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Sometimes Kirumi couldn't move.
Around the Rehabilitation Center the staff spoke in euphemisms. Her problems weren't the result of a disrupted brain-body connection reacting to her gruesome execution in the Danganronpa simulation, it was a bad day.
The nurses paraded in, cooing and simpering, each time it happened. The only thing soothing the sting were her fellow classmates' own complaints about the same treatment.
Well, perhaps they weren't classmates in reality, but the bond that existed between them had no better name. It really was a pity, as Gonta was due to wake up soon. Being on the welcoming committee, as labeled by Amami, made her feel useful.
Whether it was a script or not mattered little, because being useful was all she had.
She bore the ministrations of the nurses as well as she could, letting them help clean and feed her, and soon enough the two of them were fluttering out the door. Akamatsu popped in right after them, scrunching her nose as she dodged into the room.
Akamatsu had been a constant companion in the beginning. Both of them had been too awkward and guilty to address their victims, but craved friendship in the cold halls of the Rehabilitation Center.
Their conversations were almost daily now.
"Figured they'd be in here after you didn't show up for breakfast, my timing was almost right." She shuffled closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Everything, okay? Well, not okay, but—"
"I understand. It's the same as it's been every time…I cannot move, but the pain is limited."
That, at least, was a blessing. Akamatsu's throat had the tendency to spasm and Kirumi knew she suffered far more pain from that than Kirumi's temporary paralysis. As agonizing as it was to be so helpless, she'd never choked on air.
"I'm sorry," Akamatsu said, reaching and gently holding Kirumi's hand. Her sense of touch was dulled whenever her body flared up, but the pressure was welcome. "I just wish I could do something more…"
Kirumi would've shrugged if she could've. She settled for trying to make her expression as warm as possible.
"We're all going through it. Unfortunately, time is the only remedy we've been given."
"Which is totally crap. You'd think those jerks would've figured out something better now if it's really been fifty-three games. Why do we have to wait a year for their sim to wear off? What a bunch of nonsense—"
"I don't disagree."
"Sorry." Akamatsu frowned. "Again. I just get so mad. You don't deserve this."
The pressure on her hand increased. Akamatsu must have squeezed it. Kirumi longed to give a squeeze back, but her hand remained frustratingly immobile.
"Neither do you," Kirumi replied. "I appreciate it, regardless."
Before, Kirumi might've pushed back. Might've rejected that comfort and care. But time in the Rehabilitation Center had taught her to take the small efforts whenever possible. Her whole life was a fake, a fabricated story for the entertainment of who knew how many people.
What selfless devotion was left? She'd killed Hoshi for no real reason at all. She was the reason he sometimes gagged on water and couldn't breathe. She was the reason for her own powerlessness. Now she lived in limbo, unsettled and adrift.
Indulging in Akamatsu's comfort was selfish, but what had selflessness gotten her? This was the one thing she could allow herself, after everything. The singular bit of selfishness she could allow, after everything.
"No one else is having any problems today, so don't worry, okay?"
Angie and Chabashira had similar problems to herself. Akamatsu and Hoshi, who she still could not look in the eye, both had problems with swallowing. Amami's headaches were so bad they sent him into a dead faint and Shinguuji's sudden bout of frenzied faux-heatstroke wouldn't be soon forgotten.
Kirumi idly wondered just how badly Iruma and Gonta's afflictions would be.
It was good that she was the only one having trouble today, as awful as it was.
"Thank you."
Conversations with Akamatsu were easy; easier than in the game and easier than any Kirumi could remember. She updated Kirumi on the goings-on of the group, as though it had been days she'd missed and not mere hours.
"We should travel," Akamatsu said, changing the subject and tapping her other hand against her thigh. "Somewhere out of Japan. I have some fond memories of England and Austria, but who knows if those are applicable…"
"I find myself in a similar situation. My time in Brazil was interesting, but—"
"But, it's fake." She pouted. "That's why I think we should go and make our own memories. Go to all the places we were supposed to have been and rewrite them."
