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“W- Wait Mai!” Chiba yelled, huffing a bit. Mai was walking pretty quickly around the floor and it was hard for the other two to keep up.
“Y- Yeah Hayashi! W- We need a second to breathe!” Wada sputtered out, putting his hands on his knees and taking generous gulps of air.
Mai turned around to face the other two (well more like look down at them, they were considerably shorter than her) and grumbled a bit. 'Why did Sasaki go back downstairs and leave me with Wada.. and why did Chiba even come along? Ugh- well if he is dead we need three people anyway.'
“We need to find Shigeki. Now.” She shouted, looking at the lucky student and matchmaker with slight rage. She wasn’t going to wait here, for them to ‘breathe’, they needed to find him. Quickly.
Mai angrily stomped into the playground, she wasn’t having any of this ‘waiting around’ nonsense. They needed to find Yanagi, and they couldn’t just be sitting in place just hoping he wasn’t hurt.
They needed to find out where he was, even if that meant pushing the other two aside and running into the final room, the very last room they hadn’t checked, even if that meant ignoring Chiba’s worried pleas, or Wada’s requests to “wait a little bit”. They had to check, they needed to find Yana-
Creeaaakkk...
. . .
Flicker Flicker...
. . .
[ Ding Dong Bing Bong !!! ]
[ A BODY HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!!! ]
His body swung lightly from the playground swing, two feet above the ground. The once always polite and well mannered boy nothing more than a cold corpse with no sparks of life left in him. Almost taunting him. A well mannered man hanging from a childish thing like a swing.
The Yanagi who wanted to “make all the ladies pretty”, the Yanagi who wanted to be a ‘kinder’ person, the Yanagi who wanted to be better than what his secret painted him out to be. Dead. Those bright blue eyes of his forever closed, a forever sleep, as they call it.
Chiba screamed, a blood curling scream at that. Wada started hyperventilating, panic slowly seeping in. Masanari. Wasn’t he an avid fan of Isono’s speeches? He was one of the first people to find her body last time, he was basically paralyzed the whole trial, right? And now he’s found a second body. Awful luck he has. Probably why he’s the Ultimate Lucky Student.
And Airi, poor poor Airi. She seemed to be traumatized by the idea of finding a body. Her eyes perfectly portrayed that. She looked like she was at the brink of tears at the mear thought of Yanagi being dead, and now putting the fact he was actually dead on top of that-
Yanagi was actually dead.
Mai didn’t want to admit he was actually dead. Even though this was a killing game, even though people were bound to die here, it was naïve to think no one wasn’t going to die, but she didn’t want to think the man that was crying, no, sobbing in her arms last night was dead today. If that was allowed.
Mai walked over to the body and put a hand on Yanagi’s cheek. Cold. Ice cold. Like his once icy blue eyes that’ll never see another day again. His smooth voice will never utter a word again. His polite personality that’ll never meet another person again. He’ll never ever be able to see if he could leave this place alive, to see if he could be better than the people he hated the most.
[ EVERYONE PLEASE COME TO THE PLAYGROUND TO INVESTIGATE! ]
The others started filing into the playground, some screaming in fear, some trying to just figure out what even happened. All their words became one muddled mess in Hayashi’s mind. All just one distorted voice to her.
She wasn’t supposed to become attached, no. She wasn’t going to let another person get close to her, and then hurt her. She wasn’t going to let that happen again. She learned from the first time. They hurt her. She killed them. She wasn’t supposed to let that happen again yet-
… yet..
…
“I don’t want to be like them, Mai!” Yanagi cried, hiding his face with his hands. A pathetic attempt to shield his tears away from a “wonderful lady” like Mai. Honestly, Mai didn’t care if he cried.
“I- I don’t want to be awful people like them- r- really. I-” He hiccuped, falling onto his knees, onto the cold, hard, dress-up room floor. Shaking and sniffling on the floor like a little baby.
Yanagi dragged Mai in here so he could see what outfits would fit her “pretty face”, but she saw this as the perfect opportunity to confront Yanagi about his secret. She received his, after all. And confronting other about them would probably be best.
“Your family fell apart due to alcoholism and domestic abuse, you’re just like them. Just as awful as they are.”
She didn’t think he’d have such a strong reaction to that. It started out with a bit of a shock, an awkward chuckle asking if she was serious about that. Mai, shrugging, said it really was his secret. Then came a bit more of a… drastic thing. He kept mumbling about how that couldn’t be his secret. About how he couldn’t be bad like them . He didn’t want to even think about it, about how he was related to them.
