach for memories and a personality that would only hurt him. That could potentially hurt everyone else.

Yet he can’t voice the denial. What would everyone else want him to do? Kaito’s a little surprised by how much he’s worried about it. He’s never been the type to care about that before. Maybe it’s different when people actually like you. He’s at least confident that Amami wouldn’t mind one way or another, but… everyone else? Saihara, Harukawa? What about Ouma? Wouldn’t he appreciate having that guy back, even if he doesn’t hate the one that’s currently here either?

Kaito’s hands creep up to massage his temples. He realises they’re shaking. He’s told he’ll have time to process and left alone, but in the silence, the solitude, Kaito doesn’t end up doing much processing. He ends up sinking down to sit on the cold, tile floor, staring blankly at nothing until his door creaks open and he realises he sat here all the way through breakfast.

Today, Amami doesn’t have a book tucked under his arm. He looks worried, more than anything. “Momota-kun?”

“Should I—” Kaito’s voice cracks in the middle of the question, which is humiliating. His face warms, and Amami seems to choose not to comment, closing the door lightly behind himself and making his way over to take a seat in front of Kaito. He doesn’t say a word. Kaito thinks he appreciates it—he’s always appreciated Amami’s habit for tasteful silences—but he almost wishes Amami would prompt him or something. Just anything to get these words out easier.

He doesn’t, though. Amami can’t possibly know what Kaito wants if he won’t say it out loud, which means he has to speak.

“They uh… they did it. They got my—memories back. In the simulation.”

“Oh.” Amami tilts his head to the side. His expression doesn’t change. “Do you want them?”

“I don’t know.” Kaito feels strangely separate from his own body, like some kind of ghost or spectre, overlooking from above. He digs his nails into his palms, trying to feel more solid. “Should I?”

Amami still doesn’t emote. He cups his chin in his palm. “I’m not really the one who should answer that, am I?” When Kaito doesn’t answer, Amami offers a wry smile. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Left to your own devices… take me, Ouma-kun, Saihara-kun, and everyone else out of the equation… what would you do? Would you take them?”

Kaito looks away. Before he’d felt so sure he didn’t need those memories—that they wouldn’t do anything for him—but more and more lately as people tell him about the person he was in the simulation, compassionate, friendly, easygoing… Kaito finds himself wishing… not necessarily that he could get the memories back, but that he could just… be that. Be someone who puts people at ease just by being there, who looks past appearances and doesn’t hold grudges. He still feels wary around Harukawa after their initial confrontation, despite things being mostly okay between them now. Based on what Kaito’s heard about who he was in the game… if he still had that personality, he wouldn’t.

Maybe that means he was even more of an idiot than he is now, but maybe it would be worth it, if Kaito could just be the kind of person who people look at and… smile.

“I might,” Kaito says quietly. “If it’d make me better.”

Amami’s smile falls. “Make you better?”

“I mean—” Kaito’s bad at articulating himself when he’s in a good mood, forget about doing it now. His face warms, but more out of shame than embarrassment. He stares at the floor. “The way I am now… there’s not a lot to like about me, is there? I’m just an asshole. And—I mean, you haven’t seen it, but in the real world…” Kaito turns his hands over, stares down at the scars that cover his knuckles, overlapping and intersecting, ugly no matter what lighting they’re in. “I’m not a good guy. All I know how to do is fight.”

This time, Amami’s silence feels less tasteful. It makes Kaito’s skin crawl more the longer it persists, but Kaito doesn’t dare to look up, scared of what he’ll find on Amami’s face. Since meeting Amami, the most Kaito has ever seen out of him by way of serious or upset expressions have been mild frowns or pouts, maybe a crease in his brow if they’re talking about something really serious.

He… really doesn’t want to know what it would take to make Amami angry. And for some reason Kaito is convinced he can feel Amami’s glare on his face, like he finally put it out there, that any friendship Amami has shown him is unearned—that ultimately, Kaito isn’t a good person or even someone worth sticking around. He’s not special like the others here, and he certainly isn’t kind like the person he was in the simulation. He just…

Kaito’s broken out of his thoughts when Amami finally makes a sound, but he still hasn’t spoken yet. It sounds more like a sniffle, which alarms Kaito enough to look up, at which point he jolts a bit; Amami’s hand is covering his face, but there’s no mistaking the tears in his eyes or the way his shoulders have curled in.

