#hey this is kinda fucked up of me
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vechter · 2 months ago
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batman (1940) #590 // get out before the drop, shipyrds // another part of honesty, shipyrds // grayson (2014) annual #1 // art by anna-laura // titans (2008) #5 // secret origins (1986) #13 // beat journalism, dustorange // teen titans spotlight (1986) #14 // robin & batman (2022) #1 // declensions, dustorange // robin & batman (2022) #1 // nightwing (2011) #30 // sputnik sweetheart, haruki murakami // justice league (2011) #25 // secret origins (1986) #13 // wayfinding, shipyrds // the long and short of it, richard siken // batman: black and white (2021) #5 // pearl (2022) // batman (1940) #684 // unknown // nightwing (2016) #50 // soft clocks, dustorange // nightwing (2016) #50 // nightwing (2016) #1 // wayfinding, shipyrds // nightwing (2016) #1 // francheska, hey fran hey
dick grayson + an exploration of identity, personhood & belonging
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pathetic-gamer · 1 year ago
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(this is basically the gist of his voicelines, right?)
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starry-bi-sky · 6 months ago
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i think i'm hilarious -- aka i made blood blossom danny au memes
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all of these come from my DpxDC prompt "i am pushing the batdad agenda--" and it's corresponding additions in the reblogs ksdjlf.
i am. rotating them in my head. forever and always. personally i think there should be more batdad aus in dpxdc, their dynamic could be neat. :)
#THAT FIRST ONE TOOK ME A HOT MINUTE TO MAKE. i have never been more careful with a trackpad. imgflip doesnt have an undo button#i think its fucking hilarious#its a batdad au#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dpxdc#dpxdc crossover#dp x dc crossover#dp x dc#dc x dp#mmm i need to come up with a name for this au#found family ftw WHOOOO. i could just do a generic 'blood blossom au' tag but i want a specific one because i like being unique#eldest batkid danny au#chronically ill danny au#danny: im grateful he's helping me but im still kinda apprehensive...#battinson: vaults over a car to escape reporters. likes rock music. isn't fucking evil. punched a cop. actively looking for a cure#danny: ...huh. okay.#furiously pushing the batdad agenda for my own gain. just look at them guys. they're funny little guys.#unofficial witness protection to adoption pipeline.#bruce wayne accidental teen acquisition. save a teenager gain a son#its about the adventure of them going from strangers to friends to family :)#im bored of the bruce slander guys in the words of hermes from hadestown:#“[its] about someone who *tries”*#danny saw a funny man in a funny costume eat the side of a dumpster and has never related more with someone on a spiritual level#“brother eugh i feel that. oh heY WAIT HERO BUDDY?? SAME HAT??? SAME HAT?”#danny's been the only hero he's known since he was 13. on god he is leaping at this opportunity. like YES. PLEASE BE ANOTHER HERO#HELP ME GET AWAY FROM CERTIFIED CRAZY MAN. HELP. YOU'RE SCARY AND HIDING IN THE DARK. EVEN BETTER. HELP A BROTHER OUT HERE#blood blossom au#for the time being thats the name
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monkesupreme · 7 days ago
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Maybe i SHOULD draft out my ‘Clark is a SuperPlant’ propaganda post
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#chattin#due to. recent tags that resonated w me#im already someone that loathes the ‘theyre completely alien AND they conveniently look AND function exactly the same as a human’ trope#esp when they have the nerve to make them PROCREATE w humans wo any defects whatsoever#ur lying ur unimaginative u suck !!!!#so my compromise is always like#fine. the point is that they have to blend in very well. i will concede on that front#but god as my witness i will make him so fucked up internally.#u should xray him and see a fucking mess of organs pumping in bizarre places#things that let him see things w a microscopic lens#things that let him exist in a vacuum bc he doesnt need to Breathe#u should get him in a red sun room and realize hes still able to exist unharmed in a vacumm and go hey man. what the fuck .#going to reach max tags bc i never seem to behave myself no matter what im yelling about#i need bruce to sit down and finally read whatever kryptonian text is floating around#and realize clark- despite his mammalian appearance- is far more linked to plants than anything else#a plant w TEETH and EYES and somehow became a predator instead of staying as a plant#HOWWW did u evolve into what u are now? what did ur ancestors look like??? a daisy???#if u look at any kryptonian species youd see that all of them behave like clark- like they all evolved in a similar way#saw a post (i GOTTA find it again) that said that clark is brownskinned which seems a little silly when u compare it to human melanin#but that sunlight makes for a healthy kryptonian and their skin will show it#and paleskinned kryptonians are seeking out more sun and starving for it. like. ouuuu.#i wont add that to my own hcs but its that kinda shit i love sooo much#get so caught up on trying to make him human in ur eyes that u end up misunderstanding him entirely#love him#xenobio#for tagging
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toytulini · 1 year ago
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listen im ace and im pro kink at pride and whatever, but the way some of yall are wording your posts in response to the backlash against it is uh. really taking me back to the ace shitcourse era.
