#i just really love makoto and keep needing to draw him so expect more

[milesofstars]

this was a stupid idea i drew like a nearly week ago and i jsut need to put it somewhere because these 2 wont get out of my head

[makowo]

Forever Deep Below Creation

This is still a work in progress, but due to my lack of posted writing in the past 3 months, I thought I'd give a sneak peek at the beginning of the fic.

Warnings: None

Characters: Naegi Makoto, Kirigiri Kyoko

Relationships: Kirigiri Kyoko/Naegi Makoto

Words: 3k

It’s another warm night in the woods. Cicadas cast their calls to the air, and while some creatures tuck into their nests and dens, others rise to greet the darkened sky. Wing and hooves and fingers and claws grazing the sky, Brushing against the stars and cupping the face of the moon.

And here Makoto is, prepping dinner in the cottage he calls a home. His home. Their home.

He pulls out a knife from the block by the counter just as he hears the front door’s lock click. He can almost feel the burst of warm night air flooding their living room, though it is little to the warmth of the stove as it works to bring water to a boil.

He blinks, dropping his focus to turn towards his wife with a grin. “Welcome home honey!”

“Honey?” Kyoko echos, placing her bag on the coffee table. She leaves her holstered gun beside it, walking into the kitchen to check on him. “It’s unusual for you to use pet names.”

“Only if I wanna tease you.” He chuckles, and she does it right back. “Unless you prefer stuff like “babe” or “sweetheart”?”

Arms wrap around his waist, Kyoko resting her chin on his shoulder. “What’s for dinner tonight?”

She avoids the question, and he saves that tidbit of info for later. Avoidance is not a no, after all. “Yakisoba.” He nudges the noodles around with a spoon, half-focused on it as he leans back against his wife. “Thought it might be good to have something quick tonight, y’know?”

Kyoko merely hums, burying her face into the crook of his neck. “Shouldn’t you turn up the AC? You’re cold.”

“Means I can cuddle up to you to stay warm tonight though.”

“As if I’ll let you do that.” She scoffs. He can feel her smile against his skin.

“Ohh?” He goes through the motions of prepping their dinner, Kyoko stumbling along with his hasty steps with a steadfast grip. “And how are you gonna stop it?” Even if they’re on opposite ends of the bed, they always wake up with one clinging to the other. Hard not to cuddle.

She takes a minute to ruminate on it, before managing an answer. “Heater. Right between us.”

Makoto laughs. “Won’t that burn?”

“If it keeps your ice hands from touching me at 2 in the morning, then ‘m fine.”

His whine of objection couldn’t be more fake. “That’s mean.” He quickly nabs the pair of bowls set aside early on, tracing the grooves of their rims with his thumbs as he sets them out side by side. “You’re mean.”

Finally, he’s released from his lavender-scented prison as Kyoko reaches for one of the bowls, unsubtly nudging him in an attempt to get him out of the way. He stays still however, nudging her right back. “It’s still hot, Kiri-san! Gotta let it sit for a bit.” He warns with a frown.

“It can sit for a bit in my bowl.” She replies deadpan, still urging him away. And he relents, because it isn’t that big of a deal anyway but he doesn’t want to watch Kyoko burn her mouth while trying to eat again. Or just forget about it while she works.

“Then eat with me in the living room.” Makoto grabs his own bowl, getting what yakisoba she leaves behind in the pan. “And after it, we go straight to bed.” He’s not risking his work going to waste, after all.

Even with these tough terms he’s set up, Kyoko lazily nods, most likely due to still suffering from sleep deprivation. Maybe she’ll decline when she’s woken up a bit, maybe she won’t. Makoto decides to settle down on the couch and put on a movie that might distract her from it anyway.

It’s more background noise than anything, though; something about an escape room? Pretty sure he put on a sequel movie too, which turns their interest only to one another. Not that he minds.

“Would you like to go on a trip sometime in the next month?”

“Mmh, yeah?” He replies through a mouthful of food, quickly swallowing it before continuing. “What case has you going out of the country this time?” It’s not odd for Kyoko to ask if he wants to travel with her if she knows it’ll take too long for Makoto to bear.

She shakes her head, taking a bite of her food before answering. “I mean as a vacation, actually?” She replies with a tone implying that she’s questioning her own words already.

“Vacation?” He can’t help but echo, because… well, Kyoko never takes vacations! He can imagine she has a lot of days saved up because of that, but it never seems like she plans to put them to use other than for emergencies. Guess he read her wrong on that part, even if this is the first time she’s planning a legitimate vacation herself in the four years she’s been working as a detective again.

“Is it a bad time?”

“No, no!” Makoto shakes his head, not daring to let this slip by. “I’d love a vacation! It’d be nice to get out of the house.” He doesn’t really have much going on anyway, since the whole school idea didn’t really pan out. He’s just a stay at home husband now, and since Kyoko still makes enough money to support them both, he’s not actively seeking a job right now. Thus, he’s perfectly free.

Kyoko smiles. “Good. I’ve made sure to go ahead and clear up a week for ourselves, but I need to know what you might want to do.” She glances at him curiously, before quickly adding on. “Preferably not something that’s outside of Japan, I’d have trouble paying for that right now.”

Well that’s a no brainer for him, but it does narrow down his options significantly, which he happens to be thankful for. “Do you have anything in mind?” For a fleeting moment, Makoto recalls his dinner, taking a bite of it before he looks away from it and thus forgets it even exists. “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really have anything in mind…” Never been one to aspire for once-in-a-lifetime thrills, like skydiving or something. He’d be happy just lounging at home the whole week, despite his earlier comment.

“I thought we could go to a nearby city then, and go sight-seeing.” Kyoko spares a glance towards the movie playing, before interest in it is once again immediately lost “Maybe in Seoul? There’s a large cave system there as well, and they’re open to caving this time of year.”

“Hm?” Makoto tries to recall what exactly that is, but he’s drawing blanks. “What’s that?”

“Well, Seoul is-”

“I know what Seoul is.” Makoto deadpans, though completely understands why she thought that was what he was talking about. He’s not the most educated person, what with the whole memory loss thing. “”I mean caving! I’ve never, uh, heard of that.”

“Ah.” Kyoko nods, setting down her bowl on the coffee table. “Apologies. It is rather self-explanatory however; we just go and explore a cave system with a small group.” She shrugs, stifling a yawn. “I thought it might be fun to do something like that together. It’s rare for a person to do, wouldn’t be too dangerous, and we’d be together the whole time.”

That does sound pretty cool, he’ll admit. He’s never really gone into a cave before, if he excludes the ones that they’d have to hide in during… ah, well, it’d just be nice. Doing something kind of thrilling. He imagines it’s thrilling, at least.

“I think it’d be fun!” He finally chirps, leaning over to rest his head on Kyoko’s shoulder. “It’s been a while since we’ve done something together, I’m sure it’d be a good time for us both.” And he’s pretty sure they don’t have any trauma tied to caves, which is a definite plus! Unless they count claustrophobia? Neither of them have shown signs of that though, so they’ll hopefully be fine. Hopefully.

As if she were able to sense his worry (which he doesn’t doubt that she can), Kyoko places a hand on his leg, stopping its worried bouncing. He hadn’t even noticed it doing that. “Are you sure?” She asks lightly, brow furrowed with worry. “”It can be dangerous, you know. There’s only so much a tour guide can do to make naturally made caves safe to enter.”

Makoto frowns, now actually worried. “Then why would you recommend it?” He asks, very quietly.

Kyoko takes a while to respond. In fact, she doesn’t respond until she’s actually finished her dinner, as well as his. It was getting cold so he may as well let her have it. “Do some looking, and if you have a better idea, tell me.” And then she heads to bed, because that’s just. A perfectly fine way of ending a conversation.

Makoto trudges on after her after about an hour of thinking (mostly lack thereof, with the television being such a terribly convenient and easy distraction) on the couch. Unlike most nights though, where the room is pitch black, her back turned from the door so as to not catch the stray rays of lights that he’s forgotten to turn off, it’s… actually still pitch black in there. But after a moment of letting his eyes adjust, he catches Kyoko’s alarmingly bright gaze cutting through the gloom.

“Can’t sleep?” He mutters as he stumbles through the dark, going off of his recollection of the room’s layout, reduced to something of barely any use through the haze of sleepiness tugging at his being.

“I can.” She replies slowly, watching him not unlike how a cat would watch their owner. Not that she or their relationship in general compares to that; she just has that… “look”. Like she knows everything. “Was just waiting for you to come to bed.”

If he’s being honest, it’s kind of exciting. It’s the look she gives when her interest is upon him entirely, something that earns a flattered blush every time. “Thank you then.” He chirps, before crawling into bed like a lizard wriggling beneath the warm sands of a desert, except much less gracefully.

He almost expects nothing to happen, oddly enough. He should have known Kyoko was waiting for a reason.

A warmth presses up against his back, and a hum against his ear. “Don’t have to go in until noon tomorrow.” Kyoko huffs. He can just sense her smile when he shivers. “So… we could…” something presses between his legs, and teases just the right spot, “have some time to ourselves, maybe…?”

Makoto is a weak man, and especially weak for his wife. And thus, all he can do is scrounge up what remains of his energy, roll over, and let the franticness of their motions do the rest. ------------------------------------

It’s quite a hike to get to the cave they’ve been looking at. The route is safe, spacious, and short for the most part; it’s apparently a tour “good for beginners”, and while Makoto believes their caving adventures will begin and end with this one, it’s nice to know that this place doesn’t have any curveballs. Or spike-filled areas. Or tunnels one can only crawl through. Or maybe even fractures.

“Stop worrying.” Kyoko demands, his thoughts coming to a harsh stop. He manages not to be totally thrown off, following hastily after his wife as they trudge along a pebble-filled path.

He sighs when he catches up, glancing around. Just west there’s Tokyo, bustling with life, but it’s far enough only to serve as a backdrop to the hill-covered fields they’re in. They follow a path lined by thin ropes tied to sticks in the ground every other step, as despite the lack of actually dangerous areas nearby, there’s a lot of… well, area. The Tragedy changed a lot of the landscape, more so than most would believe.

Stopping his mind from wandering too far again, Makoto directs his attention ahead. They have a few other people with them, much more diverse in their body type than he assumes the average would be for much more difficult to traverse caves. They talk amongst themselves, all of them clearly going with someone they know for the trip. Ahead of them, the tour guides walk, though he can’t tell what they’re doing. He doubts it to be much at all, really.

“Are you excited?” He finally asks, careful not to speak loudly. He doesn’t want to draw much attention from their peers here, they’re lucky enough to have only garnered a few curious looks.

“Of course.” Kyoko replies, just as quiet. “I’m sorry it had to be delayed so much, cases just kept piling up.”

Makoto scoffs. “Don’t worry about it, I’m just glad you’re able to help people.” Adjusting to keep a good hold on his backpack, he reaches over to grasp Kyoko’s hand. She’s changed her gloves today. Much rougher. “Even if it’s not another year until we get a chance like this again, I’m satisfied.”

He hopes for a smile, or the most likely quirk of the lips she gives when beyond the walls of their home. He earns neither.

“I’m not.” She tightens her grip, tugging him forwards. “Come on. We’re falling behind.”

Makoto nods, silent as he follows her up the steep incline, and silent still until they come to the entrance to the cave.

He can only think of an open maw when he sees the entrance. It sits neatly above the ground, embedded into the side of the hill’s peak, moss creeping over the exposed rock. Various plants and flowers bloom from cracks in the walls he can see, reaching out towards the sunlight beyond. But as he looks upon the entrance, the teasing glimpse it shows of its surely vast depths, he can’t help but think they’re trying to escape the dark rather than gain any sunlight.

The heat must be getting to him.

“Alright everyone!” One of the guides chirps, clapping their hands to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s do a quick check to make sure everyone has what they need!”

Makoto remembers all their supplies, and part of him knows that he has everything, but anxiety urges him to check once more. Plus, he needs to actually put some of it on now. That too.

He crouches down and pulls his backpack around, trying not to focus on the cave. Instead, he mentally lists off each item as he finds it; helmet, gloves, boots, first aid kit, and a flashlight. Not much really, and he’s more than happy about that fact.

Makoto sighs, putting on each item he needs and putting away the rest. He’s careful about the gloves in particular as he puts them on; the helmet may have a light that could break if he’s not cautious, but Kyoko picked these out for him specifically before this trip. She has very strong opinions about them, and apparently these are the best pair for this sort of task that she could find. And they must be, they’re very comfortable! A perfect fit even, despite the fact that she gave them to him on the way here without any warning. He can’t imagine what they must have cost.

After checking for his caving suit and quickly realizing that he already put it on before making this trek, Makoto shoves his old shoes and socks into the back, hopping back up just as everyone else seems to be handed something.

“Now, before we head in, I want you all to get a good look at this map.” The guide says as they hand a sheet of paper to each group. “Even if this is a short trip, and we know this place like the backs of our hands, there’s a few turns here and there!”

Kyoko takes the map they’re given, Makoto peering at it from over her shoulder, having to crane his neck to get a good look. It doesn’t seem like too much, thankfully; there’s a meander or two, but none on the main path, thank the gods. He’d prefer not to have to do any crawling during this!

“It’s a straight shot, huh?” He comments absentmindedly, resting his chin on his wife’s shoulder.

She merely huffs, reaching back to thread her fingers through his hair. Despite the unsatisfying feeling of the gloves she’s wearing right now, he eagerly leans into the touch. “Yes. I’ve seen pictures of the cave as well, and it appears to not be very dangerous, unless one was actually being reckless. Should take about twenty minutes, at most.”

Makoto grins, wrapping his arms around Kyoko’s waist. She makes another sound, something like a noncommittal grunt, but doesn’t nudge him away as he expects. It’s nice. “And after this we go eat at Stellar Cafe.”

“We ate there last week.” She quickly reminds him, paying only a partial bit of attention to what those in front of them are saying. Something about the first aid kits, nothing very important.

“Too bad.” He gives her a quick peck on the cheek. “I like their food, and the service is nice.”

He can hear her stifle a laugh as she pulls away. “You like their curry. There’s perfectly good curry elsewhere.” She reaches into her own backpack, pulling out a walkie talkie. “Now get your radio out.”

“Don’t you think this is kind of overboard?” He pulls it out anyway of course, making sure his is connected to hers. “They never recommended these for caving, at least not on the sites I looked at.” Seems that most of the time people are expected to stay together anyway, if there’s more than one person at all. He’s surprised Kyoko decided to do this.

“Can’t ever be too safe.” Is all she says, before looking to the cave. “It’s time to go.”

Makoto follows her gaze, and sees the rest of the group already clambering over rocks as they enter the hole. “Ah.” He pauses, choking on nothing for a moment so fleeting he can’t even react. “Yeah.”

If he showed any hesitation, Kyoko does not acknowledge it. Instead, she walks ahead, and with heavy steps he pretends are eager, Makoto follows her into the dark.

------------------------------------

and that's it! quite a bit, and definitely not the best writing in the world, but im very proud of it so far! if you can then please rb this and give your thoughts, i do this for free but there's a reason i post my fics at all, which is validation <3 basically what keeps me going and able to continue writing at all, actually.

[arysthaeniru]

...I hear you’re doing drabble giveaways? :) I would love some nishitani/majima!! I saw you wanted to write a nishitani lives au and i hope you end up doing it because I would love to see how you write them ❤️

Aaaahhhh, thank you for this request <3 I hope you enjoy this little snippet, I really like Nishitani’s dynamic with Majima, because it’s so much about temptation and vices and flagrant hedonism that makes Majima value himself more as a person. Nishitani’s whole shtick is about pleasure and when Majima of Yakuza 0 is convinced he doesn’t deserve that, it makes for an excellent dynamic. 

Somehow Nishitani has found Club Sunshine. Majima notices him on one of their busiest days, on the tailend of dealing with a problem customer, who'd had issues with the quality of their champagne. He's cloistered himself in one of the back booths, entertained by Saki-chan.

Majima snaps to attention and rushes over to the booth, even though Saki hasn't made the hand signal for help yet. He snaps his fingers, once, twice. "Out." He says, shortly, and feels a slow curl of rage within him as Nishitani just turns to give Majima a once-over, slow and lingering, smirk spreading over his face.

"Majima-kun, I didn't think ya'd turn down a payin’ customer." Nishitani drawls, with a self-satisfied grin.

"Payin’ customer or not, yer trouble. Out." Majima snaps, stiffly.

Saki turns to look at Majima, anxiously, but she doesn't seem especially perturbed by Nishitani's presence. What is it about his charm where somehow, girls who dislike being taken for granted, are magically alright with Nishitani's presence? The girls at the Grand too, had been surprisingly unfazed by Nishitani breaking Majima's 'Look-Don't-Touch' rules. "Majima-san..." she says, in that tone that means she's worried about him.

"Ya all good here?" Majima asks Saki, gently. For all that she's a strong woman who is used to taking care of herself, Majima wants her to know she can rely on him to defuse anything uncomfortable for her.

"Don't be so paranoid, Majima-kun. We're getting along just fine!" Nishitani squeezes Saki's bicep, in an overly-friendly way, and Majima scowls when Saki just giggles, not even vaguely discomfited.

"Not talking ta you, am I? Shaddup."

"I'm fine, Majima-san." Saki says, with a sunny smile.

Majima grimaces to and turns his gaze on Nishitani. It's a busy night. He really can't insist on running Nishitani away, not if he's going to behave himself and get them money. He's got other girls to take care of. "One step outta line, and I call the police, pronto. Ya won't get ta fight me at all." Majima says, firmly, and turns on his heel to walk away, before he can get a response.

Inbetween getting refills for Yuki and towels for Erranda, Majima hears snippets of their conversation all evening.

"I like my lovers strong, intent. Makes everything more fun, ya know?" "Nothin’ draws the eye more than a girl who's confident in herself." "Gotta love somebody who can take care of 'emselves."

The whole time, Saki just laughs, handles herself with her usual graceful aplomb, steers the conversation in pleasant, easy directions, showing off her prowess as the former star of Club Jupiter, perfectly adept at handling rougher types.

Majima seethes, quietly and tries to not watch them, listen to them. But he can't help it. Whenever he has even a momentary breather, his peripheral senses can't help but turn towards Nishitani. He justifies it to himself as keeping an eye out for trouble, but if he's being really honest with himself, that's not the primary reason.

Majima's always been drawn to strength. It's the one thing that has always shaped his path, shaped his destiny. It had been what had drawn to him to Saejima, like a moth to the flame, in the middle of those Tokyo streets as a youth. It had been what convinced Majima to chain himself to Shimano’s yoke, get the man’s motifs and markings all over his back. It had been what made Majima so comfortable in Fei Hu’s shop, and so familiar with Lee’s rough approach. A mixture of sheer adrenaline, blood-thumping through his entire chest, a shot of courage, fury and wild chaos, and desire, slow and cloying, curling up in the pit of his stomach, making him light-headed and short of breath. Majima’s life has been defined and drawn around strength, power, desire, ambition.

And Nishitani’s powerful. He’d felt the surges of his strength, precision and cleverness throughout that short fight through the Grand’s centre-stage. If Majima had slipped even once, if Majima had been anything less than perfect, propelled by the fury of confusion, he would have died to Nishitani’s blade.

That shouldn’t be as much of a turn-on as it is.

Especially not when considering Nishitani’s about twenty years past his prime. He’s from the same generation as Shimano, Sagawa, those old fucks who’ve caged him in, trapped him down. With freckled sun-spots smattered over wrinkling skin, and touches of grey to the roots of his hair, and his scarred, calloused hands, Majima shouldn’t be drawn to him in that way. Old, pervy fucker, he should represent everything Majima hates most about the generation of yakuza above him.

But he can’t help it. Nishitani’s presence is like a livewire, electrifying, dangerous, addictive. And Majima couldn’t look away, even if he wanted to.

When the evening shift draws to a close, Majima leaves Youda and Yuki to be in charge of wiping down the place and saying goodbye to the last of the customers. He dips out for a smoke instead, to try and gain control of his fraying nerves, to pull himself back into a modicum of calm. He can’t lose himself in this.

He’s not yakuza anymore. Just a man desperately trying to stay alive long enough to let Saejima kill him. And a man trying desperately to preserve any sense of goodness, keep that fragile spark of a girl safe inside that cold warehouse... none of him has room for Nishitani’s advances.

And yet...

“You ever consider lettin’ yer hair free, Majima-kun? Just for a moment?” Nishitani drawls, voice dangerously close to Majima’s. They’re outside the club now, and he’s not a paying customer anymore. That makes this interaction dangerous.

“No.” Majima says, puffing out a cool breeze of smoke straight into Nishitani’s face. The fucker doesn’t even flinch, just grins, that lightly mocking smile.

“Not even once? Shame that. Pretty things like you only gets better when they cut loose a little, live free.” Nishitani says, sauntering around to prop himself up over Majima, trapping him into the wall. It’s at once a threat of aggression, and a threat of something else, something more sensible. His hand comes in close, as if to caress Majima’s hair, but he stops just short of doing it, balances it against the wall instead.

Perhaps he senses Majima’s internal tension, perhaps he knows that Majima will deck him the moment Nishitani lays a hand on him. Or maybe it’s something like respect for Majima’s rules. (Majima dismisses that thought immediately, Nishitani wouldn’t know respect if it came up to him and sucked his dick.)

Despite himself, Majima swallows a little, as he takes another deep inhale of the cigarette. “The fuck do you want? I ain’t tellin’ you where Makoto is.”