“A-Amami—” Kaito stammers.

“Sorry,” Amami says immediately, voice muffled by his palm. “I don’t—I won’t make this about me, Momota-kun. You should do what’s best for you, really, and if you think you want to be someone else then I—then I don’t really have the right to tell you differently, I just—”

He’s rambling. They’ve been hanging out for months but Kaito doesn’t think he’s ever heard Amami ramble. Unable to do much else, Kaito straightens up, scooting forward a little and stretching out his arms, reaching to pull Amami into an embrace. Amami groans, like he’s exasperated, but doesn’t draw back, instead leaning in to rest his chin against Kaito’s shoulder.

He sniffles again. Kaito can feel him shaking.

“If you… became someone else,” Amami whispers. “Even the vibrant person you were in the simulation, I would… I would miss you so much, Momota-kun.”

Kaito stiffens. He grips the back of Amami’s shirt and can’t help but ask, “Why? How could you…” What is there that Amami could possibly miss?

“You probably don’t get it,” Amami says through a slight, watery laugh. “All you can see are your flaws, since you live with them every day… but I don’t think anything you said about yourself just now is true. Not in the slightest. And in fact…” He breathes out, starting to slump into Kaito, one of his hands falling to rest against Kaito’s shoulder. “Without you… I don’t know how I would have gotten through this.”

That doesn’t make any sense. Kaito hasn’t seen Amami cry or even express any particular upset once since they started hanging out. Kaito hasn’t done anything. All he’s done is sit here, mostly in silence. He barely even knows about Amami’s struggle or what he goes through—only knows vaguely about lapses in memory and migraines from Amami’s quite flippant way of talking about them.

“I don’t get it,” Kaito chokes out, because he just doesn’t. “I haven’t—what have I done for you?”

Amami hums. “You’ve been here.” He leans his forehead into Kaito’s shoulder. “You’ve given me space to breathe. I come to see you after an awful nightmare or an argument with someone and just the sight of you makes me feel better.” He grips Kaito’s shoulder. “Maybe you don’t notice it, because it just comes naturally to you… but things I feel selfish about feeling or doing, you’ve always reassured me about… and even if you didn’t, I just like you, Momota-kun.” Amami shifts to look up at him. His eyes are a bit reddened, but he’s smiling. “You’re a good friend.”

That’s not a quality Kaito had ever imagined being applied to him. Nor can he particularly wrap his head around it. Not when the person he was in the simulation was apparently so great. But Amami sounds so sincere, and emotional, and Kaito knows that Amami wouldn’t lie to him about something like this.

A lump is building in his throat. Kaito looks away.

“I don’t… want you to miss anyone,” Kaito mumbles. “But I still wanna ask Saihara. And Ouma. And maybe the others. They deserve a say.”

“You’re sweet.” Amami reaches up to brush his thumb against Kaito’s cheek. “I don’t know if I’d agree with that… but it’s ultimately your choice who you decide to ask.”

Kaito’s blushing. Mostly because Amami called him sweet, but the touch on his face doesn’t help. He can only grumble in reply, pouting when Amami chuckles.

Amami’s eyes flutter closed. “Just don’t forget me, okay? Even if you do get those memories back.”

“...I dunno if I could ever do that,” Kaito admits quietly. “Even if I wanted to.”

Amami doesn’t respond to that. He hugs Kaito close again, head falling back into his shoulder, and when his shirt starts to dampen, it occurs to Kaito to wonder how many of Amami’s silences are him being tactful, and how many occur because he just feels too emotional to speak.

Ouma’s response is significantly less dramatic.

“If you wanna.” Ouma shrugs, then goes back to drawing an ugly caricature of Saihara in his sketchbook. “I probably would, if I was you. I’d be too curious not to. But if Momota-chan’s just gonna do it because of a self-esteem issue, then probably just don’t.”

