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Fuuta Kajiyama had really stopped getting up and living the day like it had a purpose to him. It scared him that day by day as he looked around that he was becoming more like Haruka and Shidou who lived life because they had to but came to terms with the fact they had nothing left for them here; Fuuta was even becoming more like Muu and Kazui who were always trying to justify their crime and to wash away their guilt, but most of all Fuuta was becoming more and more like the voices he heard in his head that called him a murderer, because even if he was too stubborn to admit it, he’s slowly starting to believe it’s true.
For the past few months Fuuta basically stayed shut in his room and only let Shidou in to give him treatments or Yuno to bring him meals, as well as one visitor to talk to a day. If he got really bored, he’d steal a book or a game from the common room, maybe eat a meal with everyone in the cafeteria or he’d go on a walk, but walks always made him paranoid because of the voices and the fact he thought whoever was behind them was tracking his every move.
Today was an unexpected day where Fuuta woke up bored, so after an hour of rotting in bed since he had woke up, he forced himself to hop off the bed and go out to the common room, preferably to just steal a book or a game with minimal human interaction. Despite having been awake for almost an hour now, Fuuta still did not have the energy to deal with people.
Fuuta almost stopped in his tracks once he walked out of his cell and down the hall to the common room, when he just saw Mahiru Shiina on the floor, unable to move, and the wheelchair which she had been using as soon as Shidou could request Es for it, was draped ontop of her.
Luckily he quickly lifted the wheelchair and tilted it upright, but then he froze when he saw Mahiru’s face, which was just blank and stoic, like she was seeing a gloomier time of her past.
“Shiina-san,” Fuuta called out to her and she jolted up a bit, and then looked back at Fuuta, “Are you alright?”
“I never thought you’d be the one to help me, but yes I’m alright,” Mahiru said with a warm smile, “Although I won’t be able to get up by myself, sorry.”
“Shiina, you’re fine,” Fuuta snapped back at her, “just how do we get you up?”
“Could you just bridal carry me into the chair? That’s how Shidou always does it…” Mahiru said, her eyes twinkling at Shidou’s name. He’s started to notice Mahiru’s taken a lot of interest in him during the physical therapy sessions Shidou forces them to attend with him.
“Yeah,” Fuuta said and he dropped to his knees and thrusted his arms under her hips and her midsection and bolted up, clearly struggling to hold her. He was out of breath once he had to move around enough to get her into the seat safely.
“You’re not very strong, are you Fuuta-kun?” Mahiru giggled, covering her laughter with her hand.
“Argh! Be grateful I helped you up,” Fuuta snapped back at her, “but what’s more important is what the hell were you doing that launched you out of the chair like that?”
“I…” Mahiru’s words got frigid and icy, delectate and slippery as her tone went from fake happiness to complete despair, “I tried to get up.”
Fuuta wanted to yell at her, to ask that the fuck was wrong with her and what in the damn hell was she thinking, but he hesitated once seeing Mahiru’s face fall, and she went into that expression of numbness yet full in pain again.
“Shiina-san, why would you do that…?”
Shiina looked up at him desperately, “I’m sorry! I don’t know! I just was sick of being like… this, and I want to be a normal girl again, Fuuta,” she rambled, “I want to move on from these injuries and be able to be free and move on from this prison but I just can’t… and I just felt compelled to try and stand up.”
“So you stood up as punishment to yourself, ‘cause you were mad at yourself for getting even into this state in the first place,” Fuuta summarized to himself, “that’s such a stupid thing to do.”
Mahiru smiled a tad bit, “and here I thought you might have been getting kinder, Fuuta.”
Fuuta’s expression jerked to shock from her words, “Don’t you ever think I like you for a second! Just, you’re stupid for doing that. This prison is against us, Kotoko is against us, and they’re the ones to blame for these,” Fuuta gestured to their injuries, “…not us.”
“I guess you’re right,” Mahiru reasoned, “I didn’t even understand he could ever get to that point in the first place. I thought we were perfectly fine, and I was doing what a perfect girlfriend should. It wasn’t my fault anyway.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t wanna know,” Fuuta looked at Mahiru who looked almost pitiful in the wheelchair below him.
Fuuta looked up,
“I’m going back to my room.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mahiru Shiina had never really liked being the oldest female prisoner. It made her feel older than she actual was, and at the same time it also made her left out from all the youth from the beautiful girls Mu and Yuno, and Amane never really seemed interested in ever talking to her, and Kotoko made sure she’d never talk to her again after she beat her almost to death after the first trial.
Hanging out with Kotoko was always out of the question, but when Mahiru went to see Yuno and Mu they quickly fell into a conversation of the two teenagers talking about today’s teenage trends (which were probably extremely outdated by now, considering it’s been a year since she’s been trapped in this prison), and Mahiru sounding like the mother who’s way behind in today’s slang. They still treated Mahiru nicely and all, but Mahiru felt extremely out of place.