yall know theres nothing wrong with being a "virgin", right? that its not inherently shameful to have not had sex, to never have sex, even if youre not ace, even if you do want to have sex someday, like, its fine that you haven't had sex?
maybe if your problem is that theyre trying to police your behavior and shame you for expressing your sexuality, you can say that? instead of resorting to "haha stupid virgin gets no bitches" like my god. do you not hear how fucking regressive that attitude is? i know, i know, youre "joking".
get a better joke
#toy txt post#god im going to regret this post im gonna regret it so much i can feel it in my bones#let it flop..........pls#internalize my message let it sink in and understand what i am saying and then let the post flop#i say. knowing the ppl who need to see such a message are the ones who will make me regret this post and regrwt not having#1 million bajillion disclaimers#virgin is in quotes bc its a bullshit made up stupid purity culture concept anyway and quite frankly i hate even seeing the word#disclaimer: the previous sentence is not me saying that it is a slur for asexuals. it is me a single individual saying this specific word#grosses me out to read and see everywhere when its a stupid bullshit binary made up or at least historically largely used#to shame largely women and i dont know why we're still using it in 2023#and ive just been. seeing such an uptick in this whole like. attitude? lately and like#im ace im minorly sex repulsed. mostly about anything sex at me bad. other adults sex at each other consensually? go wild#i like to think im pretty chill about it. i try to be. i think its fine ig to be like 'my meat is huge i fuck so much so good'#like okay not my thing but good for you. love that for you#but then some of yall have started turning it back around back to. 'haha your meat so small and shriveled you get no bitches'#'haha stupid incel virgin' like okay. didnt realize we all went back to fucking. middle school but okay#god im gonna run out of tine to get ready for my thing writing this stupid post UGH evil#but like idk we've kinda circled back to being like haha being a virgin still is stupid and silly and shameful#and if im quite honest. i do think the acecourse played a part in that bc i felt like we were making good progress in like#hey guys is fine to not have sex ever if you dont want to its fine to not want sex its fine#and then aphobes went fucking rabid on us and splintered and destroyed online communities all over but especially on tumblr#and so many aces went back in the closet we stopped talking about it we stopped spreading awareness and now this stupid goddamn like#and now this stupid bullshit attitude is back where its like funny to call someone a virgin as an insult but like no bro trust me its okay#its okay for me to do it bc im a hot queer person with huge meat instead of a cisstraight frat bro with huge meat#? like you know the issue was the behavior right? not the fact that it was straight dudes saying it? its bc the thing being said was shitty?#you know you can dunk on the puritan bitches trying to police your behavior at pride without getting us as collateral damage right#stop making me read that stupid ugly ass word ur not cool or funny#whatever#if you come on to this post to start shit i will not only block you but as many of your mutuals and followers as i can find. i will scroll#i will block this entire fucking website if i need to do not test me. i am exhausted and the acecourse ate up all my tolerance in 2015.
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rrat-king · 11 months ago
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i love seeing people protecting kristen applebees against people hating on her character for junior year but fully not actually seeing the hate against her myself. i have created a beautiful ally beardsley loving echo chamber and i will not be venturing out
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moeblob · 6 months ago
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Impulsively shoving a guy's hand in your mouth after having the thought "oh just like when my little sister used to prick herself on a rose thorn" and then immediately being treated like a pet who ate something they shouldn't have? Wonderful. Thank you, Thane.
(also not pictured is Thane apparently trying to scrape your tongue with his hand BEFORE pouring the holy water down your throat because NO. BAD.)
