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Haruka didn’t feel like he had any place in the outside world. In Milgram, it was different. Today he was brought out of his cell and put in front of a sheet of paper with questions, sat next to a few of the people he’s grown to know a little bit – in this room filled with sounds of pencil scribbling sounds and soft thoughtful humming occasionally heard next to him, looking at this question sheet with his thoughts racing, he writes, “I want to stay here forever”.
His hair falls in front of his face, making it hard as he tries to make his handwriting readable, especially with the kanji he has trouble recalling – he has a hang on it, sure, painstakingly he struggled to memorize all of the stuff past the basics as his little ▇▇▇▇ went far ahead of him at her age, – the lessons he was taught at school all muddle together with the memory of a cold stare that didn’t even graze him as he sat in front of his notebook. Now, once again put in front of a menacing sheet of paper as Es left the room without even sparing the prisoners a glance, seemingly too busy with some warden work to notice (what was it wardens did aside from looking after them, again?), he felt somewhat… relieved? They just had to write out their thoughts. Haruka had a lot of them. He didn’t really… wasn’t really… good at putting them into words, though. So his answers were short. Brief, and to the point. It made sense – Haruka liked it when people understood him.
In this room, filled with living, breathing people , people who didn’t have trouble looking at him, he felt like he could fit in for once – find a pattern to breathe in sync with them.
It wasn’t the first day he talked to Kusunoki Muu, definitely not – she approached him here and there, later down the line after their first trials, with the timid attitude that made conversation a bit harder. But once he finished writing, he observed her across the room. She carried herself in a way that made it hard to assume she was quite as shy, or terrified of being hurt as she was when they’d just met her in Milgram. He supposes just the fact she approached him first was a sign, because not many people would.
It wasn’t the first day he talked to Kusunoki Muu, but when she noticed him looking, and swiped the sheets of paper across to the general pile and motioned to follow her out of the room, Haruka did so, obedient like a ▇▇▇ .
When she raised her eyebrows at how he anxiously threw his hair out of his eyes, when she generously gave him what she called “a hand-me-down”, two silver hairclips, he took it as a hand outstretched toward him.
***
It wasn’t the first day he talked to Kusunoki Muu, but it was one of the many to come.
On one morning, she entered the Panopticon with her hair brushed back, wearing earrings nobody had yet seen on her. He was the last one to notice, to be fair – he thinks he missed this entire thing. Her, slowly changing. To everyone, it was a gradual change, much how Mahiru became more and more affectionate as she got closer to her cellmates, or how the spark of life in the empty eyes of Shidou began igniting more and more as he spent time with them. Maybe he began changing too – at the very least, everyone said the hairpins looked nice on him. He never took them off, not even to sleep, because the weight of them on his head was a constant reminder of a friendship he was building. Compared to what his life looked like before Milgram, this friendship was already a memory he can never purge, but he knew better than to jump to trusting all of them right off the bat, because Amane’s presence still made his hands clammy with the suffocating thought of - well.
But Muu’s change went unseen by him, just like all the others’. He isn’t sure if that was because he wasn’t observant enough, too lost in his head to see the little details, or maybe he just had a hunch from the start. After all, if she was so kind to him, they must have something in common, him and her. Some sort of bond preordained that God spelled out for them in advance, and they were bound to meet and see the similarities eventually.
And yet, that minor change of appearance – Muu’s new earrings – had earned her a lot of compliments. She had seemed right in her element surrounded by attention, and he could only imagine what joy it brought her, with all the people looking at her. Haruka wished he could get some of this attention too, but he supposed if he robbed Muu of hers, she wouldn’t treat him with the same overwhelming consideration, so he let it go.
“Hm, Haruka-kun?” she turns to him, squinting with her eye smile. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
He turns his gaze from the floor to her, as he realizes he got lost in his thoughts again. And he doesn’t really think about what he says, because he doesn’t really realize at first what she’s getting at. “Good morning, Muu-san!”
She does that thing he noticed she does – noticed when he tries to look at something other than her eyes to avoid eye contact – her eyebrows shoot up, and she smiles in disbelief, but doesn’t elaborate on her reaction. He quickly tries to fill in the empty space with conversation. “It’s been a while since the, um, I think first trial? I think the next one might be coming up. Um, I was the first one last time, so. Do you want to know when I’ll be called in? I’ll tell you if it was painful, or something?” He flicks his thumbs and forefingers to wonder if he spoke too quickly. Muu waves him off.
“No, it’s all good. Both of us were forgiven, weren’t we?” She giggles. “That means we didn’t do anything wrong. Warden-san knows it’s not our fault what happened! Don’t you agree?”
That… he supposed it was right. Yes, it was! “They forgave us so much, Muu-san!” – his chest floods with warmth at the thought of how it felt. The entire world, accepting him back, almost as if it was worth all of it – it was so much he could die in bliss.
And then, Muu nods, and he realizes this is what was in store for them, this mutual agreement on one thing. She wasn’t only considerate to him, and noticed him out of all people in Milgram, but she was the one person who carried the big feeling of all those people accepting him at once. Her forgiveness was special, because she was his friend. Isn’t that what friends did?
At the back of his mind, he wonders if they really are friends now. She talked to him, she paid attention to him without him even doing anything to make her – that was the first day he imagined how she’d react if he did do something. That thought kept him up at night, to be honest – Haruka had to do what he did as a kid when he had nightmares, and think, painfully, of his mother’s hugs, in order to fall back asleep.
***
Muu-san speaks to him more often these days, he notices. It’s mostly small talk, which he doesn’t really know how to uphold, though he definitely puts a lot of his ideas to test, successful or not. Muu doesn’t pay much mind to his failed attempts at conversation, because she forgives him . That thought alone is enough reason for Haruka to start seeking her company out himself.
At first the reasons for conversation are simple enough to make it obvious they’re just looking for a reason to talk. “Have you put in your supply requests this time yet?” – and if not, they go and bug Es until they’ve got theirs down. “Muu-san, what season do you think it is outside now?” – and they go back and forth on how much time it’s been since they got here, never arriving at an answer.
As time goes by, prisoners begin sharing more personal sides of themselves. Shidou and Kazui by now seem to know some things others don’t know about each other, that’s for sure. Yuno’s attitude is beginning to unravel truly for once as her happy-go-lucky persona fades to nothing. And yet, there are some mysteries that haven’t even begun. Mikoto is still the same weirdly open book that’s terribly hard to read, for one. And Muu-san – she stays the hardest to understand out of them all.
“Haruka-kun, what do you think of all this?” She comes up to him with a question that is almost boredly curious, but it’s just not quite right. Even now, a hint of that uncertainty that was all she was when they’d first met is still present in her attitude now. She never really stopped fearing Milgram, which Haruka doesn’t really understand. It’s the place where he feels noticed for once, after all.
“Umm… I feel like, it’s pretty nice. It’s not all that bad… We have Warden-san, and, and everyone else.”