Nishitani grins. From up close, Majima can smell the alcohol on his breath, whiskey, cigarettes and something else, a little deeper. It’s not exactly a good smell, but it’s a familiar smell, a comfortable smell. Nishitani is the epitome of the yakuza lifestyle that Majima had grown up desiring.

“Don’t worry, Majima-kun. I ain’t here for that today. Got a little proposition for ya, instead.” he says, licking his lips. Majima can’t look away from his mouth, the slight pinkness of his tongue against his surprisingly dark lips, and so he almost misses Nishitani’s next sentence. “Got a job I need ya ter do for me.”

Majima frowns. “The fuck would I do that for?”

“Issa job only you can do” Nishitani grins, and waggles his eyebrows. “Compensate ya handsomely, of course.”

Majima rolls his eyes, but honestly, for cash-money, he’ll do just about anything for anybody, short of prostitution. Anything to get his debt to Shimano and Sagawa square. “What?” he asks, pretending to be bored, pretending none of this interests him.

“There’s this gambling club I run that’s been real trouble, lately. Won’t listen to a damn word I say, and they seem to be squirreling some cash away, some big winnings they managed to poach from a pack of fools. Can’t have that sort of shit on my turf.” Nishitani says, with a casual ease. “I’d send my boys in, but ya see, someone seems ta have done a number on ‘em, and they look about as threatening as a flock of pigeons, all covered in bandages like they are.”

“You could do it yerself.” Majima says, gaze darting down to Nishitani’s feet. Just over the edge of his socks, Majima can see the bandages, and he’s noticed that Nishitani holds himself with a limp. He’s clearly still injured from their fight, when Majima had shoved his fucking knife right inbetween his tendons.

“I could, but ya see, they know my face. They’d gear up for trouble the moment I stepped within a five-foot vicinity. You on the other hand...” Nishitani leans in, that smug grin only getting bigger.

Majima snorts, before he can stop himself. “Ya say that like everybody in this town doesn’t know my face, too.”

“Lord of the Night.” Nishitani agrees, and his voice hums with approval. “But ya see, yer reputation precedes you. Everybody knows ya don’t start fights, ya end them. So if you started a fight at the gambling parlour, not a damn soul would expect it.” There’s a crazed glint to Nishitani’s eyes, reflecting off the neon signs from the bars around them, and Majima shouldn’t be considering this at all, but he is. The thought of going in and smashing heads of people who actually deserve it always gets Majima’s blood simmering. He can’t help himself. He’s a creature nurtured on a diet of violence, and the Hole has changed him. It shaped him in the image of its own cruelty, and Majima had let its madness into his soul, or he would never have lived to see the sunlight again.

Majima wonders what had made Nishitani this way.

“The fuck would I jeopardize my rep for? For you?” asks Majima, dangerously.

“I’ll owe ya one, just the pleasure of seein’ ya go crazy in there.” Nishitani says, leaning inwards, mouth just centimetres from Majima’s ear. “Whatever ya want, name it.”

Majima’s skin is alit with goosebumps, he feels like a leaf in the breeze, one touch would undo him, undo all of Majima’s tightly laced boundaries, would unravel everything that has kept him safe and alive. If Nishitani pressed even an inch closer, Majima would agree to just about anything he asked. And they both know it, it’s the electric spark between them, Nishitani’s complete understanding of how fragile everything about Majima’s existence is.

But Nishitani doesn’t touch him, just lets his breath caress the inner curve of Majima’s ear and pulls back, eyes glinting with maleficent amusement.

He wants Majima to make the step on his own. He wants Majima to come apart at his own behest. Fucking sadist.

“Well. Let me know. Ya know where ta find me.” Nishitani says, slow and languid. “Be seein’ ya, Majima-kun.”

He saunters away without a care in the world, and Majima lets the cigarette drop from his mouth and presses his back against the wall outside Club Sunshine, desperately trying to quell the fire within him that blazes in indignation at letting Nishitani just walk away from him.

[personawritings]

Park Dates

This took way too long for me to make, because I wanted to give a good first post. Love all of you though. - Ghost Description: Soft, cute dates in the park with your faves. Reader: Gender Neutral | Characters: Phantom Thieves | Genre: Fluff

Published Date: October 20th, 2020

Akira Kurusu

➳ The park wasn’t out of the question for you two to go out on dates. It was always in the rotation of date spots. However, it was definitely one of his favorites due to them being so much calmer than most places. Akira is a bit of an introvert himself, preferring a soothing place like the park over a busy café or the arcade, especially when spending time with his significant other.

➳ On special occasions, you two would go for a boat ride or have a picnic together. Most of the time, though, you two would just walk around. Your hands always intertwined together, almost like they were glued together. Sometimes conversation would flow casually about what went on that week, but sometimes you two would enjoy the local nature together.

➳ While on your weekend walks, he’ll sometimes give you kisses on your hand tenderly. Giving you the softest eyes after he kisses your hand. (God, he was always the charmer.) Sometimes, if he’s feeling especially gutsy, he’ll even give you a proper kiss beside a tree. The kiss is never too long as he doesn’t want to make the park goers uncomfortable, but it’s always enough to leave your heart fluttering. 

Ryuji Sakamoto

➳ I don’t know if running counts as a date, but your park ‘dates’ are always early morning runs. Ryuji has been determined to get back up to par for the Phantom Thieves, his significant other, and most importantly himself. He knows he won’t be an athlete again like he was, but he wants to feel like that again. 

➳ The first few times, you are just the time keeper. Keeping track of his improved times and being emotional support. Every time he gets better, though, he gets a little kiss as a reward. While that’s some definite encouragement though, however he wants you to start running with him. And he brings it up every single time.

➳ Eventually, you do crack though. Those damn puppy dog eyes finally melted your soul. Needless to say, though, it goes about as well as you expected. He completely beats you out and is so far ahead of you that it’s not even fair. When you do catch up, you are nearly out of breath and desperate for water and ramen. After that, the morning run roles become switch up every lap. Both of you giving kisses after the other improves their times.

Ann Takamaki

➳ Most of your dates honestly aren’t at the park. It’s not that Ann doesn’t like to go to the park, it’s just that she has things she’d rather do together. However, when you do go to the park, it’s usually when one of you is stressed out.

➳ When she’s stressed, it’s usually due to school or work. Most of the time, you’ll take her to the park and have a cute picnic together. Usually the picnic will include something simple like homemade sandwiches and whatever attempt at crepes you made. (She appreciates it no matter the quality, promise.) While you sit by the water, enjoying lunch, she’ll vent about her troubles to you. After the long vent, she’ll finally just lay down in the grass. Breathing out as if she’s letting the pressure get off her chest. She simple appreciates your presence nearby.

➳ When you’re stressed, she’ll drag you to the park. Ann will surprise you with your favorite seasonal treat, letting you vent like you do for her. Whatever stresses, she’ll listen and give you comforting words. She’ll give advice if she can, but either way she’s a shoulder for you to cry on or vent to whenever you need.

Yusuke Kitagawa

➳ Going to the park was initially your poorly done, flirting tactic. Yusuke usually went there for inspiration, something new to paint. You’d always tag along, trying to get close to him. He’d always let you come with, happy to have a figure to draw with the ever changing lighting by the lake.

➳ Even after you start dating, you two still go to the park together fairly often. Sometimes he needed to go to do an assignment for class, sometimes to drum up inspiration. Occasionally, you’d attempt to draw with him. No matter your skill level, he’d always praise your work, highly encouraging of growing artists. Plus, he secretly loves you taking an interest in his passion.

➳ Park dates become a regular thing between you two. Besides the inspiration, it gives a quiet space to talk together at the end of a long week of fighting shadows and balancing school like the teenage vigilante he is. It’s even more needed if you two aren’t in the same classes or different schools entirely. While he’s not the most physically affectionate, he definitely tells you loving flowery words every date. Usually about how nice you look, your artwork, or even just about you in general. Making it all worth those moments apart.

Makoto Niijima

➳ Park dates are always during exam season. It’s a new place to study and keeps both of you from being trapped up in a room over a textbook. Plus, the libraries and cafes are usually crowded up with students studying. A study buddy is always good, especially when she’s ridiculously intelligent.

➳Usually between studying biology and English, you’ll people watch. Not in a judgmental way, but definitely pointing out what people are doing. Guessing their ages, what they are doing at the park. Your favorite is guessing the boat couples, seeing what they are up to. (One time you swore you saw Akira and Yusuke on a boat, but Makoto kept denying it.)

➳ The dates aren’t romantic, because they aren’t really traditional dates in a way. It’s just spending time together, which is all that matters. She’s trying to help you improve and you for her. Hearing her speak and help to correct your English pronunciation is more than enough. Also, your grades are looking beautiful after a date with your girlfriend. So bonus. 

Futaba Sakura

➳ Let’s be real, you are the one who drags her to the park. She doesn’t ask to go. The goal is to get her to see some sunlight. It’s not too busy for her anxiety, especially when Akihabara is just too much to handle for you or her. Sojiro or Akira help you out with the convincing to get her to the park, after all someone has to get her outside.

➳ When you get there, you do one of two things: An ARG game, or reading manga together. With the ARG game (think Pokémon GO for reference), you two will wander around collecting items for whatever ARG she’s obsessed with. If she convinces you to download it, you two will run around trying to out compete each other to get the most items and level up the quickest. By the end of it, the winner will be gloating til you both end up laughing on the grass at how silly the taunts get.

➳ If it’s just the two of you reading manga, then it’s honestly pretty relaxing. You’ll share the book. The two of you somewhere reading a volume of hers or your current favorite manga to share in each other’s interests. Futaba will react as she’s reading, which is adorable, but don’t bring it up or she’ll stop. Sometimes she falls asleep, leaning on your shoulder. Maybe it’s good you two got out of the house.

Haru Okumura

➳ You were friends with Haru before you even began dating her, or even knew her. The local park had a community garden that both of you would go to and help tend every week. You didn’t even know she was a celebrity, just that she was a talented gardener. It was eventually how you two ended up together.

➳ It became a tradition for you two to once a week check on the garden with a few other community members, then take a walk together. While walking, you’ll pick a vendor of the week to buy treats for. It changes every week who pays, even though Haru repeatedly says she can pay over and over. It’s the principle of thing.

➳ The conversations tend to revolve around her trying to get ideas for Okumura Foods. It’s a bit consuming for her thoughts a lot of the time, especially after her father’s passing. You’ll try to pass back-and-forth ideas with her on new ways to help the company. Sometimes the goal of the ‘ideas’ is just to destress Haru and make her laugh. You give a few helpful ideas on occasion though, and she credits you frequently in her next meeting.

[berri-hopefulspouse]

"Soren, would you like to go first?" Ren never really expected themselves to be before an officiant- let alone for this reason...But, for some reason, they weren't afraid. Not exactly, not in the way they thought they would be. Nodding, they look back to Makoto- after keeping in yet another internal little squeak- and give a soft sigh and a little smile...They were ready for this.

"When we first met...and I mean, truly, deeply first met... I felt almost drawn to you. You said it yourself; we had always had some kind of connection, one that goes beyond time, space...probably even ourselves as we are currently. I always felt drawn to you then, to be close to you- but I could never exactly pinpoint what it was...yet, here we are now. Years later, and we're both still here. Both still...okay. I'll be the first one to say it- shit isn't perfect-" That gets a bit of a chuckle from themselves, "-But we're here...and we're alive. And we have the groundwork for a new beginning."

With a little shaky, nervous sigh, they bite their lower lip and manage to maintain eye contact with Makoto, "...I know I can't always be there when you need me- and I know I can't promise things will be perfect. But I can promise- can vow to you- that I'll be doing my best, each and everyday. Doing my best to improve, to get better, to learn new things, and to love you. Each, and everyday. Always, and forever. You mean the world to me, and to whatever secrets that we may share in the future..." Theres a smirk, and already Makoto knows what's coming, "I'll never tell a single soul. That's a promise, and my vow to you...I'll always, always cherish you."

Despite their light joke, there were tears in their eyes, barely held together through their strict will alone. Makoto wasn't much better- in fact he had to let go of their hand once or twice to wipe at his own eyes, before letting out a soft laugh of surprise himself. Still, after looking to the officiant himself- and getting a small nod- he proceeded to speak himself.

"Ren, first of all, how dare you make me cry like that-" That got a laugh out of the two of them, as well as the small gathering of people who had decided to attend that day, "-Still, still...There's so many things I could say...So many things I want to say- and it wouldn't truly be enough. You're so many things- you've done so much for me and for those around you...and yet, you never stop pursuing to help everyone around you. Everyone except yourself." Despite himself, he rests a hand gently on their cheek to reassure them, to calm them down a bit.

"I thought I knew who I was- someone who didn't quite stick out in the crowd, who was just...well, average at everything I did. And I thought I was okay with that... But uh..." He chuckled nervously, "Turns out that's just self esteem issues, I suppose. You never stopped believing in me- back then and all the way up until now. No matter what we faced, you had full faith in me that it'd be alright. I've always had a more optimistic attitude...and you always struggled to maintain one, but you still were always there for me. You say you weren't- but I assure you, even if you couldn't physically help in some way...I knew you were there for me, in spirit."

He shakes his head a bit, "I guess this is a roundabout way of saying...I'm proud of you. You've taught me so much, and grown so much more than from when we first met. You stand tall- well, really short in your case-" A little joke that earned him a gentle subtle kick with their shoe- causing him to laugh, "-You stand tall in the face of everything you've been through. Each day you keep moving forward, despite what lingers over you...And for that reason alone, I'm so proud of you. You always tell me that I saved you, that I've done so much for you...and while I can't always believe that's true, I can promise you that I'll be there whenever I can. You deserve to have someone who can protect you, and well- if it's me...I guess I really can't argue with that. I love you, Soren...with everything I am. You're my hope, and my proof that my Ultimate Luck truly isn't just a throwaway Ultimate...It's proof that I really am lucky to have you in my life. I swear, I'll never leave you- if you'll allow me to stay in your life...and that I'll always do my best to protect you, and cherish what we have. Always. My love for you is no secret."

He was trying to keep his voice from shaking, truly he was- but while his tone held certainty, his nervousness was equally as palpable in his tone. It was also not much of a secret that, simply put- he had completely did that on the fly, rather than plan it out. All the same, it looked like his words got through to them- the tears they were trying to keep back having started to fall from their cheeks. Leaning into the palm of his hand that still rested on their cheek, they nuzzled into it for comfort before pulling back to let his hand free- a smile on their face the whole while. At least he knew he didn't royally screw that up.

Still, thereafter came the rings- the one thing Makoto knew for certain. Ren may have been the one to do most of the planning- Mostly in part due to Makoto knowing full and well they were better at all of this than he could ever really hope to be- but he was the one who picked what the wedding bands would be. He didn't let Ren see what they were, wanting to get their reaction above anything else. He did his own first, slipping the ring carefully onto their ring finger- trying to quell the slightly anxious tremble of his own hands. He couldn't help being nervous.

The ring itself was simple in nature, but it's meanings would show themselves to those two alone. Theirs particularly had an outer layer of silver- steel, particularly- with moonstone in the middle. Carved into it, were a few small things. A moon and some stars, a reminder of the promise ring they got the both of them and a light comparison to his own band. A small little heart, that had a little ruby heart gemstone in the middle, as it was their birthstone. Lastly, on the underside of the ring, was engraved a few simple words; 'You are my luck, and my hope.'

His was similar of course, rather instead a shade of gold rather than silver with sun and cloud engravings on his own, and an sapphire heart rather than a ruby one. On the underside of his, was something that he heard them say to him once or twice- something that stuck with him, something he observed as they, in turn, slipped the band onto his ring finger.

'You're the reason I believe in my empathy.'

He watched Ren's reaction, though, as their expression shifted from the soft counterance they had previously to curiosity. Then, to thought- likely tuning out the officiant in favor of observing the ring- and finally acknowledgement, gaze snapping back up to meet Makoto's as the tears that had started to slow down only picked right back up. He could faintly notice them mouth something along the lines of 'You fucking dork,' as the officiant had continued to speak, their facade of pride crumbling down with their tears.

The two had been so busy reveling in their own little world for a few moments, that neither had even noticed that the officiant had been asking a question. Makoto, naturally, snapped out of it first in time for him to recognize his name being said.

"S-sorry, what was that?" And, promptly, his question snapped Ren back out of their own stupor, blushing a bit in embarassment. Makoto wished he wasn't in the same flustered state. Thankfully it got a bit of chuckles out of everyone else, and the officiant repeated himself.

"Do you, Makoto Naegi, take Soren to be your spouse?"

"Oh!" Well, if he wasn't red before hand, he definitely was now, "I...I do." ...But he still wouldn't hesitate with his answer, not for a moment.

It got a bit of a giggle out of Ren. At least they were amused at how flustered he was- but he knew full well it was a double edged sword.

"Soren, do you take Makoto to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

Despite watching their cheeks turn a bright red- called it- and noticing their breath bitch a bit, their resolve didn't falter in the slightest.

"I do, now and forever."

Makoto couldn't help but smile at that, the nervous expression he adorned softening into adoration. He could be nervous, sure, but right then and there? With that smile they had on? He could feel nothing but pure, unadulterated love. He didn't notice when the officiant was asking if anyone had any objections- he didn't notice when no one had said anything, or that everyone was staring intently at the two, all he could really notice was them.

He only snapped out of it once more when he heard the Officiant speak once more.

"Then it is my great honor to pronounce you as husband and spouse!" The officiant look to the two with a little grin, "You may now kiss, if so desired."

About halfway through that sentence however, impatient as they were- Ren had quickly grabbed Makoto to yank the brunette into their shorter embrace. Yelping a bit in surprise- it instead dissolved into a little laugh as Ren mumbled a short and cheeky, 'Hey', to Makoto- only before pressing a shy kiss to him. He didn't hesitate to reciprocate, a hand gently combing past the flower crown veil to instead thread his fingers through their hair. Only then did they relax a bit, pressing back with a bit more decor for a few moments before drawing away a bit.

"Hello to you, too, Mx. Naegi," Makoto lightly teased, despite being out of breath. Watching their face equally flush a bright red, but light up with delight, he ignored the small uproar of his friends and family- instead laughing to himself before being ambushed in another kiss from his now-spouse. Despite it all, they made it to this point...New Years Eve- now New Years day...Now, officially, married. To the two, it was clear as day...

What a great way to start a new year.

[light-of-the-gray-sun]

Headcanon for IshiLeon. AU, in which Leon and Kiyotaka met as children :)

(to put it simply, in this AU, the entire 78 class is children who are in the same kindergarten group. I don't know much about Japan, so I write by my own standards)

— Actually, Leon and Kiyotaka didn't become friends right away. It was enough for them to know that they were in the same group. And have a small opinion of each other. Both treated each other neutrally, although they had small pretensions, on which they did not communicate. Kiyotaka disliked Leon's disobedience, and Leon considered him "a bore who forbids fun." It was quite expected, knowing their characters, don't you think?

— Kiyotaka was the child who tells the teacher about everything that happens around, meaning that someone is doing something wrong. Leon isn't as bad as he looks, but.. He still got hit a lot. Mostly thanks to Kiyotaka.

— Leon had two friends at the time. It was obviously Mondo and Chihiro. He had known Chihiro for a long time, since they lived close to each other and their parents were friends. But Kiyotaka's... Yes, he tried to keep in touch with everyone he could. But he didn't have anyone special. I think it's a little sad.

— Maybe that's why Leon decided to be friends with Kiyotaka. He noticed that the boy often sits alone and once decided to talk to him. At that time, he was not busy - Mondo was fighting with Junko for a place in the sandbox, and Chihiro was doing some other things with Makoto.

Leon's attention was drawn to the fact that the boy was a bore (not in an offensive way!!) sits alone and seems to be looking a little glum. All over the Playground, children were laughing, chatting, and just playing, while Kiyotaka sat with a calm face, swaying slightly on the blue swing. The red-haired boy came up to him and tried to speak.

- Hello? he wasn't sure if Kio would talk to him, but it wasn't torture, as they say. - are you sitting here alone?

The boy perked up a little when he saw that they were paying attention to him. And in response to the question, he just nodded silently.

"Isn't it boring?" Leon hung on to the swing post, still looking at Kiyotaka.

"I'm used to it, it's all right! Don't worry about me! Taka said this in a calm tone that suggested that he was really used to it.

"How are you used to it?" Weird. - ginger really did not understand how you can not be bored, sitting alone, and even just rocking. - you haven't tried to approach others?

-Of course I have! - Taka frowned. - but when I approached, they didn't really want to talk to me. So, I just won't bother anyone.

"Well, yes, you are a little.. You're strict about everything. But did you interfere with EVERYONE? - he got nothing in return, only that Taka turned his back on him. "Hey, you don't like what I said? I didn't mean anything bad! Although, you really are a bit.. Harmful.

-I'm not harmful, I'm useful! - Taka turned back. - if people around me do something wrong, and I put everything in order means that I eliminate violations!

- .. is it worth constantly thinking about it?

- Of course! Messing around isn't going to end well! So you need to watch out!

-But why always take into account whether there is an order or not? And even more so, you pay too much attention to this!

- Really?

-Yes. - Leon was not going to quarrel with him, but just tried to tell the truth. He expected Taka to say something else strange or stubborn, but Nothing happened.

- I still think it's the right thing to do. - the cheerfulness in Kiyotaka's voice faded, and he mumbled it under his breath, then began to stare at the ground.

