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What You Have Tamed: Chapter Three

Summary: Life in space is not as Monaca Towa imagined it.

It’s boring, and her supplies don’t last long enough, so she can’t get far enough out to find aliens at all.

Worst of all, when she comes back for supplies, she keeps running into Servant.

Why won’t he leave her alone?

Chapter Rating: M for Anxiety and Discussions of Cannibalism. Fic Rating: M for Implications and Discussions of Past Child Abuse and Abuse, as well as general Danganronpa reasons.

If you have trouble with the content in UDG, then this fic is not for you, as it is expected to address the abuse the Warriors of Hope went through.

AO3

previous chapter

The world is so much bigger than Monaca remembers.

To be quite fair, Monaca spends the vast majority of her time living within the confines of a tiny van, and while the vastness of space is, of course, vast, she isn’t really in space, is she? She’s in the van. The little visits she makes to Earth every so often to resupply don’t really prepare her for the sudden anxiety of being in something so big and wide and open as the rest of the world is. The sky above her is sky, not a metallic ceiling plastered with all of her drawings. There are no metallic walls surrounding her, no matter how far apart they may be. There’s an ocean of ocean at the end of the beach – and there’s a beach! One that spreads far beyond what she can actually see!

Monaca lived on Earth. She grew up on Earth. None of this should be terrifying to her.

And yet, instead of spending a great deal of time in the sun, on the beach, building sandcastles, Monaca spends most of that first day shut up in the cabin she’s meant to share with Mikan. It’s bigger than the van, sure. But it’s not as big as the rest of the world – or, even, this tiny little island that she could walk around within a day – and it’s not surrounded with stretches of water or unfilled space.

For a little while, this helps.

Monaca discovers another new fear of hers within only a few short hours of her arrival.

For all that Mikan is nice – exceedingly so, even to the point of appealing to Monaca’s desires at the detriment of her own (“Th-th-this is my bed, but if…if you would like it, I can take th-the other one. Or…or the couch, if you don’t…if you don’t want to share a room.”) – Monaca’s heart still pounds at the idea of living with someone else again. Someone unknown.

In her estimates, a girl is better than a boy – especially that peasant or Servant – but Monaca thinks she could probably take the peasant in a fight. And she’s already technically lived with Servant before, briefly, during the siege of Towa City. Even lived with him alone for a few days, while he helped set her up as her own, new and improved version of Big Sis Junko’s successor. If he’d…if he’d intended to do anything to her, he would have done it then.

Unless he thought those stupid demons would have done something about it.

(He’d been nice. Demon adults were always at their most terrifying when they were nice. It meant they wanted something from you. Even Big Sis Junko. But what she wanted hadn’t been so bad. And at the time, what he wanted hadn’t been so bad either.

But Mikan must want something from her. That idiot peasant must want something, too.

She just….

She just doesn’t know what.)

Monaca curls up on the couch, pulling herself into a tight little ball, but no matter what she does, she can’t get herself to relax enough to sleep. She’s always painfully aware of Mikan’s presence. It doesn’t matter if she wants to trust her or not, and it doesn’t matter if she seems nice or not, and it doesn’t matter if Monaca likes her or not. It only matters that—

It feels like hours, but it’s really only half of one before Mikan pushes herself off of the couch and scampers as quietly as she can from the little cabin. (She doesn’t want Mikan to hear her. She doesn’t want anyone to hear her. She just wants to go home.)

Of course, her space van isn’t really home – nothing is, not anymore – but it’s the closest thing she has to it.

But the creeping anxiety of the vastness of everything around her creeps back in and compounds the anxiety she already feels, so that by the time she makes it back to her space van, she’s on edge, as skittish as a kitten who has been dragged to foster and adoption events every weekend for her entire life and never once been chosen, only knows that she hates all of the hands that reach in to touch her, hates how loud everything grows, hates being seen and exchanged and seen and exchanged and never getting to stay in one place where someone actively and actually wants her.

Only to find Kaz sitting in the sand across from it, fiddling with one of her Monokuma servants.

