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Amami snaps this morning.
Truly, Ouma isn’t expecting it. He finds the guy in the warehouse, looking just about as shifty as he always does (if you know how to look for it anyway; Amami gets away with a lot just for seeming so relaxed) but while he sounds a bit stressed, it’s easy enough to chalk that down to the current events. After all, the time limit expires tonight. There’s no reason why Amami wouldn’t be feeling stressed out. Beyond that, Ouma knows that he and Hoshi had an argument in the dining hall this morning—that Amami got truly and genuinely upset in a way Ouma has never seen from him before.
It was almost intriguing, but Ouma doesn’t have time to be worrying about petty dramas like that. Once it became clear that Hoshi wasn’t imminently going to be murdered, Ouma took off. And after lunch he finds Amami in the warehouse again.
Their conversation doesn’t last very long. There’s just enough time for Ouma to make some joke about killing to start the game before Amami snaps at him. He’s never seemed pleased by those jokes, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising, but out of everyone here Amami’s reaction to Ouma’s flippant attitude has always been the most reserved. Clearly displeased, sure, but Amami isn’t the preaching type. He seems more like the sort to hold his tongue unless he thinks he can actually help people by saying something, and that’s never been less true than it is with Ouma, so they’ve settled into a kind of… truce of sorts.
At least, that’s how Ouma has been thinking about it. He likes the term more than friendship, which is his other option. Being friends in a situation like this just feels like asking for it, even though out of everyone Ouma is pretty sure Amami isn’t the ringleader here. (Or maybe he is, but would a ringleader really paint such an obvious target on his back? Would it be worth risking his life like that to double trick Ouma and make him think Amami couldn’t be behind all of this?)
Either way, Ouma finds Amami easy enough to be around for those reasons, and that’s not even mentioning the fact that he’s smart. He genuinely seems to have the right approach to the situation they’re in, far more so than anyone else here. In a different situation, Ouma would really like him, and as things are he’s still intrigued…
So yeah, getting snapped at sucks, but it’s mostly just confusing. And maybe just a little bit concerning, but Amami still tells Ouma he’ll talk to him later as he storms out, and there’s so much going on that Ouma has no reason to read into it, so he puts his mind off of it. Dwelling won’t make Amami act less weird and confusing. Dwelling has, indeed, never once helped Ouma do something he needs to do, so he pretty much decides he’s not going to think about it at all anymore.
Deciding to do something is a lot easier than actually doing it, though. Ouma spends the majority of the afternoon in his room, alternating between scribbling theories on the whiteboard he lugged into his room from the warehouse and stalking people on his Monopad. He gets a bit restless sometime around dinner, but that restlessness is nowhere near enough of an incentive to leave his room. Besides, with his thoughts all scrambled like this—many revolving around Amami but even more just going in circles about the situation they’re all in—Ouma’s even more of a target. No thank you. He wants to live way more than he wants to pace the dorms.
His curiosity is piqued sometime after that awful music starts playing, when he sees Momota’s little icon travel through the dorms and then appear in the main building accompanied by like six other students. That in itself is a little weird, but the fact that Amami is there too is what makes Ouma really start to pay attention. The lot of them end up in the game room, and don’t leave it after that, even as Ouma stares down at their icons.
That music really is annoyingly loud. Ouma rubs one of his ears while he watches the map, chewing his lower lip. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to happen—someone to die down there? Maybe they’re going down for some kind of group-mandated sacrificial thing. Gokuhara would probably agree to something like that… but it would be really stupid not to choose Hoshi if they were going with that option, and given Amami’s reaction this morning, Ouma doubts that’s what it is. So…
Something different finally happens when Amami’s icon splits off from the group. Ouma watches with slightly wide eyes as it moves through the hallway and towards the library, where Ouma had found him acting suspicious a couple days ago. It’s weird, but a part of Ouma feels almost… sick to his stomach, watching him go off alone.