-I don't want to argue with you about this little thing. And anyway, I wanted to play with you!

- Play? - the boy's bright red eyes were directed directly at Leon.

- Yes! So go ahead. I'll rock you and then you rock me, okay?

-C-come on.

They spent the next 10 minutes like this. It was the first time Leon had ever heard Kiyotaka laugh so sweetly. He in general loved the laughter of the people is meant that they are good. And when Leon was the cause of their laughter, he was ready to shine like the sun. So this little time spent with Kiyotaka made him smile the most genuine smile he could. From that point on, Leon started talking to Kiyotaka more often.

—Once they had a rather funny conversation, after which Taka got a funny nickname. "Owl boy."

- You remind me of someone... - two boys were sitting at a table, spending time together drawing whatever they could think of.

- Is there anyone I look like? -Taka raised his head.

- Yes... Hmm.. - Leon adopted a thoughtful face and also thoughtfully put his index finger and thumb to his chin. After half a minute, he understood and quickly raised a finger to Kiyotaki's face. - exactly! Your eyebrows!

- Eyebrows..? What do you mean?

- You're a bird! I forget what it's called, but you sure look like a bird!

-Bird.. Sounds great.. Who are you talking about?

-I'm forgo-ot. - a little handed ginger. "she is.. Hmm... Big! And she has big round eyes!

- Big bird with round eyes...?" asked Taka, trying to remember who Leon might be referring to.

- Exactly! She still screams funny!

- I think I understand. Are you talking about the owl? Do I look like an owl?

-Yes, that's it! - Leon clapped his hands excitedly, glad to finally remember the bird's name.

-Then why did you notice my eyebrows" Owls don't have them. - Taka looked over Leon's shoulder at the stuffed animals lying nearby. He got up, picked up a small purple owl with yellow eyes, and brought it to them. - look, he doesn't have any!

- This is an owl, it is clear that they do not have them! And the filins have! Not exactly like yours, but... It is very similar!! Leon grabbed an unfashionable red pencil and drew a slightly clumsy drawing of what he was talking about. - Owl with eyebrows! - he handed it to Taka. He looked at the drawing of the bird and understood what Leon was talking about.

-Oh, I see. Filin..

- You look more like an owl, though. The filins are big and scary, and you're a little and... Almost not terrible. - Leon smiled good-naturedly.

-Then who am I?

-Um.. You'll be an owl.

-Well.

- Owl boy!

- I like it. Taka smiled.

Maybe Leon didn't call him that often, but it was a habit. Taka, in turn, was very happy about this, because it meant that he and Leon got along well.

— By the way, let's talk about Mondo and Chihiro. After Leon began to communicate with Kiyotaka very often, Chihiro suggested that they play together. And it was great.

— Mondo and Kiyotaka often quarreled over small things, but even so, they quickly made up. Therefore, the four of them could be considered very cozy and friendly.

— Over time, Leon began to call Kiyotaka not only "Taka", but also short - "Ishi". He said that his mother, when things were going well with him and his father, shortened his name to appear affectionate towards him. Taka appreciated this and was happy to let Leon call him that.

—All the time they spent in the garden, they were very close friends. Unfortunately, their paths diverged when entering primary school.

— But!!! Guess what? They met again at the peak of Hope! Here everything is according to the canon - Taka became an absolute moral compass, and Leon - an absolute baseball player.

— In the first days of his visit, Leon only looked at Taka. He had the eternal feeling that he had seen this "big-browed and loud guy" somewhere before, but he couldn't remember where he might have met him.

— Kiyotaka himself also had some sort of detached feeling that Leon had already met him before. But he was sure it was just a feeling. Leon and Leon, name as name. He didn't feel anything else familiar.

—But you do realize that they ended up remembering their childhood years, don't you? After about a month of training.

— Leon casually asked if they had met before, and Kiyotaka nodded in surprise but approval. "I didn't expect to be the only one feeling this.. I could be wrong." he said. After a moment of silence, Leon spoke again.

-You know, I have something on the tip of my tongue... Your last name. Ishimaru. Ishi sounds more familiar.

-Oh, they used to call me that! Someone.

-Um.. Leon looked at Kiyotaka's face and suddenly had an idea.

-What is it? - Kiyotaka noticed his puzzled look.

-If it's really you... Haha, you've grown from an owl to big filin. - Leon ventured to say something that only the very person he was thinking of could remember. He don't want to look stupid, but that little boy and this guy were too much alike.

- Owl?.. - Taka pointed at him. - you're the one who always stole candy in kindergarten! That's right, it's you!

-I didn't know you remembered me as a thief. - Leon rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. - but if that's the case, then you're the one, right?..

- Yes! I'm happy to give up and meet you again! If you don't mind, can we talk again?!

-Yes, I don't mind. And stop yelling like that.

- But this is my normal voice. the guy replied in a calmer voice.

-Oh, I forgot. Filin. - Leon grinned.

Their subsequent relationship went smoothly. Despite the passing years and their somewhat different personalities, they became good friends.

Or maybe even more?.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is where I end my heads. It came out as big snippets of one fanfiction. Actually, I like the whole idea and would love to develop it, but... I don't think I can do that. All right, I'll say goodbye to you! Bye! :) I hope you enjoyed it.

[thepancakeboi]

74. “I can’t take the loneliness anymore.”

Divergence AU Part I

Next | AU list | Prompt source

Fanfic under cut

10/9

Ren: Have you played never have I ever?

I stare at Ren’s most recent text. Where is this coming from all of a sudden? He’s been unfortunately busy the past several days, as he’s lamented to me over text. Perhaps he found himself some free time. A little curious about the reason for his text, I quickly text him back a response.

-x-

Goro: I have not, but I am familiar with the rules.

Ren: Would you wanna play?

Ren: Ann, Makoto, and Futaba will be there too

Goro: If you don’t mind me asking, why are you inviting me to play?

Ren: I like hanging out with you

-x-

Something about that response, the fact that he enjoys my company, makes me...happy. It’s not the first time he’s said it. He has told me over and over again that he loves being around me and that he would always try to make time for me if I wanted it. I look back down at the chat as I notice another text from Ren.

-x-

Ren: And they’ll gang up on me if you’re not there

Goro: I see... you have ulterior motives.

Goro: Not that it matters.

Goro: I highly doubt that they would “gang up” on you, though.

Ren: Trust me Akechi they will

Ren: Do you wanna play?

-x-

I take a minute to think it over. I don’t know his friends that well. This could give me an easy opportunity to get to know them a little better to improve my plans for them all. Having made my decision, I text him back.

-x-

Goro: I would be delighted to join you.

Ren: Yay! :D

Ren: We’re meeting up at Leblanc at 5

Goro: I’ll be there.

-----

I arrive at Leblanc a few minutes early. Ren perks up as the bell over the door rings, immediately grinning when he notices it’s me. He leads me upstairs to his room up in the cafe’s attic. “Hello,” I say in greeting, noticing that the others are already here.

“It seems we’re all here,” Makoto remarks when I sit down beside Ann, Ren taking the seat next to me. “Who wants to go first?”

Futaba nearly jumps in her seat as she answers, “I will! Never have I ever worn fake glasses!”

“I told you,” Ren remarks while putting down a finger. “I’ll go next. Never have I ever not attended high school.” Futaba makes an overly dramatic wounded expression as she puts down her own finger. She should have seen that one coming.

“Your turn, Akechi!” Ann says.

“Very well,” I reply, mulling over a response in my head. “Never have I ever attended Shujin Academy.”

Futaba laughs as Ann, Makoto, and Ren all have to put down a finger. “This one’s in my party now!”

“I thought you were on my side,” Ren says, pouting a little.

I shake my head. “I wasn’t targeting you in particular, Amamiya-kun. It was simply an option that applied to a lot of people.”

Ann smiles, apparently already having her statement prepared. “Okay, my turn. Never have I ever taken mock college entrance exams.”

Makoto and I both put down a finger while she thinks of hers. “Never have I ever...been told I look drop-dead gorgeous?” I’m glad Ren doesn’t say anything as I put my second finger down, although he looks like he’s tempted. Ann has to put one down as well.

Futaba grins eagerly, clearly still bent on going after Ren. “Never have I ever been in a bathhouse.” Ren somehow has the nerve to smile when I realize Futaba’s statement is also true for me. He’s definitely remembering that day from last month. Futaba seems a little surprised at this. “Hey, I got a two-hit combo there!”

“Never have I ever slept for longer than 48 hours in a row,” Ren immediately shoots back.

My turn. “Never have I ever been to a beach.”

I give a little giggle as everyone is affected besides me. Ren looks at me, curious. “Wait, you haven’t?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“That’s it. Next summer, I’m taking you to the beach.”

...I don’t need my mind telling me that he won’t be alive long enough for the sentiment to matter.

Luckily, Ann is able to draw me out of my thoughts. “Never have I ever fell asleep studying.” Great. I put down my fourth finger. “Wait, you have?” she asks in disbelief.

“It was really cute actually,” Ren says for me. “We were studying together downstairs and he fell asleep leaning against m-”

“I think that’s enough information from you, Amamiya-kun,” I interrupt. “Niijima-san, I believe it’s your turn?”

Makoto nods in acknowledgment. “Yes. Never have I ever spent over 100,000¥ in one purchase.”

Futaba looks straight at Ren as both of them have to put a finger down. “Never have I ever committed a crime IRL!”

Ren looks almost distraught as he sighs, now only having four left. Whether or not he’s being overly dramatic about it is left up to debate. My right index finger twitches, as if my subconscious is tempted to be honest. I can’t, though. If they knew the truth about me...besides, there would be too many questions that I simply couldn’t answer without spinning a giant web of lies. It’s simply too early for that, but...could I really-

“Futaba, that statement applies to you as well,” Makoto remarks.

“Whaaa?”

“Hacking government websites is a crime.”

“Aww, man,” Futaba groans.

Ren smirks, looking rather smug at the moment as he says, “Okay, never have I ever...”

The game continues on for a little while. Ren is the first to be eliminated, largely due to Futaba targeting him, although I am the one to take him out (and not on a date like he suggested when I said as such). Makoto ultimately wins in the end. We’re all departing when Ren asks if I want to stay and play some chess. I accept the offer, surprisingly enthusiastic. I’m not even paying much attention to the game itself. Something is on my mind. Why is it that I am eager to spend so much time with Ren? I know I need to get close to him, but I’m genuinely enjoying the time spent with him. Am I getting too close?

“So, Akechi...what crime did you commit besides being drop-dead gorgeous?”

I nearly drop the rook in my hand, startled. “Huh? What are you getting at?”

“Don’t act like you haven’t. I saw your finger twitch. You wanted to put your finger down, didn’t you?” I don’t bother answering, instead deciding to place the rook down on a new spot. The game is almost reflective of the current situation. Ren has me cornered. “Knew it. But who would’ve guessed? Ace detective Goro Akechi, secretly a criminal? Come on, spill the details!”

“Do I have to?”

“I told you mine. It’s only fair if you tell me yours.”

“Very well...I robbed the 777 in Shibuya when I was eleven years old,” I easily lie. “Happy now?”

“I would be...if you were telling the truth.” He moves his knight, taking the rook I had moved earlier and trapping my king. Checkmate. “If you really don’t wanna talk about it, that’s fine. I won’t force it.”

I’m silent for a few minutes. Ren, true to his word as ever, doesn’t try to force me to talk. Finally, I say, “You won’t like the real answer.”

“You can tell me if you want. I won’t judge.”

His words bring me to a decision. I just hope I don’t come to regret it. Sakura-san isn’t here, leaving me free to say my next words. “We should find somewhere else to talk, preferably somewhere where no one can eavesdrop. Surely you know such a place...Joker.”

His head jolts slightly, the only indication that the name I had heard him being referred to as in the Metaverse means anything to him. I find this confusing. I would have expected him to have a stronger reaction. “I do. Let’s go.”

Ren remains surprisingly silent after that. Normally, I would welcome it, but this silence is...unnerving. He’s rarely this quiet around me, and when he is, he still manages to constantly remind me of his presence. This is different. Right now, it feels like he’s trying to hide in the backdrop and make himself inconspicuous. What is going on in that head of his? I’m almost tempted to ask him what he’s thinking about if only to get him to say something, anything. I don’t. There will be plenty to talk about soon enough.

The time both drags on and speeds right along as we arrive in Shibuya. We exit the train, Ren leading the way up to the station square. He pulls out his phone, looking at me to see if I am ready. I nod. This is it.

The familiar dizziness signals our entering the Metaverse. It’s a feeling I may never get used to. My outfit has changed to my white princely attire. Good. I don’t know if I’m prepared to reveal that just yet. I turn to see Ren in his own thief attire. “How did you find out?” he asks, his voice finally breaking through the uncomfortable silence. His demeanor has changed. He seems more confident, and he has a sort of aggressiveness that he rarely exhibits in the real world. Even his gaze is sharper, more intense. I may know him as Ren Amamiya, but right now, the one I am facing is Joker.

“Your friend...I believe he goes by Skull here? He should learn to keep his voice down.”

“Are you gonna turn us in?”

“I should arrest you.”

“Should?”

“But I won’t.” Not yet, at least.

“And you have a Persona?”

As expected, he’s asking so much, trying to figure me out. I’m not going to stop the flow of questions. “Yes. I do.”

“How did you discover the Metaverse?”

“A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to get evidence of your group’s identity as the Phantom Thieves. I must have been dragged inside.” It’s partially true. I had been gathering evidence to later blackmail them, but I had gone into the Palace on my own volition. That and I’ve been here many times before that day.

“You’re lying.”

I raise an eyebrow, even if he probably can’t see it under my mask. “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t just discover the Metaverse recently. You’ve known about it for longer than that.”

“And what evidence do you have to support your deductions?”

“That day at the TV station. You thought you heard something about delicious pancakes, but...Morgana was the only one who mentioned them.” I stare at him. Does he mean to say what I think he is? “You know, the cat,” he adds.

So the cat in his bag is the small black and white creature that accompanies them in the Metaverse. And by hearing him in Madarame’s Palace, I- “...Oh.” Now I understand. If I had been telling the truth, I should not have been able to understand the cat in June. “So that’s how you figured it out.”

Joker nods. “What are you hiding from the Phantom Thieves...and from me?”

I turn my back on him. There’s only one thing left for me to do. “Maybe it’ll be best if I show you.”

One of these days, I knew I would be showing him my true colors. Never had I anticipated it would be like this. My outfit shifts and morphs in an explosion of black and red fire crawling up my body. White and red is replaced with black and blue. I turn to face him just as the transformation is complete, the world tinted red by the lenses of my mask.

“A black mask,” Joker whispers. It’s clear he’s trying to process the truth of the matter, that I’m the person he’s been hunting down since Kaneshiro’s Palace. To his credit, Joker doesn’t look incredibly surprised, even if I’m sure he is. He hides it well. “You’re...”

“That’s right,” I reply, my voice nearly a snarl. “I’m the one who’s causing the scandals everyone has been talking about. The mental shutdowns. The psychotic breakdowns. They’re all because of me. Oh, and Okumura? He’s as good as dead.”

There’s that look of surprise I’ve been anticipating. “You killed him?”

“Yes. I did.” I take the mask off, looking right at Joker as I say, “You wanted to know what crimes I’ve committed. Well, there’s your answer.”

“Why?” he finally asks.

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“This being?”

“All of it, I guess.”

“My Metaverse activities are all part of a plan that’s been two years in the making,” I start, being purposefully vague. This isn’t where I had been expecting this conversation to go.

“A plan?”

“Yes. A plan to settle a...very personal grudge.”

“Who’s this grudge against?” I put my mask back on, hiding my facial expression. Joker’s latest question is one I cannot answer. He’s not satisfied. “What’s their name?”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to force it.”

“I just wanna help,” he says, about to approach me. “Please-”

“I don’t want your pity!” I yell.

He stops, realizing that right now may not be the best time to get near me. “I’m not pitying you.”

“Oh, really?” I hiss. “Then why go this far to help me!?”

“Because I care about you.” He...cares about me? How could he possibly...? I don’t understand. He should be hating me right now! Yet he claims that he cares about me, even now. “One more thing. If you’re not wanting my help, then why are you telling me any of this?”

My response comes unfiltered, hiding nothing from him. “I...I can’t take the loneliness anymore.”

Joker’s response surprises me even more. “You’re not alone. I’m here. I’ll always be here.” He says it with no doubt or hesitation. He truly believes that he’ll be there for me when I need him. As selfless as ever. But I won’t rely on him. I refuse to let him help me because whatever ridiculous savior complex he has tells him to. As if sensing my thoughts, he adds, “We could make a deal instead if you want.”

“A deal?”

“I’ll help you with your plans if you help me find the man who accused me of assault.”

That has me on edge. “Just what are you planning?”

“I want to help, no matter what it takes. It’s not pity, Akechi. I want to prove that.”

“And you think that, by striking a deal with me, you’ll be able to convince yourself it isn’t? Don’t make me laugh.”

“You wanted to help me, remember?” His question gives me pause. I had offered to help, yes. When he rejected my offer, I had even tried to insist on helping, but he refused to budge. “I wanted to deal with it on my own, just like you. I told myself, ‘It’s just a year.’ But we’re doing this the wrong way. We’re strong, but I don’t think we should be doing this alone. So, let’s do this...together.”

“How idiotic could you get? We’re enemies-”

“Rivals,” he immediately interjects.

“Fine. Rivals. But we’re not meant to work together.”

“Even rivals team up sometimes.”

“You...” I manage to hold back a laugh as I continue, “You have some strange logic sometimes.”

“So?” Joker extends his hand. “Do we have a deal...Goro?”

It takes me a few moments of sputtering over him calling me by my first name to get out a response. I take his hand in mine, making sure not to accidentally jab him with my clawed gauntlets. “Fine. I accept your proposal.”

[lovelypersona]

Sunday (Akira Kurusu x You)

A/N: holy shit im writing for persona again who saw that coming!!! 

Word Count: 3,400+

Summary: You used to be friends with all of the Phantom Thieves. But now? You aren’t sure where you stand in their life as you sit in the diner, stood up once again. 

Commission Me

Where have you been?

Been searching all along

Came facing twilight, on and on,

Without a clue

Without a sign…

The rain comes down in thick sheets outside, the water smacking down on the roof and windows of the diner you sat in, undisturbed and dry. You had luckily made it in on time before the downpour started… but the seat across from you remained empty. 

Truthfully, as sure as the weather, you had expected just as much that he wouldn’t show. Akira, though only a high schooler, same as you, seemed unusually busy. Plans always seemed to fall through… but it seemed he always had time for the other friends he met along the way. Friends that you met, too, and you felt like you belonged with. Friends that were all dear to you- but maybe you weren’t as dear to them. 

You sigh as you run the tips of your fingers against the rim of the coffee mug in front of you. It’s been empty for quite a while, and the coffee tastes nowhere near as good as Boss’s. You were upset that your friend had decided to be a no show again, but you can't bring yourself to be disappointed. As stated before, you weren’t expecting anything different. 

Maybe it was silly to keep this charade going, you think. Maybe it was time to finally face the facts. 

Without grasping yet, 

The real question to be asked…

Where have I been?

You were beginning to feel like a porcelain doll. Fake smile, pretty hair… fragile and right about to break if shoved to the side.

Which, unfortunately for you, this was exactly the case since you met Akira. You could feel you weren’t ever a priority for him. Always shoved to the side… to be dealt with later at a more convenient time. It begs the question- what on earth was Akira’s priority anyway?

You had accepted since that rainy Sunday spent alone in a booth that you would never get an answer and your friendship with the entire group of misplaced misfits would never get better. If they wanted to brush you off… you figured you would do the same. Smile, say the right things, do what’s expected of you at the moment… but not a lick more than that. It was only fair. Why give and give when you are never given back? 

You felt hollow like a porcelain doll, too.

I’m a shapeshifter at Poe’s masquerade, 

Hiding both face and mind, 

All free for you to draw.

I’m a shapeshifter, 

What else should I be?

Please don’t take off my mask, 

Revealing dark…

“Has anyone noticed something off about ___ lately?” Makoto is the one to bring it up during their meeting in Le’Blanc. Everyone exchanges glances and nods and the student council president sighs. 

“They’ve seemed… I don’t know? Less spunky?” Ryuji scrunches up his face in confusion. 

“I’d say less energetic,” Ann butts in, “less… like ___. Like they’re trying to be someone else.”

“Withdrawn,” Akira says simply, the one word like the final puzzle piece everyone needed. Ryuji lights up. 

“Yeah, that’s it!” And then he dims down again. “But why?” 

“You don’t think something happened, do you?” Futaba fidgets in her spot, frowning and Makoto softly rubs her back. 

“It’s possible,” she sighs. “But I don’t know what it could be.”

Yusuke hums, a contemplative look on his face as he cups his cheek. “They don’t have family troubles, do they?”

“I don’t know a lot about their home life…” Akira says, and everyone else seems to feel the same. 

“Well, what do you guys know?” Morgana looks skeptically across the room, stretching his back lazily on the table. By now, he’s expected an answer, but as he looks at the group, he sees the lost expression everyone wears. Morgana’s ears droop back. “...I think that’s the issue.” 

Indeed. 

Moments of calm

Nothing left to be found 

A mirror right in front of me; 

That’s where I find an empty glass

Reflecting the sad truth,

It’s telling words not to be told...

Your grades were never the best, but they haven’t been getting better. They’ve taken a long steep dive into No Coming Back- This is Bad territory, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You never really cared about school what with their corrupt system and unfair teachers anyway- you only came for your friends. 