She purses her lips to think his reply over, silence stretching on for forever. “Yeah maybe, but it’s kind of draggy. Yuno-san didn’t even congratulate me on my birthday, not before I told her! Don’t people just come up to you normally, right? I’m just not sure what to even do with them…” she yawns, rolling her head back. But there’s another thing about Milgram beyond just the relationships between the prisoners, a thing she isn’t mentioning.
“Muu-san. Uh. When this all ends, do you think it will go back to how it was before?” In reply, Muu’s eyes widen in something akin to fear – and then giggles. “I’m not sure what you mean by that. This is how my life should have always been, right? It’s not fair if someone disagreed with Warden-san’s judgment, isn’t it?” She tilts her head. “I’m the pitiful one, anyway, so once this is all over everyone will turn back to liking me. That’s the life that suits me best.”
I’m the pitiful one. Aren’t they both, in a way? There shouldn’t be a world where bad or painful things happen to them for no reason.
Haruka hopes not, for both of their sakes. Haruka hopes his mom will love him again, after everyone else has forgiven him.
***
Muu-san is shocked to hear he had no friends before Milgram. “Huh, but you’re so sociable now, you speak to everybody here all the time and everything? How come?” She says so while fixing his hairclips, because he wasn’t careful enough to take proper notice of her gift, and from all the wearing they’re about to fall off – a failure on his side, but Muu-san forgave him for it, as always.
“Am I?” he hums, scratching his cheek. “I didn’t really notice I do, huh. I guess it’s because you’ve helped me so much, Muu-san! I-I mean, you’re always noticing everything I don’t, and you’re telling me when I should come up to someone and say something. I think I’m really liking it here now, when I can talk to everyone.”
“See, you could almost pass for an extrovert. But I still don’t know why you can’t notice the easiest things- Don’t get me wrong, keep asking me, though,” she cuts herself off, “It wouldn’t be the same without me navigating you around here, would it? I mean, but really, it’s fine to do small talk and all once in a while. Don’t get me wrong, the little kid is creepy to me, too.”
“Uh… yeah…” he mumbles as she finishes her job and sits back down across him, looking at him curiously. “I thought it was just me.”
“No, it’s kind of weird how she’s all so mature and so adamant on no sweets and talks about God all the time, it’s not just you. I wasn’t all that into healthy eating at her age, I don’t know if it’s like, from lack of option. I knew someone who ate the exact same thing for multiple days in a row, I don’t know if that’s very common, a kid though?”
“I don’t think it’s bad to believe in God,” Haruka says abruptly, immediately putting his defenses down, “Mama told me God is good when I was a kid, so I sometimes ask him to make my friends keep remembering me. Well, I used to ask him for a friend. I, uh…” he wonders if he said too gloomy of a thing, so before Muu-san can say his exact thoughts, he continues, “I eat what my mom cooks until it goes bad, I just think it tastes good because she made it.”
“Right? My mom’s cooking was the best. I really miss it compared to the prison food.” Muu’s face drops slightly, and Haruka panics thinking he messed the conversation up again, “But it’s still a bit weird to me, you know?” – she immediately switches her expression. Haruka still isn’t sure how she does that, but it’s somehow never ingenuine, like she just has her timid sad side and her more confident behavior on hand. Haruka isn’t that surprised about the major change she underwent anymore, once he puts it up to his own. They’re really just like two halves of each other, so he understands. Outside is scary, here in Milgram you could be whoever you want, and this is who Haruka and Muu-san want to be, so then it’s as it should be. There was no need for Muu’s fear anymore. She wasn’t going to be hurt by anyone now, and because he was forgiven, the same applied to him.
Compared to the guilty prisoners’ behavior, growing more paranoid and self-conscious and downtrodden every day, Milgram let the good prisoners grow into better versions of themselves. Right now next to Muu, Haruka is happier than ever.
“I-I get it! It’s like, how when your friends do something you don’t do, and it’s all weird because you can’t relate to them, right?” Relate, relate, relate. That’s what Muu-san said, conversations are nicer when you can relate to the words being said. He wants to give her back the attention he was given so she’d give him some more and they could keep playing the best game of tag.
“Didn’t you just say you had no friends before?” She giggles, catching on to his failed attempt, and it’s a bit off-putting how she just acted like it was sad he said that and is laughing now, but he drops it. “I think I could give you some more advice about friendship, you know, to try on some of my experience. I was a popular girl in school, you could be popular with the prisoners. I guess it’s kind of disappointing to put it in this way, but you like attention, don’t you? So I guess it would be the same making friends with them as it would be with your peers.”
“Yes!” he says a bit too enthusiastically, then tones it down to let her continue. “Well, you need to understand you don’t just make friends here and there. You don’t need friends who don’t pay proper attention to you, right?” He nods without really processing her words. “So you need to notice if they do nice things for you. Like those hairclips I gave you, or like - you know how Kazui-san and Mikoto-san and Shidou-san go on smoking breaks together so they share cigarettes when someone runs out? See, that's an equivalent exchange. If someone gives you something, you’re expected to repay them, like by giving them something nice in return next time you have the chance. Or if your friend comforts you when you cry, you pay attention to when they’re sad so you can be there for them before anybody else can. Ask Mahiru-san if you want, I think she’d agree it’s all about giving and taking. Though I guess her advice can be a little more, um… overbearing.” He nods again, taking it all in.
“And if someone stops giving back to you? Wouldn’t you- I mean, do more things to get them to go back to how they were?” Haruka is habitual – he prefers to do it all over and over again until it gets better. Muu is more pragmatic about this, though. “Hmm, well, you wouldn’t give up on it. I never said do anything. I wouldn’t really know, because once my friends turned their backs on me I… erm… well, I never really had the time to get back at them for it.” She chews on her lip. “Because I did all of these things for them, and they went and ruined it, I think I deserve better, so it’s not my fault what I did. So we’re equal now! Isn’t that great? We both did the right thing, so you know about exchange as much as I do!”
Haruka weighs it in his mind. On one side of the scale, his mom’s warm touch, the burning handprint on his cheek. On the other, the ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ .
“You’re right, Muu-san,” he smiles. “It- it was worth it, I think. I wasn’t wrong after all.”
As the disgusting feeling of warmth spreads across his chest, he puts his open palms down on the cold floor to cool them down. Muu scoots over next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, a motion that brings him down to earth. He realizes his smile grows wider as he stares at nothing. “You know, these cells are open, isn’t that weird? We’re supposed to be prisoners, but somehow we’re allowed to come and go as we please. I guess this is from all the forgiveness of Warden-san. It’s pretty generous of them, though it’s expected, of course.”
“Mhm. I-I think, Muu-san, it’s kind of like, all these cells are a big neighborhood. Because our cells belong to us, like houses, but we can still come and go as we please. It’s like, coming over to visit friends? So it isn’t that bad we’re stuck here because it’s like we’re outside anyway.”