"That sounds…"
"It was Amami-kun's idea, but I really liked it. I think traveling in a group would be a little much, especially if Danganronpa really is as big as they keep trying to tell me, but you and me?" She smiled, blushing. "That would be great."
Kirumi thought about it. Her current condition would make travel difficult, but if Team Danganronpa were to be believed she'd have episodes like this less and less often until her brain realized her body wasn't, in fact, dead.
After that, though, she'd be free to travel without worry. She imagined going to the places she'd falsely been, maybe even to places the other her had gone, if she'd gone anywhere at all. There was an appeal to staying in Japan, even, though avoiding the over-saturation of Danganronpa wouldn't be as easy.
She could see herself a step behind a bouncing Akamatsu as she pointed out everything that caught her eye, sitting down to eat and trying things she'd only thought she tried, and coming back to a bed with Akamatsu—
Kirumi flushed. It was better not to think that far ahead.
But turning away from those thoughts only brought her to the darker ones that kept threatening to surface. Thinking about the future caused them to surge to the forefront of her mind, sticking and hardening like glue.
"I'm…not sure," she said, eventually. "Your idea sounds incredible."
"Amami-kun's, but thank you! Do you have anything you want to do? After we get out, of course?"
Traveling sounded marvelous. Eventually, though, that would end. She'd have to start her life right back up.
Kirumi was purposeless. Her life had been a lie, her wants, and desires all a lie. No one would be clamoring for the Ultimate Maid for her talent, they'd be wanting her like one would want a doll in a collection. The ultimate piece of Danganronpa merchandise.
It was hard to feel real with that hanging over her head. As if she hadn't lived at all—that this was some sort of purgatory. She could find another reason to live, but would she ever feel alive? Would she ever feel real again?
"I'm unsure," Kirumi said. "I suppose I'll just have to take it one day at a time. She attempted a smile.
Akamatsu frowned. "Are you sure you're okay? Not with this, but with…everything?"
The discontent must still be shining through. Kirumi let her face relax back into a frown. "Sometimes it's hard. To believe I'm here. That I'm alive. That there is an after."
"I think that's normal, after all that crap the simulation put us through."
"Perhaps. I just wish it were easier. To believe this is reality. That I didn't actually die."
"Yeah, I get you. Wish they'd let us outside, seeing the sun might make it all a little more believable."
Akamatsu sighed heavily. Even the windows here were tinted heavily.
"You aren't incorrect. The methods here are counterproductive." She let her eyes flutter closed for a moment. Akamatsu still held onto her, so it wasn't as terrible as waking up. Was it her purposelessness getting to her, or the unreality that faintly clung to everything since she'd woken?
"Here," Akamatsu suddenly said, sliding in beside Kirumi. "I've got you."
Her head rested on Kirumi's chest.
"I can hear your heart, you know? It's beating a little fast. That's proof that you're alive. That you're here."
Her hand gripped Kirumi's again and she gave a hard squeeze. Her position was awkward, her back bent in an odd configuration so that her head could rest where it was without jostling Kirumi. Her heart was undoubtedly beating faster, Akamatsu had the grace not to say anything.
"Thank you, Akamatsu-san."
"Call me Kaede, please."
Kirumi could feel her cheeks heat. "If that is your request—"
Akamatsu poked her cheek. "Do whatever you want, I'm just saying we're close enough now that I wouldn't mind."
"Kaede-san, then."
"Kirumi-san." Kaede giggled. "We'll figure it out, no matter how long it takes."
She readjusted herself so that she was lying beside Kirumi, her head propped up on Kirumi's shoulder.
"So, if it hurts too much to think about, then don't. After we get out of here, it's all an open road. The payments from the show are gonna last a while, we can play it by ear."
"I don't know what I'd do without you," Kirumi confessed. Only the top of Akamatsu's head was visible like this, but she could feel the pressure of her all along her left side.
"That makes two of us."