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Damon's diurnal internal clock had been offset after about three days of being trapped in this incarcerating building, but now that he's taken to sleeping for 15 hours a day after the death of Wolfgang Akire and Eva Tsunaka, his body-clock was preternaturally screwed.
After the trial, Damon had exhausted the last of his energy to huff up one last gusty storm with the other students.
"But Damon, the buddy system's still important!" Diana protested fervourously as Damon shuffled to his bedroom in a dazed state. All he could see was Eva. Who was even speaking to him?
"Leave me alone. A murder still occurred, did it not? This system's a bunch of nonsense." He began slipping into his room, like a serpent slithering from a crime scene. Something intangible impelled him to turn his head, like a puppet on a string. His eyes skipped over Diana and the other perturbed students and landed their exacting gazes on Kai.
Kai's turgid eyes pleaded with Damon's own flat glare to reconsider. Damon, after a vulnerable moment, excused this as Kai's own insecure desperateness. He didn't care, he was as capable of murder as the rest of this rabble. He just wanted to use Damon for security. Well, he can search elsewhere!
He slinked into the cavernous depths of his room. Kai goggled at the door for a protracted moment before returning to his dorm. Everyone tacitly agreed to sleep in isolation that night. Nobody had the strength to even entertain the idea of another murder.
--
A day or two had passed, and Damon emerged from his room for the first time since the class trial. He pattered to the canteen. The clocks along the peeling, hedonistic walls read 2.00pm. People should be interspersed across the school, perfect time to finally fill the gaping hole that is his stomach.
His mind was still, ineluctably, on Eva. How he trusted her so clamorously, only to be stabbed in the back and then in the front. He felt like a fool, a fatuous fool, who was wearing the imposture of an ultimate. He envied the other restive students, their convalescence had been prompt and efficient. The buddy system had already been reinstituted, laughter percolated around the hallways like a parasite, and it seemed as though the memory of the two passed students had been entirely erased! What fools had Damon found himself surrounded by!?
He careened carefully around the door into the canteen. Expecting it to be quiet, he hadn't cared too much for his appearance. Unfortunately, Damon wouldn't be alone here.
"-Damon!?" Kai had choked out mid slup from his coffee-free frappe. Damon- equally startled- stepped back defensively before recognising the folly and returning to his usual confident poise.
"Morning."
"It's 2 in the afternoon! Where've you been!?"
"..." Damon lurched into the cabinet, only now experiencing the pernicious effects of his malnourishment. He scrabbled at whatever was present- a half-eaten granola bar, a rotten orange, and a half-empty box of cereal. He reached for the cereal.
"Hey- my cereal!"
"..Your cereal?" Damon grumbled out tiredly.
"W-Well, it's not mine, but-"
"Then you shouldn't mind.." He began pouring it heftily into his own bowl after he'd added the milk.
"...Wait wait wait, you added the *milk* first!?" Kai, incredulous, leaned closer to Damon from where he had been sitting on the raised stool, across from where Damon had stood pouring his seditious concoction.
"Is there a problem with that?" Damon defensively retorted, snapping his head sideways.
"Uh- ya! That's like, the most illegal legal thing ever!"
"That makes no sense. I don't see a difference."
"Well look! You have milk all over the counter after adding the cereal, the top pieces are as dry as a desert and the bottom's gonna be all soggy! Seriously Damon, do you live under a rock?" Kai sneered, victorious in his trite victory. Damon inflamed with rage.
"I know how to make a bowl of cereal, you-!"
Just then, completely catching Damon off-guard, Kai began to laugh heartily. His teeth glistened against the incandescent light-bulbs like they were the concomittant stars of our grounding galaxy. His eyes scrunched until they had their own subsidiary smiles notched into his skin. An inscrutable tear fell as he laughed.
"You- you care so much over the smallest of things!! Hahaha! It's adorable!" Kai continued to titter until it simmered into a sibilant hum. Damon hid his crimson face at the comment.
"But seriously," Kai finally continued, much to Damon's relief, "I used to make it like that too, until I held a live-stream and got totally roasted for weeks about it. I never went back, I'm getting shivers just thinking about it." Kai held himself as he jostled in terror. Damon felt the twinge of a smile begin to surface before smothering it.