Monaca takes a sharp breath, glares at him, and barks out in her fear, “Don’t peasants ever sleep?”

“About as much as half-pints like you do.” Kaz doesn’t even glance back at her; instead, he just pats a spot on the sand next to him. “Ya’ll feel better after fiddlin’ with something, probably. I always do.”

The anxiety rears its angry head in Monaca’s chest and lets out a roar. She doesn’t want to sit next to this demon, doesn’t want to talk to him alone, doesn’t want to be with him alone, doesn’t want to think about having to call one of her intact Monokuma servants over to save her but thinks about it anyway and reaches out for the controller that should be in her pocket but isn’t.

She’d taken it out when she curled up on the couch in the cabin she’s supposed to be sharing with Mikan.

Monaca’s heart grows cold.

She could race past him into the van, but that wouldn’t do much good. No matter how much she likes to think she could take him, he’s probably stronger than she is, and he has weapons – all of the tools he’s been using to deconstruct the Monokuma servant in front of him. She could run back to Mikan’s cabin, but he’s probably faster than she is, since he’s so much taller than she is, and even if she did make it back, that wouldn’t make her feel any less anxious.

She’s stuck.

Kaz still doesn’t turn to her. “Look, ya don’t gotta sit with me. I ain’t never had to be scared of people like me before. Had a lotta other people ta be scared of, but people who fiddle with all this stuff, who take things apart and put it back together? Always been a good group of people ta me.” He leans back and turns just enough to flash her a smile, his teeth all sharp and pointed. “I’m not gonna bite ya. People don’t taste as great as ya think they might.”

Monaca hesitates and then slowly moves to a spot next to him on the sand, although not the one Kaz indicated. She sits and settles herself, but her heart’s still beating so quick that’s she not sure she’s still breathing. “I’ve never wanted to eat someone.”

“Yeah, I didn’t either. Ya do funny things when Junko’s friends ask ya to.”

Somehow, the admittance of literal cannibalism makes Monaca trust him more. Maybe trust isn’t the right word. Maybe there isn’t a word for it. But she feels a little less like he will actually devour her now, and that helps her to relax.

It doesn’t make sense.

Fear so very rarely does.

“Big Sis Junko really made you eat someone?”

Monaca doesn’t look up, so when Kaz’s expression shifts, she only sees it in the reflection of her Monokuma servant’s hull. The shell distorts it and twists the reddened cheeks, the pointed teeth, and the arm that stretches up to rub the back of his neck as he looks away from her, from it. She’s never considered if Big Sis Junko fed her people, never wondered if she would eat them if she did, but now….

She willingly consumed everything else Big Sis Junko fed her. Why would she stop now?

“Na-ah,” Kaz says, stretching the word out into multiple syllables. “She never really asked us ta do that shit. Some people just…did it.” He hunches forward, taking the cables of the Monokuma’s innards and twisting them into various shapes. “I only ever ate the one person, and….” He winces. “I don’t think she woulda liked that. Pretty sure she woulda been pissed, hah.”

In the silence after his words, Monaca draws her knees up to her chest and rests her head atop them. She presses her lips together, then asks, “Do you regret it?”

“Ha?” Kaz startles. “Eating someone? Well, yeah, but—”

“No, I mean….” Monaca trails off and bites her lower lip. “Forget Monaca said anything.” Then she pushes herself up with a shiver and heads to her space van.

“Aren’t ya supposed to be staying in the cabin with Miki?”

Monaca hesitates. Her hands clench into fists; she forces them to flatten, to stretch her fingers out. That doesn’t mean she knows what to say.

“Are ya scared?” Kaz asks into the quiet lapping of the ocean waves. “I kinda get it. Miki’s all sweet and gentle and moe and everything, but she can be scary.” He stands – Monaca sees the shadow of him under the stars, the way his hand grabs his wrist as both arms stretch into the sky – and then yawns loud enough that she can hear him. “I oughta get some sleep, too, huh.” He pushes a hand through his hair. “Wait. Ya ain’t scared of all of us, are ya?”

