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Never has Kazuichi seen anyone wash a dish like it owes them money. He almost wanted to take the poor thing away from her. Or him. Them? The imposter has refused to clarify what or even who she is, but, to him, she's totally a chick. She's shorter than him, still wearing that Byakuya-sized white suit, and some girls just have really thick eyebrows! The whole voice range thing is harder to explain, but it'd be as hard to explain for a guy, so, yeah. This imposter chick washing dishes alone in the dark is… not their trusted leader.
Byakuya personally reduced her to a nameless stranger. Because of everything else happening with Junko and the Future Foundation, Makoto forgot to warn her or anyone of his arrival before shit hit the fan and a domestic incident between twins broke out. Chiaki Jr. had to stop his ruthless dressing down of her, not because anyone else was on his side or anything, it was all just so hectic. Maybe the imposter didn't see it that way.
She voted for whatever everyone else voted for, got out of the pod and left before Kazuichi could figure out her hair colour. Once he saw her suffering through the same psych tests they put the rest of them through. Suffering because Byakuya was administering them, upon her request. After the Foundation left them with Chiaki Jr. and Alter Ego, she vanished again! Unless forced to show up by Mahiru, the only proof of her presence were the chores she completed without prompting. No one knows how to approach her and that kind of sucks, he thinks.
So, just to meet her, he had dinner extra late today. "Hey!"
"Evening…" she says, meek as Mikan, and puts her hand out for his dirty dish. "How are you?"
"As good as I can be, you?" Frowning at the dish he handed her, she shrugs.
Damn. And he thought Mahiru was hard to talk to! At least he didn't scare her off this time. Not yet. "So… You know your talent?"
"I'm acquainted." Score! Every other time he brought it up, she shut him down.
"Can you teach me?"
She grimaces like she got a whiff of his jumpsuit (which really wasn't as dirty as everyone made it out to be). "Why?"
"Well, I want to impress Miss Sonia when she wakes up." If she does.
Makoto said their only hope was awakening Hajime. Nagito corrected him, they'd be awakening Izuru, not Hajime. No one liked that. No one likes Nagito; he might've kept everyone alive better than the imposter could, but he's still a creep! Point is, the AI are working on it, scrounging up and pulling apart whatever's left of AI Junko. And what were the survivors doing? Waiting and hoping.
Kazuichi isn't one to use fancy words to describe anything, but Mikan called it a 'hellish purgatory' during one of her daily breakdowns, and he could see where she's coming from. As selfish as it is to think, nothing except for the simulation felt real anymore. Miss Sonia's execution stood tall against the influx of memories of the two of them taking delight in the comparable deaths and tortures of innocents. That man was not him. How could it be him? The real Kazuichi's just some dorky guy who could never be good enough for a princess. Look at him and tell him he looks like a terrorist!
The imposter, on the other hand… Heating the water running down her hands with her glare alone, she says, "You don't."
"I don't… Huh? What do I not—"
She slams the dish into drying rack. "Shut up."
"Okay." Somehow, he suppressed a yelp. See, that wouldn't have happened if Mikan just let him build a dishwasher out of their pods. Sure, it would've had wheels and an engine, but all good dishwashers should. "What did it do to you?"
Pinching the bridge of her nose, the imposter picks up another dirty dish and fills it with water. "I'm sorry, never mind."
"Why are you saying sorry to Miss Sonia—" Before she can lob the dish at him, he cries, "Joke! That was a joke! Ha hah, funny!"
Shaking her head, she snatches the sponge. Did he hit a nerve…? God, why are women so confusing? Maybe she's jealous? She used to act like she was super rich and blonde. Kazuichi leans on the fridge like it's a wall and asks, "But, uh… why do you dislike her?"
"I don't. It's about you." Wait, she couldn't be jealous over him?! "What's with this dumbass reaction? You're annoying."
That stung, but he shut his mouth before he could put his foot in it. Life with Nagito has trained him well. Pursing his lips, he says, "That's why I'm asking you to teach me. If I could just become someone else, I wouldn't be annoying anymore, right?"
"No."
"The hell you mean no?"
"I mean no, but I guess that word isn't in your vocabulary." She scours the dish until it's clean, then keeps going. "So let me put it this way: Sonia is never going to like you. Talk to me when you have a better reason to change yourself."
Although he expected a betrayal, the imposter already got hers with the whole Togami thing! Just because he forgives her, doesn't mean she gets a do over! "That's not what you said as Togami! You told me I need to 'be myself' and she'd turn around! And she didn't! So—"
"So let it go."
"No!" That one was a little too loud, so he brings his volume down like a kid that just yelled at his mum. "No… Look, imposter, I don't know why we're not cool anymore, but—"
"You don't?"
"I don't! Should I know?" She stares at him, no longer scrubbing or washing the dish. "Anyway, what's so wrong about telling me?"
"Everything."
"Could you be less specific?!"
"If I start going down the list of obvious flaws, you're going to argue against each and every one, and, boom, we're here all night."
"I swear I'm not going to do that."
"Oh, yeah?" Keeping her hands in the sink, she turns to him. "I'll bite. If I teach you how to impersonate others and you use that to woo your Miss Sonia, you'll spend the rest of your life pretending to be someone else."