#bewitching sinners#palmier baker#thane verashkova#accidentally ingesting vampire blood because of big brother impulses is wild#also the reason hes so alarmed is bc in that world you kinda soulbond to others and thats how you soulbond as a vampire#you drink each others blood and so hes flipping out because while he hasnt had your blood yet#hey your ex is going to absolutely kill me if we bond on accident and i dont think i wanna die like that!#which is VERY cool to know thank you thane im so glad your concern is actually less of being bound#but about being murdered thats really cool#also the fact thane is found in the library studying with arshem my beloved ex and is BRIBED TO LEARN RECIPES#by arshem with vials of mixed blood hes just CASUALLY CARRYING is like hey man#thank you for being group mum i love you for it#and then later on arshem actually is like oh thane you can drink my blood later since you havent fed for a while#and thane is super chipper about it like HECK YEAH THANKS !#hey boys youre adorable thank you for existing in this incredibly fucked up world#im in a choke hold with this otome im sorry#you ever try to be nice to a guy and think surely this will help him a little bit then you get background lore#and you realize youre probably making things A LOT WORSE FOR HIM by being nice#im going through it with my emotions as i learn about palmiers actions pre game swap so like#dude please i am BEGGING YOU palmier please have ONE redeeming quality in you at some point#i want to adopt one of the love interests as my son though and im obsessed with the fact he can speak fish#my son can speak to the fish and he gives me fish as a present bc i might need it later#and i do actually in fact need said fish later for another quest#thankyou my son i love you and i appreciate you youre amazing#gonna have to draw arshem at some point and everyone will immediately go yeah that makes sense
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where-the-water-flows · 6 months ago
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also like au where teenaged Li xiangyi runs into also teenaged di feisheng mid fight with a di assassin, li xiangyi finds out about the mind control bug via idk overhearing the two Di kids being like 'yeah neither of us want to do this really but y'know. it's not like we have a choice' or whatever, and thus li xiangyi, baby activist for JUSTICE ends up fully derailing his sort of vauge plans to set up a sect in favour of dealing with this terrible injustice because it's, y'know, pretty fucked up and also he's been in the martial world for about six weeks max and in that time he's seen one (1) sect fully massacred like his repressed trauma backstory, presumably thrown himself into a bunch of other unfair fights, and is now faced with a guy only a couple years older than him who's digging his kind-of sect brother's grave after being forced to fight him to death because of fucking mind control slavery
(because on the one hand he's still kind of an arrogant brat, and on the other hand this shit is fucked up and also super personal and kinda complicated in a way that 'just sword the problem to jail/death' can't actually fix, given the whole mind control thing, and he is very rapidly finding out that wow, turns out everything off the mountain is actually very extremely fucked up and way more complicated than he thought.)
shan gudao shows up after like, barely a week away doing idk, sketchy nanyin related things probably, and his arrogant brat of a shidi is immediately hey guess what shixiong new plan we can get back to sect building later, also this is my new best friend he's awesome at sword and barely socialised, also also he's crashing with us now or rather I'm crashing with him and his band of weirdos he's collecting!