Monaca steps into her space van and shuts the door behind her, locking it tight. She breathes easier as soon as she’s alone, as soon as she looks around and sees what should feel like a cramped space but feels nothing but comfortable to her. It’s home, as much as anything can be anymore.

She sighs and curls up on her own little bed and drifts off as though everything is normal.

(Normal to her, anyway.)

The sun is bright.

Which isn’t saying much.

Of course, the sun is bright; they’re on what appears to be a mostly abandoned island. Other than them, although if it has what Kaz needs to attach a kitchen (and maybe a workshop, if Monaca orders him asks nicely enough), it probably hasn’t always been abandoned and was probably more than adequately staffed with the sort of people who would use all of the mechanical stuff that he would need to—

Monaca has lost interest in this train of thought—

The point is they’re on an abandoned island in the middle of nowhere. Of course, the sun is bright.

But Monaca is not used to bright in the way that the sun is bright anymore. She’s used to the soft glow of stars scattered throughout space as they filter through the windows of her van; she’s used to the artificial light of the lightbulb in her van’s interior; she’s used to the brighter light of a star when she grows a little too close to it in the vast expanse of everything; but she’s not used to the harsh, blinding light of the sun bleeding through an even brighter blue atmosphere, all colors and light and sharp.

The sun rises, and Monaca rises with it, and she grumbles because she had a hard enough time convincing her body to calm enough to rest in the first place, and now the fucking sun is messing it up.

Monaca pushes a hand through her greasy green hair. It’s always greasy at the end of a run as she prioritizes drinking water over bathing water. To be fair, it’s been that way more often than not during her travels; she only bathes when she realizes how much she smells. No one else is around, so why should she care what anyone else thinks? Servant doesn’t seem to care when he sees her during resupplies. Still, that first bath afterward feels like a luxury, and she normally sinks into water so hot that it feels like her skin will peel off as it turns a bright raspberry red.

….

She needs a bath.

Maybe it’s a testament to Mikan and that peasant that neither of them seemed bothered by her smell. Maybe they’re just used to worse. Kaz seems like the sort who can get so caught up in his work that he ends up smelly himself, and Mikan….

Monaca thinks about the scars, flinches, and stops thinking about any of that.

Her stomach rumbles unpleasantly. There’s no food left – she ate every last scrap of it before her return, even down to the crumbs. (Mostly; she hadn’t wanted to lick the floor, you know.) Someone smarter than Monaca might have done that to make sure she stayed here and didn’t run away from fear; Monaca did it because she was avoiding coming back at all. It just had the unfortunate side-effect of, well, this.

Monaca stares up at the ceiling, discarded of all the drawings and plans she normally has up there, and sighs. What would Big Sis Junko do?

Stupid question.

Big Sis Junko wouldn’t even be in this situation to begin with. Besides, she wasn’t scared of anything. Not like Monaca. She could have gotten all of the people out there to love her so much that they would never want to hurt her – she had done that!

But Monaca….

Monaca isn’t like Junko. That’s why she left in the first place after all, wasn’t it?

….

Servant has never once hurt her, despite the many, many opportunities he’s had. (Not intentionally, anyway. His luck is another thing entirely.)

The peasant had more than enough opportunity to hurt her during their conversation last night, before she’d hidden in her van, and he hadn’t either.

Mikan, too, had the opportunity to hurt her when she was in the cabin they were meant to share, but she’d acted as though it was more likely that Monaca was someone to fear instead of the other way around.

If any of them were going to hurt her, they would have already.

But that reassurance doesn’t make Monaca feel any better. It gets her out of bed again, and it gets her to the door of the van again, but it freezes her there. Maybe she can convince them to just…to just stay here with her before that peasant starts to make any modifications to her van. Then, if she gets really, really scared, she can just…she can just….

Can just what? Run away again?

Big Sis Junko’s friends won’t hurt her.