But you don’t really have friends anymore, so… 

You don’t know why you keep going to school if it’s only to look out the window and fail tests and wish you were anywhere else but there- seeing the people you love, being in their reach, and yet never being spared a glance. 

Home isn’t much better either. Your father basically hates you, always has, and he hates your grades- he thinks you’re a failure and he makes sure you know it every time you come home. 

You know you’re a failure.

For a second, you thought you weren’t. You thought, hey, I can do this. I can be someone- something-- if I can be with them.

But they’re gone, and they took a sacred part of you with them, so now you’re stumbling and trying to piece yourself back together. 

But you have no idea how.

I need the mask.

You don’t really care for Sundays. School isn’t in, which means you can stay home with your unhappy father or you can go outside and be all by your lonesome. Of course, the answer is always to go outside- you can’t stand the stiff and horrid energy your father gives, making anxiety swirl in your stomach all day. 

You’re wondering where you could possibly spend your day when an unexpected ting comes from your phone. 

Even more unexpectedly, it’s from Akira.

Akira: Are you busy today? 

You purse your lips and wonder what he could possibly want. 

You: Why?

---

Akira and Morgana sigh at your response. “That’s not really a good sign, is it?” The cat looks worriedly at the phone and Akira frowns. No, it’s not, but at least you replied, right?

“Just keep trying,” he huffs and types on the keyboard, trying again.

Akira: I wanted to hang out, all of us. Morgana misses you.

Said cat smacks at his hand, claws out and all and Akira yelps. “What?!”

“You can’t even give them the simple knowledge that you miss them, too?!” 

“Well-”

The phone buzzes, taking his attention away from his angry partner. 

You: Oh. I don’t know, don’t you guys hang out a lot? I don’t want to intrude.

You: If you wanted to hang out with someone, you should ask the people you really want to see.

Needless to say, his heart sinks. 

---

Akira: I asked you because I want to see you. I’m sorry I haven’t lately. 

You: Do you even remember last Sunday?

Akira: Why?

You: Then you don’t. You wanted to ‘hang out’ then too, but not with me. You had time for everyone else, but couldn’t even give me a message to stop waiting for you in the diner. 

You: Stop acting like you care when you don’t.

Sent at 9:33am.

---

There’s a hot, sizzling, awful feeling inside your stomach that reminds you of anger as you shove your phone in your pocket and continue to walk aimlessly around Shibuya- but with a lot more power in your steps than before. There’s another feeling besides that, just beneath the anger- a watery, upset and guilty feeling. You know you shouldn’t have snapped. 

How unlike you, right? 

You have to remember to play the part, don’t you? Act like you don’t care, act as a friend, act like you’re okay, act, act, act act act act- 

Your phone is buzzing but you can’t bring yourself to look at it as you- unknowingly- make your path to the diner and inside. You aren’t even aware that you’ve ordered a coffee until the kind waitress with sympathetic eyes places it down in front of you. 

A watery, broken sigh escapes you as you hide your face in your hands, trying to quell down your crying, but you can’t. Silently you weep alone in the corner of the diner, shoulders shaking and composure breaking. 

I’m a shapeshifter, 

Chained down to my core. 

Please don’t take off my mask, 

My place to hide…

“Why’d you call a meeting so early?” Ryuji yawns from his place on Akira’s couch. Futaba doesn’t look much better, more or less falling asleep as she leans against the blonde. Makoto rolls her eyes. 

“It’s 10.”

“Way too early,” Futaba groans, her eyes drooping before Akira smacks the table. The sound is enough to wake everyone up, standing alert and ready as they look to their leader. He drops his phone on the table, free for everyone to see as he frowns deeply. 

“We have a problem,” is all he says. 

It doesn’t take long for everyone to read it and for the facts to sink in. “Last Sunday…” Haru speaks. “It was raining, wasn’t it?” 

“Which means we probably went to Mementos…” Makoto raises a hand to her forehead, a guilty look on her face. 

“What do we do?” Ann questions, nervously tugging on her pigtails. “I… don’t think this is going to be easy.”

“The fact we barely know anything real about them and we still managed to let them down isn’t very encouraging,” Yusuke says. 

“I hate to be the one who says it,” Ryuji stiffens up, “but what can we do? Mementos, palaces… it’s bigger than them. We have to do this. We can’t help that they aren’t a part of it.” 

Everyone glares at him, but only because they know that he’s right. Except for one.

“You’re all hypocrites,” Akira hisses through his teeth, his expression furious as he gestures to his messages on the phone. “You all make time for someone! Makoto, you still talk to Eiko, and Ann still makes time to visit Shiho!” The leader angrily pockets his phone. “We all have somebody outside of this- this thing we’re trying to do. I thought you all cared for ___. Are they really so easy to push aside?” 

And yet, something curls unsteady in his stomach. Whispers in his ear, are you free of blame? Didn’t you do the same? Wasn’t it so easy to forget they were ever around?

Akira feels sick. With himself and with his friends. He knows it’s probably just the stress of school and the deadline- but their implications toward their friendship with ____ just--- he couldn’t believe it. 

“I’m going to go see them. I’m going to fix this. They deserve more than what we’ve been giving them.” 

What he has been giving them.

——

Alone in the diner, you begin to dwell on the past. It’s something you do a lot because it’s easy- the present is so sad and hard, so you’d rather think about another time when things were better. You still remember how you met Akira- and by meeting him, you eventually met everyone else. 

He had been studying in the library. Makoto was there too, she always was, but she had a fine way of tuning everyone out as she absorbed herself in her studies. She didn’t hear the relentless whispering from all around the room- all targeted at the new boy. But you did. 

How can anyone focus with all this noise? You watch him carefully- it’s a little hard since he’s hidden behind a cubby, and you feel a little creepy for trying so hard- but you want to know if he’s bothered. Does he notice how people talk to him? How can he stand it?

Do you think he’s studying, or do you think he’s planning his next crime?

The voice reaches out a little more than the rest- when you glare at the person it came from, they don’t seem to notice or care. And then you look back at Akira- you notice how his pen has stopped moving and his shoulders are stiff. 

So he noticed it, then. 

You knew what it was like to be rumored about and bullied. It’s not hard to become the butt of the joke in school- kids are judgemental and mean, it’s just what they do. But this seems too unfair… can’t you do something?

Without realizing it, you’ve walked up to Akira’s cubby and tapped on his shoulder. He merely looks up at you, a concerned look in his eye that you don’t blame him for.

“Hey, if you want to study without any noise…” You slowly start, “I know that the club room on this floor is empty right now.” 

There’s a nervous beat in your chest as you offer this to him. You hope he doesn’t take it the wrong way- you don’t want to get rid of him, you just want to help. You readjust your school bag on your shoulder as he refuses to respond. “Anyway, that’s where I’m going. You’re free to use it, too, if you need to.” 

Surprisingly, he stands up immediately, gathering the loose books in the cubby and putting them in his own bag. You wonder for a second if he’s about to dash off before he turns to you, a sincere look on his face. 

“Thank you. I’d like to go somewhere quiet.”

And that’s how it all started- simple as that. An act of kindness for your schoolmate turned into frequent study sessions in the empty club room, which gradually filled up with more people as the months went by. That’s how your friendship with them all started. It wasn’t the most exciting story, but you look back on that day and the ones it followed with a sad smile. 

The club room is no longer filled with the rowdy group after school. Eventually, it was just you- and then you couldn’t bear to be there alone anymore, and the club room became abandoned and cold. 

Thinking about it makes you want to cry again- but you think you’ve worried the poor waitress serving you enough today. It’s already a little past noon, hours flying by without you noticing it, and you should probably head home for the day. Nothing is waiting for you here. 

As you call the waitress and fumble for your wallet, the door of the diner slams open- hard- catching everyone’s attention as a dark-haired boy rushes through. Your eyes are wide as you realize who it is.

It’s Akira, and rather abruptly, he heads right for you and sits in the booth seat across from you. His cheeks are flushed and hair is unusually wild as if he’d been running, but he grins at the waitress even as he’s out of breath. “I’ll have a coffee, please,” he says. 

“O-okay,” she’s about as confused as everyone else, including you, but she hurriedly walks away with Akira’s order and the people in the diner collectively begin to mind their own business. 

Now it’s you and him- in the diner sat in a booth, on a Sunday- exactly what you were supposed to be doing before. But this time, it’s not raining. 

“You look like you ran a marathon,” for some reason this is the first thing you can think to say. Akira laughs, subtly fixing his glasses and smoothing out his hair as he does. You didn’t mean it in a bad way- he looks handsome either way. 

“You weren’t answering your phone, so I just ran everywhere I thought you might be until I found you.” 

Right. You had put your phone on silent. Wiggling it out of your pocket, as soon as the screen turns on you see dozens of messages, all from Akira. You instantly feel bad, but before you can say anything, Akira’s hand reaches across the table and covers your phone, forcing you to put it down. 

“I didn’t say that to make you feel bad. I get it. I, uh,” he stutters, “I wouldn’t want to answer me either if I were you.”

“What are you doing here, Kurusu?” You ask him before you don’t have the guts anymore. Being here with him… It makes you anxious. You forgot what it was like to talk to him. 

Your choice in name visibly upsets him, but he doesn’t say anything about it. You feel it’s appropriate- you hadn’t talked in such a long time, you no longer felt that you should use his given name. It doesn’t feel right. 

“I wanted to see you,” Akira says. The waitress suddenly appears with his order, not saying anything as she quickly leaves after his quiet ‘thank you’, and then he continues. “I wanted to apologize for not being around lately… We’ve all noticed that you’ve been acting differently- but- we didn’t do anything. And I’m sorry.”

“Well, that doesn’t make me feel any better,” you frown, your eyes stinging as you look at the table. 

“I know it doesn’t… but I needed to say it. And I wanted… to spend today with you, if you’d let me. I want to fix it.”

You know he’s sincere- Akira doesn’t lie, not often anyway. He doesn’t lie to you- to his friends. Immediately, you want to say yes- please be my friend again, please make it feel better. 

But you can’t. 

“I can’t,” you say. “I… it doesn’t work like that. I can’t be your friend again while knowing I might not be your friend tomorrow, the next day, or next week… You just disappear, Kurusu, you all do. You all disappear and I don’t know why, but I can’t stand it.” Your hands wring together on top of the table nervously, your heart beating a bit too fast. You hate admitting it to him, but you can’t deny it anymore- whatever they’re doing, you’re not a part of it. It’s so painfully obvious that they don’t trust you, and it makes you feel like shit. 

Akira seems to be at a loss for words. The two of you sit in an upsetting silence- you want to apologize and make him feel better, but you can’t do that anymore, so you stay quiet. 

“Every… every Sunday,” Akira starts. You look up at him slowly. “Every Sunday, I’ll be here. And I can’t promise I can always bring everyone with me, but I’ll… I’ll be here. All day.” 

“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it,” you sigh and he quickly shakes his head. 

“I do mean it. I told you- I want to fix it.” 

His hand reaches out again, softly grasping one of your own clammy hands. “I can’t tell you exactly what we’re doing… But I can tell you that the group and I… we’re doing something, and it’s dangerous. It’s exhausting. And I don’t want you to be a part of it because I don’t want you to get hurt.”

What… on earth does that mean? Your chest feels heavy as you hold his hand back, worry in your eyes. What are they doing that would make him say that- make him look so upset and tense?

“But I still want to be friends with you- you’re dear to me. I don’t want to lose you because I made the mistake of getting caught up in other things.”

You’re dear to me. 

Those words seem to break you apart. You promised yourself you wouldn’t cry again today, but the tears fall before you can even catch them. You sniffle pathetically, holding Akira’s hand tighter as you cry. “I’m sorry,” you whisper. Before you realize what’s happening, Akira is standing up, moving around the table so he can sit beside you, still holding your hand. 

“Don’t be.” He whispers, his other arm wrapping around you and holding you against him. 

And it’s been so, so long since you felt this wanted- it breaks you all over again and you continue to cry, basked in the warmth that is Akira as he refuses to let you go. “Every Sunday?” You ask him, quiet and meek. A part of you is embarrassed to have him see you cry like this, but most of you is too overwhelmed to care. 

“Every Sunday,” he promises. And even though maybe you shouldn’t… you believe him.

[aetm-malereaderimagines]

Hi can I request for a nanase haruka dating hcs?

Hi and thank you for your request! I didn’t know how much I needed it until I started writing these hcs. I didn’t realize how much I missed my sweet sweet boy Haru. I had so much fun writing these, maybe even too much fun ‘cause I ended up writing like 1000 words worth of headcanons lmao. I hope it’s at least remotely close to what you expected ‘cause I got sidetracked a few times when writing these (you’ll see lol). Anyways, enjoy!

Nanase Haruka:

You’ll love dating this guy if you like, so to speak, “being alone together.” Unless he’s at the pool or jogging, Haru enjoys, as you probably already know, cooking, taking long baths, and tending to the stray cats in his neighborhood, but also reading, playing video games, and just lazing around his house, taking naps on the porch, watching TV in the living room and whatnot. Despite pursuing the career of an athlete, he’s usually very low-energy, which can be surprising to people who only know him as a swimmer.

Thus, you spend a lot of time together at his house. He now lives in Tokyo and while his apartment in the capital is cozy enough, you both prefer his old house back in Tottori. During high school, as his parents were away most of the time, you spent a lot of time there. You would sit at the table in his living room reading a book as Haru would lie down on the floor, his head positioned comfortably in your lap. With one hand, you would hold the book and with the other, you’d stroke his hair gently. You’d take it away only when you needed to turn the page but even that short absence of your hand on his head would coax a grumpy growl from your boyfriend. Another time, you’d be playing with the cats in the backyard. That was one of the things Haru enjoyed the most. You smiled a lot when the cats were around, and he loves seeing you smile.

The feeling of Zweisamkeit you get with him is just Exquisite.

Now, in Tokyo, you still spend a lot of time with each other but it’s gotten a little harder, given the nature of the life of a university student. You’re busy with your studies, Haru’s busy with his practice, but fortunately, your campus has a really nice library so you end up spending a lot of time there studying and waiting for him to finish. You often come back home together.

Haru can be a little socially-anxious at times but he’s taken a liking to eating out with you on your way back from uni. You know those narrow Japanese back alleys full of trade signs and neon-like lights where two people walking side by side can hardly fit in the cramped space? Those are the places you end up exploring quite often. You can find the tiniest but the coziest, the tastiest but also the cheapest restaurants and bars there. Haru doesn’t care as long as they serve Japanese food — fish, sushi, gyōza, rāmen, udon, soba, tonkatsu, donburi, whatever is fine with him. You actually have a few favorite restaurants you frequent, to the point when you can just place your order with a short “the usual, please.”

Unbeknownst to you, you’ve become kind of idols to a certain elderly lady running a teishokuya, a cheap diner. You may think you’re being subtle about your relationship but you’re not fooling a mother of four and grandmother of seven. You’ll never know if she’s a closeted fujoshi or just finds you adorable but one thing’s certain: for some reason, there’s always an additional piece of fish on your plate and the bowls you get your misoshiru in seem weirdly larger than those of other customers.

Since you don’t have much time during the day, you end up having sleepovers basically every other night, or even more often. After a year of not being able to find their son at his apartment half the time, Haru’s parents suggested you move in together. Why pay for two apartments when you basically already live in one?

On days when you don’t eat out, Haru usually cooks for you. He’s a great cook but it took you some time to convince (and teach) him to cook anything else than mackerel.

After university/practice and on your days off, you play a lot of video games together. Sometimes you invite Makoto or Asahi over (Kisumi usually just invites himself over, much to Haru’s dismay), sometimes you just duel at Smash Bros by yourselves. If it’s just the two of you, those gaming sessions often turn into lazy make-out sessions late at night. One of the many discoveries you’ve made during those nights is that Haru’s bare, pale skin looks weirdly alluring in the faint glow of the TV.

Haru really likes kisses, both kissing and being kissed. Be it a peck on the forehead or a full-out make-out session, he’s always down for it.

He also loves holding hands. Whether you’re watching a movie, out on a walk, or in bed at night, his hand always inches towards yours.

Sometimes, he does this involuntarily, his hand just finds yours on its own. He gets really embarrassed when he realizes.

He’s not really into PDA, though. He almost never kisses you out in public and will only hold hands with you if he thinks there’s no one around.

The only exception is when you’re around other gay guys. He gets weirdly possessive and always makes sure to hold your hand, swing his arm around your shoulder, and sometimes even give you a little peck on the cheek. You confronted him about it once and it turns out he just thinks you’re much more popular than you actually are. You think it’s sweet and decide to never correct him.

When you were moving in together, you accidentally found his sketchbook. Every other page was a drawing of you—your face drawn from countless different angles, you reclining on the porch, you cooking, you reading, you playing games, you on a walk in a park, you riding a bike, you laughing, you sleeping, you, you, you… There’s even a few drawings of you two making out and one of you completely naked.

You thought he was gonna stop drawing those if he found out that you knew so you decided not to tell him a thing and just keep checking his sketchbook whenever he’s not around. He did, however, find out (he walked in on you when you thought he was showering) and you’d never seen him redder before. As you’d expected, he stopped drawing whatsoever for a while and kept avoiding the topic but after a few weeks, he somehow came to terms with it. Now, he sometimes even asks you to pose so he can draw you better. That’s when you started having outings every now and then when you’d leave Tokyo and drive away into the countryside so he can draw both the landscapes and you surrounded by nature. You have some of his best pictures framed and hung up on the wall of your living room. Your friends think it’s the cutest thing in the world.

[makoto-naegi555]

Dragonronpa chapter 16

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144008/chapters/78156926 

And so makoto and siramay where continuing to wait for escape to be at hand growing weary.

Makoto: how much longer

Siramay: wait and hope makoto wait and hope.

Before makoto could think too much he heard the strum of an instrument as he saw siramay playing

[SIRAMAY] Makoto's luck was really out His spirit and his fortune low Alone he sat, alone he thought Of happy times he used to know [HUSKS] Hey dreamer, don't be so upset Hey Makoto, you're not beaten yet [ALL] Go go go Makoto you know what they say Hang on now Makoto you'll make it someday Don't give up Makoto fight till you drop We’ve played the game and you come out on top.

Makoto: what does that mean?

Siramay: well think about it makoto, I come from the multiverse where anything’s possible yah? so if you think about it, it only makes sense there’s a universe where your story is a video game for all to play.

Makoto: really?

Siramay: yes! And you’re the protagonist in fact that’s how I saw you the first time from that screen you where great! Sure some chumps think you’re boring but there wrong!

Makoto: I’m probably not the best protagonist though.

Siramay: nonsense! we’ve all saw you strive and conquer in that game and while this universe will branch away from cannon we still believe in you makoto! We know you can rise and beat the mastermind when no one else could! So there’s only one thing left for you to do.

Then he started chanting

[SIRAMAY, ENSEMBLE] Go ma-ko-to Go ma-ko-to Go ma-ko-to! GO MA-KO-TO!!! Go, go, go Makoto you know what they say Hang on now Makoto you'll make it someday Sha la la Makoto you're doing fine You and your great hopes ahead of your time Go, go, go Makoto you know what they say Hang on now Makoto you'll make it someday Sha la la Makoto you're doing fine You and your great hopes ahead of your time GO MA-KO-TO

Then siramay got up and started dancing all over

Makoto: what are you doing?

Siramay: whats it look like? I’m dancing the despair away! come on makoto dance your despair away to!

[HUSK] GO MA-KO-TO

And with that makoto got up also wiggling around trying to dance the despair away

Siramay: yeah! You go makoto!

[HUSK] GO MA-KO-TO

And so makoto and siramay both joined together in a grand weird dance to fend of despair.

GO MA-KO-TO GO MA-KO-TO GO, GO, GO, GO, GO, GO, GO, GO! Makoto you know what they say Hang on now Makoto you'll make it someday Sha la la Makoto you're doing fine You and your great hopes ahead of your time Go, go, go, go, go, go, go Makoto you know what they say Hang on now Makoto you'll make it someday Sha la la Makoto you're doing fine You and your great hopes ahead of your time

[SIRAMAY] Ahead of your time [MAKOTO] Ahead of my time [SIRAMAY] Ahead of your time [MAKOTO] Ahead of my time [SIRAMAY] Ahead of your time [MAKOTO] Ahead of my time [SIRAMAY] Ahead of your time [BOTH] Ahead of my time [SIRAMAY] Ahead of your time [MAKOTO] Ahead of my time [SIRAMAY] Ahead of your time [ALL] Ahead of your/my

But then suddenly they heard a loud rumble as they all looked up to see something fall from the sky.

Makoto: what was that!?

Siramay: YOUR SALVATION! its kyoko! now breath in for this last line [ALL] TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMME!

After that makoto went to investigate the trash to find out its kyoko! She came to save him and even brought food how sweet… oh I guess that makes my food redundant eh he still needs breakfast a days past anyway, then makoto scarfed it down then they talked kyoko apologized for setting up makoto cause kyoko herself was set up, course makotos a sweety and forgave her as they talk about how the mastermind stole her memory.

Kyoko: That being said, there was a limit to what I could do by myself. Which is why I asked you to help me.

Makoto: But...why me?

Kyoko: Because among everyone, you were least likely to be the mastermind. That was just intuition, but...

Makoto: I-I see... Your intuition was right, though. There's no way an ordinary kid like me could've been the mastermind.

Siramay: now if only you where the mastermind so you could spite her.

Makoto: why!?