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fraternum-momentum · 6 months ago
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apartment hunting lead me to a job interview tomorrow, wish me luck 🙏😭
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cerealmonster15 · 15 days ago
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[vibrating a little too fast] Do You Understand My Vision Yet
#twst#twisted wonderland#cereal tries to draw#cater diamond#jade leech#trey clover#and some other guys but this aint about them#girl i do not even begin to know how to tag this one#trejeikei. treycayjay. caterjadetrey. girl fucking help#i still subscribe to jade having a crush on both of them at the same time and Being Weird About It lol#my fave thing in fanart is w/octavinelle if anyone is drawing shipping art of one of them with someone#the other two being either confused or disgusted or just bullying for fun about it#and then my other favorite is riddle being pissed as hell finding out his beloved card soldier besties are turning to the dark side#fraternizing with the enemy. [kissing a fish boy]#cater and trey both picking octavinelle for their union bday dorm choice is still so funny to me#AND THEN RIDDLE WENT AND PICKED JADE FOR HIS THEORETICAL BROTHER CHOICE LOL god dont even get me started on them#i am also obsessed with jade and riddles dynamic but god. no time for dat now goku.#cater voice hey siri what do u do when a boy holds ur hand and Wont Let Go#i love trey but i feel like i only ever draw him as a tiny head icon w/someone else talking about him fkshfkldshf#i mean ive drawn him in more things sometimes. usually treycay. i just dont post him very much#idk why hes so hard to draw LOL#i passively enjoy treyjade i think i used to look it up more in early twst days#but i ALSO like them both with CATER A LOT and u know me. love to tape characters together. into the polycule soup with you boy.#anyway in that first one cay i think was like 'wow jade kinda never expected u and trey to get together lol no offense -'#and jades like 🤝 well i dont mind sharing 😌#SHARING WHAT- theyre all holding hands now the end :]#riddle voice if u break cater and/or treys hearts it is On Sight jade leech#jade voice teehee well we wouldnt want that ill do my best 😌#riddle is not convinced.#anyway shoutout to ME and the like 1-2 people this might appeal to lol
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banefort · 2 months ago
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im gonna be reallly annoying here for a second grrm shouldve added so much more linguistic diversity to westeros. especially the north and ESPECIALLY north of the wall. also there's no way daenerys's mothertongue would be high valyrian. thank you.
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buzzares · 2 months ago
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its 2024 why am i still gettinf recommended billdip.
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nottoonedin · 5 months ago
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"AU where Ivan is alive" this "Fic where Ivan and Till are saved by the Rebels" that..
Where are all the fics where Sua is alive/saved by the rebels with Mizi? ¿Dónde? ¿Dónde están??
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almoststedytimetravel · 2 months ago
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Part of me thinks that Ken would be fucking pissed at Akihiko for his pre-arena ghosting and break that man's legs, but another part of me thinks that Ken defiantly has 'child of divorce' brain and has already convinced himself that it's his fault.
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keymintt · 9 months ago
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life doodles
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dangans-ur-ronpas · 4 months ago
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Chapter 23
ohhh baby we back in it now
SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY
Some pre-chapter notes:
byakuya pov finally
bonus headcanon coming into play here: byakuya being Wasian
shoutout @digitaldollsworld for helping me conceptualize byakuya's mom! both of us are Sick about her
Content warning tags: wall-punching, grieving/mourning, unreality (dreaming)
< previous - from start - next >
There’s a woman standing in his office.
Byakuya stands behind the cracked-open doorway, peeking through - though, part of him does rile up with the indignity of having to spy into his own office - at the intruder, standing in front of his desk, back facing the door.
He can’t see her face. But he can see her flax-yellow hair, tied back with a wrinkled, silken scarf that’s probably the most expensive thing she’s wearing. Her cotton jumpsuit is so stained and faded that hardly any of the original blue is still there. Her canvas shoes are discolored with mud.
She would look more out of place, if the shabbiness of her hadn’t seeped into her surroundings. The carpet is splattered with crusted clay, and shards of stone stick out of the plush threads like thorns. The mahogany surface of his desk is creaking and bent under the weight of a large cube of fleshy, white marble, splintering under the lacquer.
As he watches, she lifts her bare hands - ugly, roughened, thickly muscled fingers, nails cracked and filthy - like a conductor before an orchestra. She pauses, head tilted like a bird, thinking, and Byakuya inexplicably finds himself holding his breath; and then, she places her palms against the stone.
The surface of it warps and distends beneath her touch, first like a swollen balloon, and then like clay, twisting and following her hands like a swimming fish. And he watches, fascinated despite himself, as she bends and shapes it, twisting pieces off, smoothing edges down. She pinches out a piece in the middle for a nose, smoothes down a sharp edge for a sloping curve of a cheek, flicks her nail sharply beneath the brow to pull out a crease for an eyelid.
It’s magic. In seemingly no time at all, there on his desk is a bust; the head of a man brought to life, caught in a soft, gentle expression. The sculptor pauses, and steps backwards to take in her work.
There’s something reverent about it, and Byakuya suddenly has the feeling that he’s witnessing something not meant for him to see.
But he creaks the door open slightly more to get a better look, finding it strange how he was more curious than angry, even despite the intrusion. As he approaches, the bust’s eyes suddenly flick towards him, and immediately the serenity is replaced by a solemn, pinched brow, the smile replaced by a severe slash of a frown. And Byaukuya realizes he recognizes this face.