Monaca steps out of her space van. The sun is even brighter out here, and she stares, squinting, up at it. She isn’t Masaru; she doesn’t want to fistfight the sun. (She’d lose if she tried.) It’s hotter out here than she remembers (probably because she’s on an island). After a few seconds, her gaze lowers, sweeping the area around her.

There’s no one.

Odd.

She would have expected one of the others to find her by now. There aren’t even any footprints!

Monaca takes another deep breath to steady herself, clenches her hands into little fists, and forces herself to walk back to the cabins. They must have more food there.

The closer Monaca gets to the cabins, the more she smells something fishy cooking. Her stomach rumbles even harder, and that – combined with the bright sun and the lack of real rest – sets her into a foul mood. She storms towards the scent of grilled fish, and on seeing Servant in front of a grill, she barks out, “You! Forgot! To! Invite! Monaca!”

(It’s easier to be mad than it is to be afraid. The fear is still there, curled around her heart, but she can ignore it as long as she’s yelling at someone.)

“Oh, just my luck!” Servant says, as though he hasn’t heard a word she’s just said. “You came here right as I thought to come find you.” A bright smile lights his face as he moves multiple fish from the bars of the grill to a plate set on the counter next to him. “I didn’t want to wake you; Kaz said the two of you were up very late.”

Monaca’s cheeks puff out as they turn red. (She considers how Servant says nothing about Big Sis Junko’s girlfriend – about how worried Mikan must have been when she woke and found that Monaca was no longer in the cabin with her. It’s possible that Mikan wasn’t worried at all, but it’s equally possible that Servant simply doesn’t want to say it. She can’t know without asking, and she isn’t going to ask.)

“You! Forgot! Me!”

“I assure you, we didn’t.” Servant crouches down in front of Monaca, that singular plate held in his hands. “These will burn your tongue, but if you want one now—”

Monaca’s eyes narrow.

Servant just continues to smile. “Why don’t you follow me inside? We were all about to eat together. You can join us, if you want.” Then, as though sensing that Monaca will hesitate, he continues, “Or I can make something for you to eat out here. Or in your spaceship, if you want.”

“Don’t call it that.” Monaca storms past Servant to the nearest cabin, which she knows has the kitchen and dining area. They’d shown it to her the day before, but she hadn’t been hungry then. She hadn’t been hungry at all. “Monaca knows it’s just a van. You don’t have to call it something fancy.”

In a rare moment of seeming kindness, Monaca decides to hold the door open for Servant as he walks inside. He thanks her – she hears the words, but she isn’t paying attention to them. Instead, she’s looking at that metallic arm and hand of his, which carry the plate as easy as anything. In point of fact, she’d seen it glint in the sunlight as Servant finished cooking and was only moderately surprised to see him hold the spatula with it. Nothing she’s seen of it indicates that it’s anything more than a normal arm, other than the fact that it’s very clearly metallic. Her brow furrows as he passes, and then she follows him inside.

“Look who has decided to join us!” Servant says with a broad smile that seems slightly off as he sets the platter of grilled fish on a long table. The table itself has a few other bits and pieces of what will eventually be a full meal: two bowls filled to the brim with rice, a smaller plate with strips of seaweed, different sauces and spices, another bowl with a variety of tropical fruits and one with chunks of pineapple, and pitchers full of water. Mikan stands to one side of it next to a tea set on a separate counter, and Kaz sits at an empty table, his legs stretched out in front of him, head hanging back, eyes closed, mouth open – clearly not awake in the slightest.

At Servant’s words, Mikan startles with a yelping sound, and her jump jostles the table just so. A nearby teacup that must be hers shakes but does not spill. Then she sighs. When she turns to her, Monaca tries not to flinch; she knows something of fear and skittishness, even if she was always more inclined to hide than to stay in situations that caused her this much strain. But Mikan takes her in with no worry and seems to settle. “Would you…would you like some tea, Monaca?”

(Does she trust Mikan enough to drink the tea she makes for her?)

((Does she trust Servant enough to eat the food he has gathered?))