Maybe Amami is the ringleader, Ouma things, furrowing his brow. Maybe he’s off to make sure the killing game starts.
Alone in the library though? No, Amami has to have a purpose of some kind, but what…
…
Ouma isn’t going to get any answers standing around in here. He stows his Monopad in his pocket and rushes out, taking the stairs by his room two at a time and then rushing from the dorms. Ouma isn’t the most athletic or anything, but he’s quick when he wants to be; he tears across the courtyard and into the main building, darting past the classroom by the stairs and sliding down the railing to cut down on time.
He enters through the side door as Amami did, pushing it open with his shoulder and opening his mouth to call out to the man, only to stop short when he’s faced with a tall bookshelf, somehow moved from its location among the others and completely blocking his view of the books behind it. Ouma blinks, but just barely catches sight of a quick flash, almost like a camera going off.
Uh.
Ouma doesn’t dare speak, a hand cupping his mouth as he creeps to peer around the bookshelf. Amami is standing in the corner, crouched down with his Monopad in his hand, staring down at something on the floor with a disconcerted look on his face. Ouma doesn’t have time to call out to him or inquire as to what it is he sees. The moment Ouma opens his mouth, he sees a flash of movement off to his left and gleaming silver.
Perhaps this is what prey animals feel when they’re being hunted down; Ouma’s body moves before his head does, Amami’s name escaping him in a strangled voice as he swiftly puts himself between his friend—friend?—and the metal ball.
Stars explode in Ouma’s vision. Hues—pinks, oranges, blinding yellow—dance against his eyelids as he’s hit first with a shock of icy cold, and then blinding pain. Some unflattering noise—like an urgh— leaves his throat as his knees give, the whole world blurring around him.
His surroundings dip in and out of focus. The books overhead mix colours, everything in his line of sight far too bright for him to stare at without scalding pain. Ouma groans, feeling it in his chest more than he actually hears it, and rolls onto his side with a hand creeping up towards his forehead. The ground vibrates as people move around him. He’s alerted to voices around him by first the pain that hits his ears, and then recognition of sound. Amami’s low baritone, Shirogane’s desperate and cracking soprano.
Something warm is dripping down his face, burning at the back of his head. Something equally as hot but slightly more pleasant touches his shoulder, brushes against his cheek, and Ouma tries to open his eyes to look at it.
Amami’s looking at him, Ouma thinks. Saying something maybe, but just as Ouma starts trying to make out the words, looking gets too painful and his vision leaves him. His consciousness is soon to follow.
Ouma is lying on unfamiliar bedsheets when he wakes up. His head continues to ache, but there’s less of the stabbing pain he’d registered before going unconscious; it’s more of a dull, distracting throb now, making it difficult—but not quite impossible—to think.
He knows the bedsheets are familiar because they don’t smell familiar. Or they kind of do, like an evergreen cologne and the distinct tang of incense, but it’s nothing Ouma uses on himself. He’s not really a cologne person. Cologne and incense are for different sorts of people than Ouma, people with low voices and droopy eyes and smiles that hide so much Ouma can’t help but want to…
Ah, Amami. Right. Ouma feels less panicked at that than perhaps he should—maybe there’s a part of him that finds it difficult to feel scared of Amami. That should be stupid, but for some reason Ouma can’t find it in himself to care right now. He groans, scrunching his face to wake it up and curling his hands into tight fists. He’s warm, and there’s a light pressure against his body from the chest down. A blanket, probably. His head itches, but when he shifts it against the pillows, he can’t relieve the feeling. Something is wrapped snug against his forehead.
Shuffling to his left alerts him to the presence of someone else. When Ouma opens his eyes, it’s bright enough to make him wince, but he manages to squint out at the person at his bedside. For a moment details are difficult to parse, but Ouma manages to pick out green curls and eyes and downturned lips, and…
Yeah, definitely Amami. Ouma exhales.