The marble-wrought head of Kijo Togami is sitting on his desk, scowling at him.
“Byakuya?”
He turns to the woman. She’s facing him now, though she has no face to speak of - it is blurred and unfocused, like a distant background character of an impressionist oil painting, the features mere shifting smears against a flat plane - but he knows her. He knows her.
“Byakuya,” She repeats, the syllables awkward on her tongue. She’s speaking French, and she sounds distant. Muted, underwater. But her voice still has the same, oddly musical quality to it that he remembers, making everything she said sound like a lullaby. “Bijou. Did I not tell you to stay out of my studio?”
Her studio?
“This is my office.” He protests back. He can’t tell if he’s speaking Japanese or not; every word feels clumsy and foreign, like he’s just learned how to talk. “What are you doing here, Mother?”
She just sighs. Shakes her head, her featureless face. There’s no anger in it, no loving exasperation either; just a neutral disapproval of his presence. His unwanted existence in her space. “Bijou,” She says again, and the nickname irritates him. A sweet-sounding endearment that was ultimately empty, a placeholder for her to refer to him by, because his own name was too clumsy to speak with her accent. “When did you become so grown? When will you stop being so cold?”
The stone Kijo Togami is still frowning at him. In this instant, both the man he calls ‘Father’ and the woman who had birthed him - one painfully-detailed stone, the other indistinct flesh - stand before him. One silent and forever displeased, the other sweet but hollow-sounding and entirely uncaring that they shared any blood at all.
“How strange it is, that you look so much like me,” She sighs, raising a hand to his face. He flinches away from it, the sandpaper sharpness of her palms, the filth that stains the creases of her skin, the heat that comes off of it like a kiln. “And yet, you are so much like him.”
He wakes up with a gasp, eyes snapping open.
He’s greeted with the pitch darkness of his ceiling, cut through with a thin slash of white from his bathroom light, streaming through the cracked-open door. A reminder he had taken to preparing for himself before he went to bed, that his eyes were still there, and he sighs and presses a palm to his chest as he stares up at it. Feeling his heart pounding beneath his fingertips, then slowing, in time with his breaths.
A dream. He can’t remember the last time he dreamed so vividly, but he had been subjected to some unpleasantly…shocking events the last few days (he won’t call them traumatic, he’s witnessed far worse in his life). The details of the dream are already slipping away as he tries to recall it, like sand between his fingers. It’s hardly important.
He lies in bed a moment longer, trying to see if sleep will come, but even with the adrenaline fading he’s wide-awake. Annoying, but not surprising, considering how he had spent much of the day before napping in short, fitful bursts. He pushes himself upright, reaching under his pillow for his handbook; may as well make use of the time.
The clock on his handbook reads: three AM. His neglected stomach gurgles as he squints at the dim glow of the screen, and he sighs. He hasn’t eaten since Celeste’s little tea party the day before, and he might as well go to the kitchen now. There likely wouldn’t be anyone wandering around to disturb him. And with Ishimaru gone, there was no one left to seriously uphold the nightly curfew; he drags himself out of bed with a grunt, grabbing his bathrobe off the end of his bedpost as he goes.
He’s not expecting the trap that he finds when he opens the door, however. The first step he takes past the threshold is accompanied by a loud, startling crunch, and he jumps backwards, just barely stifling a shriek. He throws his hand against the light switch, digging it into his palm as he flicks in on, and at once the yellow glow streaming from his room illuminates the something round, brown, and somewhat deflated sitting in the hallway.
For a moment, he thinks it's some kind of rodent, dead and trodden under his foot. But closer inspection reveals it to be packaged bread, only slightly crushed in its plastic wrapper. There’s no note, but he can guess who the offering is from.
He sighs, picks it up by the corner, and tosses it behind him towards his trash can as he leaves.
The hallways are dim, and almost silent if not for the dull hum of the school’s inner machinery. The whoosh of air conditioning, the muffled clang of pipes. None of the construction that Hagakure had reported days ago, not even when he strains his ears.
But he does catch the quiet murmur of conversation as he passes the bathhouse, and he pauses, staring at the light that streams from behind the curtain, the quick-flicker of shadows moving from inside.