“You didn’t even have friends,” she reminds him again, giggling. “And going over to people’s places doesn’t even work that way. But what you described sounds pretty nice. I think, once we’re forgiven and we’re out, I could show you my house. Every time I brought a new friend over, they would be so impressed, I think you’d like it – there’s a lot of space.”
“I would love that!” he nods vigorously. “Um, I-I don’t know if I could show you mine. But, I’d love to see yours!”
“Hmm. I could invite you plenty of times, you know? We’re best friends after all. I’d let you hang over until you got sick of it. Haha, but I doubt you would.” Her smile is as confident as ever, giving him a sense of openness he didn’t know he was taking in this entire time. It was like he could say anything next to her, except anything sad, or anything scary, because he didn’t want to upset her. “Take your mom to meet mine if she wants to know where you go, I know you can’t stop talking about her and some girls I knew had to get permission from theirs to come over, so we could just skip that part this way.”
“Haha, yeah… maybe someday.” Sometimes, he forgets about how his mom talked to him in the later years of his life – she wouldn’t even remember Muu-san’s name if he told her. Haruka wonders if she still remembers his. “Um, Muu-san… this really does sound nice. When we’re out, we could still spend this much time together, right? And go to each others’ houses, like we go to each others’ cells. But I don’t know how much time I can spend with you outside… so… maybe it’s better if we stay.”
“Don’t worry, Haruka-kun, Warden-san will definitely forgive you and let you out! This won’t last forever, you know,” she widens her eyes, and that makes Haruka’s heart sink a little.
“Okay then… but, thank you for the advice. I’ll definitely make some more friends here, so you can be proud of me. I’ll do my best!”
“Just don’t try too hard, alright? We’re still better friends than the rest of them. I mean, we practically spend so much time together. I’m hoping you wouldn’t betray me or anything, you know?” These words almost sound hurt, like a glint of vulnerability in her eyes. Haruka nods, a lump stuck in his throat.
“Muu-san and Warden-san, you’re my only best friends. So it’s okay! I won’t overdo it!”
So it’s okay whatever she tells him to do, as long as they stick by each other, as long as she keeps paying attention to him, he adds in his thoughts. He doesn’t vocalize it, though.
***
The day when Shidou-san asked him about his parents – this was the first day in Milgram that he had to tell a lie. He never really found any use of doing so.
But, when Shidou, with his curious tone, inquired about Haruka’s family, he couldn’t tell him the truth. He supposed it might have been because nowadays, whenever he looked at him, he saw this man he was told about – who had a family people could only dream of, one that he doesn’t ever speak of, but cherishes deeply. Not that he’d heard of it from Shidou-san himself. There were crumbs of things here and there, and all were told to him by Muu, who always made sure to have a grasp on things and help him out to not lag behind as well. It really made him grateful, regardless if it was some minor things like what everyone thought about him, or major like whispers of what they might have done to end up here. Whoever she had heard it from, it must have been important. So, Haruka listened, and tried to hold these new images of the prisoners up to their initial impression – that was how he tried to make friends, just as he promised.
Living with his mom, he didn’t quite grasp the concept of “being missed”. When he lost his way home from school or got distracted going back, and ended up coming home in the dark hours, she wasn’t waiting for him by the door, or trying to call (not that he had a phone or anything of the sort, keeping in touch wasn’t all that important). The first time Mu was waiting outside his cell after he spent a whole day seeking out Es to try and find out when the next trials would take place – to no avail – she told him, “I can’t just stay here when no one else really cares to pay me proper attention! I missed you, you know?”. He had a hard time wrapping his head around this new place he had in her life, really. It was nothing he had ever heard from anybody else before.
But here Shidou was, saying, “I’m sure your mom misses you, doesn’t she? Oh well, hopefully you will get out of here safe, Haruka-kun. Whatever you may have done, it’s still quite cruel to put an underage citizen in full security prison – I’m really doubting that’s legal.” He says so, counting up the cold medicine for Haruka to take over the next few days, until his sniffle subsides. He obediently gulps the first tablet down with water, not without a grimace at the feeling of it going down his throat. Being sick was always a nuisance when he had to wait it out or figure it out himself what he had to take, especially with a bad immune system like his that made it annoying to deal with constantly when he could no longer rely on his mom’s help. It was another thing that was nice about Milgram – people were way, way more willing to help out than what he was used to, and he couldn’t not be immensely grateful for the doctor.
“Mm. I think it’ll be okay,” he says avoidantly, picking at his fingernails.
“Alright then,” Shidou nods. “Would you be living with her if you’re out by the end of this?” – he doesn’t like the ‘if’ part one bit, – “or, I suppose by then you’d be of age, so would you keep living on your own?”
That stumps Haruka a bit. He wants to say he’d be back home. Does he still have a home to return to? The last memory of his mother’s face – the last time she looked at him – she paid attention to him – but she would never take him back, she would never take him back. He did nothing wrong, but did she spend the last of her heart giving him a goodbye only to leave?
The door was locked from the outside, and he sat in one place, soothingly rocking in the pile of disorder he left after himself. She’d be back, he told himself, because she showed him how much she loves him now. She’d be back anytime now, he chanted, and wished he could reset his life and do it right from the beginning. It smelled of ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ , more so with each second, but once she was back the world would start healing after his steps again. Now, with everything out of place, wrong, destroyed, her love tucked inside his head and on his cheek was all he had left. So surely, this couldn’t have been the last of it.
When the door opened again, he had already slipped out of consciousness, his head nodding down. That was all he remembered of the outside world. So, wherever it was that his mom left, she couldn’t have known Haruka was here. Just like before, his complete absence went unnoticed by her. His returns – time and time again – were always, always bad fortune.
“I think, I’d go back to my mom… I wouldn’t want her to be worried.” He lies blatantly to Shidou, hoping that answer is satisfactory.
“That’s a relief,” he smiles, and it’s in no way relieving.
***
In the cell after he gets back, Haruka’s alone. It’s the only way he can process anything that happens – on his own, just him and his thoughts, it makes him able to look back without the excitement of being next to somebody else clouding his mind. All the other prisoners must’ve gone to sleep by now, he thinks. So he must be quiet, and think. Thinking is the only thing he does that doesn’t disturb anyone else.
He tries to reason with himself in his mind. He never lied, always was honest about his family, or what he had done, – after all, he was never wrong. Shidou had mentioned, before, that a little white lie is necessary to keep the harmony, and this was necessary so he wouldn’t break then and there, making the doctor deal with him, or worse – he’d tell him everything, and not be forgiven. After all, Muu-san’s dealt with these kinds of people before, people who just don’t understand what they both do. But Muu-san wasn’t here to protect him from that. Pay attention to me , he chanted over and over in his head, hoping she’d be able to tell him how to manage this situation now, and what to do here. He had no idea what to do with himself. Please, don’t let her forget me . Muu-san hasn’t shown up once today, and that thought alone made him spiral. He tries to stay quiet as his breathing rises in volume, because he had to be a good friend and not wake her up from three cells away.