“Bedside duty seems a little boring for you, Amami-chan.”
The snark yields a sigh from Amami, but when the man speaks, Ouma can hear the smile in his voice. “Is that right? Sorry, I guess I don’t have it in me to be very interesting right now.”
His fingers are calloused. Ouma registers this because Amami puts them through his hair, and they brush against his forehead when he does. The feeling makes Ouma shiver, and not entirely out of discomfort. He leans after the touch when Amami starts to pull away, so Amami repeats the motion, a little more intentionally this time.
Between this and his headache, Ouma takes even longer to respond this time.
“Concussion?”
“Toujou-san said she couldn’t tell, but she suspected you fainted more from shock than real damage. The injury wasn’t actually that deep.” Amami keeps smoothing down Ouma’s hair while he talks. “What kanji do you use to spell your name?”
This isn’t Ouma’s first circus. He wordlessly recites the information, and then answers a few more after that: Blood type, least favourite food—pig feet—and then recites the English alphabet backwards. It takes Ouma a moment to parse that last one, though he does it without complaining, and when he thinks about it a little more he wrinkles his nose.
“Amami-chan, you didn’t even know I could speak
English
when you asked that.”
“Well, now I do.” Amami’s smiling wider. When he speaks next, his voice is a bit different—more sombre. “Think you should be fine, then, but I wouldn’t risk it. You should probably rest for the next few days at least.”
Well, that sounds a little annoying, but at least he’s not concussed. Ouma leans back against the pillows underneath him, blinking a few times until he can focus. Amami’s room looks practically identical to his own, minus the whiteboard and other items Ouma’s been collecting from the warehouse. It’s tidier. The closet door is open, and Ouma can see copies upon copies of Amami’s blue sweater and grey pants.
A glance over at the man in question reveals that Amami himself isn’t even wearing the sweater right now, but a grey undershirt. Scars line his arms and shoulders, peeking out from under the fabric. His chin is cupped in his joint hands, and his eyes are crinkled with the suggestion of a smile, but his expression has relaxed somewhat. He looks tired, frankly. Greyish purple smudges are present under his eyes, and his hair is messy, like he’s been running his hands through it. (He must have been doing that a lot. Ouma had tried to mess up his hair once and the effort had proven woefully unsuccessful.)
Ouma meets Amami’s gaze now. His irises are a pretty, piercing emerald with yellow highlights that sparkle when the light hits them. They’re expressive. For all that Amami has been pretty excellent at keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself since they got here, his eyes have always betrayed him; in the warehouse before they’d been alight with fear and anger, a combination Ouma has always found somewhat terrifying in a high-stakes situation. People act the most irrational when they’re running hot with emotion.
Right now, though, they’re just exhausted… and Ouma thinks he can see a sliver of concern, too. Well-hidden, but not vanished completely. To be fair to Amami, Ouma’s probably something of a sorry sight right now… but that doesn’t mean Ouma particularly enjoys the feeling of Amami’s concern. He doesn’t like it much at all, in fact. His hands tug at his sheets for a moment while he thinks.
“I thought Amami-chan was angry at me.”
“Hm?” Amami shifts, more open concern showing in his expression now. “Why would I be angry?”
Ouma chews the inside of his cheek and glares at the wall opposite Amami. He shouldn’t have said anything. A statement like that is pretty much an open admission of what’s been eating at him. How embarrassing. But he can’t help it; it feels wrong having Amami sit there, so mild and genuine-looking, when the last time they spoke, they’d been arguing.
“Because I think the killing game is funny,” Ouma says, closing his eyes. “Or… whatever it is Amami-chan was upset about.”
“I know you don’t believe that.”
Ouma’s brow creases. He hates that Amami is talking like he knows him after a few days together—hates that Amami is also completely right, despite Ouma’s attempts at convincing him of the opposite.
“Says who?”
