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It wasn’t real.
None of Darumi's life before that school had ever existed. It was all a program. They gave her that. Someone intentionally fitted Darumi with memories of being beaten, forced to sleep outside, treated as subhuman. Her life had been hell, and it wasn’t even real.
The people who explain this to them all wear faces of sympathy, that don’t match the fact that they are responsible. And they speak so disapprovingly about the fact they derailed the Exodus Project. Darumi is honestly so pissed at them she can’t even make a stupid joke. ”We understand you have been through a lot. We couldn’t anticipate the killing game. So we’d like to offer a proposal. If you’d like, we could provide the funds you need for your housing. If you’re willing to go back and continue fighting.”
Nozomi spits in the face of the one who said that on their behalf.
Takumi and Tsubasa are devastated at the reveal that their lives weren’t real. Yugamu claims to be relieved that at least he didn’t kill as many people as he spent so long believing.
Darumi should feel like that right? Relieved? She doesn’t have a father who beats her and will come looking for her after everything. So that’s good.
She doesn’t feel good.
Things do start to get better. The Undying Flames Boy is able to convince the Exodus Project to give them some money to survive, as reparations for what the war had put them through. Not as huge a payout as if they let the genocide happen of course. The war is continuing, and it’s made explicitly clear that if the Special Defense Unit wants to continue being provided to, they won’t tell anyone about what is happening outside the TRC. Forged documents are provided to help them get jobs, and all of them get one to three- well except for the twins. Ima is insistent he go back to work- even if it was fake he can handle it. But Kako screams at him and forbids it and for a while a good chunk of the money they make goes to them. Undying Flames Boy at least manages to convince the Exodus Project that the youngest ones deserve extra compensation. Especially with what was put in their heads to give them motivation.
The apartment that Darumi shares with Tsubasa Yugamu and Takumi is small and crappy but every time Darumi comes back to it, it’s a relief. As silly as it is, she’s happy that Danganronpa is real. The one small joy in her life is more real than the less savory memories of her past, and she gets to cuddle with Mistress Tsubasa, showing her her favorite moments. Times like that are good.
Other times- times where they’re just gathered together for movie night, and didn’t anticipate that the film would give one of them a panic attack are less good.
Nozomi takes care of Kahmyun, and at their house is a makeshift graveyard. The corpses of everyone who died in their time at the school are back on Futurum, but they’ve made this place to honor each of them. Every grave is laden with gifts and flowers all thoughtful presents to former friends.
Well, all except one.
Darumi remembers the massive explosive argument of whether Eito should get a grave in the first place. Considering he was behind at least a chunk of the graves back there, Takumi becoming a mass murderer, and also just being a general dick, it was pretty debatable if anyone would want to mourn him. Mistress Tsubasa insisted that Takumi shouldn’t keep beating himself up over someone like that, and giving him a grave would make him feel worse, but Takumi insisted that it was still a mistake to kill him on day 2, and it’s not like he could hurt them further as a sign on the ground.
In the end, Takumi won out, and as far as Darumi knows, he’s the only one who goes near that grave. Granted sometimes he’ll be there with Yugamu, but the false assassin is never there alone.
The grave Darumi most frequents is much more well loved. Mistress Hiruko has an epitaph describing her as a hero, who gave her life to try and stop the game, however temporarily. It’s fitting, Darumi thinks. Mistress Hiruko was a real life superhero, who did so much for Darumi. She just… she wishes that she could be here now.
Nozomi has invited a woman she’s known since childhood to her house, to make her signature egg rolls, and a full course meal to go with it. The story they’ve used is that Nozomi met the rest of them at school and became friends and Kahmyun is just an elementary age child whose parents aren’t around often. It’s the most any of them have eaten in weeks and it’s fun, and the woman even laughs at the twins concoctions.
Then Takumi calls the woman ‘mom’ and has to excuse himself. She insists that it’s fine, that she finds it charming but she doesn’t understand. She can’t understand.
Darumi sometimes wonders if anyone can understand her.
It’s nice of course. Mistress Tsubasa is a good person. She says she’ll stay at Darumis side, won’t be chased away. It’s the kind of relationship she only dreamed of in those false memories of hers. And yet the memories are still there. She started acting the way she did because it was easier to be hated. She figured her life was a void nobody should get involved in. But it wasn’t her real life. Every bit of it was carefully manufactured making her afraid to let people in to a her that didn’t exist. Waiting for the day it ended.
She was made to kill herself. She was a disposable soldier meant to kamikaze bomb herself, so nobody would care.
Her and Yugamu sit together sometimes recounting their terrible memories. Going ‘Hey wow evil scientists was it necessary to put that there.’ Is a little therapeutic. She’s also tried to laugh about how funny it is that she was programmed with extensive knowledge on the killing game genre, but Yugamu says that he doesn’t really want to talk about that. Darumi quickly apologizes in a tone so frantic it hardly even sounds like herself. Maybe she is a different person now.
Her life finally started in a killing game. She would have been elated to know that before. Maybe a little dissapointed she didn’t die there but beginning a new life after a despairful game of death? It would have been her dream before.
She’s still a little disappointed she didn’t die to be honest.