But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Haruka can’t breathe. Realizing this, he puts his hand against the wall and sits down, trying to feel the ground controlling his movements. The cell is so empty, – none of his things are here. His bunny that he slept every night with since he was so young he couldn’t remember, his cacti that he – with great struggle – took care of. His mother’s necklace is a gaping absence around his neck. He shoots up and frantically searches, until he finds it tucked away under the pillow on the perfectly made bed – he has still not been able to get used to the feeling of the sheets, and even the floor was better, more similar to his bed at home than these horrible textures. He clasps it on himself with shaking fingers, but the cold metal burns him. It never managed to work. A reminder of his mother’s love, hard-earned through blood, his own or someone else’s, but just stealing it wasn’t enough. He rips it open and, in a fit of panic, throws it across the room – the cheap metal and the broken chain ring against the floor before he can cover his ears. He wishes he could erase everything, start from the beginning, because he did it wrong from the start. None of this would be needed if only he was loved right away, if he didn’t become something less than human, a disappointment that won’t grow in step with the time passing no matter what. Haruka clenches his teeth and kicks against the leg of the bed, the sudden motion and the pain making him fall back down, when he finally can’t restrain his tears. It was all a big show of weakness, but it felt so familiar, so he let himself scream against his itching throat.
“I don’t know if I can go back. I don’t know!!!”
He realizes, abruptly, that his shoulder blooms with hot-white pain. There’s a presence he notices far too late – Muu watches him break down with an intent stare. She isn’t moving an inch in the doorway, not reacting to him screaming, but it’s not that she isn’t showing any emotion – just frozen in inaction. “I don’t know!” In a moment of guilty clarity he turns his eyes back to the floor, squeezing them shut and continuing to put his whole strength into hitting himself against the wall . This pain was all that kept him from continuing to think – he didn’t want to be here now, it was too much. “Muu-san, I want to go back to my mom, I want to see her, but I- I- I-” He just needed to make it feel as warm as it was when it wasn’t his own. His head spun in circles, and circles, and circles. “I don’t know if she’s going to… I don’t know where I…” It was all too much to be in this place, and for the first time, Muu’s company felt foreign, a horrible, nasty feeling even though she came into his cell uninvited hearing the noise. It was too lonely, and at the same time he couldn’t handle his friend just standing there, not reacting. He wanted to hear her say something, do something. It was all too much like his mom. So he continued.
“Are you done?”
“H-huh?” he shudders, turning pale.
“Do you really want to stay in Milgram that badly?” she says, and her tone is, for the first time, displeased with him .
“I – I-I just, I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to leave, Muu-san, I want to stay here forever…” he sobs, “I don’t want to leave, where would I go? Who would forgive me?... You, you forgave me so much, Muu-san, but m-my mom… mama wouldn’t love me anymore, she did her best, but she couldn’t continue after this. I’ll… I’ll definitely make her love me again, but she never… I can’t… go back. She doesn’t, she doesn’t, she doesn’t even remember my name yet. I don’t know how long I have to try until… and if I’m not forgiven the next time… and if Muu-san isn’t forgiven the next time…”
“We’ll be forgiven. And we’ll leave. Haruka-kun, you really want this?”
Her voice is laced with disgust. His head is spinning.
“I d-don’t know, I want my mom,” he hiccups as he tries to gasp for air, failing to catch his train of thoughts. “I want to go back.”
“I want to go back too, so what’s stopping you? Why are you being like this? I thought we were on the same page.” Her voice suddenly breaks from the coldness she had been keeping, and turns to a disappointed tone. Somehow, it pains him even more. “Milgram isn’t nice to us. It might be a bit more comfortable now that we’re allied and you can get pretty much anything you ask for, but it’s still punishing us. Warden-san forgave us, but they’re making us suffer consequences when they should be the ones suffering. I never did anything except work hard for my well-deserved attention, and I only did what I did because they decided to take it away from me, and that’s cruelty! You’re being ridiculous, you know.”
“I-I’m not! Don’t call me ridiculous!” he gets defensive, a feeling of guilt pooling in his chest as he throws his hand against his head, not sure if he’s trying to slam the feeling back into his skull or rip at his hair. In a fit of panic, he gets off the floor, blindly stumbling across his cell. He needed to throw something again, to feel the sense of destruction, as if that could bring his mother back to him at this very second. But it’s all empty – none of his, or her, things remain here.
“You’d rather live in a prison with terrible living conditions and without your mom as long as you get love like you had before? It’s a pathetic mindset that you’re going into, Haruka-kun. You’re in a prison with so many people who love you, but outside, there’s so many more people who are definitely better at it. Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t that why you killed, too?”
Haruka’s frantic motions across the room cease, and he realizes he was pacing. He raises his eyes back up at her. Her silhouette is blurry in his eyes, almost familiar. It makes his breath hitch.
“The people here can hang out with you as long as they want to, but we’re the only ones actually comfortable with each other. That’s what real friendship is like. And when we’re out, you’ll see. But if you decide you’re gonna let me go free on my own, and stay in this place, how am I supposed to keep you company? You’re not the only one here who needs it, you know.” she huffs, and takes a step back, almost as if she realizes she lost her cool speaking. “You’re being cruel to me. You’re just thinking about yourself. I’m not like your mom or something,” – it takes a moment to process these words.
The silence overwhelms him. The coldness of the room creeps up on his fingers, laced together in anxiety. He tries to control his breathing, tries not to cry again.
“Yeah, that’s right. My mother… isn’t my real mom either. Warden-san is,” he confesses, and for a second Muu is so stumped she stares at him, not sure how to reply, so he continues. “A-and I’m going to show them… the new me. When the time for trial comes again. I promise, Muu-san.”
“God, just stop talking for a second.” She hisses, stepping back from where she stood. It seems as if she’s trying to compose herself too. “It’s a good thing to know when to shut up. I got it. Give me a moment.”
Haruka’s sniffling and shuffling around fills the room. Muu squints her eyes and taps her foot. Then, she sighs. “I don’t know what’s going to happen after Milgram, either. I want to go back to my mom and dad, but I don’t know if they can protect me from this again. This is big . I’m being judged, judged for something so small compared to what they’ve done to me. And I didn’t even do it to them – I only got back at that girl who ignored my pain, right?” She hums. “I’m sure you get it. You’d do it again too, wouldn’t you? Neither of us got what we wanted – It’s not fair.”
He would. He’d do anything for his mom to come back. Absent-mindedly, he wonders if he’d do anything for Muu-san, too, if he already failed her. But the thought of ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ again is so terrifying, he can’t even digest it. ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ sister.