Kaito frowns. “I don’t have a self-esteem issue.” He feels a little uncomfortably aware of how red and puffy his eyes are after his conversation with Amami earlier. Somehow they’d both ended up crying by the end of it. If Ouma notices—and he must notice—he chooses not to say anything, a mild uptick of his lips being the only indication of his scepticism.

“Either way, Momota-chan should be ready. And he should make the choice on his own terms. For his own sake, you know? You don’t wanna start resenting anyone you did it for.”

“Huh?” Kaito blinks. “Resenting…?”

Ouma gives the drawing of Saihara a big cartoonish moustache. “It’s simple, isn’t it? You take on memories when you’re ambivalent because you don’t wanna disappoint someone, and those memories give you PTSD. Suddenly it’s someone’s fault you got PTSD. At least if you do it for you, you only have you to blame.” Ouma glances over at Kaito. “Unless you’d rather have someone to blame.”

“O-Of course I don’t!” Kaito sputters.

“Didn’t think so! You know, this Momota-chan and the other one are preeeetty similar still! You’re way more awkward and way less stupid, but you both have these super strong unwavering principles!” Ouma giggles. “It’s pretty fun.”

Kaito scratches the side of his neck. He’s not sure what to say about that, which probably just proves Ouma’s point about the awkward thing. Even still.

“You really don’t care one way or another?” Kaito asks.

Ouma shrugs. “What difference would it make if I did? You’re gonna make a decision and I don’t want it to be for me. I’m abstaining!”

This guy is so annoying with the information he chooses to share. Kaito grumbles. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t want to know, but Ouma is right that his answer would definitely influence Kaito’s choice. Maybe Kaito does want a scapegoat, then.

…No, that doesn’t feel right. He just doesn’t want to make a decision that would leave Ouma feeling dissatisfied. Kaito shifts his weight.

“If I did one and not the other, would it upset you?” Kaito asks quietly.

Ouma looks up from his drawing. His expression is totally neutral, which Kaito has begun to recognise as his thinking face, so he lets the silence settle while Ouma twirls his pencil between his fingers.

Eventually, “Not super. I’ll just say this: I hate liars, Momota-chan. And I hate people who lie to themselves. Make a choice and make it with conviction. Don’t do it because you’re a coward.” Ouma looks back down. “I can’t respect people like that.”

Kaito doesn’t think he’d be able to respect himself if he was like that either. He waits, but Ouma doesn’t say anything else, so Kaito decides it’s probably best to just leave.

He does linger at the door, though. “I don’t think Saihara would like that you’re drawing him like that.”

“That’s the appeal!” Ouma’s tone is bright and cheery. “Wanna deliver my portrait while you tell him his boyfriend could come back?”

Kaito closes the door behind himself with a little more force than necessary and can still hear Ouma’s giggling through it. Ugh.

In contrast to Ouma’s somewhat surprisingly subdued response, when Kaito tells Saihara and Harukawa the option he’s been presented with, the glass of water slides right out of Saihara’s hand and cracks against the tile floor.

Saihara immediately flusters, backing into the kitchen counter—Kaito had happened in on the two of them in here and decided he might as well bring it up—as Harukawa’s cheeks puff out. She takes action swiftly, crossing the kitchen for a broom and dustpan, brushing Saihara out of the way to clean it up. Kaito advances, holding out a hand for the dustpan, and Harukawa eyes him curiously for a moment before she passes it over.

As Kaito kneels to receive the wet glass, Harukawa says, “Do whatever you want. It doesn’t make a difference to me.”

“I-It—” Saihara cuts off abruptly, hands moving to cup his mouth. “Harukawa-san is—Harukawa-san is right. You should do what would feel best for you, Momota-kun.”

Kaito scoffs. “I’m going to. That’s not why I told you.” He frowns down at the glass fragments, muttering, “Just wanted to know what you’d prefer.”

Saihara makes a face like he bit into a lemon. Harukawa speaks before him. “Like I said, it doesn’t make a difference to me.”