Siramay: I like spiting people.

So makoto continued to talk to kyoko and she finally remembered her talent the ultimate detective bum bum buuuuum and the headmasters her father, bum bum buuuuuu, so kyoko investigated a lot said the point of the trial was to kill her.

kyoko: The mastermind is adamant about following the rules, and with that rule in place, they couldn't step in. Since they couldn't kill me themselves, they tried to use the class trial to do it.

The mastermind couldn’t step in because of the rules? That makes it sound like...the mastermind themselves is somehow bound by the school regulations.

Siramay: id use the term “bound” loosely makoto they did try to kill you Afterall, there as bond to the rules as a story genie you know because genies are all like “I shall give you whatever you want” and so you are like “I wish I was hot” so they set you on fire because you said you wanted to be hot so technically they granted your wish but they are trying.

So they went on about how makoto could have died.

Kyoko: I can hear them, you know. The footsteps of the god of death.

Makoto: What...?

Kyoko: I can hear the god of death as he moves. That ability naturally draws me into cases, just like this.

Siramay starts tap dancing.

Kyoko: ???

Siramay: hahaha I should stop kidding around, let her continue to talk.

So basically she talks about the whole fiasco and the other ultimate despair, well the true ultimate despair but they don’t know that.

Kyoko: ...what happened a year ago--the biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history.

Siramay: no no! its the biggest… most awful most tragic event! IN HUMAN HISTORY!!! jazz hands

Kyoko: They're the root of all the evil that has forced us to go through this. *That* is the Ultimate Despair. And that is our real enemy.

END CHAPTER

And then there where 6

Witch brings us to chapter 6!

he Ultimate Despair... A group of people who caused The Tragedy one year ago... Those same people put together this killing game and began broadcasting it around the world. The most desperately awful group of people ever... *That* is the mastermind's true identity. Our enemy has finally been revealed... But right now...

you gotta get out of the trash! and take a bath boy you smell.

so then they went to the door and began climbing A LADDER not me though because I can do this little thing called flying siramay said floating right next to makoto who was gradually climbing the ladder

CHAPTER 6

And so makoto and kyoko began talking about everything really as they talked about kyokos life story.

Siramay: talk about daddy issues, like man like wow.

Makoto: yeah…

Siramay: so, nearing the end aren’t you?

Makoto: that’s what you say.

Siramay: so I guess we should talk since it could be the last time we do personally talk.

Makoto: huh?

Siramay: yeah after you beat zetsu and get out of here I have to leave on my own path who knows when we could see eachother I think it be a few years.

Makoto: a few years!?

Siramay: yeah being a king of villains is a busy job even with being all powerful and immortal so much work, but that’s ok cause the work keeps me stimulated and fulfilled, and that’s like an important factor in life right?

Makoto: I guess, so what do you wanna talk about

Siramay: well that’s the thing I have so many things I want to say to you, but my memory is bad, so I kept on forgetting to tell you because we just got distracted by something else so uh just let me try to grab them …. So hope and despair ay?

Makoto: is it ok to say despair.

Siramay: we’re in the trash shoot he can’t hear us! …she cant hear us? They cant hear us? Hear us? eh but it’s beside the point you know I just think it’s weird.

Makoto: whats weird

Siramay: your worlds twisted definitions on hope and despair that’s what! like I mean look at your definition of hope its like, to keep moving forward and to face adversity head on right? … honestly, that’s noble and if everyone else liked that definition I guess I’d be ok with it but that’s what you think hope is right?

Makoto: right?

Siramay: so what do you think despair is? You think its bad stuff right? You think its all gross nasty evil like zetsu.

Makoto: well….

Siramay: WELL YOU’RE WRONG! All this bad stuff zetsu does aint despair its depravity though the depression is despair because let me tell you the truth of the matter is makoto hope means: a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. and despair means: the complete loss or absence of hope.

That is all nothing more nothing less, but your universe corrupted those ideals you ruined the balance of hope and despair I mean not you personally but your people! The people

Makoto: what? How? Why?

Siramay: well yes they may have those meanings of hope wanting something to happen and despair being no want, but they also have their other halves as most see hope as good and despair as bad but by their other names you’d see fear as bad and love as good, maybe but hope is fear and despair is love in a way.

Makoto: that makes no sense.

Siramay: yes it does makoto you just need to use your mind and think after all there are many articles about said subject and how hope and fear are just two emotions on the same face… metaphorically not literally after all the Greeks stated it themselves did they not?... did they not? But yes they are two faces of the same emotion it really just depends on the… the whats the term, influences I’d say it depends on what influences your mind whether the desire s that of hope or that of fear. Do you see what I get at?

Makoto: I guess but in a way love is desire but there’s no desire in despair so how they would work.

Siramay: well that’s where your wrong they fit quite well when you think about it after all when you are of true love you stop wanting because you have after all witch is no desire since you have what you desire and now just experience having it but that’s not what I’m talking about this whole topic came from a dream.

Makoto: a dream?

Siramay: yes I was gonna tell you the dream but with all the stuff happening it slipped my mind as so many things do but it was one of my many odd dreams where many things happen with no explanation, water parks, malls strangers who say there my friends and most importantly a testing facility using people as guinne pigs I recall sneaking in and being caught after in witch they sent me in a simulation though I can’t recall what happened in the situation but it was tragedy with a happy ending I recall cause I remember floating with someone I cared about on wood with hope we’d have a better life after the fiasco we just did, whatever it was, you see cause after that the head set was ripped of my head as I saw a mad scientist, both figuratively and literally hahaha he went off on me on a bunch of stuff I wasn’t paying attention to but he said something very important he said to me “you cant have an ending of hope and love those are conflicting ideal!” the rest of the dream went on but that line did make me think when I woke up you know? Hope and love conflicting ideals? How odd a statement cause Afterall if anything hope, and despair are the conflicting ideals unless what he was saying was love is despair? Or would It be despair is love? But thinking about it that actually made a lot of sense but I’m afraid I can’t go on about this tangent, but I will say one thing once you meet the mastermind you’ll understand exactly what I meant when I said love and despair are the same  you can’t have one without the other there like twins or lovers or twin lovers!

Makoto: no

Siramay: ok not the last one but lovers definitely

ah yes hope and despair, fear and love the two angels that balanced the universe before everything went wrong.

Makoto: what?

Siramay: well makoto you know that stuff about you being an angel? Well as I am an ALL-POWERFUL BEING WHO CAN BEND THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERES and make it a lovely sweater for you to wear I think I found some of your worlds history to back up that clam. you see once upon a time in the beginning of the universe the great creator had two beings, angels some say but I digress their names where nozumo and zetsu.

Makoto: but isn’t that-

Siramay: EXSACTLY I had a reason after all, and they helped create the universe and bring it to balance, and oh how they loved eachother… but zetsu felt unappreciated by the world so he fell to darkness and the balance of hope and despair where corrupted to what they are now as zetsu was banished for his crimes and never got to see nozumo again but they still loved eachother greatly its stated in prophecy that their souls are constantly being reborn till the day they can be reunited again, don’t you see makoto all that talk about you being a angel maybe its not just a comparison of your purity maybe you are the reincarnation of the great angel nozumo!

Makoto: what! No that has to be impossible.

Siramay: well I don’t think so I mean after all I’m a king of villains, but there’s a reason I care about you despite that tittle and its your purity, man heroes have a sense of upright self-righteousness, but they never really hold out and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and a fire in my hands at their hypocrisy! They are filled with sin that I must punish! But you are different, I look at you and you are so genuinely pure you are truly one of the golden ones.

Makoto: golden ones?

Siramay: eh it’s a name I made up but despite your rarity I have met another man like you he was a handsome fellow he was with wonderful black hair his name was soot and his heart shared your purity, sure he is considerably different more rambunctious and lively but I could still feel that same purity in him, all loving, forgiving and willing to care for all even if others won’t, oh how I loved him… sadly it didn’t work out but he was so pure and his universe shared a level of pureness that despite my villainess I respected the lack of corruption in that world and would hate if others corrupted it so I vow to protect his universe for his sake and I feel that same need with you! Just looking into your eyes I have this sense of not wanting to be evil and if everyone was like you I probably wouldn’t, but sadly many people aren’t like you there are many cruel people and suffering people. And I must bring an end to that. But yes you are so pure, kind and compassionate I care about you greatly and I feel a great pain in my soul if something bad where to happen to you, you make me see how the world could be in spite of the way that it is! now makoto I just want to make one thing clear when I say I care about you. If someone ever hurts you or causes you to suffer… I will make sure that person regrets ever being brought into this universe because you don’t deserve to suffer, and I’d hate to see that.

This scared makoto a bit wondering what siramay would do to said person.

Makoto: p-please don’t cause anyone to suffer on my behalf.

Siramay: ah don’t worry buddy as long as they don’t hurt you I won’t hurt them, after all I find all that despair, depravity, suffering whatever to be quite… dull.

Makoto: you do? But aren’t you evil?

Siramay: makoto just cause I’m evil dosent mean I’m a jerk, personally I’m quite honorable with these things… I think, but yes I don’t enjoy the pain and suffering stuff its just delaying the inevitable really and it makes me uncomfortable especially the ones out of my control after all I am an almighty all-powerful being who’s traveled the multiverse so I’ve seen lots of suffering and I can safely say… siramay was trying to force a word out of himself and stayed silent for a bit.

ITS BORING!

Makoto: ah!

This startled makoto who almost fell but siramay summoned another hand to push him back.

Siramay: I MEAN ITS ALL THE SAME MAKOTO, YOU HURT SOMEONE THEY SUFFER THEY GET SAD OR MAD OR BOTH AND IF YOU CONTIUE THE PROCESS THEY WILL DIE ITS ALL THE SAME ITS ALL THE SAME! WHATS THE POINT OF WATCHING SOMEONE SUFFER LIKE THAT its exhausting I already know they will suffer so whats the point like I don’t care what she said about “despair being unpredictable” SHES A BIG FAT LIAR if you can’t get 2 from 1+1 and learn if you cause someone to suffer they will be sad then I think you might be lying about being ultimate smart cause that’s just really stupid if that’s what you enjoy! if anything I do find the hope more interesting sure I know everything will work out in the end, but peoples hopes to have different emotional flavors makoto! Just seeing someone at the lowest of low when all hope seems lost and your like “oh whats gonna happen how they gonna make it out” and you see that determined look in their eye like OOOOOOUUU see that’s the problem with today’s heroes there getting more depressed like look at how depressed and edgy they are if you’re that depressed please lose so the villain can at least get there happy ending I know they won’t waste that! Or worse! The hero starts out optimistic but then because of the story they get depressed I feel betrayed! What happened to the hero that believed the best could happen, you dirty liar you betray my heart?

But your special makoto! You look death in the eyes and still smile in the name of hope makoto can I tell you something about your future.

Makoto: …..what?

Siramay: you go through some sad things that’s a fact but, even though everything you face, even with all that’s happened and how much you’ve grown and changed by the end of everything you are still you you are still makoto naegi the hopeful boy that walked through the gates of hopes peak from the start and the fact you can still stay strong like that…it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

Makoto: ….really?

Siramay: yes makoto so though I know you are a humble man don’t forget you’re a great guy.

….you know all this talk reminds me of zetsu… the mastermind zetsu not the fallen angel one.

Makoto: what about them?

Siramay: well like I said I believe their whole reason for loving despair to be a bold face lie especially with all they’ve done in their evil plan I mean look at all the bad stuff that’s happened and I knew would happen just shows despairs predictability! But uh that’s not what I mean you see you saw yourself zetsu left many openings and holes in their plan, and while I as a villain find it foolish I know why they do it they said themselves they want to see if you can win make it a fair battle since there super smart, they could have rigged it to be impossible, but they didn’t.

Makoto: wait so we only got this far because she let us?

Siramay: no! well kinda, but don’t disqualify yourself makoto you not dying was completely unpredicted, along with many other things you did but ask yourself makoto, why would they do that and limit themselves.

Makoto: because you said they wanted it to be fair.

Siramay: well yes but actually no cause the way I see it a rigged game is more despair than a fair one just to think it’s all for nothing, oh the tragedy. But they made it fair cause they wanna see if you can win now think about it what would they gain from you winning? nothing! Sure from what I know about them if you asked they’d spout some dumb stuff about “despair of losing” but… call me a fool but I think shes actually hoping you’ll beat her.

Makoto: what? But why would they want that?

Siramay: they feel despair from this to makoto, if you beat them they won’t have to make anyone suffer anymore. No one was able to beat them but maybe you can.

Makoto: but if they don’t want to do it they why don’t they just stop.

Siramay: do you ask an alcoholic why they don’t stop drinking? Or a smoker to stop smoking? or a drug addict why they don’t stop taking drugs?

Makoto: …

Siramay: exactly There is neither happiness nor misery in the world only the comparison of ones state with another nothing more Without hope despair wouldn’t exist because it's very being is measured by hope sure it's the absence but if it were to not exist at all then who's to say despair exists it's like knowing you’re not evil but if evil didn’t exist I can’t call yah good like hope to what I mean to say is Without night who's to say the light is bright?

Oh but look at the time where at the top welp time to make your grad reveal makoto! Oh and one more thing when you do face off against zetsu ask questions but don’t ask if you want an answer ask questions for what she will answer cause there’s no evidence she will say the truth or even anything that makes sense but if you just stop and think about it they actually do say a lot about her even if it’s not what you were asking.

And so makoto finally reached the surface world in the trash room and then kyoko tell makoto to reveal his presence to monokuma talking on how the mastermind is ensnared and so they planned to go to the gym.

Siramay: ok makoto you gotta be strong and intimidate the mastermind show they you know no fear you have seen the face of death and survived.

Makoto: how am I soused to show that.

Siramay: hmmmm……. OH I KNOOOWWW

And so siramay told makoto his plan as makoto went to the gym.

Makoto: whats up guys? I’m back.

Monokuma: what the- you can’t be here. You’re dead. I literally saw you die!

Makoto: death is a social construct.

Siramay: OOOHH HE GOT YAH GOOD MONO! AHAHAHAH

And so monokuma and kyoko where debating makotos life and what it meant if he was killed again and accused monokuma of killing mukuro (the truth) and kyoko went on a bluff about hope and despair and peoples viewpoints witch I guess is a way to look at it I supposes as they were prepared for a final showdown and monokuma excepted of course but it was not just for the mystery of mukuros killer no it was also to find out all the mysteries of the school as we knew it!

Kyoko: When we've uncovered every last truth, how will the Ultimate Desberry reveal their own desrose...?

Makoto: do we really have to do that?

Siramay: I’m not giving monokuma the victory of me saying it one more time.

Monokuma: how dare you try and stifle my metaphorical robotic bear erection!

Makoto: I honestly can't believe how this has all turned out...

And then kyoko asked once more on the rules but while they beat around the bush I shall write in ink their statements if the mastermind is to get caught and in turn lose this trial, like every other failed blacked of the past trials they will die and just because they have status of being the big bad does not change their fate if they are to lose cause there a student to and other hidden things said but I won’t say those.

Monokuma: I'm done talking! I got nothin' left to say to you! So get lost, would ya!?

Makoto: Why so mad!?

Kyoko: He seems...emotionally unstable.

Siramay: NO KIDDING!?

And so makoto was free and they left so makoto thanked kyoko then they talked about how monokuma said this was displayed on the airwaves and how that proves he wants to prove something basically kyokos hypnotists on the mastermind but as its different from my own I will omit it and while this is a case of confirmation bias I as the king of villains do not care for this ethical dilemma and so they planned to meet the others, so they went to the dining hall and saw monokuma.

Monokuma: Skrgh@yaGfew, anji&\krakAW;! fzzlbRff#[]

Makoto: You again...

Monokuma: Hrskzzzz_dat.; EgspllER103.2.1.255

Makoto: Is he...broken?

Siramay: HAHAHAH their mad, you should see the look on their face! There all like

Siramay then pulls out a keyboard and starts smashing their face on it.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Hhhahahahahahahahah oh I love it!

Kyoko: I suppose his emotional instability reached its limit.

Siramay: oh sweet innocent naive kyoko, THERE STABILITY IS GONNA GET MUCH WORSE HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH quite the downward spiral.

Monokuma: aG^3. 4sum=(SEN|akt~____ 61!

Then monokuma left

Makoto: Jeez... What the heck?

Course all emotion began to rise with the reuniting of the survivor gang all glad to see makoto alive! though sadly they all backed away cause makoto was stinky from the trash.

Siramay: but you should shower makoto who wants to beat the mastermind all stinky like that.

So they all talked and reunited and then they went to important matters on how it was almost the final showdown to defeat the mastermind once and for all, so it was there job to search and find to discover the  secrets that lay barren or die trying though makoto was hopeful, but kyoko less so because they suspected one of them was the mastermind (though not true), but I digress then monokuma unlocked every room for the gang to investigate and then people started splitting up.

Siramay: don’t worry makoto you got me to help yah solve the mysteries of the school! And I got your back!

And so it was time for the final investigation bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu it’s the final investigation!

So makoto had to go explore the locked rooms to learn the new lore so first things first he went to the second floor of the dorm room which looked quite like death,

Siramay: mmmmmmm

Makoto: what?

Siramay: with how destroyed these rooms are and with the fact there are 16 students and only 15 rooms I can’t help but have the awful thought in my head that she and mukuro slept together nooooooooo.

Makoto: oh

 there were also lockers but at the moment makoto was unable to open them then we finally got to the headmasters room where kyoko was in there trying to open a secret passage, but she couldn’t unlock the password then they talk about little info about the ultimate despair.

makoto: do you know anything about the ultimate despair?

Siramay: besides the fact their tragic jerks and I feel their name should be instead the ultimate depravity? no at least not anything useful at the moment.

So makoto was thinking on what the password for the computer could be and brought up kyokos name though kyoko did not believe this possibility when makoto tried it, it worked which intensified kyokos daddy issues, so they went in the secret room and while there where other things that looked interesting we had to look at the present in the center of the room witch kyoko warned him about it and when makoto opened it he saw THE BONEY REMAINS OF KYOKOS FATHER

Siramay: talk about an awkward “meet the parents situation” this is probably the weirdest one I’ve seen… well actually… nah nah not now you’ll understand later.

Needless to say this was all crazy but then he saw the tragic photo which made kyoko emotional.

Kyoko: *is angsty in daddy issues*

Siramay: you know zetsu had daddy issues too.

Makoto: really?

Siramay: yeah every person they ever called daddy died by their hands.

Makoto: I don’t like the way you worded that.

Siramay: I don’t like the way I worded that either.

So makoto continued to look for other things he even found an emergency handbook that could open everything. Then kyoko asked nicely if makoto could leave so she could be alone

So makoto left and kyoko was alone ;) to ponder her feelings for her dad.

[KYOKO] You were a sub-standard dad. But the only one I had I grew up hearing. Your evil scheming down the hall But when I look at this thing It makes me wanna sing. Maybe You're not so bad a dad, after all. At my first ever swim meet You stepped on the other teams' feet. At my recital You clapped louder than you should.

But this piece of plastic in my hand Makes me finally understand. Maybe you're not so bad a dad. Not so bad a dad after all

[risingmoonyue]

Batman/P5 Crossover

-Sometime before Akechi but after Futaba or Haru

-Damian is sent to Tokyo to check it out for whatever reason (maybe they had a fight, or he’s going stir crazy, or he’s just the only one they can send at the time and didn't bother with all that "you're not old enough" business)

-Dami is younger than Futaba by a year or three or four

-He is baby

-He is transferred to Shujin as a child prodigy where he also immediately joins the "outcast" community because of his attitude and intelligence

-Talia goes too, manages to cut off all his communications with the Batfam, and is planning to take him home in a month whether he likes it or not

-For whatever reason, Batfam doesn't realize this??? (Like, either she's faking reports or they're too busy (think fight or chaos in Gotham scenario maybe???))

-Anyways, obviously Dami doesn't want this

-Somehow the Phantom Thieves hear about the situation

-Maybe he was assigned to shadow Makoto for a while, and they managed to overhear a phone conversation either to Talia or Dami trying to get in touch with the Batfam and nothing really working

-And eventually they outright see him fighting with his mother with him at some point (either in person or over a phone call) mentioning that she already disowned him, he's happy with his Father's family, and that he will head her family business over his dead body—and oh would you look at that, you already managed that, care to try again Mother?

-The PT's are understandably alarmed

-And learn her name from Damian (from Makoto maybe or someone else he bonded a little with) (MORGANA) (THEY GAVE HIM MONA FOR A DAY AND NOW THEY KNOW EVERYTHING FROM HIS MANY PETS TO HIS LEAST TO MOST FAVORITE SIBLINGS STARTING FROM TIM TO DICK TO HIS FAVORITE FOODS TO EVERYONE IN HIS FAMILY’S NAMES TO HOW STUPID HE FINDS EVERYONE AND WHY THEY'RE STUPID TO HIS FAVORITE MUSIC TO WHY ANIMALS ARE SUPERIOR TO HUMANS AND MONA’S LIKE OMG TMI BUT LOVED IT THERE BECAUSE HE WAS PAMPERED LIKE NO TOMORROW GOT ONLY THE BEST FOOD AND THE BEST BEDS AND TOYS THAT HE GOT TO TAKE WITH HIM BACK TO LEBLANC AND NOW AKIRA AND SOJIRO ARE LIKE DUDE WHY AND MONA’S LIKE IM KEEPING HIM THIS HUMAN IS GOOD SORRY AKIRA YOU’RE DEMOTED)

-The palace is basically a fortress full of assasin ninjas and clones

-Dunno what her keywords are tho

-Or her what her palace actually is

-Help?????????