“You actually listen to me here, and do what I say. It’s like I’m setting them all an example, because that’s what they did for me. They gave me the recognition I deserved all along but then they decided to turn their backs on me for such a stupid little thing, I guess they didn’t actually need me anymore. But I’ll never stop needing you, unless you leave me alone in there. Are you happy now?”
“I am.” A giggle rises in his chest. “Thank you, Muu-san. I promise I won’t do it. I don’t want to go outside but… if you will never ever leave me, then I won’t.” His hands, frozen with fear, start gaining color again, and he can feel his fingertips. By her words, he’s brought back to life once more. They were murderers – not really, they did what they had to, but now, Muu-san has gained an incredible ability to heal him. He can do it when she’s by his side. He isn’t that scared of taking another life anymore, because Muu-san’s is the only real big presence in his mind. She was worth more than all of them – his sister, his dog, the lives of all these animals that meant nothing compared to actual humans, combined. It weighed heavily on his mind, like never before, but at once, the memory of her smile came back to him. He regretted her so, so deeply. But Muu-san could fill that space, and more, and she wasn’t like his mother. She knew him so well. He was afraid that he knew her so well. And therefore, Muu would never turn her back on him, not even if he did it again, not even if he did it for her. She was so kind, so much so, that he began wondering if she was his real mother . Not the one who never looked at him, who was nothing like her. Not Warden-san, because they hurt her, because they made her scared. It had been her all along. Had it? He’s torn, but he decides to keep these thoughts to himself. He’ll know it, he thinks, when the time comes, and one of them inevitably turns away, he’ll know.
“Uh…alright then. I’m holding you to it, Haruka-kun. Just don’t make so much noise again while I’m trying to sleep.” She stands in place for a second and it’s almost like she thinks she should throw him a smile, but instead her lips anxiously purse. Haruka is scared of the outside world, but Muu is just scared , like she’s losing herself here. He feels guiltier and guiltier, seeing this now. But he doesn’t understand what she did to be put in here with people like him, when she said she just got back what was taken from her. Did she really do the same thing he did, just like she mentioned? How much had he said, anyway?
Before she turns to leave, at the last second, Muu throws one last thing, jokingly, “On second thought, maybe don’t say that thing about Warden-san. They are my friend, I enjoy their company lots too, you know? So it’d be kind of weird. You can just have my company instead.” With that, she leaves, footsteps ringing against his ears. He feels them in his headache as he presses his ear to the metal bars. He’s surprised to realize they are completely muted by the time she reaches her cell – she had to have been nearby to hear him screaming, not all the way back in hers. That thought brings him even more comfort. Even today, she never forgot about him.
He picks up the necklace from the other side of his cell where it lies on the floor, broken and pathetic. He’ll get a new chain or ask someone to help him fix it, but it doesn’t really matter all that much, anyways. Well, maybe a little. No matter that Muu-san is so much more important now, the thought of being without it makes him feel incomplete.
Haruka’s mind is at ease. It’s a feeling he can’t explain. He’ll do anything, just to hear her promise him company again. As long as she valued him. As long as she loved him, and he was a good boy for once – nothing could be more important. He sees that now, he thinks, like he hadn’t thought this thought before hundreds of times.
***
The day of the last verdict arrives like a hammer at their heads.
There’s a shrill scream heard from Panopticon, causing Haruka to immediately shoot up from his sleep, alarmed – he had fallen asleep where he was, on the floor of his cell, leaning against the wall. He spends barely a second getting used to the light and the sudden intrusive, dreadful atmosphere hanging in Milgram.
It was midday. He’d slept through the time around which the final verdict was to be carried out, Yuzuriha Kotoko’s. And now, something was happening – something bad.
He knows he’ll be too late to arrive, but he rushes over anyway. Whatever was happening was bad. It could have been anything, it could have been anyone – even Muu-san. To his relief, though, he sees her in barely a second after that thought surfaces – as soon as he exits his cell, he’s pinned to the side by a visibly distressed Muu and a pale Yuno, also trying to keep away from the chaos.
“Don’t look,” Yuno throws, pursing her lips. She looks like she’s pretty nauseous – he would be too, if his heart wasn’t sinking way past his stomach so fast right now. So, Haruka obeys – looking at the floor while the sounds of screaming and fighting ring in his ears. “URGH– Kotoko!!!” “Kotoko-san, quit it now!” He flinches from the familiar name flooding his ears, along with the sickening smell of blood, the crunching of what could be anything between tossed items and bone.
He tries to block them out – pretend he wasn’t there, that this wasn’t happening to them. No matter how much disorder he himself caused, and how many bodies he’d seen, the havoc currently happening was none of his fault, he wasn’t ready for it, he didn’t ask for it, he didn’t deserve to be a part of it – so he tries not to be. All he can see, focus on, is Muu’s hands gripping at her restraints as she tries to not seem too affected. Muu-san is only as scared as things go when it comes to anything that doesn’t involve her, but he has felt it too – despite all the words she’s saying about how she could never be guilty, there’s an uncertainty, like she’s talking down an enemy she knows is stronger than her, and now they’re seeing what happens to those who fail to use their words correctly. Haruka can imagine what she’s thinking now – being there, among all the pain happening.
Haruka stays like this in this huddled crowd of uninvolved unwilling participants until the noise fades to blabbering and shaky breathing and pained groans. He overhears, absentmindedly, the quiet grunting of Kazui-san: “Stop struggling.” So he must have Kotoko under control then. Only then does he raise his eyes and find the courage to look at what he has been trying not to see.
Amane is, much like them, at the very background of the scene, barely out of her cell as though she was pushed there for her own safety, but it doesn’t seem like anyone went for her – if they did, she would not have been able to resist, anyway. To a very scary observation, she seems nowhere near as phased as a child should be. The only thing giving away her horror is the way her brows furrow, almost like a nervous tic, switching microexpressions, and her looking from one side to the other quickly, and the way her lips move fast as though she’s reciting a prayer to herself.
Mikoto is nearby Amane, disoriented as he doesn’t even look at the crowd. His eyes roll at the back of his head and he clutches his head in what seems to be a horrible headache, dazedly looking over himself. His clothes are ripped and – somehow – even bitten, but he doesn’t seem to be injured much, if at all. He drags himself – stumbles – across the room to move to a quieter spot. Haruka isn’t sure he even understands where he is, right now.
Fuuta is bent in half at the other side of the Panopticon, clutching his eye hysterically. He’s basically choking on his spit as his entire body shakes, trying not to crumple with the evident damage he has taken – but his agony is almost silent, like he can’t even find it in himself to scream for help. What’s visible of his clothes and skin is all bruised and battered, as though he was practically stomped. His face is the worst of all – barring the blood trickling down from underneath his hand, his cheek is all messed up in a way Haruka couldn’t even be sure what caused this kind of injury.