"People actually care that much? Lame." He tilted his head reproachfully. He thought the internet was a fiefdom for buffoons with a shared IQ of 4. Nowadays it was all a bunch of perfunctory drivel, nothing worth engaging with anymore.
"Right!? Thank you! You're the first person to *not* attack me about it!" As Kai retained his energy, Damon gnashed his cereal into oblivion between his decaying gums. He would never admit it, but he hadn't showered, brushed his teeth nor changed since the class trial. He felt disgusting, yet simultaneously impartial. Nothing had mattered, not recently.
He looked down at Kai. He hadn't had a colloquial conversation like this in a lengthy elapse. It was rakishly refreshing. Kai caught his glance.
"W-What? Is something on my face?"
"Nah, I was just lost in my thoughts. Forget it."
"...You're being awfully nice today.." Kai dubiously prodded, much to the disconcertment of Damon.
"You want me to stop?"
"N-No! God no! It's just..."
"Just what? Out with it."
"Are you.. feeling okay? Y'know, after the whole..." He let his voice peter off, but Damon knew what he was implying. Of course he knew, how could he let himself forget!?
...This had been the first moment he'd forgotten her since the crowning of the class-trial.
"I'm fine."
"No you're not!"
"Why ask if you're not going to believe me?"
"Because you're being stupid! C'mon!! You hole yourself up in your dorm, you look a MESS, and you *still* feel like you have to lie!? Still!?"
"...Excuse me?" Damon wasn't yelling, but only because he knew that if he started he'd never be able to contain himself. Kai shuddered at the volatile sight.
"Just- okay- that all came out a bit wrong! All I'm trying to say is that my dorm is still open if you need somewhere to stay.." Kai retracted, shrinking into himself until Damon's eyes sifted over him and towards the main door.
"Hmph." Was all he mumbled as he left the canteen and a dejected Kai. How could he nearly be so foolish once more!? Kai was being selfish- everyone here is selfish! Nobody can be trusted, not even yourself.
--
How long has it been since I last forgot? Now two bifurcating thoughts plagued Damon's daydreams and nightmares. The axiomatic perils of the class trial and- much more unconventionally- Kai. His glittering smile, his smiling eyes, his jittery yet conciliatory tone. Damon had over-reacted. He knew this, but this epiphany was a rare one for him to have. He was the one contending with idiots, not the opposite.
But Kai really had just been trying to help.
It's not like he was wrong anyhow, he was a mess. His appearance was as moused and dishevelled as a street rat. A feeble, lonely rat. He didn't know what to do, so he hobbled into bed.
He sat in his own stifling thoughts for a long, ruminating time, but something polarised the familiar malaise of his slumber. A knock. Quite erratic too, like a rumbling of thunder. Damon flurried thinking that his life was over, before realising that a killer wouldn't knock. Dumbass.
His voice was raised just enough to be heard over the surrounding perpetuated noises of life, "Who is it?"
The door creaked open surreptitiously, and a lurid head of pink hair dazzled through the slim aperture.
"What is it?" Damon pestered impatiently.
"Can I come in?"
"What do you need?" His rage grew silently, yet it was uncertain of itself.
Kai welcomed himself inside and shut the door, much to Damon's reproach. Yet still, Damon noticed the forlorn walk of the other man, his mournful eyes that avoided Damon's idle corpse. The tremulous way his hands shut the door, like he was trying to convey non-verbally that he was no threat or liability.
Now that Kai was at the foot of Damon's bed, he seemed addled on what it was he wanted to say or do.
"You feel like talking?" Damon asked hurriedly, like he was scared of the other man's unpredictable reactions.
"..." Kai was silent for a moment. A savory moment, Damon learned too late, as the other man began to snivel.
And then to sob. Like a punctured water balloon or a fountain. He just cried and cried. Damon, alarmed, sat upright promptly without a course of action to take. He didn't know whether to approach the depressive juggernaut in-front of him, or to just lie back down and let the awkwardness digest him from the outside in.
"Y-You're not the only one s-sleeping alone y'know!" He began querulously retributing, his voice wobbling with the torrent of tears.
"What's up with you!?"