-Cognitive Bruce, Ra's, Damian, Dami clones, and Jason (maybe rest of batfam??? Idk)

-Long story short, the traps are so assassin-y that they need someone who knows the actual Talia because egads, this is the closest they have all come to actually dying

-And they didn't really want to do it and were just gonna power through

-But Dami manages to find out and get in and of course uses his background to help out whether they like it or not

(-he's slightly off put by Joker's name, but then decides to just solely call Gotham!Joker "The Clown")

-At some point they are captured by the Shadow Talia who is decked out in super fancy traditional Arab clothing and probably every conceivable hidden weapon known to man

-Talia says Damian won't and can't ever change from who he "is meant to be", referring to him as her Alexander and basically brutally addresses all of his insecurities concerning the batfam and people and society in general

-And all this is kinda killing him cause he still loves Talia despite the fact that she killed him and had a violent citywide custody battle with Batman but he also loves the batfam too even if he would absolutely never admit it (except to maybe Grayson)

-Joker does his emotional kick-start thing and/or Dami is like Makoto and just gets so mad he triggers it himself, but either way, lo and behold, Damian is now a persona user, usurping Futaba's place as the baby of the team

-The outfit is kinda inspired by his future adult league outfit with the top and bottom and gold jewelry, but has a raggedy cloak with dull gold edges, a Robin mask and gauntlets, and his main weapons are batarang-sword hybrids

---acknowledging his past and moving on with his present

-Persona: Aladdin, Tsun Zu, Ali Baba, somone else???? Need ideas plz help

-Probably the fastest member of the group

-His small body makes his hits not as strong, but hoo boy can that kid move around

-Hits a lot and dodges most

-Most of his Persona abilities are physical and have high crit and/or are status affects

-Downside is he has not a lot of SP (compared to the rest of the group)

-And he has pretty good HP

-Those good ol' “superior genetics” have to be good for something after all

-Anyways they escape to find the treasure another day

-And Dami is all smug because HA you definitely can't stop me now

-And the PTs are just resigned to keeping an eye on the extremely competent snotty assassin/vigilante child

-They do like him though so it's not too bad (comes with learning all his darkest secrets via his mother and thought processes that tends to accompany watching someone at their lowest get a persona)

(-They do manage to temper him a bit and help him adjust better to actual society too that's nice)

-As such, they also know about Batman and Robin and his whoooole family. Both sides.

-Damian decided not to tell batfam because he does agree with the whole "most adults suck" mentality that the Phantom Thieves have; despite his deep, deep respect for his father and mother and Grayson, they all do kinda suck

-And he’s rather not get pulled out as he surely would if he told them

(-On a side note, he likes Sojiro

-The man gives him coffee, curry, and leaves him mostly to his own devices

-Instant win)

-He is dubbed "Mockingbird" apon return to the metaverse because of his freaky talented vocal skills in mimicking anyone and everyone's voice

-Eventually, they beat Talia

-She doesn't publicly confess to all her sins unlike everyone else

-PTs don't realize it worked until Damian came into school with a genuine smile on his face, and more relaxed than he'd been since he got there

-PTs are confused until Damian's like, this works out because hey, don't want to have several people assassinated and draw the entire freaking league to Tokyo

(-Which was probably why Talia didn't)

-They agree

-But she does break down to tears in Dami's arms and promise to ACTUALLY TALK CIVILLY with Bruce to try and make up for everything and try to fix up the league

-He stays for the rest of p5

-But steers all his reports very much away from the Phantom Thieves

-If anything, he downplays absolutely everything, and makes it seem like it's nothing super big but he's gonna stay a while to keep and eye out because y'alls are busy and I like it here and I haven't gotten expelled so there

-The PTs like to add funny stuff on there just to see if they’ll notice

-Like, Akira likes to have Dami describe his day in excruciating detail. Like, recounting the entirety of his nine or so months to Sae during police interrogation, excruciating

-Mona is pushing for the shiny stuff

-Yusuke just likes to put in bursts of randomness (Dami once mentioned that an acquaintance made another acquaintance T-pose in a church for art lol)

-Ann loves to rant about food

-Haru is always insisting on about feelings

-Ryuji likes to complain about everything and puts in ridiculous requests

-Futaba is just putting in every gen-z thing ever

-Makoto is actually responsible and tries to get him to talk about his progress in school and his social life

-And Akechi is absolutely nowhere near any of this and doesn’t know it exists

-When they have the Tokyo/Japan-wide calling card, Batfam sees it too because let's face it, that's totally the sorta thing that they would keep an eye out for even if he didn't look at the news in the entirety of the time Dami was in Tokyo

-And they send a message to Damian (the first actual communication they've had since before Talia) saying "WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON OVER THERE????"

-And with the entirety of the Phantom Thieves looking over his shoulder, Damian's just like "Chill dudes, everything's fiiiiiiiiiine"

-And they're like "UH WHAT PART OF THIS IS FINE????" because they've dug around a bit and found every news report, and oh hey, this isn't anywhere near as calm as Damian described and he’s being super OOC and what’s going on?!?!?!?!?!

-And Damian, being egged on by the most of the PTs, just sends a winky face

-Just

-😉

-And he's smug, because it's still chaos over there so they can't actually come get him and try to pull him out because he's being super ooc

-Which means he's free to do what he wants/needs in the meantime

-Cue the end of the game

-And Dami is going with them on their summer road trip and cackling because the batfam is scrambling to find him in Tokyo but lol nope he's in a van the Japanese government tried and fail to follow

-And he found all the trackers like, a year ago

-Every

-Single

-One

-They eventually track him down to Akira's house where they're calmly eating dinner (and they've been expecting this for the past week so Mona was keeping watch just so they could pull this off) and talking about how uneventful the school year was

-Cue mass confusion in the batfam

-As the PTs enjoy just confusing them so much

-By talking to Mona

-Talking normal then crazy then normal again

-And just generally being their normal selves lol

-They explain absolutely nothing beyond gushing about how much progress socially and academically he’s made (gotta embarrass the baby of the group somehow) and making sure that if Dami absolutely has to go home that he's able to stay in touch

(-Later, Damian forms his own hero persona outside of Batman and Robin)

(-He names it Mockingbird)

(-Batfam proceeds to have a brain aneurysm while the PTs dab their happy proud tears out of their eyes on their regularly scheduled tea time at the Wayne Manor)

(-Damian sends a private plane every week or two lol)

(Bonus: ARTTTTTTT)

(Psst if you guys have ideas for art, outfits, interactions or scenarios, let me know)

[rewordthis]

『splits』★

Rin → Haruka | Haruka → Rin | Sousuke → Rin | Sousuke →← Haruka

🎐

4320 words

Rin, Haruka, Sousuke

SFW

Summary: When we split, I take a part of you with me.

I like Haru. Always have. I love him…

Ever since the first time I saw him on that tournament I wanted to be him. But to be him was and forever will be impossible.

(A childish dream.)

It took me a while to realize that — I used to think I can become anything — and upon finally understanding I couldn't, I knew; no mater how much I wanted to be him — wanted to be like him…

… to always win —

(Really, what a childish dream.)

Years flew away, and I was mad at Haru. Mad at me… mad that I was still clinging to him. From him.

There was a feeling that there was nothing left between us which made me even more distraught.

Made me want to scream.

Made me want to cry…

Made me want to—

I couldn't figure out what this feeling was. I raked my mind for the longest of times; all so I could only draw out that Haru and I weren't nearly as over as I thought.

I gathered that all this bitterness I felt was because I hated him for being faster—

better.

But that also changed, having me made a horrifying discovery about myself along with it. I found out a truth I'd be forced to face when I was least expecting it — let alone being ready for it.

See, I have always known that Haru is my soulmate. I'm sure of it. It's something that you can't mistake for anything else!

And during that night we reunited at the swim club, I could see it in his eyes, though I almost wanted to convince myself otherwise.

He and I are fated.

Fated to be together. And that's big!

Something like meeting your soulmate — leaving it behind, crushing you and your ego, thinking that they are simply just another guy in your long journey of life, meeting them again years later only to confirm that yes this is indeed your soulmate — is terrifying!

But magical as hell, too!

But the moment of truth for me— the moment I knew my feelings were reciprocated — was when Haru came and found me himself.

When he reached out his hand to me and asked me to show him something he had never seen before…

This was essentially, when I had the 'ok' from Haru to follow him into the magical world of true love.

Fated.

The truth is — even now after all this time — I want Haru. I want him… for me.

To be mine!

I want his speed.

His power.

His body.

His mind and his soul.

I want his eyes—

— to always look at me…

To be mine!

I am rendezvousing him tonight. As place I figured best it's the tree in front of our elementary school. Though the cherry blossoms haven't opened yet —

'Ah, this would be so much more romantic if the Sakura had blossomed~'

I frustrated a lot about what this is and how I should act ever since I was a little boy. I'm finally older. With age comes wisdom they say… or something like that. I am old enough to know what I want from him now. I will make him mine. I know I can!

(This isn't just a childish dream…)

I have build up the confidence in myself and I'm ready to lay siege over him until he surrenders to me.

'Love is war after all. And I'm gonna win this war!'

It's time. Rin is a bit nervous, as he leans back against the cold, metal bars in front of the school fence.

'Did I come early?' He thinks as he checks his wristwatch, 'Nope, just 23 minutes. It's normal to be this early on a date, right?'

He taps out a rhythm with his foot as he assures himself that this doesn't scream 'overeager' on his part and goes over the reasons with which he'll try persuading Haruka that, being together is a solid thing and finalizes in his mind about what tonight is, when—

The sound of footsteps cuts his thoughts short.

The hand of his watch says four minutes until the agreed time as he averts his gaze to face the person approaching him.

"Yo! Haru—" he raises his hand, before he makes a display of leisurely straightening up from the bars he leaned on and bring it back to ran his fingers through his hair.

A trademark move—

"Rin." Haru replies. He keeps it just as simple as always.

And just as always, he looks beautiful. As beautiful as a dream.

Rin reaffirms—

'— tonight, I'm going to confess to Haru!'

This is not a childish dream!

---------

I had a date yesterday.

I met with Rin in front of the elementary school we used to go. Rin was already there waiting and for a second I wondered whether I was running late, because I found him glued to his watch.

But it probably was just that he got there too early.

At any rate, it didn't really mater. I had missed him and we were only going to be able to hang out together for less than a couple days during his week here. Both our schedules were packed and training was gruesome. Makoto and the others also had their days full. For spring, everyone was really busy, each trying to follow their dreams.

We all went after our goals individually, but at the same time, opting to stay as in touch with each other as possible.

Since I knew he had a couple days off from work and was also at Iwatobi, I called Makoto to come along last night, but he said he had to study some injury first aid subjects for an upcoming test.

Coach Ryuuji had to go to an event — an old family friend of his was getting married at an other prefecture — and he let me have a two day off until he returned. I'm meeting him tomorrow.

'Ohh, I really need to get back into training… these two days felt like an eon —'

'— maybe it has something to do with what Rin said last night…'

<<Haru… I want to talk to you; that's why I wanted to meet with you, it's something really important —>>

I was a bit worried over what could be so important that Rin would want to meet up close — I even cursed the fact that Makoto couldn't come, but if I know Makoto, he probably even knew beforehand that something was up and avoided coming along on purpose — and so I fidget over how to approach this or that and how bad what Rin had to say would be, that even the taste of mackerel in my mouth didn't get registered in my head.

And then I heard it;

<< Haru, I know this is going to sound weird, you might even hate me for saying that — I'm sure you'll freak out… but if you think it calmly you'll see I'm right, I'm sure!>>

This whole evening was so unreal. Rin was stalling, I was missing the delicacy to react to something unexpected and possibly very complex — seeing as I was by myself — and then there was that damned dish that I was trying to enjoy, all as I was waiting for the emotional bomb that Rin was about to drop…

'Good god, I just hope he won't burst into tears in front of all these people —'

Haruka must have looked at their surroundings for the umpteenth time that night. The little fish-tavern they were sitting, was currently packed with patrons and the fact that it was a couple stops away from the town of Iwatobi, made him sweat in discomfort.

This wasn't like Rin. This wasn't like anything!

How bad could this thing, that Rin wanted to discus, be?

And what is it this bad, that required them to leave the premises of Iwatobi, in the first place?

To say I was feeling like a fish out of water would be an understatement…

And then… the bomb was dropped—

<<Haru… I'm in love with you —>>

And Haruka must have been surprised, because he sprayed his drink on Rin's face across their table, at this.

Unexpectedly and in spite of what someone might have thought, Rin didn't get deterred by the mishap so easily.

Instead, he wiped the lemon-fragranced water from his face and tried once more:

<<I know this seems like it's coming completely out of the blue, but Haru — I like you! I /really/ like you! And I think you like me, too.>>

Rin gave a coy look at Haruka as he said: "at least I hope you do…?"

Haruka is staring at Rin not half-fazed as he'd guessed he should be after hearing something like that, but rather a bit frustrated for having worried over nothing.

As it turns out, I deeply care about Rin.

But that — I already knew.

<<So, Haru will you… be my boyfriend?>>

I like Rin, too… I do —

'— but I wonder — won't it be too-much-drama ending up actually dating him…?'

(Haruka tries to think…)

(… He can't think—)

'Damn — pools — water — pools filled with water …'

Haruka sinks back in the water that fills his little tub.

(It overflows–)

---------

I know Rin.

Sometimes I even know him better than he thinks I can —

And… that is painful.

On occasion, it's painful to even admit how hurtful it really is for me.

Still, I turn a blind eye when there is a shift in his demeanor or pretend I didn't hear the subtle change in his tone when Haru is present or even mentioned. When I can't fake I didn't notice, I'll just make fun of him that he's too much into that guy…

Rin lives in and of on fairytales. He feeds from things like soulmates and star-crossed lovers. Fated, mysterious meetings. A little drama — or a lot, depending on the persons involved — is simply jam on his bread.

He talks about real friends and true lovers, deep feelings and being there for your loved ones. He goes on and on about how bonds are eternal and how magnificent it is to have trust in each-other. Of the warmth of love and roses and happiness… (and shit.)

What Rin doesn't talk about, though, is how disappointing it is as you realize what really goes on beyond the pink clouds…

I'll give you a hint; none of the above.

Time and again, I have reached my hand out there — all so I would feel only thorns and splinters prick my skin, and cold that could, metaphorically speaking, freeze the blood in my veins — whenever I had the craziest of false impressions that someone might, by some weird struck of luck or some timely mistake of fate, be there for me.

It's a wonder, really— Rin was from the very first moment the guy that I thought would always be my friend.

He is my friend. My best friend.

The guy I trust.

I totally didn't get the memo, I guess...

All these speeches about fateful encounters and true friendship, obviously were never addressed to me. And why would they?

All we ever did was being together from early in the morning at school, to the late night we stayed back at the swim club for one more round or spending our weekends and holidays at each others' house.

We were so close for so long, that of course I wasn't even registered as a friend in his mind.

I was just a shadow.

His shadow.

It was only natural that he'd transfer schools for only less than half a season to meet up close this mythical unicorn of his, named Nanase Haruka, and tell me about it just the day before he left. Or leave the country for the other side of the ocean, not more than three months later, and hear of it just the week before his departure.

Typical Rin—

So typical.

Yet still, I like this guy—

His sorry ass is the one and only person I'll think of calling whenever I hit a wall or make a breakthrough or just want to hear to cheesy-ass theories about romantic encounters — strictly for fun, mind you — or just to listen to his voice…

… corny, right? I know I sound out of character; but man, I like this guy.

I can't help it.

(Sousuke needs to realize this…)

And for what is worth — as if to make everything worse — I know, I will never be his first choice…

(… needs to comprehend it.)

… if a choice at all.

(And unfortunately — he does.)

---------

'Today's a weird day.'

'There is sun. And there is rain.'

"There is rain— And there is sun…"

Sousuke is riding the train on his way to the rehabilitation facility he's going. Later into the day he'll finally hear whether he's ready to go at full throttle into his training or if he still needs to hold back.

His ride is uneventful, peaceful even.

His mind is surprisingly clear and calm.

The single thing that permeates his thoughts are sun rays and clouds and droplets of water that wash away any trace of anxiousness or insecurity in him.

'What a strange day, indeed.'

He stands next to the door — he never sits — his gaze lost somewhere far away in the dull streams of light that spear the ever gray clouds, hanging low above the city, letting out their persistent drizzle that never becomes anything more.

It's comfortable.

Knowing that a day exists that resembles the way you feel so closely.

I heard from Makoto the day before.

So today was perfect.

He didn't want to think anything of the sort. He stubbornly tried to avoid it all day long yesterday.

So he deserved to be petulant for at least one day. Right?

And so far this seemed like his day.

After arriving at his destination, Sousuke disembarked — directions note at hand — and moved to exit the station.

"Still raining, huh?" He said and pulled his collar up around his neck deciding that, this much rain isn't a big enough deal to get his blues on for not choosing to wear a hoodie today.

"Well, thank god I'm not made of sugar.…" he joked with himself.

He was at peace with himself today; like a sea on a day without wind.

~

It's noon. The clouds have gotten darker.

Sousuke's session at the rehabilitation center has just finished. His progress would be estimated at the hospital in the evening.

He still got some time to kill before that.

At the other corner should be a burger house. I feel kind of hungry after a straight two hours of muscle exercise and rest and exercise again and rest again…

'Now, where did we say the shop was?'

He wandered around a bit, but managed to find the shop… or a shop.

The place was full, with zero available tables. Thankfully the clerk told me to look on the second floor. There was a table at the far off wall, away from the porch. Not having a first seat on the street view wasn't a deal beaker for me, though.

When it was time to get ready for the appointment with his doctor, Sousuke got up to leave the store. As he got up, he evaluated his experience; 'The fries were not so great but the burger, oh, the burger was exquisite. The meat was juicy and a bit spicy and grilled to perfection—'

Yes, overall it was good…

But there was one tiny problem he hadn't count in: he was lost… and the rain was heavier than before. Forget about being made of sugar, no matter how you looked at it, you were bound to get thoroughly soaked without an umbrella.

Standing next to the glass door, looking out the wet pavement and the people running by with umbrellas or folded newspapers or suitcases above heads, he still didn't feel miserable for himself.

"Fuck it," he muttered under his breath, deciding that, "I'll ask at the counter if they have a spare one—"

That, until he felt a hand on his back. The touch was soft and Sousuke turned around to look who it was. He honestly didn't think this much, but he froze when he saw who it was.

'And this was such a nice day, damn it…'

A quiet Haruka was looking at him, a smile ghosting his lips. Other patrons passed them by in heist, commenting how this rain would slow them down or prevent them from going to their destinations.

Sousuke could relate.

He should also deal with how his nice day had just taken an unpredicted turn.

"Sousuke, good evening. " Haruka said.

"Haru." He acknowledged, casually. "Funny meeting you here…"

"Coach Ryuuji says I should eat more proteins and fat for my current training regime. They have a —"

"Good burger, here." Sousuke quipped along. "Yeah, I just ate two." He laughed. "Hey, congrats by the way."

He didn't want to do this, but he would be forced eventually, so he figured better to get this over with, quickly.

But Haru looked at him like he was an alien with three heads or something; "About what?"

"Uh, Makoto told me; about you and Rin—" he said unsure. There is no way Makoto had misunderstood something, right?

But Haruka appeared to recall, saying: "Ah. Thanks—"

This was grating on Sousuke's nerves.

Is that a way to be after you receive congratulations for your new relationship?

Sousuke was lost for a moment in his thoughts, so Harukas' next line didn't register in the first time.

"Do you need an umbrella?" Haru asked again, since Sousuke was merely standing there, not responding.

The only thing Sousuke's brain managed to compute as reply was: "Why?"

And Haruka solely brought his backpack in front of him and pulled an umbrella out. He then said: "Want to share?"

-

This was awkward.

Haruka could tell. He could feel the tension around Sousuke building.

Normally, you share an umbrella with a girl.

Not with another guy.

Caught in the middle of a downpour…

And especially not with the guy that dates your best friend, right?

Yes, Haruka could tell.

But he can't leave it at that. So he speaks up. Now is as good a chance as ever, to resolve things with Sousuke.

His first words get drowned out by the rain, but he catches his companions' attention, so he tries again.

"I haven't said, 'yes'." Haru spoke, raising his voice a bit.

"What?" Sousuke asked confused.

"To Rin. Rather, I didn't even nod, I just shrugged—" Haru explained.

"…" Sousuke now looked even more confused. Maybe it was the rain that prevent him from hearing…

To which Haru offered: "I really like Rin. I want to be with him, but it makes no difference to me what kind of relationship we have as long as he's happy."

And Sousuke has a deep crease between his brows, thinking, until his expression softens and he says: "I shouldn't expect anything less from you, Haru—"

There is a skip in his voice that gets strangely emphasized by the running waters around them.

He is happy about Rin.

About his friend.

He is grateful for Haruka existing.

And Haruka notices his shoulder is wet – off course Sousuke needs an umbrella entirely for himself. He's huge, after all – and he pulls at his sleeve to get him closer.

"Your shoulder is dripping wet, shouldn't you take extra care not to catch a cold?" He speaks as loud as possible to get heard.

"You're one to talk— why don't you come closer?" Sousuke retorts, pointing at the other’s shoulder, being equally soaked.