In the middle of the room, on the floor with his hands practically sopping with blood, Shidou is trying to keep his composure, trying to analyze the situation rationally. Haruka can see it in his eyes – a sense of prime urgency that has his gaze frantically drifting everywhere to sort the thoughts in his head out. As a doctor, he’s supposed to tend to the injured, and do so immediately seeing the damage done, but he’s just one person – and there’s a much bigger problem front and center. Shidou is already next to Mahiru, careful not to move her, ordering the others around with medical supplies, tending to her injuries like he had done this thousands of times before. And he probably has, but doubtfully in this exact situation – as a prisoner, one who has nothing but a first aid kit and a scary determination behind his eyes. Even then, it’s plainly visible how on edge he is – a situation this personal must not be something even the best doctor can take lightly. So Haruka can gather – he supposes this sudden situation made him go hyper-analytical too, though it might just be how he couldn’t stop trying to figure Shidou-san out after their last meeting. Either way, it doesn’t matter. There’s a bigger problem, he thinks and lets out a shaky breath, mustering the nerve to look at what he doesn’t, doesn’t want to look at.
Mahiru looks really bad.
Her arm bent in directions it’s not supposed to go. Haruka isn’t sure how to describe her form other than: it was very, very wrong, and didn’t remind him of any injury he’d ever seen. Really, it only reminded him of how a person looked when they were dying – her skin ashy and her eyes blank, none of the overwhelming amounts of emotion he was used to seeing in them. The back of her head was bleeding too much to be a minor injury. It looked weirdly misshapen – Haruka wasn’t a doctor, Haruka hadn’t even ever seen someone bleed or get hurt this much, so that’s how he knew that the way her body stretched across the bloody floor wasn’t something that looked alive, and for a second, he thought she was really – well.
Kotoko stands in the middle of the room. The sight of her makes Haruka want to vomit. Just as he’d expected, her arms physically restrained by Kazui, a locked-on staredown as she tries to break free, but her hands are shaking against his strength. Her knuckles are a bloody, broken mess, and there’s a bruising mark across her face like a punch, but otherwise, she’s nothing compared to the other people on the scene. An easy winner who failed at the last second. At her feet is a police baton – the weapon.
Even then, in this losing position, she has an aura of absolute resolution in the way her face twitches in a smirk. She doesn’t have an ounce of regret – she thinks, no, she’s certain this is what she had to or wanted to do. He supposes that’s why she doesn’t fight for long.
At last, Kotoko finally gives up the fight, quitting the restraining that was making it so hard for Kazui to hold her off – at which he lets her go with a harsh push, and she quickly regains her balance. Unfolding from her defeated, but satisfied position, she throws the group of the three of them a look – almost unreadable, but determined. As if saying, “I let you go for now”. The unwavering confidence of a wolf, or maybe the loyalty of a dog. For now. Haruka’s blood runs cold, and he counts everyone over again to realize as it really, really sinks in: this is what happens to the guilty .
Kazui assists Shidou in bringing Fuuta up to him and holding pressure on Mahiru’s bleeding head as Shidou switches sides, taking care of his eye. Haruka is too lost in the panic of the situation to move and help, but just lucid enough to see Muu shuffle away to her cell away from the crowd of people around Mahiru, and follows after her, latching onto her in silence. He doesn’t look back or up from the floor until he’s away, no matter how the fresh memory of the sight of the injured woman presses on him, making him want to turn back. He doesn’t dare to see the aftermath of their sins again.
Muu-san meets his eyes without a word as if to ask: this won’t happen to us, will it? You’ll take the heat for me if it does, right? Haruka realizes he’s biting his nails nervously, almost comically so, trying to avoid an answer. They’re forgiven. They’re the good prisoners, they did good. Was that why the thought alone was too terrifying to comprehend?
***
“Oh, Haruka-kun,” Mahiru mumbles almost inaudibly.
At the sound of her voice cutting through the silence, Haruka snaps out of his daydreams. “O-oh, Mahiru-san,” he echoes her, nodding, and they fall into an awkward silence.
It was Haruka’s turn, on what was possibly the single longest night of the lives of every Milgram prisoner – since they were taken here, of course, because off the top of his head, Haruka could name plenty worse. Yet this one had a special toll on all of them. Between the blood that was exhausting and, frankly, disgusting to clean up, the panicked group efforts to carefully carry the injured and makeshift a medical wing in Shidou’s room to accommodate them, and the more-than-ever noticeable lack of Es’s presence. Until very, very late at night, Shidou had barely even paid attention to the people coming in, up until he refused to allow them (“Mahiru-san needs rest, don’t disturb my patient,” he had said, and his voice seemed like it shook on the verge of crying). The problem began happening when at some point in the middle of the night he, constantly monitoring her condition and sitting in agonizing silence alone in-between the checkups, started falling asleep. Too exhausted to manage staying awake despite how much experience of that he had as a doctor, and too horrifically paranoid to actually allow himself a minute of real calm, he had given Kazui the job to help him out before being knocked out cold again, and Kazui took it as his absolute mission, giving everyone – everyone fitting for the role and well, so not counting Amane or Fuuta – their fair share of responsibility over watching the sleeping Mahiru.
Haruka was anxious. If something happened, how could he know? She looked beaten up enough to make it hard to notice if she was a bit paler, or more wrecked-looking than she already was. She could die next to him, and he wouldn’t know it. So he tried not to look at her too much, stare at a wall, and count seconds in his head until he was far enough away from here to worry about her. At least he’s doing his job, he reasons with himself, unlike when he left right after everything happened. And he supposes it worked, because here Mahiru was – alive and actually conscious, at last.
“H- Urk– Haruka-kun, what’s… the time again?”
“Huh?” he’s taken aback by the next thing that comes out of her mouth. There was no way to know the exact time in Milgram, here where they’re so cut off from civilization they can’t even be sure of the date and season, she should know that. Worriedly, Haruka thinks if she could’ve gotten brain damage, based on the way her skull looked caved-in – that thought alone makes him gag again.
“Mahiru-san, are you… okay? Um, does anything hurt, or something? Are you…” he hesitates, “can you think okay?”
Suddenly for him, she tries to force a smile in response, but it comes out crooked, like she has a hard time controlling her facial muscles. Haruka once again feels alarmed as he remembers a poster about something related to the brain and expressions when he went to the doctor as a kid. But she quickly follows with a reply, “I can, don’t worry. I just… ack!” – she tries to shift to the side, and realizes quickly it’s a futile effort as she flinches in pain, “I remembered, I remembered something silly. But… I guess it doesn’t matter anymore…” Now, her eyes look lost, drifting past Haruka to look at nothing.
“I’ll get- let me get Shidou-san,” he stammers apologetically, figuring he can’t deal with Mahiru’s cryptic and extremely concerning rambles. “No, no, give me a second,” she suddenly huffs in frustration, and, almost as if that took all of her emotional capacity for now, her face goes blank again. “I just… okay, I’m good. Sorry, Haruka-kun. I’m just… trying to sort my thoughts out, I’m having a bit of a hard time, …being so pathetic again, and this time.” She turns back to look him in the eyes again, Haruka too lost on what to say to find a way to avert the eye contact, “This time, they’re telling me I did it all wrong, Haruka-kun… Kotoko-chan as well. Is it really that bad to love?”