Mai sighed, sitting down next to Yanagi with a small smile. A calm one. Taking his hands into her own and looking into his icy blue eyes, now red with tears.
“You’re not like them, Shigeki. You’re not a bad person like they are. You’re- trying to be better. And that takes a lot of effort.” ‘Good job, Yanagi. You’re not a shithead.’ is what she wanted to say, but that’d probably be too inappropriate to say here. Yanagi’s crying slowed a bit, but it was still there.
“And- it sucks that happened to your family, but it’s not your fault that happened. It’s theirs. They’re in the wrong here, not you.” She continued, her voice a bit softer than it’s normally loud state.
“I- .. I-” He tried to choke something out, but all he was able to achieve were soft, shaky breaths and barely audible words. He gripped onto the other’s hands tighter and shook more before falling into the others chest and just crying his eyes out.
“You don’t have to talk, Yanagi.” Mai hummed after overcoming the initial shock of Yanagi crying in her arms, looking at Yanagi with a bit of compassion.
“... m’ sorry-” Yanagi blurted out. Mai blinked a few times in confusion. Yanagi, sensing this, shook his head quickly and took one of his hands out of Mai’s grasp and wiped the hot tears off his face. Sitting up on his own now.
“I- I’m sorry, Miss Hayashi. Y- You shouldn’t h- have to be doing this. I- It’s a mans job to comfort a- a wonderful lady like y-” And there he goes on that little rant, Mai scoffed and interrupted him half way through it. (Mostly so she didn’t have to listen to him say all that stuff he always did.)
“Yana- Shigeki. Listen. The stuff your saying, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a ‘mans’ job or whatever. I’m trying to help you, alright?” Mai mumbled, calmly. Yanagi looked at her with a bit of confusion, before nodding slowly.
“O- Ok… th- thank you, Miss Hayashi.” He muttered quietly, like his voice was trying to hide itself. Mai bit back another scoff and rolled her eyes.
“It’s just Hayashi, you know. No need for formalities.” She chuckled, Yanagi shaking his head in retaliation.
“Oh but I must! A- And as a token of my gratitude, I devote myself to knightly duties! To protect you!” He beamed, grabbing Mai’s hands again with a grin.
“Psh, you protect me? I don’t need that. But thanks for the sentiment.” Mai shrugged.
“I’ll do my very best! I’ll make sure the both of us make it out of here! And if not, at least you get out of here!”
“Mhm, sure.”
That was the last conversation they had. Mai left to go to bed while Yanagi stayed behind.
If… she had stayed with him a bit longer. Would he have died?
Is that her fault?
Her fault he di-
“-yashi? Hayashi?” A voice called out. Mai blinked a few times before looking at the origin of the voice. Ah. Kamimura.
“Oh- did you need somethin’ from me?” Mai backed away from the body, blinking a few times while shaking her head. She shouldn’t be thinking about that. He was gone. It wasn’t worth thinking about.
“You’ve been zoned out for a bit. Gettin’ worried. But you fine n’ shit, I guess.” Kazutoshi shrugged. Mai looked around, everyone else was investigating the room. The only people not present were…
“Where are Ojima, Hiroaki, and Chiba?” Mai asked. The former two she hadn’t seen before but- Airi was here before. Did she run out or something?
“Those three wanted to investigate other things.” Kazutoshi sighed, adjusting the gloves he was wearing. “Don’t blame them.”
Ah. So Airi probably did run out.
“Oh. I see.” Mai mumbled, looking back up at the plastic surgeon before shaking her head again.
“Well, do we have anythin’? Any leads?”
“Nope.” Kazutoshi sighed, popping the ‘p’ in nope.
“Well shit. Guess we gotta figure it out in the trial again.” Mai sighed. Another trial. Again. With all the stuff that happened only 3 days ago…
“Yeep.” Kazutoshi shrugged. “I’m gonna go check somethin’ out real quick. Be back.” And with that, he left.
So everyone else was still there, investigating the whole playground. Mai looked at the body one last time. He won’t be able to make it out. He won’t ever be able to prove to himself he wasn’t as bad as his family.
And that wasn’t fair -
“... Sorry, Shigeki.”
Mai muttered under her breath.
“I’m so sorry.”