And Haruka purses his lips in a show of juvenile determination, as he brings himself right up to Sousuke's side.

Their shoulders are touching now, and Sousuke curses his habit of pointing out unnecessary things.

He feels happy about Rin. Yes.

He feels grateful for Haruka. Yes.

But, he also feels a tinge of jealousy…

'Why…'

As Haru speaks to him he leans his head closer; close enough to feel the air from Haru's words tingling against the shell of his ear. The raindrops overhead are making a monotonous, pleasurably numbing sound as they collide with the fabric from the umbrella.

He wondered if by pure dumb luck someone might liked him, too, enough to be willing to stay by his side as closely as Haru is at this moment. Someone—

His train of thought derails at the sound of wet gravel being crushed underfoot.

He lifts his eyes only to realize that he's getting wet, since Haru has stopped walking and stands about a few steps away.

He peers at Sousuke. His gaze is a mosaic of worry, curiosity, fondness…

"Wha— what…" Sousuke manages.

The same quiet ambience that seems to follow Haruka in every place he simply exists is straight up agonizing to him.

'Maybe he shouldn't get this close to him, now that he's got a boyfriend and all? Maybe he overstepped his personal space?'

But, Haru honestly, hasn't minded any of that and he isn't here to terrify him. Quite the contrary, actually; so he slowly lifts his hand and points with his index finger…

'… at Sousuke?'

"This is the way to the hospital, you mentioned. Just past the corner." He said and Sousuke's heart dropped for some reason.

'Behind him, then…'

"Ah, thanks." He replies and nods his head. Mentally noting the direction.

Haru looks intently at him and Sousuke thinks that this expression says he hopes he won't get lost again.

'Seriously?!'

"I'm heading that way." Haru says, finally, and makes a motion with his thumb directed on the opposite corner of the street. "Good luck with your results. It was nice seeing you."

"Yeah. You, too." He retorts, almost mechanically, before they part ways.

Sousuke makes a run for the hospital. The building is located just around the corner, as Haru said.

Reaching the entrance, he pulls to a stop in front of the open automatic doors that await him and looks at the direction Haruka mentioned.

He gets a glimpse of a pink polka-doted umbrella, quickly being devoured by the murk of the rainy evening, watching after it until he can't see anything at all anymore...

And with this, Sousuke reaffirms his resolve.

He is happy for Rin. Yes.

He is grateful for Haruka existing. Yes.

But he needs to, finally, look after himself.

And so, he takes a step forward, entering the hospital, with his head high and hope renewed.

'Wait— Pink… ?'

'Indeed, today's a weird day.'

~

Turning at the corner, Haruka folded the unsavory thing of an umbrella and tried to hide it under his armpit.

I didn't want to be seen holding this thing, but Makoto wouldn't let go until I had agreed to take his spare umbrella with me.

He knew better than to go to Makoto's first thing in he morning. But his friend had insisted that there was something he needed his help with.

Turns out it wasn't anything urgent in the least. He just needed to pack some books and clothes to send back at Iwatobi.

And like the smothering prick Makoto is, when he saw Harukas' clothes being lightly wet from the morning rain, he forced the umbrella that his little sister had picked out for him as a birthday present last year, on him. He even made him promise he'd use it!

'Stupid Makoto…'

Of course— Haruka hadn't verbally agreed to that, so he had planned to ignore Makoto.

But then… Sousuke was there.

I hadn't speak or meet Sousuke in a while, and now that Rin had gone back to Australia, I felt that there wouldn't be much drama to do so.

But to Harukas' surprise Sousuke looked good. He half expected him to be either bitter or grossed out — assuming he had heard the news — thus, he was getting prepared for an attack when he approached him.

However, for one glorious moment when Haruka tapped at his shoulder and he turned around — he saw— Haruka saw!

He saw crystal clear emeralds looking right at him and Haruka felt ashamed for thinking this way about Sousuke.

It wasn't because he found him breathtaking—

It wasn't because he felt like betraying Rin.

It was a pang in his heart, he never knew it would end.

But then in his panic, he offered Sousuke a ride under this offending thing.

'Again— stupid Makoto!'

Haruka didn't mentioned this earlier, but he was unsure if Sousuke accepted the offer, because he failed to notice the umbrellas' pattern from being too stunned or if he simply didn't care because this is how cool he really is.

In any case, rain had most definitely do the trick and brought them together.

I talked with Sousuke and realized that there wasn't anything to worry about.

The man looked calm. Sure. Secured in himself.

There was this one occasion that Sousuke leaned close to him to hear what he was saying, that Haruka felt a flush creeping on his cheeks but he chalked it up on being too self-conscious for holding that umbrella.

It wasn't because he could smell the rain on his hair—

Haru has arrived at the caffe he's meeting with Asahi and Nao-senpai.

t wasn't because he could feel his warmth on his side, either…

He flips his head in his trademark move to get rid of the excess water from his hair. Thankfully, it wasn't more than a run away from where he split up with Sousuke to come here.

And it most definitely… wasn't because he felt more at ease around him now, than he ever did with Rin.

He steps inside the shop.

His thoughts are left outside…

---------{END}---------

A.N.: I'm no good with words. Sorry. And, whaa~ Hold on your pitchforks?! This is all Harukas’ fault, ok? I blame none other! Plus, let's just all marvel at the beautiful guy Sousuke is. He just wants a real friend. He doesn't even think of Haruka as a love interest, yet… 😚 So cute Sousuke-kun!

[danganronpa-21]

Naegiri Week Day 3: Stars

So one of my favourite things to do for Naegiri Week when I receive a prompt... is to find my own weird little way to twist it. Today’s prompt is one of those times. I don’t really have any general warnings to give, apart from the fact that this piece features body image issues.

I hope you enjoy!

_____________

“Kyoko Kirigiri was more attractive before she had kids.”

A stupid statement. A rude, stupid statement. Some tabloid writer said it, or rather, wrote it. She knew it was a hook to get readers. Almost everyone said she shouldn’t take it personally. In the grand scheme of things, the words of one tabloid writer meant nothing, they claimed. He was just some idiot who measured her worth as a person by the way she looked; his words were no proof of how everyone else felt about her. No matter what awful things he said about her and her body; the comments he made about her having “too much fat on her stomach” and “hips that only accentuate her obvious weight gain” were that of a loser. Everyone told her that he was an idiot, and that she should just ignore him. He wasn’t worth it.

And rightfully, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe she should have ignored it.

But it was hard to feel like that asshole didn’t have a point when she met herself in the mirror.

Truth be told, she’d been having problems with body image long before the article had been published in that magazine. It wasn’t exactly like it was unusual for people to comment on her body. Prior to this writer, there had been hundreds of others who made comments. At first, most people made generic comments. Simple stuff about her being hot, having a nice rear, and her husband being the one lucky guy who got to have sex with her. Seeing celebrities on television over the years, she grew to expect that. No matter how strong and intelligent she was, people would focus most on her beauty. She knew she couldn’t defeat the culture that valued beauty over brains, or perpetuated the idea that women couldn’t be both brainy and beautiful. So she just ignored it. It never meant anything to her. However, as time went on, and Kyoko’s little family grew, the dynamic of these writers changed. More and more of them started to turn for the worse, mocking her postpartum state after her first two kids.

Still, she’d tried not to care. She adored her kids. She’d been more than confident enough in that to tell multiple magazines that she valued her son and her daughter more than being conventionally attractive. And to some degree, it was true. She really did love her kids, and the pair of them made her so much happier than the idealized body ever could. 

Deep down though, somewhere within her heart, a seed of fear planted itself. A fear that maybe, just maybe, these tabloid people had some kind of point. That she really wasn’t as pretty as she used to be. That maybe the people most dear to her would start seeing it, and want to leave. Kyoko didn’t think she could take it if someone tried to leave. At the time, she’d been lucky enough to find that not a soul budged, even in spite of the comments, but… after the third baby, and the comments of that stupid tabloid writer… the worries had come bubbling back up again. 

Saying hello to those worries again, at age thirty-four, is how she found herself standing in front of her bedroom mirror. Every detail under her own critical scrutiny.

Staring at herself in the mirror like this, she wondered how she should think of her body now. Her hair was shorter and thinner, to stay out of the reach of tugging baby hands. Some chub clung to her belly, still hanging about after six months of vigorous workout sessions. Her hips wider than they used to be, even when Hiroko had insisted that they probably wouldn’t change drastically. And the stretch marks… she couldn’t forget the stretch marks, and the way they spanned across her belly. Each child insisted upon bringing multitudes of new stripes with them, as if they liked creating more work for her. She spent years using creams and formulas to fade the marks, and now that she’d had a third, she knew she’d have to start trying again. Just looking at all of the progress, in constant reverse due to her pregnancies, it made her sigh. Kyoko couldn’t help but doubt that Makoto found her as sexy as he did when she was twenty-two.

If she was being honest, that was really the only thing she cared about. The only thing she was really fearful of. Whether others found her to be beautiful or liked the way her body looked was something she’d deemed irrelevant. All that mattered to her was that Makoto still found her appealing. 

She felt sorry for herself, given that the sight of herself in the mirror caused her to sigh. Her charred fingers pinched her stomach sadly, wondering how she was ever going to reverse all of this baby weight.

“I can’t believe I actually used to wear this outfit,” She groaned, twisting to examine her figure further. She noticed new stretch marks start to reveal themselves on her belly, and she groaned. It made her never want to wear a sports bra or crop top again. “It’s amazing to think I ever looked good in this.”

She could remember those days. She’d been in her early twenties then; the perfect age to wear something so flashy. Back then, she could pull off this little workout outfit. A hot pink sports-bra and short shorts combination, built for sweat resistance and husband-catching. She recalled wearing it for every one of her home workouts, for the sake of granting herself Makoto’s attention. She could still draw up his expression in her mind; the face that told her that he was trying not to stare but couldn’t help himself. The memory of it made her giggle. How she longed for the days where he could barely keep his eyes off her.

Looking at herself in the present, wearing that outfit, she desired only to avert her gaze. Gone was the tiny waist, the strong hair, the flat tummy, the perky breasts. Replaced now with a shadow of those things; an ideal that seemed to elude the detective’s grasp. She’d been left with little more than a body that she struggled to feel comfortable in.

“So much for the days of looking sexy, I guess.” She muttered to herself, stealing one last glance in the mirror. She wasn’t sure what she hated more, when she saw herself — the state of her body, or the sadness etched into her expression. There was a haunting quality to the arms that were wrapped around her tummy, trying to shield her body from herself. Bowing her head, she drew herself away from the mirror, trying not to think about it. She would rather just rip the clothes off her body and move on with her day. At least she could do that comfortably. It wasn’t like she had any big plans to be intimate with Makoto that night; they were still parents to three kids after all. So long as she changed and tossed the outfit in the family’s outgoing donation box, no one would have to know. Her insecurity could be her little secret.

At least, that had been her plan, but a familiar voice from behind her was a little too determined to contradict it.

“Whoa!” 

Makoto. She cursed mentally. How could she have forgotten that it would soon be time for the baby’s mid-afternoon snack? He must’ve come upstairs to give her her bottle. Leave it to him to be irritatingly on top of things. She could have kicked herself for having forgotten. Heat began to prick at her face, coating her nose and chin with shame and humiliation. How could she have been so naive? This was the last thing she wanted to see. Her shame felt so great that she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him.

“Hello, Makoto…” 

Her voice came out weakly, contaminated by the slight tremors of total embarrassment. If he noticed the difference, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he just kept chatting away merrily, like he didn’t just walk in on his wife in something she didn’t look good in.

“Hey, sweetheart.” He answered, slight amusement in his voice. This only spurred her embarrassment on further. Was he laughing at her? The thought made her want to melt into the floor. God, he wasn’t so cruel as to laugh at her, was he? “Found some old clothes you wanted to try on again?”

She tried to play along. Surely he was going to joke, wasn’t he? Just like everyone else did. Pushing out the fakest laugh she could muster, she turned towards him. Maybe she could play it off as a joke, too, and spare herself the humiliation. “Yes, I wanted to make sure these didn’t look good anymore, so I could get rid of them.” She placed a hand on her hip, trying desperately to look nonchalant. “I look quite atrocious, don’t I? The years haven’t exactly been kind to me.”

“What?” Makoto exclaimed, shaking his head in disagreement. “Come on, don’t even joke about that.” 

Beads of sweat slipped down her forehead. Had she misinterpreted what he wanted to convey?

“Joke about what?”

“Your body! I mean, come on, Kyoko, look at you! You’re beautiful!”

Beautiful? If she couldn’t see the thick rims of them on his face, she would ask if he was wearing his glasses. Partial blindness was the only way he could have found her beautiful, or at least, that’s what the voice in her head said.

“Makoto…” She answered breathlessly, unsure of how to tell him the truth. She had hoped that the whole thing was just a joke to him, but he was making it increasingly clear that his intentions were serious. So serious that Kyoko found herself fidgeting uncomfortably; what could she possibly say? 

Her silence made his concern pounce onto her anyway. His face fell; his cute smile flipped into a frown. Before she knew it, he slipped into the room. Oh god, she thought, now he really means business.

“Kyoko?” His gaze was pitying when he stared at her. She loathed it. He knew how much she hated being pitied, but at the same time… she knew sometimes she had to let that go. Of course it was unappealing, yet sometimes she knew it to be necessary. Sometimes it was just what needed to happen. In cases that involved Makoto, this was often how he would help her work towards a solution.

Brushing a strand of purple hair away from her face, she swallowed. The words seemed to catch in her throat, and she wondered if she might even be able to say them. In front of his worried eyes, she felt so small and fragile. Like one of the ceramic ballerinas her grandfather kept in their old mansion. Saying the words made her feel like she was going to fall and smash. “I… Do you honestly still think I’m beautiful?”

Her husband’s eyes went wide with shock. Evidently that was a ridiculous question to him. So ridiculous that he went flying to her side; eager to provide affection for his downtrodden spouse. “Of course I do!”

His hand found its way to her cheek, and he began stroking it softly with his thumb. It was a technique he used frequently, should she become overwhelmed. In a way, she supposed it sort of helped her to push the words out. “Do you promise your words aren’t empty?”

He nodded frantically. “Of course. What made you think otherwise?” His eyes searched her face for a moment. She could see that he hoped for an answer. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the opportunity to give one. Anger flickered across his face suddenly, like the lighting of a flame, catching her before she could tell her truth. “Was it that tabloid writer?”

She shook her head sadly; her shoulders slumping. “It’s not just him,” She confessed, “I’ve sort of felt this way for awhile. Like I might not be as attractive to you as I used to be.” 

“What gave you that idea?”

“I don’t know… I guess I just… got insecure. My body is so different than it used to be. When you married me, I could have been a model, but now… I guess I kind of have a mom body.” 

“And what’s wrong with having a mom body?” 

Kyoko rolled her eyes. “This coming from the guy who failed to gain ten pounds when the doctor said it would be good for his health.” 

“There is nothing wrong with having a mom body.” Makoto stated firmly, determination in his voice. “Do you have extra weight on you? Sure. Are your hips wider? Yes. Are you covered in stretch marks? Of course. But you know what? You’re still drop dead gorgeous. There’s nothing prettier than a mom body. It makes you look like the night sky.”

She blinked at him, not quite understanding what that analogy was supposed to mean. “The night sky?” She raised an eyebrow at him. Whatever he meant by that, she wasn’t sure anyone would have known. But in Makoto speak, it probably meant something sugary sweet.

“Don’t you think your stretch marks are like little constellations?” 

No, she thought, I don’t. I’ve never looked at them that way… Was that really how he looked at them?

“I… suppose? I fail to see how this proves the idea of a mother’s body being alike the night sky.”

He reached over to tuck some of her hair behind her ear, laughing gently. “Alright, think of it this way: your body's like the night. It’s full and beautiful, for it’s held so much. You’ve given birth to three beautiful beings; tiny planets that grew within you.”

“... and my stretch marks are constellations.” 

He nodded, his expression thoughtful. “Exactly. Having a mom body makes you just like the night sky, and you’re just as beautiful. You’re just as beautiful as a sky full of stars.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a gush of air. Such an analogy being used to describe her, it made her speechless. After years of inappropriate comments from others, and these deeply-rooted worries that he might not love her if she wasn’t so pretty anymore… a little idea he had lifted all the weight from her shoulders. There was nothing she could say that would thank him well enough for that; the only thing that came close enough was his name as she flung herself into his arms. 

She made him stumble; her body crashing into his. She lucked out in him being able to retain his balance, nearly grabbing onto the edge of their bed with his free arm to ensure that would happen. His other arm wrapped tightly around her waist, and she couldn’t help but smile at the feeling of it. She hadn’t realized just how long it had been since she’d really allowed him to touch her torso. 

“Kyoko…” He murmured, his lips to close to her ear that she felt as if she might shiver. “I want you to know that no matter what happens, or how you change… You’re always going to be beautiful to me.”

She laughed softly, pulling him in even tighter. “I’ll always be your night sky full of stars.”

[terriblesportsimagines]

Hello there! If you have time, I’d really like a scenario with Ryousuke (DnA), Akashi (KnB) and Makoto (Free!) and their s/o participating (probably as the class event) in a maid cafe. How do you think they’d react if they were hit on? Thank you in advance and make sure to take care of yourself! I positively adore your writing! :)

Thank you doll!

Kominato Ryousuke

It was to be expected that you would draw attention.  He’d known from the moment you told him thatyour class had decided on a maid café. You were, of course, gorgeous, and in costume?  How was anyone supposed to survive looking atyou?

That didn’t mean he liked it, or liked watching others leerat you.  The dress you were wearing putyour legs fully on display, and the stockings that encased your legs tomid-thigh made everything worse.  Still,he staked out a table and refused to leave. He knew you would feel better with him there, and his presence mightkeep the worst offenders at bay.

You looked edible though, and it made it difficult toconcentrate on anything.  All sorts offantasies played through his mind as he sat there, forcing the cake and teayou’d brought down his throat, even though he didn’t like sweets as a generalrule.  He wondered if you would bewilling to humor him later…

His presence was enough to discourage those that would hiton you, especially when he sent them his sharpest smile.  When one or two of them got a little too bold, ignoring his threat, he slidinto the space behind you and took you by the waist.  “You’re needed over here, little one,” hesaid, pulling you away from the leering group.

“Ryou!” You hissed as he dragged you away.  “I’m trying to work!”

“You will be working,” Ryou replied mildly.  “You’ll be serving me, and isn’t that even more important?”

You sighed.  “You arethe worst, it doesn’t mean anything!”

“Of course it doesn’t,” and it didn’t, he knew that.  Still, “It’s not in my nature to relinquishso easily.  Besides, I’m a payingcustomer, shouldn’t I get the same attention?”

“Or all my attention,” you muttered, reaching his table.

“What was that?”

Slapping a bright smile on your face, “Nothing, mylord.  How may I serve you today?”

Ryousuke smirked.  Hedid like it when you sparked at him.

Akashi Seijuro

Crimson eyes tracked your deliciously clad form as youscurried around the makeshift maid café. The dress did wonders for you, but he liked the black ribbon around yourthroat the most.  It conjured other images that had his bloodstirring.

One thing was clear, however.  He was going to have to do something aboutthe fawning.  He wasn’t the only one thatnoticed how lovely you looked in your costume, and the fantasy setting made thepatrons of the café bold in their attention. He wasn’t about to watch you slap a hand away yet again.

Luckily, this problem was easily solved.

“____, you’ve been specially requested.”

You blinked in confusion. Requested?  Could people actually do that? “What?”

“He’s paid for you to serve him until closing,” your classrepresentative and nominal manager of the café said dryly.  “Absurd, if you ask me, but it means we’llprobably earn the most money of the festival, which makes us look goodright?  Off you go.”

You didn’t need to turn to find out who had done such aridiculous thing.  Truly, there was onlyone person with enough money, power, and an vested interest to make you hissole maid.  “Sei-chan,” you grumbled,trudging over to the table he’d decided was his.  “This was unnecessary.”

Your boyfriend only smiled his worst smile and tilted hishead.  “Oh?  Do you call all your guests so familiarly?”

So it was like that, was it? There was no getting out of it. Once he got an idea in his mind, he was stubborn – or, as he used tosay, he was absolute.  “My apologies, master.  How may I serve you today?”

His eyes widened with excitement and something dark and notappropriate at all moved throughthem.  “Now that is a proper greeting.”

Tachibana Makoto

“Oh, look, there’s ____-chan!”

Makoto looked up from the ground he was studying at Nagisa’scall.  When his eyes landed on you, hiswhole being seized.  You were so… He hadto bite his lip to keep his reaction inside. It was very hard.  You lookedwonderful and it made him want to run his hands over you.  But this was not the place for that, and youhad a job to do.  He didn’t want tointerrupt…

Unfortunately, Nagisa would not be gainsaid and dragged theall three of them into the café to find an empty table.  They had to wait awhile for you to come totheir table, and when you did you were all smiles.  “Good afternoon, masters!  What can I get for you today?”

“____-chan looks super cute!” Nagisa greeted with a grin,“Ne, Mako-chan?”

You did, but he didn’t want to embarrass you too much, so hejust nodded and sent you a gentle smile.

You still blushed, but looked happy, so he didn’t mind.  “I want mackerel,” Haru said, blinkingslowly, not even looking at the small menu on the table.

“I’m sorry, master, we have only cake, cookies coffee andtea on the menu.  Can I get you any ofthose things?”

