psst....from the companion blog, here's a profile for Meiko-chan!
Quick NPC Profile: Meiko Kagari/Meiko-chan
Here's a quick little doodle of her!
Meiko is the first non-AI, non killing game participant in the NeoWorld program. She part of the small trial population of about ten!
Meiko can come off quite stern and robotic, which sadly turns a lot of people away from her. She loves making friends, she just has trouble expressing what she means to say, is all.
Meiko is fiercely loyal to those she cares about, and will stop at nothing to reunite with her father, a photo journalist who went missing during the tragedy. The future foundation has leads on him, and so she's staying in NeoWorld until they can find him!
She originally hated the future foundation because she felt they were enforcing too many rules, they had to much power, and that many agents were corrupt. She still doesn't agree with their practices, but now hopes to change them instead of tear them down.
She will eventually go on to become an independent tracker, who maybe steals just a little information from FF, to reunite others and their family!
She's become fast friends with Chiaki, and hopes Mahiru and her father can meet one day, given their shared photography interest, and him being a better role model of a father than Mahiru has gotten to see.
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"Thanks for taking me out, Nagito. But seriously, where are we going?"
"I saaaaaid-" Nagito swishes his coat of off nanami's observation bot, and a bit of dust flies with it. So her camera wasn't actually turned off, after all?
Chiaki blinks, preparing for bright light, but it's actually...quite dark in here? There's just a dim light, sitting on a night stand, ceramic with stars carved into its shade.
"Wait...are we in your house?!" Chiaki's voice perks up, alert. She's never been to Nagito's abode before!
Nagito sits criss cross applesauce across from the bot on the floor, and settles his cheek on his palm.
"Since I'm always invading your home, Nanami-san, I only thought it was fair." He smiles shyly, trying not to have the smile noticed. He definitely wasn't thinking about how silly Chiaki looked in the little orb, not at all!!
...Maybe I should make it a tiny wig, he thinks to himself. He can't stop picturing it now, which has made this even more difficult.
But, Chiaki being like this actually made her a bit easier to talk to. She wasn't as scary as a full person, to Nagito. He could tell her things...a little. It wasn't like burdening one of his human comrades, right?
...But then again, that feels wrong. Chiaki is his friend! She's not just a machine. Maybe Chiaki is just easier to talk to in general. By just a little tiny bit. By a marginal fraction. But, she also perplexed him. She always wants to spend so much time together. Why would she spend her time with him when she had the choice of any other classmate, or heck, the other people in the steadily rising NeoWorld population?
He feels guilty about it, wasting her time. But hearing her voice also warms his heart. She's not the same person, exactly. But she sounds so much like the Nanami he once knew, and the one he had desperately missed all this time, and she IS the current Nanami he's becoming friends with. She IS the Nanami he tried to rescue, and she IS the Nanami who has helped teach him to be better than he once was.
“But I like when you come over, Komaeda-kun! You’re one of my favorite people to see!” She puts her fists up to her chest and waves them side to side, causing the bot to make a little happy jingle.
Komaeda pauses, looking a bit troubled for a brief moment. He smiles sadly. “Ah, well...That’s an awfully high compliment for someone as low as me...”
“Nagito.”
He furrows his brow.
“Nagito. Did you know that I can’t write?”
“...”
“Seriously! If you gave me a pen and paper right now, it would look like a toddler wrote it. Hey, stop laughing! It’s true!”
“I couldn’t type before either, Nagito. Not until the chat function was installed, and you taught me how! You’re so busy, but you were the first one willing to take a break from work to accomplish that task!”
Komaeda stares at the bot, puzzled. “Meaning...???”
“If you weren’t there, I wouldn’t know how to type right now!”
“And the significance of that is? I just happened to be the one off work that day. Anyone could have done it. And given how many typos you make, I really didn’t teach you proficiently...”
“hhhhmmph. Nagito, the point isn’t that you had spare time, the point is that you spent it helping me!”
“Ah, it’s the least someone so purposeless like me can do!” He waves it off.