She quickly gave up on that trying to struggle with that, and decided to just wheel around the prison freely before curfew was enforced (it was never really unforced, Es would just tell them it’s lights out and to go to bed but once Es left it was free rein of the prison, but Mahiru followed the rules.)
She stopped when she heard a voice from down the hall.
“God will forgive you, Shiina-senpai, just let me teach you,” the voice, which Mahiru immediately noticed was Amane’s said, and Mahiru whipped her head around to see Amane sitting on the floor at the other end of the hall, staring at her dully.
“I haven’t done anything wrong though, Amane,” Mahiru said in reply as she turned around, “I haven't done anything wrong.”
“You think I am judging you based on your murder, Shiina-senpai. I do not know the details of what you did, but I’m not sure if they can be forgiven,” Amane spoke to her with the same high-pitched youthful voice as always, but it sounded drab, “You interfered with God’s plan for you, and that is what is your sin here.”
“Amane I think God will forgive me if I use medecine, after all most people do,” Mahiru responded to Amane, trying to make her voice sound as sweet as honey so Amane couldn’t know she had started to get slightly annoyed.
Amane had started trying to get Mahiru to convert to her religion around the same time she started hanging out with Fuuta Kajiyama much more often, due to the fact he had finally given into Amane and said that he would like to be saved. Fuuta doesn’t go out of his cell much these days, but she hopes that he doesn’t actually believe what she says and plans on converting.
Mahiru figured that since she’s got Fuuta on her side, Mahiru would think of converting too. But even though Mahiru was always in physical or mental pain, and she did always wish for any sort of relief, she didn’t think Amane would help her at all. She feels bad that she’s practically given up on Amane, but Mahiru is also always a string away from breaking away from herself, so the fact she’d given up on someone else already made sense.
Mahiru needed to snap out of her own mind.
“Amane, I know you have your very rigid religious practice and that’s perfectly fine, but I don't believe the same things as you,” Mahiru calmly explained,
‘I just don’t believe what you believe in.’
That was a line that made Amane mad every time she heard it, whether it be ringing bells on the street and trying to convince someone to donate to her religion, or when she would cause a scene in public when calling out a supposed sin.
Mahiru had been saying it a lot to Amane lately. All Amane wanted to do was just help Mahiru, and hopefully Mahiru would one day join her family. She had made significant progress with Fuuta so far; he had started to pray with her and reject Shidou Kirisaki’s help and he stopped taking his daily medication. It made Amane immensely proud of both him and herself, and she was becoming happier knowing Fuuta was becoming happier with her too.
If only Mahiru would want to be happier with Amane, too.
It’s starting to become kind of obvious she doesn’t, though.
Amane grimaced at Mahiru, “That medicine is messing up your mind, Shiina-senpai. The bastard’s whole medical plan for you is complete crap. God will heal you himself, he never intended for humanity to rely on those unnatural poisons they call ‘medecine’.”
Mahiru had started to tune out a lot of the lectures Amane gave on her religion, albeit guiltily. She usually liked to listen to children, and even when she didn’t she’d still at least listen to the child because she wanted to make sure they were heard.
Mahiru just repeated the same line to Amane once her lips had stopped moving.
‘I just don’t believe what you believe in.’
That’s when Mahiru realized Amane had been staring at her this whole time, and she hadn’t seen Amane ever blink.
Mahiru felt uncomfortable as Amane spoke again to her,
“You’re going to go to hell, Shiina.”
Mahiru just smiled bitterly at the child before turning her wheelchair and rolling away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the beginning of the prisoners' stay, everyone had actively tried to search for a way out of the prison. On the first day, they realized there were no doors that led to anywhere, except for one locked one where Es came out if they wanted to take requests of items or did trials. The next week they tried having Kotoko and Kazui bust down the door, and they had tried unlocking vents and trying to climb their way out, which still wielded little to no results. Amane had to be in them a lot of the time since she was one of the only ones who could fit, and she hated it. They left her dusty and exhausted, but honestly, she hates it that she still hasn’t found a way out yet, more.
By the end of the first month it had gone down to only Amane Momose and Mikoto Kayano trying to find a way out and trying to convince others to. By the first trial, they quit.
In the period before the second trial where Fuuta and Mahiru had started to believe they were guilty deep, deep down inside, Mikoto was the only person that Amane knew was likely feeling like her: being completely innocent yet getting handed a guilty vote.
By this time, as Amane started waking up from nightmares caused by her trauma and the voices MILGRAM implanted to break her down, and Mikoto was drinking too many energy drinks and really listening to the voices to keep him awake for as long as possible so he wouldn’t switch, so he’d never have to know he could become John, and as the two kept meeting in the common room during the middle of the night, they started seeking eachother out almost every night.
