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“Oi, Gonta! Open up, will ya? It’s an emergency!”
Miu’s foreboding word-choice spurs Gonta into quicker action than he would have taken ordinarily, scrambling out of bed—where he’s busy sketching the plant by his window for a school assignment—to open the door. She didn’t sound nor does she look particularly upset or even flustered, standing in the hallway with her hair put up in a bonnet and her arms full of brightly coloured clothing, lips pressed into a thin line. They split into a grin when she sees Gonta, though.
“Okay, great! You gotta gimme a hand here.” Miu pushes her way in with little resistance from Gonta, making a straight shot to his bed and letting the items in her arms fall none too gently upon the sheets. She sweeps a hand through her hair and flips around. “I’m in serious shit.”
Gonta regards her skeptically. “...What kind of, um, emergency is it?”
“It’s my first chance at getting any in ages! I can’t show up showing like a slob! I need you to help me get ready.” Miu gestures broadly at the clothing she selected. “You’re like, an artist now or whatever, so you can gimme your eye.”
Gonta is not an artist, but rather taking art classes at the local community college in the interest of using his pre-existing skill at sketching insects for something that reminds him of his execution a little less. Drawing is comforting to him in a strange way, soothing like sinking back into a couch at the end of a long day. It certainly doesn’t give him the eye for fashion that Miu is likely hoping for, though he will try, since they’re friends. He does frown though.
“That does not sound like an emergency to Gonta.”
“Everyone’s got their own priorities.” Miu waves her hand back and forth. “C’mon, just help me out.”
When Miu says chance at getting any, Gonta assumes she’s talking about her upcoming date with Himiko. He also assumes that her primary motivation isn’t actually to have sex, though that isn’t really any of his business. He’s caught little glimpses of Miu’s relationship with Himiko, unexpected as it’s been to watch the two grow close. This culminating in a date had only been expected, but Gonta is nonetheless a little surprised that Miu thought he was the one to go to for advice and support.
Again, he won’t begrudge Miu this. They’re friends, and Gonta owes her a lifetime of favours, big and small. He shifts his weight somewhat awkwardly and nods, allowing Miu to instruct him through the motions of what she meant by helping her out.
Miu is a force of nature and has been perhaps her entire life. Much of their memories from before the killing game simulation were real, and Miu is no exception; she woke up from her coma all those years back with a seemingly infinite imagination and a loud mouth to match it. She didn’t leave the simulation without her own fair share of inhibitions, however; Gonta has seen the way Miu hesitates these days around Kokichi, around the others, shifting her weight and touching her neck, blue eyes darting along the walls with obvious insecurity before she bounces back with a curse.
She never seems to have that same hesitation with Gonta, though. She strips down to her underwear to get changed, and this time Gonta doesn’t quite mind it. They’re at a level of friendship where that kind of thing is more or less normal for them. Miu trades between dresses with Gonta holding the ones she isn’t using, offering opinions where prompted, trying to be gentle about the options he doesn’t like as much. When Miu pulls up a cheetah-pattern tube top and looks to him for his opinion, Gonta’s nose wrinkles before he can stop it, and she lets out a loud laugh.
“Not a fan, huh?”
“A more realistic cheetah pattern would be um,” Gonta flounders, “more becoming. But Iruma-san looks pretty no matter what!”
“Thanks, big guy,” Miu grins at him. She reaches back to undo the zipper. “But I ain’t taking my chances.”
In the end she settles in a pretty pink off-the-shoulder dress with matching heels and jewellery. She brushes her hair out of her face and leans over Gonta’s bathroom sink to do her makeup, lips pursed slightly as she appeals a shiny gloss. Gonta watches out of a lack of things to do, holding a wash cloth for her and feeling more or less like he’s intruding in his own bedroom. Miu has this way of sweeping up all the energy and attention in a room. Gonta likes it; it makes it easier for him to blend in with the walls, which he finds himself wanting to do more and more lately. He just doesn’t get why Miu keeps seeking her out when they’re alone. When there’s no one else around to protect her from—
“How’s it look?” Miu asks suddenly, turning to show Gonta her eye makeup. He blinks back to focus, scrutinising Miu’s eyeliner.
After a moment Gonta decides, “Left wing is longer than the right.”
“Thought so.” Miu grumbles and goes at it with a wet wipe, her tongue darting out of the corner of her mouth. She fixes the wing with the same still hand she uses to tweak her inventions, then pulls back. “Okay, help me clasp my necklace, yeah?”
Gonta obliges without thinking, taking the offered jewellery and waiting for Miu to sweep her mass of blonde curls away from the back of her neck, revealing exposed brown skin and a spattering of freckles along her shoulders and the top of her spine. Gonta freezes, hands feeling suddenly quite cold, remembering the last time he saw the back of Miu’s neck like this.
His fingers tremble as he mechanically undoes the clasp, bringing the necklace around Miu’s neck. He remembers how the toilet paper had felt, so soft yet unusually strong and unyielding as he pulled, tight tight tight—
The necklace, Gonta can see in the mirror, dangles right over Miu’s heart. The stone is a deep blue colour to complement Miu’s eyes. She remains breathing even and relaxed, picking at one of her nails with a distracted look on her face. In no way is she taut or afraid. She is entirely calm with Gonta so close to her, one of his massive hands large enough to wrap around the circumference of her neck, to choke her again, to snap it—
“How can you—” Gonta chokes out. His hands shake so violently he struggles to clasp the necklace and Miu’s eyes snap up to meet his in the mirror. The look of them must be terrifying: Gonta’s pupils have contracted into pinpricks and his lips are parted. He’s trembling like a leaf all over, crazed and dangerous, close enough to Miu that she isn’t safe, she hasn’t been safe since the moment she moved in with him, trusted him, even after he—
“Gonta,” Miu says, and her hand creeps back, rough calloused fingers sliding over his knuckles, winding between his. Her fingers are nowhere near delicate, but they’re thinner than Gonta’s. Weaker, too, like her neck. Yet her hand doesn’t shake. “What’re you thinking, buddy?”