“Um, it…” Saihara looks away. His hands lower, and Kaito watches him worry his lower lip. “I suppose it would seem—disingenuous, if I told you I didn’t have an opinion, after…”

He doesn’t finish the thought, but Kaito knows what he’s talking about. Saihara has made it no secret that as much as he might tolerate or even like the Kaito who is here now, he’s always going to be thinking about the one who was here before. Kaito doesn’t think he can even blame the guy. He adjusts his hold on the dustpan as Harukawa sweeps in some of the glass, avoiding Saihara’s moistening eyes.

“Right.” Kaito’s shoulders slump. So basically, it was pointless bringing it to them in the first place; he knows already how Saihara feels about it, and now if he doesn’t do it, he’ll have gotten the guy’s hopes up for nothing.

That should be answer enough, then, right? Kaito should do it. Ouma himself said he would do it. Amami—was upset, but ultimately he wanted Kaito to do what’s best for him. He’d find a way to understand, Kaito is sure. There was never any option in the first place, if Kaito thinks about it… he can’t just say no to that kind of information. To the truth. Too many people will be hurt if he decides to go on living like this. As he is.

Kaito finds himself tightening his hold on the dustpan until it digs painfully into his palm, and exhales forcefully. It seems obvious, and yet…

“Right,” Kaito says again. He stands when Harukawa sweeps up the last of the glass. “I’ll uh, I’ll think about it then. Thanks for—” For what? For making this easier? Kaito bites his lip. “Thanks for your input.”

He dumps the glass on his way to the door. Saihara and Harukawa don’t say a word to stop him—or maybe they do, and the blood that rushes past Kaito’s ears is just too loud to hear it.

His intention when he approaches the programmers and scientists is to ask them to perform the procedure. To just do it. Get it over with.

Instead Kaito finds himself asking if his current personality will be overwritten again. There’s a lot of hemming and hawing, bullshit technical science talk that when Kaito asks for a TLDR, basically ends up amounting to nothing. Go figure. Turns out the scientists don’t fucking know, because they’ve never done something like this before—because even with the personality overrides, people usually do end up remembering who they were before the killing game. It just takes time.

So maybe it would take time for Kaito. Or maybe he’d never lose his memories or personality at all… or maybe he’ll just cease to exist.

Kaito doesn’t know why the possibility of the third is so terrifying to him. He’d made his peace with it all those months ago when he entered the simulation. He was fully ready to become someone new, someone better, someone worthy of the admiration of people like Saihara and Harukawa and even Ouma—someone worthy of anyone’s time and attention and love. Kaito wanted to be that more than anything.

He still does. Obviously he does. Continuing to exist like this is such a frustrating and overwhelming concept that Kaito is half tempted to go for it heedless of the risks, but—

Well, it would be pretty intentionally obtuse of him to pretend like Amami is the reason he’s holding back. If Kaito really wanted it enough, he’d go on ahead regardless of how Amami feels, but…

Kaito doesn’t want to be erased anymore. He doesn’t want to disappear. He wants to be better, sure, but… he wants to get better. Not through fancy technology that traumatises you for a big paycheck, but just because… he’s growing and learning. Because he earned it.

Doing this, no matter how kind it would be to Saihara and the others… doesn’t really feel like earning it.

Their final day in the facility is a sombre one, though Kaito hadn’t been expecting it to be. Despite the fact that there isn’t a single person here who wants to stay, Kaito can feel the gravity of this day weighing on all of them. The fear of the unknown. Of the outside world, which more or less sees all of them as fictional characters.

All of them except Kaito, of course, but even him to an extent—it isn’t as though the outside world is aware of what happened with Kaito’s memory. That should be something of a relief to him, but there’s only a matter of time before the world figures out what happened—on account of the fact that Kaito is, as Ouma keeps saying, a pretty shitty liar—and he feels a little nervous about the fact that the truth could come out at any moment.

Not as nervous as he does about this, though, waiting outside Amami’s door with a backpack slung over one shoulder and his phone held in his hand. It’s powered off for now, but he’ll be turning it on when he leaves this place, and after that…

One step at a time. Kaito takes a breath and knocks.

The door opens moments later, revealing a tired-looking Amami who smiles the moment they make eye contact. It seems genuine, but it can be hard to tell with Amami sometimes. At least right now, he still looks tired, which makes Kaito think he’s at least being a little bit honest.