"I'm all alone at night, thinking that someone's going to kill me any second! I'm sorry for being annoying or loud or stupid but I'll stop! I'll sleep on the fucking floor! So please let me stay! You're going to die otherwise!! How don't you get this?!" His thoughts came out as jagged, short spurts of displaced energy. His head thumped out the notion that he was doing this for his self-preservation, but his heart stirred when he looked at Damon, tousled and doleful beneath his shabby quilt. What the fuck is wrong with him!???
"Calm down Kai, seriously.." Damon, although monumentally concerned, still feigned indifference. This only set Kai off more.
"Calm down!!?? Sorry Damon, but I can't do calm right now! Everyone else is back to sharing rooms, being NORMAL, but us? You're hiding in your room all day doing God knows what, and I've had to sleep alone these past few days!! Do you want to die!? Is that it!? 'Cause I don't want you bringing me down with you!!" He petulantly reviled, glancing at Damon just to reignite his soul.
"I'm not planning on dying Kai, that's a silly idea."
"Oh ya!? Well you look like death right now!!" He shrilled as his words came out arbitrary and distorted. Damon hadn't the energy to get defensive, and he mulled over whether he was deserving of it a lot recently.
"These aren't your crocodile tears, are they?" Damon hesitated, delaying his inevitable resignation.
"Are you joking right now?" Kai knew that Damon would succumb to his sobs. He has a kind heart, even if it's typically overlapped by his wanton words. Sometimes they superimpose each-other instead, and Kai much preferred that rendition of Damon.
"... Sleep on the bed. The floor will break your back." Damon succumbed to the intangible pressure, and Kai had to stultify his grin.
"Nice! I owe you man, I really do!" His tears evaporated in an instant as he dove into bed next to Damon, grimacing like a feline on catnip.
"Hey! What happened to all that crying a minute ago?" Damon probed with annoyance, but not enough to kick Kai out. At this point, it would take tomorrow's sunrise to kick Kai out.
"Eh, I'm over it now. Thanks for the bed though, I missed this!" Kai, as though he didn't realise his own words, hiccupped frightfully before clamping his own mouth shut with his hand. He hadn't meant to think that, let alone say it.
"You missed this?" Damon catechized, nonplussed.
"I- uh- I just meant that I missed the buddy system!! Ya, sure- now Damon!" Kai meandered topics abruptly, "What are you gonna do once you get out of here?" Yet he somehow managed to pick a more repugnant topic than before. Damon sighed, what had he expected from Kai? He ignored how his heart flittered with Kai's concerned words. He shouldn't trust him. But God how amazing would it be if he could?
"I thought you wanted to sleep?"
"Just answer the question!"
"...Probably just the same stuff I've always done. Debate competitions, education, making money for my parents. Why should I change what already works?" Damon melancholically flopped onto his right side, facing away from Kai. He was proud of his life, and had no intention of skewing a perfectly hermetic system, but Kai had made him remember that there are other prospects out there. He never considered them, he didn't want to get his hopes up.
"Damon, my dude, that's so lame."
"Hey! I don-"
"Go out! Throw a party, smoke some pot! Don't become a grandfather before you're in your twenties."
"I'd rather keep my brain functions intact, thanks." Damon dismissed, unamused.
"Fine! Tell you what, once we leave, how about you go on a live-stream with me?" Kai turned to face Damon, yet was blocked by his rigid back. He nearly wanted to put a comforting hand on him, before realizing that this is Damon he's dealing with.
"I'd rather not-"
"Don't shut me down without hearing me out! It'll only be for a couple hours! You can talk to my fans; they'd love you!"
"If they're anything like you, I don't trust their taste."
"I'm not hearing a no!!" Kai lunged for his shoulder, and Damon flopped back onto his back with a startled leap. He gazed up at Kai's buoyant, jovial face like it was something worth admiring.
"..We have to actually escape first, remember?" Damon frowned, and Kai's ecstatic smile diluted into a quivering lip.
"Of course I remember." His voice was irresolute, like he'd really forgotten but didn't want to let that on.
Kai now rolled onto his back before wrenching the blanket from Damon's abstract grip on it. He twisted onto his side once more, away from Damon.
"....Night Kai." Damon mumbled out, barely above a mute whisper. Kai smiled contently.
"Night Damon!" They both had uplifting reveries to carry them into the warble of the morning, where they arose with their arms and legs interlinked, like a composite picture of their shared hope for their cumbersome futures.