If Haruka wasn’t lost before, he’s definitely completely blank on what to do now, that’s for sure. When he was watching over Mahiru, he didn’t think it’d lead to her waking up and immediately becoming vulnerable, and he’s trapped because she asked him not to get Shidou right away. Because she wants to figure out what happened first, maybe? If it was Muu-san telling him what to do, Haruka wouldn’t even spend a second thinking before obliging. But with Mahiru-san here, and in such a bad state too, he wonders if he should just make a run for it – it’s not like she can catch him.
“Mahiru-san… are you, um… do you need anything?”
She looks at him with the same expression full of grief again, and he thinks any second she’ll start crying, but she doesn’t. He supposes it’s just because the exhaustion is taking so much out of her it’s hard to even emote. She looks over herself – the bruising on her arms and legs turning yellowish, her arm in a sling – and asks him something finally coherent, “You were voted innocent, right?”
“Mhm. Me and Muu-san both,” he adds unnecessarily, palms growing clammy at the thought of their verdicts again.
“Mm. You two seem close.” Mahiru’s eyes are still blank. “How did you two meet?”
“Um- I guess, because we were forgiven, we caught on to each other quickly,” he rambles. “Muu-san was one of the first people to come up to me, back when I was still scared and- and whatnot. Well, she was scared too, but she doesn’t show it that much anymore. And she began giving me nice things. Like giving me advice on how to make friends, or gifts,” he subconsciously reaches up to touch the hairclips in his hair, smiling.
“That’s nice,” Mahiru-san mimics his smile for a fraction of a second, before closing her eyes, as if the light in the room was giving her a worse headache than she must already have, “I’m glad you two are safe, then. It would be hard if one of you got hurt.”
“I-It really would,” Haruka replies, and falls silent. It rushes back to him, the feeling of helplessness as he shut his ears and eyes until the beating stopped. He could’ve helped Mahiru – he wasn’t weak. He had too much strength buried in him than he was comfortable thinking about. If it was Muu, would he have ignored it the same way too? Would she hate him? Would she, a, frankly, weaker and younger person compared to Mahiru, who was left in this state, even survive?
Haruka is hit with the obsessive thought he’s been tucking away all day today once again. Milgram has forgiven them for now . For now wasn’t forever, it wasn’t even a set time – at any given point, as close as the next trial comes around, Warden-san could choose to chain them and leave them to the dogs, that being whatever comes around next to enact punishment – Kotoko-san, Fuuta-kun. Warden-san – Haruka-kun crosses out their name in his mind in that list, because he doesn’t want to think about his friend, Muu’s friend, someone he has mistook once to be his mother, punishing them for their crimes. But they could. And they would, and all it took was for Muu-san to be found guilty. Haruka could live with being beaten up or punished, even if it was for something he wasn’t the fault of – he was used to the blaming – but he could never live with the real guilt of having that done to Muu-san because of the misfortune he brought with himself.
“Haruka-kun, do you ever think about dying?”
That was sudden.
He wants to lie, like he did with Shidou-san, but he doesn’t see a reason as to why he should. “Yes, sometimes if I imagine I’m alone,” he admits, nervously tapping his thumbs together. “Because if I had nobody loving me I wouldn’t want to keep living. Um, but why?”
“I did too, once.” Her eyes flutter open to her own admission, “Ever since my sweetheart told me he wanted to die, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I cried to him and called him so many times but he wouldn’t budge. So, I agreed to go with him. I failed, and now, I’m being hurt again for loving him. I don’t know how much more punishment I need to take. I don’t blame Kotoko-chan, but it makes me – it makes me remember – how much it hurt.”
“Oh. I-I’m, um…” Haruka processes her words in his head. It’s hard, from the confusion he’s been constantly in today, but he tries hard to try and console her. She tried to kill herself, for him, with him? A double suicide, because he wanted death first? He chews on his lip – why would she do that? Of course, she loved him, but she still had him, so why go with him when both of them could stay? Haruka wouldn’t want to die if he had someone loving him – he didn’t want to die at all now that he had Muu-san by his side no matter what, and if something happened he’d do anything to keep things as they are now.
Oh. That’s what it was. Mahiru tried to kill herself to keep her boyfriend at peace, so neither of them would be lonely, or go through things changing – he gets it now.
“I’m very happy for you, Mahiru-san,” he smiles warmly. It was beautiful – and he really understood her, now. Both of them had experienced it, he understands. The feeling of being needed, of giving and taking.
Something like horror flashes in her eyes, before she turns back around and lies back down. “You can bring Shidou-san now, Haruka-kun.”
There’s a feeling – a really, really bad one – biting at his chest, but it’s almost unnoticeable by the sudden relief that washes over him. Such a noble action – that’s what he’d do – if he couldn’t live with himself after causing Muu-san to become guilty, God forbid that ever happens to them, but if it did…
There was a conversation he needed to have. He’d say it after his second trial is over, and for now that he has time, he’ll think how to put it in words – the next morning, of course, when both of them have had a good night of sleep, free of worries. (Haruka lies awake the whole night, listening to the barely audible sobbing and turning in the fifth cell.)
***
He comes up to her barely standing from the sudden weakness that overtakes his entire body, and says it before he can rethink.
“Muu-san… Warden-san told me, they told me horrible things. I asked them not to scare you anymore, and they told me you’re using me. So- so if they vote you guilty… I’ll kill myself. So you can rest easy. Is that good, Muu-san?”
Haruka wonders what her reaction would be. He’s doing a great thing for her, but she might also misunderstand it, like Mahiru. Maybe she won’t let him, because she loves him too much, Haruka knows for sure he wouldn’t be able to handle it if she disappeared. So, he waits for a reply.
She smiles. “We’re really friends, you and I, aren’t we?” – and she embraces him. Haruka takes that as a yes – and the vacant emptiness of the warmth in his chest grows bigger, almost choking him on the unadulterated joy he’s experiencing, finally getting ahold of his death sentence.
He couldn’t be happier – his hands couldn’t be shaking more.
***
“You’re back!” he practically jumps to the ceiling, off of the sheet of paper he’s coloring with tepid boredom. He scrambles to ask Muu, who raises her eyebrows with a faint smile, almost like she was so much less bothered than when she went in, like she was successful in something once again.
She’s doing much better than Haruka himself had after his second trial. He had come back dry-heaving, he remembers, images of his mother’s face flashing before his eyes over and over until he had nothing left in his stomach to vomit out anymore. Muu-san had to spend the rest of the day over him, twisting her face in disgust and seemingly voicing her disinterest in his dramatics but staying with him until he felt better anyway. He was ready to do the same for her – fulfilling her wishes, as long as she was happy, – but it seemed like she was happier than when she went in. More confident, even. But not in her usual overwhelming way where she’d draw all the attention in: it was almost as if she had come to some sort of conclusion for herself, one that left her satisfied.