“Says the fact you took a shot put to the head for me yesterday.” Amami’s voice is tense again, but not in the angry, indignant way it’d been back in the warehouse. He sounds more guilty than anything. Ouma glances back over and sees that it’s now Amami’s gaze that has been averted. “I… had a plan. To figure out who the mastermind was. We talked about there being one, but while you’d deduced as much on your own, I had a little bit more help.” He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a Monopad, the very same that he’d been carrying back in the library, to hand over to Ouma. “I didn’t know if I could trust it, which is why I waffled so much in the beginning.”
When the Monopad flickers on, Ouma immediately sees what Amami is talking about. A short but loaded note with information Ouma only now has the context to parse—and some that he still doesn’t, Ultimate Hunt?— and signed with Amami’s name. Swiping past the note reveals a detailed map of the academy, including that secret door Amami had been standing by in the library.
“You woke up with this,” Ouma guesses.
Amami slumps back in his chair, sighing. “Yeah. And nothing else—no memories of my talent or how I’d gotten here, just… a cryptic note I didn’t even know if I’d written. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to trust it even yesterday morning, but then Hoshi-kun started talking crazy and I just…”
So he had probably made up his mind by the time Ouma found him in the warehouse. That explains the snapping, then; what had previously been poor-taste jokes that Amami merely scoffed at must have been too much for him to handle when he already had so much on his mind. Ouma is a little annoyed that Amami didn’t just say as much—a well-placed I can’t handle that right now shuts him up pretty quick, usually—but well… Amami doesn’t seem like the type to be the best at articulating himself when he’s upset. He has to have some kind of debuff, being a smooth talker and all.
Ouma passes the Monopad back over. “It was a trap, though.”
“It was.” Amami looks back at Ouma. “We figured out there was another entrance to that hidden room. Akamatsu-san found it in the girl’s bathroom. It was Shirogane-san who was behind it all, who ultimately tried to kill me… Shinguuji-kun pointed out she left for the bathroom, and from there it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.” He shakes his head. “She… got a pretty bad angle on you. That’s what Hoshi-kun said.”
Exhaling through his nose, Ouma remarks, “If anyone would know, it would be Hoshi-chan.”
“Yeah.” Amami smiles wanly. “The way she was positioned, I probably would have died instantly. I got lucky. Everyone kept saying we both got lucky, but I—”
His hands, Ouma realises, are shaking. They tighten around the edges of the Monopad he’s still holding, and Ouma sees Amami’s knuckles turn white. The smile that’s still on his face looks more like a grimace now; that exhaustion in his eyes is suddenly all Ouma can see.
“I still—” Amami swallows. Looks away. “I’m sorry, Ouma-kun. I should have trusted you in the first place.”
“I would’ve called you stupid if you did,” Ouma points out. And he’s being honest—even if a part of him was (is) miffed that Amami didn’t say anything, in a situation like this, how could he? It isn’t like Ouma completely trusted Amami either. Neither of them had the luxury of trust beyond reasonable doubt. Amami… had no other choice. That’s how the death trap was designed.
And if I didn’t go down to the library when I did, Ouma starts to think, before shutting down the thought in its tracks. That’s just pointless. Amami is here, alive, and looking like he wants to cry or something. Focusing on what-ifs will drive Ouma crazy.
Amami’s shoulders curl. “I know. I just—you took a blow to the head for me, you could have died, and that was after I snapped at you.” His brow creases. “I wasn’t being fair either. I knew you were just doing the same thing you always were, I shouldn’t have—”
“Amami-chan, you can go ahead and kiss my feet if you want, but if you plan on sitting here and apologising for every possible thing you could have done differently, I’m gonna get tired of it,” Ouma says, exasperated. That at least shuts Amami up, but he still seems pretty upset, so Ouma sighs. He carefully sits up, scooting to the edge of the bed and reaching out with both hands. Amami looks at him with confusion for a moment before offering the Monopad back.