"Well, I don't know about that… I mean, look, you didn't have to keep pretending you're—"
"I said let it go!" she yells, splashing him. The dish, clenched by her side like she is going to swing at him, drips soapy water on to the floor. "See?! There's no way I can fix someone so… so you."
"H-Hey!" He wipes his cheek with a wet sleeve. "Since when are you this mean?!"
"Since always!"
"Not since always! You used to be nice and cool and shit to me!" He points.
"Why can't you get with the program?" She swats his finger away with the dish. "I was lying. Do you think I was being 'nice and cool and shit' by lying to you?"
"Yeah, because you had a good reason! You must've!"
She laughs, her voice a deep rumble, and bellows, "You don't KNOW me!"
The dish shatters. Fragments fly across the floor; some hit the counter, others slow to a halt by their feet. Stuck in time, the imposter keeps her eyes on him. Until she lets out a shaky sigh.
"So don't… " she mutters, turning away, "Just stop acting like you do."
God, she's scary, but Kazuichi's never seen anyone look so damn guilty over a broken dish. Even Mikan did not get this sombre.
Wait! He can't let her cry… But he's terrible at comforting girls! "Hey, it's okay, we can fix it—"
"What's the point?"
"Uh… to have it fixed? Look, we can build it back and better, like… what's it called…" He hits his palm. "Kintsurugi!"
"Kintsugi."
"That!"
"It won't be the same." As she opens the closet, her hands shake and Kazuichi knows it is too late. "Just forget about all this."
"That's gonna be a bit difficult." He crouches and collects the fragments before she can grab the broom.
The imposter hisses, "Kazuichi!"
"What?!" To her sputtering horror, he scoops the rest up on his forearms and stands. "It's fine! It's just a dish, we can fix it."
"That's not…"
"Just tell me what I said wrong, then."
She stares through him.
"What?"
"Nothing. You didn't say anything wrong."
"How dense do you think I am?! If it's, like, your period, I'd rather know than think I did something to make you mad."
"My… what?"
Kazuichi drops the fragments onto the counter and arranges them with his index fingers. Oh, this one kind of looks like handlebars. Could he make an engine that small? All his frustrations fade away as he starts constructing a ceramic motorbike.
"I thought I was nothing." Kazuichi jumps. Right, right, the imposter. "All I've ever wanted was to be someone. So hearing you— Hearing you want to throw something so precious away over a crush…"
"But you are someone?" She made a really smart guy, and you need smarts to fake smarts.
"That's the problem. I am someone, someone who'd…" She rubs her forehead, letting out an agitated huff. "I was no one and then I was…"
Oh, this was about the Remnants of Despair. Well, it wasn't really their fault, was it? Did Nagito's weird ramblings about hope and despair get to her? Or was she like Mikan, begging Chiaki Jr. to forgive her for ruining an incomprehensible amount of lives? Sometimes it felt like only Mahiru and Kazuichi could cope like normal people… By crying and breaking furniture with wrenches. And making little motorbikes.
Actually, she did totally have a fling with that Ryota guy, didn't she? Right, that guy! He exists! Existed? She must be so heartbroken about the whole impersonating him thing ending like this… so she's lashing out at Kazuichi because of his love for Miss Sonia! Hah, he gets it, he's been driving everyone up the wall by talking about her all the time.
Hold on. The imposter hasn't mentioned her fling once! Dammit, what's the problem?!
Kazuichi rolls one of the fragments between his fingers. Chiaki Jr. once told him to turn his thinking around and consider why Miss Sonia did what she did. The imposter does a lot of weird shit, but maybe he could get to the bottom of it.
Despite spending an eternity thinking, he speaks before he comes to a conclusion. "I get it, you know?"
She opens her eyes just enough to see him. "You do?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do. I guess— Gwah!" He nicks himself the fragment. Shaking his hand out and her warnings off, he continues, "Sometimes when you fall, life keeps you down and, no matter how hard you push, it just won't let you get up! People start walking all over you like you're dirt… Until you kind of accept that's who you are. Dirt. So people walk over you even more."
The ceramic motorbike would need glue to stay together. Not the most structurally sound of his builds, but it was a dish. The motordish? He could totally get this baby running, after cleaning off the blood and getting it some better wheels. "Here's the thing, though, if you stop acting like dirt, they'll stop, too. Well, some of them, but no matter who you become, you can't actually abandon what you were. That new you is made out of the dirt you, so you'll still feel like dirt... But you're not. Or something like… that? Like, the new you doesn't come from nowhere, it needs— you… uh…"
The imposter has been rummaging through her pockets a bit too long for comfort.
"Uh, what—" She grabs him by the wrist. "Hey!"
Shushing him, the imposter wraps a white cloth around his finger. Although she sniffles, she's not crying. Did he…? Did he say something right?
"I'll get Mikan in a minute, but…" She sets his hand down. "Thank you. I really didn't expect to hear anything like that from you."
Before he can touch another fragment, she pins his arm flat on the counter and says, "Before resorting to changing for Sonia, try showing her this side of yourself."
"What, the talking side? Do ladies like that?" The imposter seems to like it and, even if she isn't a chick, she probably knows chicks well… Her Byakuya had a certain charisma to him. If Kazuichi was a chick, he totally would've given him a chance. He lights up with a toothy grin. "Good idea!"
The imposter chuckles. What was so funny about that?