Gonta opens his mouth to respond, and a sob escapes him instead. The thin chain of the necklace slips through his fingers and clatters against the bathroom tile. Gonta sinks to his knees and a violent shudder runs through his body, leaving him cold and loose, disconnected, as if he might float out of his very skin.
In front of him, Miu has turned and sunk down too, the heels of her palms pressed into his shoulders. Her eyes are wide and her brow has creased, the only things betraying her upset as she leans in closer, blonde curls brushing against his cheek, his neck. Miu’s lips are moving but Gonta can’t hear anything over the buzzing in his ears, it’s so cold, the snow, Kokichi won’t stop laughing, Miu is choking and gasping and begging him to stop, Gonta please—fuck—
Pain stings Gonta’s cheek. When Gonta blinks again he realises that Miu has pinched him. She seems to regret it immediately, hand jolting back, but Gonta reaches up to catch her wrist before flinching back when he realises how thin it is, how fragile. Miu’s jaw clenches and she presses furiously after him, palms slotting together, her other arm winding around his shoulders.
“Talk to me, Gonta,” Miu insists. Since the game she has abandoned all insulting nicknames, all pretence of thinking of Gonta sexually. She calls him only by his name and big guy. “I can’t help if ya don’t say what’s wrong.”
Gonta’s voice is rough when he gasps, “Don’t. Don’t help Gonta. Gonta—Gonta killed you.”
Miu’s eyes widen, then soften abruptly. She says, “Oh,” and then her arms are wrapping so tightly around him, pulling his hands to rest against her shoulders where they continue to shake, numb and curling. He tries to twitch away but finds he can’t quite bring himself to. Miu is warm, way warmer than it had been on the roof.
Her voice is low, lips close enough to Gonta’s ear that he can feel her breath ghosting the shell of his ear.
“Gonta, you’re not gonna hurt me. That wasn’t your fault.”
“It was,” Gonta chokes out. “He killed Iruma-san. Iruma-san—she has nightmares about it.”
“Yeah, we all get fuckin’ nightmares,” Miu scoffs. Gonta screws his eyes shut and thinks, But I deserve it, but I deserve that and more for hurting you, and Miu must sense what he’s thinking because she squeezes him tighter. “Look, I trust you, okay? You’re one of the only ones of those assholes who I do trust—so don’t overthink it. Just… you won’t do it again. I know you won’t.”
Miu doesn’t know what she’s talking about. The worst part of it is that Gonta hadn’t been—pushed, or prodded, or manipulated, not in the way people always say. He chose to do it. Chose to hurt Miu and thought that was the right thing. He considered it a mercy when all it really accomplished was leaving Miu with endless nightmares of suffocating under his grip, choking to death in the cold. Betrayed by her own friends.
Yet she speaks with such certainty, Gonta finds it hard not to believe her at least somewhat. To believe that she believes it, no matter how unwise that is. His breathing quickens, the shaking intensifying as his tears continue to pour, and it must be disgusting, must be awful, but Miu doesn’t retreat. She lets his tears soak into her pretty dress and drags her hands up and down his arms, firm and soothing.
“Listen, we can’t take it back,” Miu mutters. “Neither of us can, not you, not me. You killed me? I would’ve killed you too if you didn’t get there first. I fucking betrayed you. Don’t forget that. But you were never once mad at me. You think just ‘cause you won, you’re the worse one? Wouldn’t you forgive me if I’d killed you? You already forgave that little bastard.”
Forgiveness is easy, though. Gonta wants to say as much too, but his throat has locked up. He imagines that he’s being choked by someone he used to trust, standing behind him with a roll of toilet paper in their hands. He lets himself hold Miu’s shoulders, gently, and feels her smile against his forehead.
“So let me forgive you, you motherfucker,” Miu breathes out. “It’s my choice, not yours. I still trust you. I know what you did and I forgive you.”
“Gonta doesn’t deserve—” Gonta’s face crumples against a fresh wave of tears. “He doesn’t—”
“I don’t give a shit,” Miu all but snarls. “It’s my choice. My forgiveness. Mine.”
Hers. Gonta feels the last bit of tension leave his shoulders. He isn’t sure why that relieves him so strongly. Just the notion that this is something he could do for Miu—to let her choose, to let her move on—eases some of the knot in his chest. Not entirely, not substantially, but it’s marginal. It’s there. Breathing slowly becomes easier, even as Gonta can’t quite stop himself from crying, and finally he finds the strength to pull his head back and inspect the damages.
Miu follows his gaze down to her dress and smiles wanly. “What do you think? You think Yumeno’d mind?”
“Gonta thinks the blue dress was pretty too,” Gonta rasps. “Matches your necklace.”
Miu lets out another loud, full laugh. It’s so genuine Gonta can feel it shaking through his bones. It and Miu’s teary smile, which stays on her lips as she brushes her hand under his eye, catching a few stray tears.
She says, “A’ight, big guy. I’ll do the blue one. You gotta actually put that necklace on me this time, though.”
“Right.” Gonta sniffles and allows Miu to help him to his feet. Picks up the fallen necklace as they go. It had been more or less unscathed in the fall, but he handles it delicately nonetheless, sliding the chain around Miu’s neck.
His hands still shake, but he manages to clasp it. Miu adjusts the gemstone so it rests in the middle of her chest, and she smiles, meeting Gonta’s eyes again in the mirror.
After a moment tobreathe, to catch his breath and clear his mind, Gonta manages to smile back.