“I spoke with Warden-san, Haruka-kun,” she starts, and then corrects herself, “I mean, obviously I did. I made them almost cry, actually… the poor thing, but I had no choice – I was telling them the truth, after all. I told them to quit carrying out judgements. Wouldn’t it make more sense to forgive everyone?...” She shifts her weight from one foot to another, and Haruka realizes she’s waiting for him to agree.
“Um, yes! I mean, I guess so…” he hums, biting his nails, “...is that allowed in Milgram? I don’t… think Warden-san would agree to that. But I trust your judgement, m- Muu-san.”
“They did agree,” she interrupts with annoyance in her tone. “I’m their best friend, remember? Of course they’ve been so tired committing to the warden role… and really, there’s no need to carry a burden that was forced upon them–” she giggles – “just like you and me, Haruka-kun! Both of us carry so much responsibility, but really, we deserve to get out. And Warden-san deserves to not think about this too hard. Really, just look at Kotoko-san! None of this would have happened to Mahiru-san or Fuuta-san, had they been forgiven, would it? These useless moral decisions just bring more misfortune to us all.”
Haruka thinks about it. Really, he thinks hard. What Muu-san had just said, it just doesn’t seem quite right, but neither does the idea of any of them becoming guilty.
He thinks about it over the next couple of days, and then again, and again. He wonders if that day was the last he’d spoken to anyone other than Muu-san, who keeps gracing him with her kindness. She comes to visit him multiple times every day, and every time it feels like he can breathe a little easier again, until she leaves. But he keeps thinking about what she had said. Would it be really so easy if everybody was forgiven?
The thought of that day, the day Kotoko had beaten up three of his fellow prisoners, one of them to half-death, makes him start getting nauseous again.
Haruka is so happy now, so much more than when he had first awoken in this place, or when he had to be pretty much dragged out to socialize and meet the others. It’s all a blur now, a distant memory – not quite as distant as the years way back, but enough to be nostalgic now that he recalls it. It must have been years of them rotting away here, and years more to come, and sometimes, talking to Muu, even with all the joy, he couldn’t help but miss the wide-eyed surprises he had over and over discovering what Milgram meant. Now, it’s all grown stale to him, moldy with the corruption and the deteriorating atmosphere and how everybody’s been dragged down horribly. They ruined what this place once was – a place to feel at home when he had nobody at home. Now, he wondered, only sometimes, what would happen if he and Muu-san could go outside together. He wants to think about it more – sometimes he spends entire days daydreaming about it, when he has no wish to come out of his cell, and Muu-san is the only company that comes to him willingly in these moments. But no matter how far he can lose himself thinking about it, there’s a sinking feeling telling him he’ll never get it. Because since the day of her second trial, she’s been hearing whispers, she’s been, somehow, unnoticeably less talkative than usual, more scared. Fearful for her life. Both of them know what this is leading up to. He’ll die in this cell, Muu-san’s presence all that keeps him warm in his final moments. So he thinks – thinking is all he does while he can.
When he had introduced himself to the fellow prisoners, and people walked around him in circles trying not to speak to the boy who looked weird, acted weird, a boy who just needed someone to love him again, it hurt, but it was a fresh kind of hurt that the next nice word or look took away instantly. Now, the pain was dull, and with horror, he realized not even talking to Muu-san could help it – it went on and on, growing less bearable with each day closer to the next verdict. At the time, he was still not used to these cells he found cold and lonely, and this building that was too gray and dimly lit. He missed his bedroom at home, where the sun sometimes shined directly into his window. He missed the park near his house where he ran off to after school, and sat on the swings, and observed people as they walked. Haruka looked at kids his age and for each of them, he imagined just how close they could’ve been if only things were different, if he was normal. If only he could make friends – just come up and talk to them. Find common ground, find each others’ interests, find a way to keep in touch. For him, he had none of the skills and not even a cellphone, so he watched. For each of the people passing by, he created a world in his head where they were each other’s best friends. At the time, he had no idea how different a lifelong bond with someone would feel, and though it was so big, so real , he remembers how peacefully lonely these days were. Haruka would go to school on foot alone, so he got up just before dawn broke and shuffled around the house in the quiet. He worked hard, no matter how much his teachers resented his presence and his utter lack of success, and he went home later when everyone else had already departed, and he came back home only when it was already dark. He slept with his old ragged bunny, with their dog shuffling around the room as he slept.
He had no idea, at the time, how much his life would change as soon as the ache in his chest grew unbearable, like an itch left unscratched for too long. As soon as he became older and his mom found out he never grew up – as soon as he muddled his hands with blood, he had a hard time sleeping without waking up in the middle of the night, and as the amount of times grew out of the reach to which he could count, he no longer had any time for daydreaming about friendship. He realizes, now, he was doing the wrong things at first. He should’ve committed to it from the beginning, kept his mother from losing her love towards him. But even then, even if things went differently, he is sure he was meant to meet Muu-san anyway. Because Muu-san was the only person on this whole planet who truly, genuinely understood him.
Now that Muu-san was there, everything has changed. Muu-san noticed him when no one else did. Muu-san helped him get up from the low place he was sinking at, hiding at the bottom, and showed him how to really let the world see him. Muu-san loved him, more than anyone else did. She showed him what a mother’s love was really like, past the age of seven when the woman he thought to be his mom’s eyes slipped away from his own. She showed him how to live. Haruka didn’t want to die, but to gain his mother’s love, he would do anything.
That’s why Haruka doesn’t argue with Muu-san’s reasoning, even though he knows it’s wrong. He isn’t blind to the things she says, he doesn’t nod and ignore her words, but he’s loyal to a fault. A fault he’ll let kill him, if Muu-san wants to. It warms his heart – just how much Muu-san keeps thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and thinking of him, and for him, too. He doesn’t even know how he would be able to live if it wasn’t for her guidance. It’s the one thing that helped him change, for once in his life, stop being a failure – she gave him hope, and that’s why he never ever disagreed with Muu-san on anything again, not even once. That’s why, whatever she says, he will indulge in it, and if he can’t sleep or eat thinking how little he has left to enjoy this love, that’s fine. If he shuts himself in his room – that’s fine, because Muu-san is always there to bring him food and remind him who and what he’s doing this for. If he begs to Warden-san to please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, please forgive Muu-san, and his begging goes unheard like the thousands of words he was never able to get through to his mother over the years, that’s fine, because he’ll make it so Muu-san has a peace of mind, whatever happens to her.
And if he doesn’t want to die, that’s fine. Isn’t it kind of like falling asleep after a nightmare? – if you imagine your mom’s hugs, you’ll drift easily.