“Nagito...you’re not listening to me.” Her voice lowers in disappointment, and oh gosh, there’s that pang of guilt again-
“I like that you’re the one that taught me type. You made me laugh and never shamed me for all the trouble I was having. I like when you’re around. And if I like being around you, and you do favors for me, surely it isn’t a waste to invest my time in you likewise, right? As long as you enjoy seeing me, too, right?” Chiaki sounds hopeful, and Nagito feels like a puppy is staring right at him.
“...I don’t mind your company.” He mumbles. He starts to open his mouth again-
“Well, what’s the problem in that, then?” She says it as more of a statement than a question, because she knows how Nagito would respond, anyway. Sometimes...you have to cut him off for him to absorb anything.
A moment of silence passes. “I like your lamp, Nagito. Wait a minute...did you make that? It looks kind of homemade.”
“Haah, no way. Hajime made that. I can only imagine what clay would look like after meeting my touch....”
“Now I want to bring you a gift, too... eventually, right?” Chiaki gives a thumbs up, another emote displaying on the mini LCD.
Chiaki points around the room, and it turns out SEVERAL other things were a gift from Hajime. She laughs, knowingly.
“...Does my room look bad?” He looks oddly distraught his taste is being questioned for someone who puts himself down every other sentence.
“No, no! I was just thinking, it’s sweet that Hajime brings you so many gifts.”
Nagito bites his cheek and mumbles “somethingsomething living together.”
Chiaki’s eyes light up mischievously. “Ohhhh, what was that? Can you say it a little louder?”
Nagito rolls his eyes and starts to get fustured, before taking a deep breath to compose himself. “I said, Hajime and I are living together, now.”
“Oh. What a surprise!” (it was in no way a surprise.)
“So, who carried who over the threshold?” Chiaki i using her sensors to sit next to Komaeda on the bed, leaning in teasingly towards him. He can’t lityerally feel it. But he can feel it. He can always feel her tormenting him.
“Oh, don’t you start-”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Hearing you guys live together now makes me really happy. It means you’re looking out for one another. You know I really care about you both.”
“Ah...” Komaeda purses his lips again, looking at the floor thoughtfully, before finally speaking again.
“I’m happy everyone’s looking out for you too, Nanami-san. Really. We all talk about you a lot...everyone takes time off work to improve the NeoWorld for you, Nanami. Mioda wants to add more BGMs to the businesses, Mahiru is desinging new locations, Souda and Hajime are still hard at work figuring out a body for you...”
Chiaki spots something next to the lamp. A teeny-tiny galaga spaceship. A hairclip, or a pin, maybe? She didn’t know Komaeda liked that game.
Oh. It looks exactly like her own.
Chiaki feels a sting in her chest. “Was that hers?”
“Yeah...Izuru kept it, and then Hajime held onto it. I didn’t know he had it until recently...But when he moved in, he put it here. And...”
Nagito smiles a wobbly smile. “It felt right to put it here. Because...she would want to be looking after us, too.”
“Nagito?”
“Yeah?”
“When my body is finished...keep it. Don’t give me her hairclip, okay?”
Komaeda smiles and pats the top of observabot. “I wasn’t planning on it. You’re you, Nanami-san. I know you’re a different person.”
“Did you...feel close to her?”
“Yeah. She was my first real friend...she never treated me like I was strange. I felt like I could tell her things, in a way. She was good at understanding what I meant without me having to truly say it.”
“Do you feel like you can tell me things?”
“I do.”
“Can...you be honest with me then, Nagito? We never know how much time we’ll get to be together. So I don’t want us to waste any time lying to each other anymore...” Chiaki inhales sharply.
“You’re sick...aren’t you?”
Nagito looks at the floor with a solemn acceptance. “I am.”
“How much longer do you have?”
“We don’t know. Hajime and some of the other ultimates are working to cure me, but we don’t know. I’m feeling a little better than I used to, though.”
“Thanks for telling me the truth, Nagito...” Chiaki wants to cry, but hides it best she can, for Nagito’s sake.
“Worst case scenario, I can always come live with you, hm?” Nagito nudges the bot lovingly.
“...That would be nice...but I want you to live your human life, okay? Try your best to take care of yourself, okay? I know sometimes...that’s hard for you. But would you promise me?”
“I can at least try.” Nagito nods.
“Nagito?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I sleep here tonight?”
“Of course.”
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