(She has already answered one of these questions, and that answer leads her to this one.)

“Yes, please.”

But Monaca keeps an eye on Mikan as her tea is made. She sees every drop of hot water Mikan pours into her cup, sees every leaf that Mikan lets steep, and only comments at the end for the addition of her two sugars and a heavy helping of cream. Haiji and her sperm donor always wanted her to drink coffee, but Big Sis Junko didn’t mind her preference for tea, introducing her to different flavors and ways of taking it and never laughing when she doctored it more than the others did. In fact—

“The same as Junko-sama,” Mikan murmurs without her stutter as she passes the teacup to Monaca with a soft blush.

“She got it from me.”

But Monaca takes her cup in both hands, letting it warm them as she sits at the table next to the dozing Kaz. She blows the steam from it; she probably should have asked for ice, since it’s already so hot here, except that she hates iced tea even more than iced coffee. This will probably burn her tongue. That’s fortunate, though, because it means she can see the others eat and drink before she does.

(If they aren’t poisoned, then she won’t be either.)

((She already trusts Servant. He has never broken her food before.))

(((That doesn’t mean he won’t now.)))

Mikan sets her cup on the long table across from Monaca then leaves it there without fear. (And why should she be afraid? It isn’t as though any of her friends will hurt her.) When she returns, it’s with multiple plates piled high with food – one topped with rice, another with multiple grilled fish, and a third that she carefully balances between the others filled with a variety of tropical fruits.

Monaca raises both eyebrows at that and asks, “You would eat all of that yourself? What are you, a pig?”

“N-n-no.” Mikan blushes a bright red and brushes a hand through her shoulder-length hair, pulling strands of it in front of her shoulder and playing with it. “I-I-I thought...I thought it would be easier for you, if…if….”

“If what?”

“If we shared.” Mikan glances up, meets Monaca’s eyes, and then averts her gaze again. She pushes the plates in the middle of the table so that they’re between them and then sets a pair of chopsticks on either side of them. “One of our…of our classmates always made the most…the most wonderful food, but it was always…always good to make sure that he ate it first.” Her brow furrows. “He’s not here, but…but I noticed that you didn’t eat yesterday, and I thought…I thought you might be afraid, so I….” Her voice trails off.

Monaca’s gaze drops from Mikan to the plates. “Monaca doesn’t share food.”

A squeak emits from Mikan’s lips. “I-I-I’m sorry!” She makes as though to get up. “I’ll g-g-get other p-p-plates!”

Then Monaca reaches over and places a hand hesitantly over Mikan’s. “Monaca also likes to joke.” She doesn’t look up, and she doesn’t meet Mikan’s eyes.

(This was Big Sis Junko’s girlfriend. This was the woman Big Sis Junko loved. This girl who was…who was skittish and stuttered and uncertain, who was always so focused on how other people felt – how she felt. She is so unlike anyone Monaca might have imagined for Junko, who was always so big and loud and boisterous and excited.

Not that Monaca ever imagined Junko would have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend! She had always seemed like…like she didn’t need anyone else.

Maybe Monaca just hadn’t noticed.

Maybe she hadn’t noticed a lot of things.)

“O-o-oh.” Mikan settles back into her chair. She swallows and reaches out for one set of chopsticks.

“Monaca will take those.”

Mikan nods and takes the second set. She takes a few bites of rice and bits from one of the multiple fish but never lifts her eyes to Monaca again, never seems to be waiting on her or keeping an eye on her or judging her for how long she takes. In fact, her gaze only flicks from her own eating once – when Monaca finally lifts her cup for a sip of her tea, and even then, it only lifts enough to focus on the cup and then flits back down.

I have to eat sometime, Monaca thinks. Either I trust them, or I don’t.

The tea tastes good on her tongue. Almost as good as it was when Big Sis Junko made it. (Monaca wants there to be no comparison, but she can’t help but think of it. Maybe this is why Big Sis Junko loved Mikan – but something tells her that isn’t the case, that it’s something more than that.)