Dumbass. Ouma takes it and tosses it to the side, then grabs Amami’s hands in his own before he can lower them. A part of Ouma has been craving this, he thinks; Amami is one of those physically affectionate sorts, always a second away from ruffling Ouma’s hair or patting him on the shoulder. They’d both been kind of restrained about it before, given the circumstances, but Ouma doesn’t see any reason to distrust Amami now. The evil has been defeated and all that. Besides, Amami’s lower lip is trembling, threatening tears, and if Ouma works for it enough he can say he’s doing it all for Amami’s sake. Nobody else’s, especially not his own.
Ouma climbs into Amami’s lap. Amami sucks in a surprised-sounding breath, but tellingly doesn’t push him away. His arms slide around Ouma’s back to pull him closer, one shoulder nudging forward to cradle his head.
“I know you still have one in you, so I’ll let you say sorry again,” Ouma mutters.
Amami’s arms tighten. His head ducks. He whispers, “I’m sorry you got hurt last night. It should have been me.”
See, Ouma didn’t tell Amami he could say that— that just feels excessive if you ask him—but he’ll let it slide, just this once. He lifts his arms to wrap around Amami’s neck, leaning into him. He smells good, even after a (presumed) night of bedside sitting and crying or whatever. Ouma closes his eyes.
“I forgive you.” Not that Ouma thinks Amami has anything to be sorry for. That one was fully and wholly Shirogane’s doing. (On that note, Shirogane? Talk about the butler did it.) But sometimes it doesn’t actually help to tell someone that you don’t think they’re wrong—if Amami’s feeling guilty, then Ouma will forgive him. Maybe it’s a lie, but Ouma’s always liked telling those in the first place. “You wanna cry too, right?”
“I—” Amami’s voice cuts off with a breathy laugh. “Ouma-kun, I don’t want to get your bandages wet.”
That’s what he’s worried about? Ouma lifts a hand to bop Amami on the back of the head, smiling despite himself when he hears the other man laughing more genuinely.
“Then figure it out, underling,” Ouma huffs. “I’m not moving from here until I decide to. Surely Amami-chan is smart enough to cry and hold at the same time.”
Amami is quiet for a moment, his head shifting again. Lowering, so that his eyes are pressed into Ouma’s shoulder. Eventually he mutters, “I’ll try,” and his hands tighten against Ouma’s back. It’s not uncomfortable, even if it does feel weird to be held so tightly by a virtual stranger. (Never mind that Ouma is holding Amami with just as much feeling; this ain’t about him.)
It isn’t long before Amami really is crying. Something about it makes Ouma’s chest feel all unsteady, a little tight, his throat starting to burn like he’s going to cry too. That’s ridiculous. Ouma hasn’t cried for real in ages. It’s just not something he does, and this definitely isn’t the time to break his dry spell. (So to speak. It hasn’t been all that dry with the crocodile tears he’s shed in the years in between.)
His eyes really are stinging, though. Maybe Ouma is becoming an empathetic crier. An empathetic shiverer, since he feels his body start to tremble a little against Amami’s, his own shoulders curling in as his head lowers.
Not… that it matters. Amami is clearly too distraught to care about it. To even notice, Ouma is sure. The fact that Amami starts to rub his back after a moment, head shifting so he can murmur reassurances in Ouma’s ears, that’s…
Well, that’s probably just what Amami is used to. Comforting others. It’s kind of a pathetic character trait, but Ouma isn’t going to complain about it. For Amami’s sake and all.
(Between their mutual sniffling and into the near-deafening silence of Amami’s bedroom, Ouma hears Amami murmur, “We’re both okay. It’s over now,” and…
maybe it really is the adrenaline. Because Ouma isn’t entirely sure he believes that. But he doesn’t not believe it either.
At the very least, with Amami’s arms around him, Ouma feels safer than he has since he woke up in this place. And that’s no lie.)