“Hey, Momota-kun… did you need something?”

“Not really.” Kaito looks away. Yes he did. A big something. He clears his throat, a bit frustrated at himself for responding on impulse. “Uh—well, actually, yeah I did. Sorry.” He squeezes his backpack strap. “Just uh—do you… got somewhere to be after this?”

“Mmm… I was thinking about catching a ride to the airport,” Amami muses, leaning against the doorframe. “There’s nothing really for me to stay here for, you know… outside of my sisters, but they have their own lives now. Once I’ve visited them, that’s pretty much it…” Amami trails off there, eyeing Kaito almost meaningfully. Kaito thinks he might understand what Amami’s hinting at, but it’s too embarrassing to say aloud, so he clears his throat again and speaks.

“Then uh—well, if you’re just thinking about it, could you… squeeze in time for a detour first?”

Amami’s head tilts to the side. He smiles, though. “What kind of detour?”

“Just, uh… I need to… go see my gran in the hospital.” Kaito looks at the floor. “Figure out some stuff for her treatment plan, and… maybe go say hi after she watched me cough to death on international television.”

Kaito doesn’t finish the thought. His throat just closes up before he can. Amami, mercifully, seems to have picked up on his meaning by now.

“Oh… Momota-kun, are you sure?” Amami’s eyes are a bit wide. “Do you… really want me there for something so personal?”

“I—” Kaito bites his lip to keep from saying something embarrassed and irrational, like nevermind, fuck off to Spain or something and forget about it, knowing Amami’s only checking in out of concern. His face is still burning, though. “I mean… only if it wouldn’t be puttin’ you out. I don’t…”

“It wouldn’t.” Amami moves forward, a hand outstretched, then pauses. They both stare down at his hand for a long, heavy moment before Amami reaches out and brushes Kaito’s arm, eyes crinkling at the edges now with a softer smile. “Not at all… I’d be happy to be there. To support you.” He squeezes Kaito’s arm. “If you really want me there.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Kaito mumbles, because he’s an idiot. His ears warm, and he opens his mouth to take it back, but there’s no real way to disguise the emotion that’d been in his voice just now, even if he does say something mean to compensate. Damn it. This whole interaction is proving to be nothing but humiliating.

At least Amami is still smiling, this time almost wryly. “I guess it wouldn’t be fair of me to just take off when you didn’t leave me behind… I ought to return the favour.”

He’s talking about Kaito’s memories, presumably. Kaito grumbles a bit, tempted to tell Amami not to get his hopes up—he might still go for those memories someday—but if he’s being honest with himself…

Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe it’s cowardly. But Kaito thinks he would rather make new, real memories, than spend too much time lingering on the old fake ones.

Still, “I didn’t do that for you,” Kaito complains.

“Not even a little bit?” Amami’s lower lip juts out, and Kaito sputters.

“I—I didn’t—wh—fuck you!”

When Amami laughs, it’s loud, full, and warm. It sends shivers down Kaito’s spine and makes his face burn something awful. He takes a steadying step back so he won’t lose his balance but still ends up feeling dizzy.

“Let’s go see your grandmother together,” Amami says. “And… I’ll stay in Japan.” His eyes crinkle. “Not for you… for another friend of mine, who I really care about. A really caring and dependable friend.” He shifts his hand to ruffle Kaito’s hair. “You might know him.”

Kaito grumbles. He reaches up to swat at Amami’s hand, but ends up catching him by the wrist, opening his mouth. It feels wrong to just leave it at that without returning the favour, but even now the words struggle to come to him. Like he’s learned nothing over these past four months.

…If Amami was looking for someone eloquent, though, he probably wouldn’t like Kaito so much.

“Dunno how you can say shit like that,” Kaito admits eventually. He lowers his and Amami’s hands to swing between them, looking away. “Hearing that from a guy like you just…”

“You think I don’t mean it?”

“I think you need to look in a fucking mirror,” Kaito complains. Amami laughs again, and Kaito pretends not to hear it, puffing out his cheeks.