“Good Morning Amane-san,” Mikoto greeted from the counter as he saw Amane walking by exhaustively with bags under her eyes, and her eyes being red and puffy themselves, “Are you alright?”
“I must have accidentally sinned again. I’m foolish for not asking Es for my holy books sooner, so I can remember each and very sin. I feel that my knowledge and duty of my religion has started to decline in this awful place,” Amane rambled, walking over to the counter where Mikoto sat infront of, on a stool. She hoisted her way up to the stool next to Mikoto, “I think I’ll ask Sakurai-kun to request it. He’ll definitely get it for me.”
“Hold on, what do you mean you’ve accidentally sinned again, Amane-chan?” Mikoto questioned looking very curiously at the girl.
“People who aren’t in my faith sin every day. So many of you people do not understand so many of the things you do are sins, and God is going to get you for it,” Amane spoke oddly more cheerfully than before, “But people can always come around from sin, and God will forgive them. Our faith follows a strict set of sins. And when I get night terrors, those are the punishment of my sins.”
“Amane-chan, I don’t think God would punish anyone for something so minuscule. God is supposed to understand what we’re going through, and forgive us for what happens along the way, right?” Mikoto encouraged-
But Amane shot him down, “Unless you stop sinning how will you ever fix yourself along the way? That’s why so many of you are sinners, you never stop and think to change your ways, and embrace God.”
“Huh,” Mikoto replied, taking a sip of something from the mug infront of him. Amane looked at it and wanted to wretch. Coffee. Amane suddenly became disgusted with Mikoto at this moment, watching him ingest caffeine, a chemical people were never meant to ingest, “I don’t believe in God myself, but I do agree that we should always stop and think before we do things.”
“You’re careless, Kayano. I don’t think you’ve ever stopped and thought before,” Amane replied, mystery lacing her voice.
Mikoto mocked the offense on his face, “What do you mean Amane-chan? I’m an adult! Of course I stop and think before making big decisions!”
“I’ve seen him. The other ‘you’. You haven’t ever stopped and thought once to think that maybe he is real,” Amane explained, looking up at Mikoto in selfish curiosity.
“He isn’t! I swear, the vaping makes me act weird sometimes, I-“ Mikoto tried to make up excuses but Amane shushed him.
“He was down here last night with me. I don’t mind him, although he seems to think I’m a bad influence on you, which is disgusting and sinful, but he does care about you. And I think if you take my guidance, I might be able to help you be forgiven, and let you get rid of him,” Amane said, grabbing onto Mikoto’s hands, “let me help you, Kayano-senpai. You’re a good man.”
Mikoto carefully slid his hands under and away from her grasp and smiled nervously, now tightly gripping the handle on the coffee mug, “I think I’m doing fine, but thank you for the offer, Amane-chan.”
“I know you’ll come around. I think ‘he’ wants to help you, and he knows I can help you, Kayano-senpai,” Amane said with a trusting grin, truly believing she’ll be able to do it. Mikoto knew she wouldn’t be able to do it though, and he almost gave in just so she could be happy.
But Mikoto Kayano doesn’t really need his life being completely controlled again, right?
~~~~~~~~
“Woah- Kajiyama-kun!” Mikoto exclaimed as he walked up to Fuuta Kajiyama’s cell, watching him play a video game, “How the hell did you convince Es-kun to get you this!?
Fuuta paused his video game, grunted, and looked up annoyed at Mikoto for interrupting his game, “I didn’t. I figured if we have outlets in our rooms, I can charge up a device, and maybe some games will work without Wi-Fi on the switch. Turns out I’m right,” Fuuta summarized, showing off the Nintendo switch in his hand, “I asked Yuno to get it for me, and she agreed to do it if it would help me not scream in the middle of the night, and it worked.”
“Kajiyama-kun, why were you screaming in the middle of the night!?” Mikoto exclaimed, looking a bit worried for Fuuta.
“You know, the voices. I’m pretty sure you hear them too right? Or when you’re trying to tear out of your locked cell, since Es made sure your cells were locked during curfew,” Fuuta explained.
“I hear the voices, but I-I never did that though…?” Mikoto looked at Fuuta, confused.
“The ‘other’ you did it or some shit? Momose was telling me all about how she thinks you’ve got a double personality or something, and that she could help you overcome it,” Fuuta gave Mikoto a look, “you still haven’t admitted it already?”
“I’ve been telling you guys, the vaping,” Mikoto chuckled, “it’s weird stuff, I tell you.”
“Bullshit, everyone knows you don’t switch personality from vaping, dumbass,” Fuuta criticized, “You need to stop lying to yourself and just admit he’s real. It will make you feel better, or something.”