“It wasn’t your fault!”
He freezes, standing just outside. That was Chihiro’s - no, Alter Ego’s - voice. 
“I know Master wouldn’t resent you.” It continues, earnest and bright. “And based on my data…I don’t think Kiyotaka would blame you either!”
“But it was my fault,” Mondo’s voice is strained and hollow, grieving still. “If I hadn’t left them alone - if I’d tried to just talk to him -”
Byakuya shifts slightly. He doesn’t want to be here, to have to witness Mondo’s continued breakdown. He still hasn’t forgiven the other boy, but having to see him stuck in the depths of misery was…unpleasant. And he’s not so petty to want retribution while the target of his ire was in such a state.
He tiptoes past, giving the bathhouse entrance a wide berth. From inside, he hears more indistinct voices, one low and gravelly from crying, the other electronic and gentle. And then-
“Brother, what are you looking so down for?” This one was new, but chillingly familiar. Loud and overeager and belonging to someone who was supposed to be dead. “You-”
Crash.
The sound of crunching metal. In the quiet of the hallway, it’s as loud as an explosion, and it makes Byakuya jump. Before he can reconsider, he’s sprinting into the bathhouse, throwing aside the curtain.
It takes him a moment to process what he’s seeing. Owada is standing, partly-hunched, one hand punching against the wall of lockers hard enough to warp the thin metal door. Someone is standing beneath him hands raised in self-defense - it takes Byakuya a moment to recognize that it’s Makoto, dressed in the white and dark blue of his pajamas, lacking the signature green of his jacket - and from somewhere behind Makoto, there’s a dim, neon-green glow, and a confused, worried voice.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-!” 
“Don’t do that,” Owada snarls, drowning out Alter Ego’s stuttered apology. The locker door rattles where his fist is pressed into it. “Don’t just- wear his face, don’t you dare-”
“M-Mondo, it didn’t mean to! It was just trying-” Makoto breaks off, apparently noticing Byakuya. “B-Byakuya-?!”
Byakuya was immediately beginning to regret his decision to involve himself in the first place. “What is going on here?” He demands, crossing his arms and glaring imperiously.
Instead of replying, Owada pulls away, withdrawing his hand and retreating to slump over on the bench, despondent and unresponsive once more. Makoto twitches, turning between Owada, then Alter Ego, and back to Byakuya. “Um…”
“It’s not their fault!” Alter Ego pipes up hurriedly, its voice echoing tinnily from inside its locker, and Byakuya could feel a corresponding vibration from the handbook tucked in his shirt pocket. “It seems Mondo wanted to ask me a question, and Makoto was just helping to convey that-”
“I don’t care.” He snaps, and Alter Ego falls silent. “Neither of them are supposed to be here in the first place, and especially not after hours. Are the two of you trying to draw Monokuma’s suspicion? Endanger Alter Ego?” Makoto flinches a bit at that. Owada doesn’t even move. “Don’t you care about getting out of here at all?”
He’s not really expecting a reply, so he’s surprised when Owada speaks up. “ ‘Course not.” He rasps, so low and hollow that it was like he was speaking from the depths of a pit. Or maybe he was the pit, swelling with black-matter misery. “I…don’t care about anything anymore.”
Well. That’s to be expected. But even despite that, he finds himself a bit rattled. He’s been at the receiving end of anger, venom, screaming anguish and even vehement hate at this point. But this emptiness Owada is exhibiting was new; It seems like this school is insistent on teaching me new things, he thinks, and feels his lip curling up with the bitter irony.
“So you’re content to waste away? Throw away that anger that you were so proud of?” He raises a scathing eyebrow. “Go ahead and do that, then. I won’t stop you. But at the very least, spare the rest of us the dramatics of your little episode.”
“Byakuya!”
He twitches a bit, irritated. Makoto’s voice is shrill despite being hushed, and laced with anger; he’s standing stiffly next to Alter Ego’s open locker, hands trembling at his sides.
“What, Makoto.” He snaps, and only belatedly realizes that this was the first time he’s actually spoken to the other boy since the trial; in his irritation, he went and broke his own self-imposed vow of silence against him.
