Work Text:
Alone.
That’s all he was tonight. That’s all he’d ever be.
Under the moonless sky, he found himself pacing the grounds, like a ghost lost in time. It’d still be another 7 hours until Monokuma unlocked new parts of the school for them to explore, but his skin felt itchy. His mind buzzed. Every time he closed his eyes, for even a fraction of a second, he was back on the Execution Grounds watching his only friend be ripped to shreds by the things he’d trusted the most. All because of the actions of the person he trusted most.
God dammit! He needed to do SOMETHING. Anything to get the thoughts to stop! To get that buzzing, that horrible earsplitting buzzing to stop! So, he kept walking. He did his usually nightly rounds three times over, checking each and every ultimate room for signs of suspicious activity, clues, life, death- again and again and again. All except for one he dare not go past.
Gonta’s Ultimate Room.
It was routine on nights like these, where Kokichi’s mind flurried like a thousand hungry hornets, that he’d stop and pay Gonta a visit. From 10pm up until the morning announcement, he would stay in his Ultimate Lab, ensuring that all of his bugs were alive and well. Of course, as one would guess, that meant he slept in his Lab. How anyone could sleep that close to so many creepy, disgusting, insects, Kokichi would never know.
“A Gentleman must be accessible when thing goes wrong.” He once explained, “Take care of bugs at night, take care of friends in day! Everyone happy!”
But nobody was around to take care of the bugs anymore. And considering how selfish everyone else was, he doubted anyone even thought twice about it. Actually, he had proof of this: the security sensors he set up in Gonta’s Lab never went off, so he knew for a fact that they hadn’t bothered to go into it. Those bugs were hungry, alright.
He groaned. He hated bugs. Almost as much as he hated this killing game. But, he felt as if he owed it to the guy to at least try and take care of his pets considering he, yknow, killed him. So, he took advantage of the security cameras blind spots in the hallway as he always did, dipping in and out of the shadows like a thief in the night. He wasn’t quite sure if doing this was fruitless, or if it did actually hide him from the Mastermind’s watchful gaze, but he reveled in any sort of act of defiance.
Eventually, he had to step back into the spotlight, and into the view of the cameras again. As he placed his hand on the door, he was sure to keep his face as neutral as possible, pushing aside all of the emotions that threatened to pour out. As he pushed it open and stepped through, an alarm began to blare from his pocket. He jumped at the sound, his heart nearly skipping a beat, and cursed as he fished it from his pocket. His hands shook slightly as he pressed the button to disarm the systems, and he let out a breath as the room returned to silence.
It was useless now, anyways. Gonta was dead, and he didn’t need a security system to tell him who the culprit was. It was funny in a way, he had always thought it would happen in his Ultimate Lab, not on the Execution Grounds. The amount of times he imagined the burly giant dead, surrounded by bugs, with him cornering the culprit until they cowered…
The buzzing returned, deafening. Why! Wouldn’t! It! Stop?!
As his fist collided with the brick wall, he slowly felt his senses sharpening once more. He let out a shallow breath and staggered towards Gonta’s logbook. The sooner he got out of here, the better. The pulsing pain in his wrist and knuckles was his lifeline that tethered him to reality. He slowly pulled the logbook towards himself, and slid down the side of the cabinet, sitting down beside a patch of moss.
Whenever he had finished up his rounds, he’d often come and try to bug Gonta before he went off to sleep. Usually though, he’d be roped into helping feed the bugs by reading off Gonta’s notes so he wouldn’t have to go back and forth. He only did it so the two of them would have more time to do something ACTUALLY fun, but Gonta believed that there was more to it than that. There wasn’t though. It was a simple transaction.
He decided that he wouldn’t feed the wasps or hornets today. Everything else though, it deserved to feed. Once he felt level-headed enough to begin, he stood up, and set the book on the counter. He hummed a song to himself as he pulled out his gloves from Gonta’s workstation and got to work.
It was easy enough to dissociate from what his hands were doing. He imagined that he was in a lab far out in space, feeding hundreds of little aliens their dinner. Each one stared at him with their bulging eyes, completely ambivalent to his presence. He wondered what it’d be like to be trapped in a glass container with your fate dictated by some unknowable god. Did they ever dream of escaping, too? Or did they simply make their peace with their powerlessness?
He saw his own face reflected in the glass trapped behind the pane. His dull eyes held no light, his cheeks had no color… He looked like a ghost.
At this point, he was sure he was one. As he wandered aimlessly around the laboratory, he wondered to himself whether or not these bugs could exist without their cages. Were they truly safe nestled away from the outside world in some dead guy’s lab? Or could they someday thrive in this school, despite their differing habitats and mannerisms?
As he fed the last cicada, he decided that he’d break the cages once and for all.
Not for the bugs, though. That’d be gross.
———
“After killing
A spider how lonely I feel
In the cold of night”
Shiki