The grave Takumi is kneeling at today is Takemarus. Usually that one is most frequented by the twins but Darumi can see him placing a flower there.
“Hey, what’s up?” Darumi asks coming up behind him “Just so you know, me and Mistress Tsubasa were making out sooooooo much just now and you weren’t.”
Takumi is less easy to get a rise out of nowadays. He used to get real pissed when she brought up that Tsubasa had two hands. But today, he stands up and sighs.
“Did you do the grocery shopping?” He asks “It’s your turn you know.”
Urk- she did not remember that actually.
“Weeeell, I’m waiting for some limited edition real human meat comes out on the shelves!” She exclaims “I haven’t seen plans for it, but any day now, someone’s gonna-“
“So you haven’t.” He sighs “Then let’s go. You can come with.”
“Ahahaha! You fell for my trap, noob!” Darumi pokes him “Now you’re doing my chores for me!”
“Well…” Takumis voice rises a little bit “Since I’m here, I’ll be putting more of our money into real food instead of snacks.”
“What? Nooooooooo!” Darumi protests clinging on to Takumi “I promise to do my own shopping next time, just don’t let me live without my sour yum yums!”
She catches something on Takumi’s face. A grin. He quickly surpresses it but Darumi spots it. Huh. She just made somebody grin. She never thought she could do that. It’s… nice.
Doesn’t stop her from drawing on Takumis face when he’s sleeping that night.
Mistress Tsubasa has upgraded their tv. Way more channels and they don’t even have to pay for cable!
“Isn’t that illegal?” Takumi asks.
“We’re war criminals Takumi.” Yugamu retorts.
And so they get Nozomi and the twins over, to watch a marathon of Kakos favorite detective show. In their memories, Kako could only dream to see a detective on TV when Ima hardly made enough for the two of them to eat. Ima shouts at everyone to stand up and clap whenever Kako figures out the mystery ahead of time, until Tsubasa finally shuts him up by asking him to make the next batch of popcorn. That’s how their next bowl comes covered in hot sauce, marshmallows, and the truffles Yugamu had been saving for a ‘very special occasion.’
Yugamu takes it in stride, honestly, Darumi would have pitched a fit. Although then again he does seem to be happy just for the opportunity to cuddle up to Takumi and ask for his comfort.
“Alright, keep it in your pants around the twins.” Takumi sighs “I’ll… make it up to you later.”
“Wow… I love yaoi!” Darumi cheers.
“Don’t make it weird!”
“Yugamu is there.” Tsubasa snickers “It’s already weird.”
Darumi looks in the mirror one day seeing the last of the blue in her hair coming out. She tried to keep up with dyeing it since they got home. Yugamu had fully let his roots grow out, saying he wanted to separate himself from the killer in his memories but Darumi… Darumi tried. But money was always tight, and good dye was expensive and… well.
“Mistress Tsubasa.” She comes into her room “Can you cut my hair short?”
“Wait. Where is this coming from?” Tsubasa asks “You’ve never said you want it to be short before.”
“I knooooow. But…” she collapses onto the bed next to her. It creaks under the sudden weight. “I feel like I gotta cut off all that baggage if I wanna keep going. Like Yugamu! Somehow the guy who was a serial killer in our memories is doing healthier than me! I can’t lose like that!”
“Alright but… are you sure? I know looking like Junko Enoshima means a lot to you.”
It is. Mistress Tsubasa had picked up on the twin tails matching her favorite killing game host when she showed her the game. It was nice being recognized like that. It was nice to be loved.
“And that’s why I don’t need em anymore.” She says “Because I have mistress Tsubasa!”
They wait a few days after that so Tsubasa can check if Darumi is sure about this, but soon, they’re in front of a mirror. Darumi always cut her hair herself in her memories. Her family were all the kind of people you couldn’t really trust with taking a pair of scissors to your head and while she could theoretically go out and see a barber, buying new video games would always win out over going out in public.
But Tsubasa is careful, even if she clearly has no clue what she’s doing. She’ll stop sometimes asking if she’s doing well, and stating the obvious fact that she has never done this before. Of course a normie like her is more familiar with barber shops. But eventually, Darumi looks in the mirror to short choppy hair, done unevenly, a travesty to look at.
“I-I’m really sorry.” Tsubasa apologizes “It’s not the most-“
“I love it.” Darumi whispers. And she does. Tsubasa is still modest, because well, it is a crap job but Darumi loves it because it’s her. It’s not those memories implanted into her of going out for compensated dating, it is Darumi Amemiya, survivor of a killing game and member of a rocking polycule.
Yugamu compliments the unique style when they get home and Takumi… well he’s clearly lying what he thinks for Tsubasas sake, which she instantly clocks. But he gets a smooch for trying to be nice.
“Bare minimum achieved!” Darumi cackles.
“It was your turn to clean the house this week.” Takumi fires back “Wanna explain why the cleaning supplies haven’t been touched?”
Darumi whines saying that Takumi is bullying her, and they all eat the takeout Yugamu brought them. And they all gang up on Takumi since well, he’s an easy target. And Darumi can see it. All of them smiling. Even herself.
And it’s good for once. To be alive.