He doesn’t respond immediately, but doesn’t immediately shrink away either at the acidity of Byakuya’s tone. If anything he stands up a little straighter. “It’s only been a day since…you know.” He says, and his words are slow and careful, meticulously chosen. Like he’s in a trial again, trying to soothe skittish tempers - though Byakuya feels the exact opposite of ‘soothed’ by it - “Mondo asked to talk to Alter Ego. I went with him. It got a little heated-”
“A little? Is that what you call this?” He points at the locker next to his head; the one that Mondo had punched, the dent a clear, dark blotch of shadow in the middle of the flat green surface.
“That -” Makoto winces slightly. “We weren’t really expecting-”
“No, clearly not. And not thinking either, I imagine.”
“I-”
“I suppose safety and logic took second priority over trying to be helpful, hm? Since that’s all that’s important to you?” He’s not sure where these words are coming from, filled with acid. But it feels good to talk, to spit out every miserable thing that he’s feeling, that he’s felt because of Makoto. “You were so very kind to help me during that trial, after all.”
“Okay, that’s not-”
“That must be why you’re here now, I imagine. Sneaking out at this late hour past Kyoko, just so you could babysit this useless mess.” He sneers. “Did you decide to make Mondo your next pet project, trying to be his little assistant like you were mine?”
“Oh, for-” Makoto takes a deep breath, presses his hands to his eyes. “Can you shut the fuck up?! For one second?”
Whatever else Byakuya was about to say, dissipates like smoke out of his slack-jawed mouth. Even Owada seems to twitch up at this, the only sign of surprise he could give, compared to Byakuya’s shock.
Makoto is quiet for a few seconds, and the only sound is the quiet hum of pipes, and the sound of his breathing, shaky but slow. He pulls his hands away from his face after one more shuddering breath. “Okay. I’m okay now.” He says this part quietly, as if it were more for himself than anyone else. Then:
“It’s not fair,” He addresses Byakuya, and his voice is almost steady. “I’m trying my best, I’m trying to keep us all alive.”
“Yes, and you’re doing-”
“No! Shut up! Just listen!” He snaps, and Byakuya’s teeth click as he shuts his mouth, effectively cutting off the rest of his sarcastic remark. “Right now, the best thing we can do is to survive together. We’re just going to play into the mastermind’s hands if we can’t trust each other. Why doesn’t anyone get that?!”
His voice actually cracks on the last syllable, and he sounds close to hysterics. Byakuya simply stares, dumbfounded for a moment, before:
“...You’re going to say that? After what just happened?” It’s so ridiculous he could almost laugh. Trust? In this school, in this game? After everything that’s happened? “We all trusted Ishimaru. Where did that get us? Where did that get Chihiro?”
No sooner has that name left his mouth, does he try to bite it back. Feeling all at once mortified that he would stoop so low, that he would let himself be pushed to such a level. But it’s too late to take it back - at the sound of those names, Owada jerks again, and Makoto actually takes a step backwards, as if struck - so Byakuya keeps going. “This isn’t some-some fairy tale where everyone can learn to get along by talking about our feelings. None of us have any unity left - if even Ishimaru can snap, then there’s no telling who might strike next.”
“Stop,” Makoto grits out. “Taka - it was an accident. Just a stupid accident.” And that was the worst part, wasn’t it? That none of this was supposed to happen at all; if the coincidences hadn’t lined up terribly, horribly perfectly. “He didn’t mean for Chihiro to die!”
And Chihiro didn’t mean to get killed either. But he manages to swallow that thought, bitter and heavy in his throat. “His intentions didn’t change the outcome.” He says instead, cold and flat and utterly, completely empty.
Silence falls on the room. The lights buzz, the pipes hiss; the old, outdated screen of Alter Ego’s computer hums softly, contemplatively. There’s the muted, metallic thump of the water heater, somewhere inside the wall.
And then Owada speaks up.
“What should I do?” He asks hollowly. He’s looking up now, directly at him. His hair is limp, pompadour undone and falling over his face, obscuring it in streaks of dirty yellow. “I…they’re dead. I couldn’t-” He takes a slow, shuddering breath. “It was my fault. But I don’t know what to do.”
His words are pleading and genuine, as if Byakuya could give a proper answer; he hesitates, still uncertain of what to do with this…empty shell of a punk.