He’s not able to keep it up for long, though, just listening to that laugh. Eventually, Kaito has to break, looking back at Amami’s face and feeling a smile spread across his own.

Kaito doesn’t get a very long goodbye with Saihara. By the time they’re both outside the facility, Saihara’s car is already outside, and he’s rushing a bit—but he stops when they reach the gate, turning to face Kaito.

Truthfully, Kaito has no idea what Saihara is going to say. He’s not completely expecting to be embraced, but Saihara’s arms are surprisingly strong, almost comforting really. Kaito indulges him with a hand on his back.

“I’m sorry,” Kaito finds himself saying. Saihara hums. Doesn’t ask why. There’s no need to.

“Don’t be.” Saihara pulls back. He smiles. “We all have our regrets, Momota-kun… but even with everything that happened, I won’t let you be one of mine.”

He’s off with that, waving one hand while he jogs after Harukawa to catch his car. Kaito lingers at the gate, waiting for Amami, but the person who latches onto his arm from behind most definitely isn’t Amami. Even if that was in Amami’s character, the guy is just too short.

Kaito drops a hand on Ouma’s head. Pats once. Then grabs it and pulls him off.

“H-Hey!” Ouma squawks, both hands flying up. “Mean! Meanie! Why are you bullying me?”

“Don’t you got somewhere else to be? Someone else to bug?” Kaito snarks. He doesn’t mean it, and Ouma can clearly tell, because he just smiles, his hands laying flat against the back of Kaito’s. Kaito grumbles, but doesn’t pull away, just watching the way Ouma’s nose scrunches slightly with his grin. That usually means it’s genuine.

“Not reeeaaally. It’s a wide world out there, you know! Still haven’t made my mind up on where I fit into it.”

“Oh.” Kaito looks away. “I don’t know either.”

Ouma’s eyes sparkle. “I thought that was obvious? It’s with Amami-chan, right?”

Kaito yanks his hand away from Ouma and turns his back, feeling his ears flare with heat as Ouma erupts into giggles.

“I’m just kidding! Mostly. But hey, really! Momota-chan’s moving up in the world! Not bad for a former nincompoop.”

Kaito considers protesting the title, then decides against it. He doesn’t really care. “Are you bugging me because you want advice on where to go? ‘Cause you’re gonna have to find someone else. Amami’ll be here soon, he might be able to help you.”

This time, Ouma’s smile is more calm. He shakes his head, then slinks in close again, chin tucking against Kaito’s side.

“Nope. I know where I’m headed. I was just thinking about the future, you know… and where we all fit into it.” Ouma slides his hand into Kaito’s. “You’re truly interesting, you know that? I’m not gonna give up on finding all those secrets of yours.”

There really isn’t that much to find. Kaito would say as much, but Ouma’s already pulling off, waving cheerily before he bounces on through the gate. Off to that future he mentioned, Kaito supposes… except Kaito realises when he closes the hand Ouma had just been holding that Ouma left a piece of paper resting in his palm.

He’s written a short note—

“Eyes on the horizon, Momota-chan!”

—and jotted down a phone number. Probably his. Kaito stares at the scrap for a long moment before folding it neatly to slide into his pocket. He’ll probably text it later. Ouma can be pretty entertaining from time to time, after all.

Amami arrives shortly after that, a backpack of his own held over his shoulder and an easy, almost melancholic smile on his face. He waves a little as he comes closer, but doesn’t speak. Kaito studies Amami’s posture, his countenance, and decides he won’t either—but he does take a page out of Ouma’s book, reaching over to offer Amami his hand.

They’re stepping out into the future, after all. For Amami… it’s a world he hasn’t stepped foot in in years. A world that sees him as a character, a toy. And for Kaito…

Well, who knows? But his grandmother is waiting for him out there, and so is the rest of his life. It’s a pretty heavy burden, but he thinks he’ll be able to do it if he’s not alone.

Amami exhales. Then takes Kaito’s hand, the smile slowly slipping from his face. He looks more natural that way, anyhow.

Jaw set, Kaito turns, then opens the gate. He’ll take Ouma’s advice, just this once. Worst case scenario, he can always track the guy down and beat him up later.