Work Text:
Addiction; Noun
: a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence.
If anyone acted out the living demonstrationg of addiction in MILGRAM, it was Fuuta Kajiyama. Ever since stepping in the door, he was anxious. irritable. sick. And no one could pinpoint why. On the outside, he looked like your average, everyday college student, donning a hoodie, sweatpants, messy hair, and stress-induced eyebags. However, the inside hid something deeper than what he showed, and it slipped through his brain to his blood with every passing day.
3:27 AM. Tuesday. 3 months and 4 days since MILGRAM.
Fuuta’s arm was stretched out, hand twitching. He glared at it with an eye, palm clenched as he mimicked the motion of scrolling with his thumb. He took pauses every few minutes to blink and rub his other eye, secured and hidden with a bandage.
He was desperate for stimulation. His face hurt, his entire body shot with pain, and his mind echoed with the repeating thoughts of his sins:
GUILTY.
GUILTY.
GUILTY.
He rolled over onto his back, placing his hands by his side. The ceiling was just as blank as everything else, void of colour, void of life. 3 months without internet should have been enough to recover, but it wasn’t. He could still see the pictures in his mind, the constant flashing of the screen as the blue light gave him a sense of euphoria.
Here, all he had to entertain him was his thoughts. He could go out and talk to the other prisoners, but the pain was still fresh in his mind. He was terrified enough to leave his room.
His isolated nature only piled on top of his craving for the screen.
Yuno would swing by to bring him food,
Shidou would perform daily check-ups, change out his bandages,
Kazui encourage him to rest,
but that was barely enough.
He knew what he did wrong. He knew what he did was wrong . He knew that he’d never do it again.
And, thus, he was conflicted. The screen brought him so much power and joy, but was the same reason he had killed someone. A middle school girl. He killed a middle school girl using his own device, and people cheered him on for it.
He rolled over again on his side, holding out his arm to mimic the same gesture from earlier. He envisioned the red-cased phone in his hand, almost hallucinating it. He could see the screen so clearly, and from there, the muscle memory kicked in.
Tap.
Passcode.
Tap.
Open.
Tap.
Scroll.
Scroll.
Scroll.
This went on for a straight five minutes. Just Fuuta, alone, scrolling endlessly on a phone that didn’t exist. He didn’t seem happy, rather, his unpatched eye was blank, fit with an expression, void. But inside, it gave him some sense of feeling. A glint of what he could remember. This was his life back then, after all.
Yet, as all things come to an end, so did the moment, and he was now laying face-down buried into a pillow. There was no phone. There was no internet.
He was offline.