Work Text:
Time passes slowly.
Kyoko pulls at her new gloves. She flexes her fingers. As she grows older, her body changes, and her hands expand. Her fingers lengthen, stretching at the scarred skin that already seems so small. The layers of scars crisscross over each other, and so much of her hands feel like pins and needles, like sitting in the same position so long that they’ve grown numb and are just trying to find feeling again – the numb is easier than the pain, than the pins and needles. The gloves cover them from view, but the sensations make sure that she never forgets.
As if she could.
There’s no one around to thank. She’s paid well for her detective services, and she buys her own gloves as she needs them. They’re expensive, tailored just to the shape of her hands, and despite what other people might believe (or what other, more sensible people might do), she keeps each of the sets she’s outgrown, even if she’ll never be able to wear them again. It’s like some people might keep pictures of themselves throughout the years or some of the clothes they’ve outgrown to remember those who made them. She keeps her gloves. The few sets of them she has.
Kyoko pulls at her new gloves, flexes her fingers, and looks at herself in the mirror. She runs her fingers along the length of her single black ribbon, holding her singular braid in like a promise.
The regret never goes away.
Especially not on a day like today.
Kyoko keeps herself busy.
Or she tries.
In fact, Kyoko spends most of her day with Yadogiri, investigating another one of his leads, while Tsukiyo and Nazuna go through the endless paperwork that Yadogiri’s weak eyes have a hard time reading. Sometimes, it feels like the girls stay late just so that she won’t be alone with Yadogiri – or maybe so that he won’t be alone with her. Tsukiyo never really forgave her for her reaction (or lack thereof) when they told her about Yui’s death.
But she’s not thinking about that.
The problem with investigating a lead is that the work doesn’t require the long hours that actually chasing down one of the last members of the Crime Victims’ Relief Committee does, and Yadogiri sends her away when the sun only just begins to set. He can only look at so much. That just means Kyoko makes her way to the Detective Library and does her own, separate research.
It’s a distraction. She knows that. But it’s an intentional and intentionally welcome one.
So she doesn’t acknowledge it.
It’s well past dark when Kyoko makes her way back to the dorms. Her father The headmaster doesn’t mind that she spends most of her time off-campus; Hope’s Peak doesn’t require any of them to go to classes, so long as they can prove later that they’ve made some sort of improvement in their skills. It’s not really a school; it might be accredited as such, but they aren’t taught anything. They’re just pretty little pieces situated on the pretty little cake that is Hope’s Peak. The school gets just as much power from their going there as they do. It’s parasitic in nature.
Kyoko hates it here.
Which is why she spends the vast majority of her time somewhere else.
But when she makes it back, Kyoko finds a not-quite-unwelcome presence leaning up against the wall, a box of some sort of food in one hand, chopsticks in the other. As she approaches, she smells chocolate and notes the dark square shape before the other girl pops it into her mouth. She doesn’t groan – because she doesn’t care – but her voice is tight when she says, “What do you want, Junko?”
“Noticed you were gone all day. Figured something might be bothering you.” Junko holds the box of chocolates out to her. There’s torn wrapping paper all over it. “This was hanging on your doorknob. From our esteemed headmaster! It’s your birthday?”
Now Kyoko groans.
Junko grins, smug. “You don’t mind me eating it, right? Thought you hated your old man about as much as I hate mine.”
“Go right ahead.” Kyoko fiddles with her lock, only for Junko to nudge her as she opens the door. “What?”
“You hate your birthday, too, huh.”
Kyoko doesn’t say anything. Her birthday is just another reminder of the other person who should be here with her. She resists the urge to run her fingers along her black ribbon again. “Can we not talk about this?”
Junko shrugs. “Sure.” She picks a piece of chocolate up and holds it between her fingertips, sharp red nails leaving half-moon imprints in its surface. (It looks better this way – fancier – although Kyoko won’t say that.) “Your gloves look new.” She pops the chocolate between her lips and speaks around it when she takes one of Kyoko’s hands in her own, running her fingers along it. “The fabric’s kind of shitty, but—”
“Thank you, Junko.” Kyoko snatches her hand back out of Junko’s.
“Sorry,” Junko hums in a sing-song. She nods at her. “I could make better ones. Specially designed just for you. And your job. And your—” She gestures at her. “Whatever.”
Kyoko ignores her. “Enjoy your chocolates.” She slips into her room, shuts her door behind her, and leans hard against it. Maybe she can fool herself into thinking she’ll apologize to Junko tomorrow, if she thinks about it long enough; maybe this time the lie will stick.
(It doesn’t, but she doesn’t put forth much of an effort.)
The knock on Kyoko’s door comes early in the morning – earlier than she expected any of her classmates to be awake, other than perhaps Hina or Sakura – and she answers it fully dressed and on her way out. There’s no one there, only a box tied with a ribbon as black as the one tied about her braid. She grits her teeth together and unwraps it on the way out, on the way to meet with Yadogiri.
Ah.
Her lips curve in the smallest hint of a smile that she hasn’t worn it what feels like years.
(Kyoko finds out later that Junko stayed up all night to make the gloves.
When she asks how Junko got her precise measurements, Junko just winks at her. “Ultimate Fashionista, baby.” Then she yawns.
They fit perfectly.
The smile is thanks enough.)