He glances towards Makoto, and then the dim green glow still emanating from the open locker. “Do you care what you do with your life at this point?”
“Byakuya…” Makoto starts warningly, but Owada interrupts him.
“No.”
“Then use it to protect Alter Ego.” If Owada has any sort of misgivings or protest about this, Byakuya ignores them. “That’s Chihiro’s last work, after all. It’s the least you can do to guard it.”
“Is…” Owada’s head turns towards the locker, then back. “Is that…okay?”
His hesitation is understandable. Even if Alter Ego was nothing more than a clever program, it did still wear the face of the boy who Owada’s friend inadvertently killed, and whose corpse Owada had tried to conceal. And that wasn’t even considering if Alter Ego would be cooperative in being protected by him, though there wasn’t much it could do about it.
But Alter Ego is the one who speaks up. “I hope we get along well, Mondo!” It chirps, a smile clear on its voice. And Mondo simply stares for a moment, before burying his face in his palms, and begins to cry.
__
“Are you going back to your room?”
He stops, and turns. They’ve left the bathhouse, Mondo departing first after sobbing his eyes out, and Makoto insisting he go rest in his room - though he probably would’ve ended up staying in the bathhouse all night if he could’ve gotten away with it - and Byakuya, having ended up spending an hour more than he wanted to dealing with it all, is tired once more..
“Where else would I be going?” He scoffs. Makoto is standing just in front of the bahthouse curtains, his face entirely concealed by shadow.
“I…” He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself. “I noticed you didn’t really…eat a proper meal yesterday. I could go make you something?”
It’s tempting, for a moment. Byakuya clenches a hand in his robe, pressed against his stomach to stifle any unwarranted growls. “No.” He says firmly. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Oh…are you sure? Because-”
“Makoto.” He falls silent. “I told you that there’s no need for us to uphold the deal we made. Your assistance is no longer needed.”
“...But, this isn’t because of the deal, I just-”
“I’m not so low that I’d need charity from you.”
He goes quiet again. Quiet and still, and there’s something off-putting about how he looks. Outlined by the yellow lights of the bathhouse but otherwise completely in darkness, his silhouette sharpened without his jacket. “...Is it really that hard, trusting someone?”
For as angry as he’d been in the bathhouse, now he’s more like his usual self. Quieter, and unsure. The one person out of place in this school, designated unremarkable and then made remarkable because of that.
An unremarkable life. No wonder he couldn’t understand.
“You’ve never had to worry about it before,” He says. “I imagine your life is like a sheep’s. Completely oblivious to the danger around you, as long as you stay inside the fence.
“But the world isn’t as kind as you think it is. And people can always be swayed, no matter how much you trust them, or how much you think they trust you.” He’s seen it happen. He’s exploited it himself, even. “At this point, it would be safest to stop associating with anyone. If you had any brains at all, you would do the same.”
Makoto lets out a sigh that’s almost a laugh, though it’s bitter and mirthless. “Kyoko said the same thing,” He mutters, half to himself. “So you won’t feel safe unless you’re alone? Even though there’s only ten of us left?” He shakes his head, and the motion is a little dizzying, the messy shape of his hair blurring into a dark mass. “How many more people need to die for you to feel safe?”
He sounds angry again, but it’s a colder kind of anger. Resentful and resigned. When did you become so cold?
“...I won’t be safe until I’m out of here.” Byakuya replies steadily, though the hand clenched in his robe tightens slightly. “Even if I could keep everyone in my sight, it’s not like it’d be easy to tell if they were holding a weapon.”
Silently, he adds: And thanks to you, they know that as well.
Makoto doesn’t say anything in reply, so Byakuya leaves. Quickly, in case his stomach threatens to grumble again; his hand doesn’t leave his robe until he’s safely inside his room, door locked behind him.
He almost treads on the bread again, stepping on a corner of the packaging and jumping at the sharp, crinkling sound. It takes a little bit of fumbling in the dark until he finds it, squeezing it through the plastic.
He’s tempted, for a moment, his fingers already searching for the serrated edge to tear it open. But the image of Makoto standing at the bathhouse entrance jumps to his mind; still and shrouded in darkness. A strange, statuesque parody of his usual self.
He throws the bread across the room and climbs back into bed.
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