“I could say the same for you Fuuta,” Mikoto fired back angrily but then changed into a more pleasant, reserved expression, “You always talk about how you’re so innocent but you always reject the fact that maybe it was your fault. And even if there was another me, and I murdered someone, it’s not my fault because… ‘I’ didn’t do it.”
“Chill out, Kayano-kun. It was only a suggestion,” Fuuta said, against his will becoming scared of Mikoto, cause usually when he’s angry, it’s his other half, “Uh… don’t take it to heart?”
“You’re really bad with apologies, Kajiyama-kun. You really need to practice,” Mikoto sang with that happy sing-songish tone he always did, and it was hard for Fuuta to believe Mikoto looked like he had been ready to kill him.
“Uh, yeah. I am,” Fuuta replied, slightly embarrassed, “but uh, Momose does help a lot, if you just ever wanted to go get help from her in general. She’s a really good kid.”
Mikoto smiled at Fuuta a bit, knowing he found faith in Amane Momose. While Mikoto himself found it very cultish, for someone like Fuuta, maybe it’s good he’s apart of a community, because before he started hanging around Amane, he was helpless.
“I’ll go talk to her one day,” Mikoto blatantly lied in the nicest of tones, but switched to the truth, “I can see it’s been helping you a lot. I’m proud of you for growing, Kajiyama-kun.”
“Oi!” Fuuta hollered, waving his fist in the air, “don’t be all sentimental like that!”
Mikoto snickered, “You don’t know how to take compliments either, Kajiyama-kun.”
Fuuta blushed in a mixture of anger in embarrassment, but he kept his mouth sealed and arms crossed, while Mikoto kept smiling.
Neither of the two spoke or even looked at each other for a while. The two boys being closest in age, you would think they might have something in common or be friends, but the truth is they rarely ever spoke to each other unless it ended up hostile, like this.
Neither of the two boys were comfortable with the silence between them either. While Fuuta was basically bedridden for a month (Mahiry for three, but hey who’s counting!?) after Kotoko’s attacks, Mikoto wanted to go and see him. When Fuuta sees Mikoto’s other half, raging on in the middle of the night, he does want to reach out and help.
But neither of them ever reached out to help, or ever reach out for help either.
“You wanna play Mario vs Donkey Kong with me?” Fuuta suggested, gesturing out the switch so Mikoto could see it, “you look like you need a break. Your eyebags are heavy.”
“I don’t know how to use a switch, Kajiyama-kun, but I appreciate the offer,” Mikoto stated awkwardly.
“Dude- it’s like- I think 2024 now! How do you not know how to use a switch!?” Fuuta bursted out in shock, but kept it on the down-low.
Mikoto laughed a bit at the sentiment, then down at Fuuta sitting on his bed, “I’m a busy adult Kajiyama-kun, with a job. I don’t play video games.”
“That’s fucking lame,” Fuuta rolled his eyes at him, “this is why I don’t wanna get a fucking job. In this country you work till you damn die.”
“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to once you get out of here and graduate college, so enjoy your youth now,” Mikoto replied, “it’s the one thing I wish I would’ve done more of.”
“Damn.”
“Say, you want to make a commitment to do more of something while we’re here? Maybe to develop a new skill, or read more?” Mikoto offered to Fuuta, his eyes bright night at the idea.
Fuuta didn’t think he’d ever seen Mikoto this passionate.
And Fuuta did really want to do more of something while he was here.
Deep down he wanted to accept himself for what he did.
“Sure,” Fuuta replied, “I want to be more active. I’ll get Amane to get a soccer ball from Es for me and I’ll play soccer,” Fuuta said, seeming genuine, but lying through his teeth. Fuuta knew he was just going to use his damn switch all day, but he didn’t wanna let Mikoto down.
Mikoto gave him a thumbs up, “I’m going to learn to crochet, knit, any of those kinds of things. Knitwear is in right now, and I know Mahiru knows how to sew. I just want to still be productive while I’m here.”
“Don’t overwork yourself like Kirisaki-kun,” Fuuta said to Mikoto, “he’s starting to look like a wreck.”
“I won’t- I think it’s hard for anyone to overwork themselves while in here since they’re out of a job or schooling, except for Shidou of course,” Mikoto assured Fuuta, starting to walk away from Fuuta’s cell and back to his own, “Don’t overwork yourself either though. We don’t need you tuning too much into the voices and getting all worked up that we scream in the middle of the night,” Mikoto chuckled, and as he was almost at the end of the hall he shouted to Fuuta, who was at least 20ft behind him now, “Am I right, Kajiyama-kun!?”
Fuuta threw his controller across the room, “Damn that fucking guy!”