Then Monaca takes a deep breath, reaches out with her chopsticks, takes one of the grains of rice, sets it in her mouth, and forces herself to swallow. She nearly chokes, but she does it. Then she only hesitates a few seconds longer before taking another bite and then continuing to eat. The anxiety fades as she does, although it never truly leaves.

(She hopes this isn’t people. It doesn’t taste differently than the rice and fish she’s used to, but she’s not sure how much it would. And if it is people, she’s fairly certain that she doesn’t want to know.)

Things move slowly after that.

Very slowly.

At every moment, Monaca knows she can take her space van and leave. It doesn’t run on gas; it runs on her Monokuma servants and a lot of modifications she’s made so that it doesn’t fail her at random while she’s out in space, which would be absolutely the worst place for it to fail her (because then she would have to use the Monokuma bots to try and make repairs when they aren’t quite built for that and no one would be able to help her). She could die in space, and no one would know. Probably no one would care, either.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that Monaca doesn’t need anything like flimsy fuel to leave the island. She can leave whenever she wants! Especially if she takes all the supplies she needs from the kitchen – food and water and anything else she could want!

…up until the point that she lets Kaz start making modifications to her van, at which point Monaca will be stranded there.

(She should have suggested they build an entire second van – a new and improved van – instead. Then she would have her escape route the entire time! It’s unfortunate that it took her this long to consider that.)

Monaca doesn’t leave.

But she doesn’t let the peasant make any modifications to her van, either.

Instead, Monaca spends more time with the three of them. She sits in the cabin they use for their congregating space or on the beach with Mikan as she builds sand castles and the boys play in the waves. She eats with them and slowly grows to trust that they won’t poison her. She fiddles with mechanics with Kaz; he isn’t always fiddling with things, but he frequently is, and the action is both familiar and comforting to her. They take most of the toasters apart and rebuild them; one day, they take the grill apart and rebuild that. Monaca takes scrap metal and builds tiny robotic forms with it, only to find Mikan staring at them with wide eyes and Kaz on the edge of saying something until Mikan shoots him a look.

They’re keeping something from her, but Monaca doesn’t feel like it’s anything that will hurt her.

…most of the time.

One day, Monaca goes out to her van. She’s still been sleeping there most nights, but she’s also started sleeping in the bigger cabin instead. It’s big. Roomy. The others can come and go, but she doesn’t feel trapped like she did in the cabin with Mikan- and it’s helped her grow accustomed to more empty space again. She can leave, if she wants. She can go back to her van, if she wants. Or she can stay there, if she wants.

It’s terrifying, but she’s growing used to the familiarity of it.

No one follows Monaca when she goes to her van. It’s mostly left alone, other than when she sleeps there, and she stands in front of it now, considering. A kitchen would be nice. A workspace would be nice. More room for her project, which hasn’t been abandoned but has been left fallow while she’s remained on the island. (It’s a secret, and she doesn’t want the others to know about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.)

A few minutes pass.

Then Monaca returns to the main cabin, finds Kaz in his usual chair half-tilted back with his eyes closed, and thwacks his shoulder. “C’mon, peasant. Monaca needs help tuning her space van.”

Kaz rubs his eyes and yawns. “Why ya gotta keep calling me that?” he asks, stretching his arms above his head. “I’m not a fucking—” Then his eyes widen. He tilts further back and meets Monaca’s eyes. “You want me to help with your van?”

“Don’t see anyone else who can do it,” Monaca spits out. Then she crosses her arms and looks away. Her stomach twists and churns. Losing her van – that’s the next step, isn’t it? There’s nothing else. She’s been building up her trust in them in bits and starts, but it….

They haven’t done anything yet.

They won’t do anything now.

And it’s not like Monaca won’t keep a careful eye over everything Kaz does. She’ll be right there with him the entire time.

Monaca swallows. “No,” she finally admits. Her mouth gets dry, and she licks her lip. “But Monaca needs help,” she repeats instead, “and you’re going to help her.”

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