Haru nearly pouted, but agreed to eat cake with the rest ofthem.  You bowed politely and scurriedaway.  “Ne, Mako-chan, doesn’t it botheryou, that all these other people are hitting on ____-chan?”

Makoto wasn’t sure what he meant at first.  Then he looked around and realized that youwere dodging your fair share of amorous intent. He felt bad for you, because he knew you didn’t like the attention, butalso knew that it was inevitable.  “No, Itrust ____.”

Nagisa laughed. “Mako-chan is a good boyfriend~”

Well, he tried to be.

[seadragonjade]

Chapter 1:A new team for a new beginning

     Note: So one of the characters has two nicknames which I use both of them. So if it annoys you, I am sorry but I’m using both because I want to and I feel like it's easier for me.

 BEEP...BEEP…BEEP...BE-"*Groans* Fuck" The alarm is still ringing as the young boy tryed to find it. "Make it sstop." Screech a bearded dragon who was in a little reptile tank with a heating lamp over it that was on. "What the hell do you think I'm doing, mate?" Said a green hair teen who was groaning at this point as he finally hit his BB-8 alarm clock.

Upon doing this his roommate/ best friend walked in. "Raise and shine sleeping beauties." Said the black haired boy as he put on his glasses. "We don't want to be late on our first day." He walked off as he pulled up his school uniform shirt. "*groans* Yeah...yeah." The green haired boy replied as he got up out of bed and walked over to his closet to grab his school summer uniform. "Jaden, are you going to leave me here or what?" 

"Can you wait until I put on my uniform, Draco?" He asked him as he put on his pants. "No." The bearded dragon said as he watched the dark white boy put on his shirt. "Really...you can be a brat at times, you know that?" He said as he took him out of the tank. "I know." Draco said with a smile, well what looked like a smile. Jaden sighed as he did the rest of what he needed to do to get ready. He walked out with his book bag and the bearded dragon in it. "You sure about bringing him? What if the home room teacher gets a panic attack from seeing it?" The black haired boy asked looking at Draco. "I see your point mate, but what else can we do." Jaden starts up. "What if we have a mission at school and besides Xander he's going to be hidden in my desk anyways. So he'll be fine as long as he stays hidden." 

        "Yeah, and when have I ever got out of his bag back at our old school?" Draco asked looking Xander in the eyes. "Fine but remember," He looks towards Jaden. "Keep him hidden. And” he points at Draco. "don't make any noise. It will be hard for us to pretend that we didn't hear anything." He tells them.

"Alright Xan." Jaden said. "Weird, usually you're the one giving leader like orders." Draco said as he looked at Jaden. He just rolls his eyes at the creature as they head off to their new school, Syujin Academy. They get on to a subway to their new school. 

*time skip* 

They finally made it to Syujin. "Woah. This place is kinda big." Draco said. "Shh and stay down till lunch, mate." Jaden tells Draco as he pushes the dragons head gently down back in his bag. Both boys shook their heads as they walked into the building. They look around for a bit looking for the principle. When they found his office they went inside. The principle looked up from the papers he was looking at. "Ah, you two must be the new students. Come in and sit down." He said to both of them." As they both took a seat the principle started up again. "So you two must be Jaden-Drake Etheren and Xander Auditore, correct?" They both nodded without really saying a word to him. "Awfully quiet but I understand since it's both of your first day of Syujin Academy." He told them with a smile.

Just then the door opened to reveal a girl in her summer school uniform walking in. "Ah, Ms. Niijima. You're just in time I was about to call you. Can you show Mr. Etheren and Mr. Auditore around the school and then take them both to their respected home rooms." He asked the girl. She nodded. "Of course. Please follow me, you two." They both got up and followed her out. "I'm Makoto Niijima and both of you are?" She asked them. "I'm Jaden-Drake Etheren, you can call me Jaden and or Drake, and this guy is Xander Auditore." Drake said to Makoto. "Well nice to meet you two. Well, let's get started."

They began to walk around and Makoto showed them the different classes. They were walking to the home room building when Jaden-Drake accidentally bumps into a tall black haired boy with messy hair and glass in his summer uniform. "S-sorry I didn't-" he began but got cut off by the boy. "It's fine. I should be the one to say sorry since I didn't see you." While talking to the boy, Draco popped his head out of Jaden's bag to see a black cat with blue eyes. They both stared into each other's eyes. Both sensing something familiar about one another while the humans carrying them walk away. "That boy had a cat in his bag but...something feels...strange about them.” Draco told Drake and Xander. “I can tell what you mean. That boy felt strange as well but I guess in a nice way.” Jaden said to them. “Agreed.” Xander said. After that Makoto walked them around some more then led them to their home room classes. First was Xander both him and Drake said their goodbyes. Then she leads him to his class. “If you have any questions you can always ask me.” she told him. He nodded and thanked her. He then walked into his room home and saw a young looking woman with a yellow shirt and blue jeans skirt and fluffy black short hair. 

“Oh, You must be our new student. I am your homeroom teacher Ms. Kawakami.” She said introducing herself to him. “Everyone calm down. This is our new student. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?” She looked at him with a force smile. Um, is she okay? Jaden thought to himself. He shakes his head a little bit. “Um, Yeah...Well My name is Jade-Drake Etheren I go by either Jaden or Drake, it doesn’t really matter. I love to draw and do artsy stuff. I, uh, also love Japanese animation. They're really good in my opinion. I also love reading manga. That should be it. I hope that we can be good friends.” He finished off with a small smile.

“Alright, thank you for that. Go sit behind Akira Kurusu. Uh, Akira can you please stand so he knows where you sit.” Akira stood up as he nodded. Drake was a little surprised and kinda embarrassed as he saw who he was. The boy he had bumped into early when Makoto was showing him around. As he walked to his desk he gave the boy a small smile. Akira watches him the whole time as he sits down. He turns around when the teacher starts back teaching. As soon as he settled down in his seat he passed out due to the lack of sleep.

*time skip: lunch time*

    As their last period before lunch ended, hungry students filed out of their classes and into the cafeteria to get their food or take out their lunches and sit down with their friends to talk. Drake slowly walked up to the cafeteria with a nervous expression since he hadn’t been in a school cafeteria in almost a year cause his old high school had an open lunch period. “Nervous much Drake?” said Xander walking up to him. “What? Oh, yeah.” They walked in and found a table away from a lot of the nosey students but close enough to people they’ll soon meet. As soon as they sat down at their seats and take out their lunches, Jaden asks them. “So do you think there is someone at this school that has a distorted desire?” “Probably, however it could be difficult for us to find one. We can’t just fiddle around the Matenav.” Xander explains to him. “That’s true” Draco sighs out while eating dumplings Jaden had made for him the previous night. Jaden thinks for a moment before he suddenly remembers something important. “Wait, I know who would have a distorted desire.” He states with a smile on his face. “You do?”Both Draco and Xander said in surprise. 

    “YEAH. MY DICK BAG RELATIVE. JONATHAN BRADEMIRE!!!” He yells in a medium tone without realizing that, like perusal. What he didn’t know was that there was a group of people who heard this and their leader turned his head to see the green haired boy standing up looking happy...well what he could tell since he can only see the back of his head. Xander shakes his head trying to signal Drake that there are people watching him. He looks down and sees this then sits down in embarrassment. “Okay so now that we have the person we just need to find him. Thankfully I just know where he is.” Drake tells the other two. Nodding they go back to eating and go talking about their classes with Jaden earning a scowling from Xander for sleeping in his homeroom on their first day unaware that they were still being watched. 

*time skip after school*

    The trio walked to a giant ancient looking museum. Upon entaining they all were very surprised by the inside. The inside held the most beautiful paintings, statues, and other artworks that have been kept by the man who, for over the years, that he has stolen from others and has profited. Jaden-Drake looked around and sighed. I knew he wouldn’t put that painting up. I'm so dumb. “What painting are you talking about? Is it a baby photo?” Xander asks, looking at him. Drake turned around and looked at him. “What? Oh, Kinda. It’s a family painting that he really did paint just when I was a baby for me as a gift for when I got older. My dad explained to me that he never gave it to us and that he found out that he was stealing others paintings and selling them.” He sighed out while looking at a painting of a knight. Xander then started to look around the room. “Are you using that eagle sense of yours again?” Drake asked him. “You always have a weird glance in your eyes and that mask of yours doesn’t help it.” Xander just glanced over at him. “I know but if it’s important to you then we got to find it.” he told him. “Alright but we’ll get it back when we change his heart, come on let’s get into the metaverse.”  The trio didn’t notice a group of six walking in, due to their conversation. Both groups say what they needed to get into the metaverse without noticing each other. The palace looked like an old medieval castle. It had paintings and statues of Jonathan and the people he once considered beloved everywhere. 

     “Huh, I didn’t expect this.” Drake said. The three of them looked up to see a painting of him as a toddler dressed in princely attire.

“I wonder if this is how he views you.” Xander said. “Yeah.” Draco agreed with him. “*sigh* Maybe.” Jaden saids. All of a sudden they hear voices coming from down the hallway. It didn’t sound like any of the mini bosses or the hinch men. “What the?” Draco said in confusion. The voices got closer and they got into their fighting positions just in case they were foes not friends. They got closer to reveal a group of five humans and one humanoid cat all in different matevese suits. Jaden and Xander look at each other before the group finally notices them. “Who-” Before Jaden can finish that the cat interrupted him. He looked at the boy with black messy hair. Which Jaden could tell it was like the boy he met early today and had that strange feeling with. The cat looked at him and askes. “Are these guys? Could they be friend or are they foe?” Looking up the group saw what the strange talking cat was talking about. Confused but a little bit scared Jaden puts his sword down on the ground then puts his hands up signaling his peace as he slowly rises from the ground. “Friends. Trust me.” Everyone just looked at him a bit confused. Getting out of his confused state Xander raises his hands as well. However, as a precaution the blades are concealed ready to attack.

    Draco follows them by dropping his axe and raising his hands. But notices something odd about the black masked feline. “We’re not going to hurt you guys, We’re just here for someone’s heart to change it. That’s it.” Drake explains to them. “And how do we not know you're lying. You could be someone ready to destroy us or the distortion hinch men.” The girl that had a metal looking mask said to them. Drake gave them a WTF look. “...Okay first we don’t even know who you guys are. Second, why in the hell would we kill people that we barely just meet today mind you. Also how do you think we got in here without saying the requirements needed. I mean you can follow the person in but we didn’t really see you until now. And how do we know you aren’t going to do the same thing.” He said. “I...I don’t think they are..something about the blue eyed feline feels familiar.” Draco said to the two humans he knew. “You guys seem to be rather recognizable, Makoto Niijma. My vision is quite useful in identifying people.” Xander told them. “H-how in the effin’ hell?” The boy with spiky blond hair with a skull masked explained. “For someone who pretty vulgar I didn’t expect you not to say fuck. Ryuji Sakamoto.” Jaden said looking at Xander if that was correct. “He appears to be holding back his language.” Xander said looking at Jaden. “Like someone I should now.” “Hey! Anyways to answer your question, Him and I both got unique talents after we made contracts with our respected personas.” Jaden explains to the group. “That is quite interesting.” The bluenette boy with a japanese style fox mask. 

    “Thank you.” Jaden said with a smile. They all looked at each other trying to see if the other group would run or fight. Realizing that the situation wasn’t going anywhere Draco thought of something. “Wait! I got an idea.” He said. Everyone looked at him. “What if we all worked together.” He told them. They all looked at each. The black haired boy nodded in agreement. Suddenly they heard footsteps coming from the hall where the trios back faces it. When they turned around they saw three huge bodyguards like knights coming towards them. The knights were wearing what looked like a bodyguard’s uniform but had a more knightley apprentice. Right behind them was a man who was wearing a grown and a kingly outfit. Right in front of him was a toddler who looked just like the painting. They stopped as soon as they saw them. “Who are you and what are you doing in my castel?” The king asked the group. The group looked at each other. Most likely due not expecting to meet the main guy that fast. The black masked feline spoked up. “We are the Phantom thieves, come to take your heart.” He points to the group of six. Draco grabs his axs and spins around. “And we are the mysterious ones, the ones once called the hidden ones, we are groupless now but we come here to steal your heart so we can change what you have become.” The humanoid bearded dragon said. 

    The king took a good look at the three and sneered. “Weren’t you the group that was in America? What happened to the lot of ya?” he asked, having some idea what happened but not the full story. Drake looked at him with a serious expression on his face. “...That really ain’t any of you business. Just give us your treasure and we’ll be on our way.” he said in a serious tone. One that even surprised Xander. The poor nicely dressed boy from the painting looked very uncomfortable/ upset. He doesn’t seem to like the situation at all and is very scared. “Agreed it is none of your concern.” Xander said to the king. Drake could see the little toddler and he in a way understands how he feels. He used to be just like him. Love Jonathon without a care in the world till he found out he had stolen others works of art for himself and claimed it. He sighed to himself as he tries to regain himself before anyone sees. Unfortunately the black messy hair leader saw him and walked up to him. The boy can tell who he is just by the hair color. “Uh, Jaden-Drake are you alright? You don’t seem as calm just like you were a few moments ago. You seem more uncomfortable.” The boy said while putting a hand on the shorter boy’s shoulder and looked at him with a concerned look. “What? Oh, yeah Akira I’m fine. Just wish I didn’t have to deal with this right now since I just transferred here in all. Also like I already said you don’t have to call me by my full first name” He tells Akira. Wish more and more for the infiltration to end so they can do the rest the next day. 

    Getting back to his zone Drake bent down and grabbed his sword. Swiftly pointing and the shadow regaining his serious expression. Surprised with his action the king chuckled. “I know who you are now. It should have been obvious from the start.” The Shadow began. “It’s nice seeing you again, Jaden-Drake. My little nephew.” He points at Jaden with a smug look on his face. Most of the whole group looked and the two. Jaden looked around trying to find a way out of the situation. While they were busy no one noticed that Xander was missing, He decided to sneak around trying to find the treasure. 

-To be continued-

Words: 3009

Posted 3/23/2020

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.2

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as chapter 6 began, some random kid called Makoto was the only genuine appreciater of fiction in the in-universe audience that we’re ever going to see, Keebo was finally using his weapons for no adequately-justified reason towards the worst possible purpose, Shuichi was keeping up the hope Kaito gave them that there’s somewhere to escape to, he and Maki were generally holding onto Kaito’s memory and fondly remembering him and it was adorable (how many of this chapter’s summary bits will I find a reason to mention Kaito in despite him being gone? as many as I damn well can), and then I lengthily complained about how pointless and inconsiderate the time limit mechanic in this chapter’s investigation is.

Now to actually properly start the investigation, beginning in Kokichi’s lab.

Shuichi:  “This is more like… a child’s idea of what an evil organization would have.”

Shuichi is trying to find some kind of link to the Remnants of Despair, since that was totally Kokichi’s organisation, right. But almost everything you can examine here just shows off the fact that Kokichi’s actual organisation, D.I.C.E., was the supremest and evilest only in a very ridiculous, childlike, over-the-top way. None of it has any connection to the Remnants of Despair or to Hope’s Peak at all.

This lab was probably set to open up later than any of the others because even the in-universe writers wanted Kokichi’s true nature to be somewhat ambiguous. Since this lab more or less proves that he’s not really the supremest or evilest at all, they wanted to let Kokichi keep up his charade about that for as long as possible (or even hypothetically forever, if he got himself killed before then).

There is, of course, also the book about the history of Hope’s Peak lying on the floor. But absolutely nothing else in the lab has anything to do with Hope’s Peak, so this book is very out of place. What it clearly is is just a prop that Tsumugi hastily threw in here last chapter when she decided to use the Flashback Light to claim Kokichi was a Remnant of Despair, in order to try and make it seem like he had some kind of connection to all this stuff, on the off chance that anyone did end up seeing inside this lab. Kokichi never entered this lab and never had anything to do with this book. It’s very apparent from the rest of this lab that Kokichi was not originally supposed to have anything to do with Hope’s Peak or the Remnants of Despair. This story was never intended to be set in the Hope’s Peak universe at all until Tsumugi improvised that whole thing in chapter 5.

The pictures in the book… should by all rights be illustrations, and Shuichi should be noticing this. But the fact that he isn’t and therefore they’re apparently photographs seems unlikely to me to be a deliberate clue that actually all the Hope’s Peak stuff is real. Not with how much the out-universe writers went out of their way to point out that the files in Shuichi’s lab had illustrations for the first several of them and then photographs for the rest (and there were exactly fifty-two of them, there is no way that was not meant to be one file for every season of Danganronpa). At this point, Shuichi noting that they’re illustrations here wouldn’t even really spoil anything, since this book exists to hint to us that their memories of all the Hope’s Peak stuff are fake anyway. So this is probably just an oversight.

Or, maybe we can pretend that this universe is so Danganronpa-crazed that at some point they did a live-action recreation of the Hope’s Peak story, and photos from that were used in here to make the book seem super authentic. Wouldn’t put it past this universe.

This book also must have already existed as a prop probably several seasons ago, perhaps made for a season that always was linked to the Hope’s Peak story. Tsumugi wouldn’t have had time to actually make the whole book; she presumably just had it lying around for use here just in case.

After reading it, and having Maki show up and confirm for him that their own memories don’t quite match what’s in the book, Shuichi implicitly starts to wonder if the book is full of lies.

Shuichi:  “Ah, it’s just… the afterword written on the last page… It says that these documents were collected by several esteemed researchers. This is the most thorough, accurate book written on the subject.”

Then he sees this, which apparently makes him think welp, the book must be the truth after all and maybe our memories are wrong. I’m not sure why it doesn’t also occur to him that maybe that statement about the book being accurate is just a lie to try and sell more copies of the book. That would seem to be the simplest explanation to all this. But eh, either way he’s going to get a lot more reasons to doubt their memories as we go along, so it doesn’t really matter.

Shuichi:  (In order to investigate this… I need to know more about Kokichi. I found this in *his* lab, after all.)

Yeah, but that doesn’t even remotely prove that any of this Hope’s Peak stuff has anything to do with Kokichi. Come on, Shuichi, you should know better than to make assumptions like that.

A delayed-action flashback causes Shuichi to “remember” when he’d forgotten his talent and was talking to some kid who recognises him as a member of the Gofer Project.

This kid just so happens to look a lot like the Makoto from the first scene of the chapter, albeit a bit younger. This is very unnecessarily confusing! Obviously it cannot possibly be him, since that Makoto is a real person, and this kid here is just a very fictional background character in the fake backstory. There’s no way the in-universe writers planned this, either, because the real Makoto is just one of their millions of viewers and insignificant to them. This is just the out-universe writers screwing with us, perhaps trying to make us think that maybe Makoto was watching the members of the Gofer Project and cheering them on or something.

Unknown Kid:  “Those people are the heroes that will save the world, right?”

Shuichi:  “The Gofer Project wasn’t created to save us—! … …Never mind.”

Unknown Kid:  “Heroes don’t die! Heroes don’t give up! That’s why they’re still alive! Because they’re heroes!”

Well that’s a very interesting opinion of heroes this random kid has. I mean, he’s a kid, so this kind of thing is to be expected of him, but it sure seems… familiar.

This whole flashback, just as the rest of them in this chapter will be, is supposed to be for the purpose of inspiring Shuichi with the hope to keep fighting. So apparently, Tsumugi thinks that a good way to fill one of her characters with hope and make them never give up is to tell them they’re meant to be a hero and instil them with a very childlike black-and-white view on the topic, in which heroes are just completely invincible and obviously never fail or struggle at anything at all.

And that explains one hell of a lot about a certain someone.

(Like, seriously, I really love that this is here. Kaito’s irrational conviction that heroes must be perfect and invincible was something I pieced together from lots of stuff about him, but he never quite had any lines in which he explicitly said he believed that, so there was always the chance it was just my interpretation and a delightful coincidental fit but not something the writers consciously intended. But here, having this kid outright saying heroes don’t die, in a fake memory that’s meant to inspire Shuichi with hope now that Kaito’s gone, makes it seem quite a bit more likely that Kaito’s black-and-white view of heroes really was deliberately intended to be the core of his issues by the writers. This makes me very happy.)

Shuichi:  (Even so… A hero, huh?)

This is the real, present Shuichi, apparently being somewhat influenced by that fake memory just like Tsumugi wanted him to be. But also… I wonder if he’s thinking about Kaito.

(You know better than to listen to that kid, Shuichi. Heroes can die, but that doesn’t make them any less of a hero.)

Maki:  “Back when we abandoned our Ultimate talents to escape the Gofer Project… I… chose to walk a different path than that of an assassin… But in the end… I was dragged back. … It’s nothing. Now’s not the time to think about that.”

Aww, Maki Roll! This wasn’t specifically the point of that flashback, but it gave her memories of not being an assassin and the idea that she could choose to do something different with her life that doesn’t involve killing people! That must have hurt for her to remember that but then also remember being dragged back into it after all.

Maki joins Shuichi as he heads to the dorms to check Kokichi’s room, increasing our Friendship Power to 1. Since she’s literally with him, I thought on my first time that this meant that Shuichi can only move heavier rubble with greater Friendship Power because he has that number of friends physically helping him move it. That turns out to not be the case, since Maki will stay behind and he’ll still have the same amount of power, so apparently Friendship Power is really just Shuichi drawing on strength by thinking of his friends even when they’re not there.

But if Shuichi can get power from friends who aren’t physically with him, then really that means that he should already have infinite Friendship Power he can draw on at any time just by thinking of Kaito. You know, just logically speaking.

Relatedly, when you’re in the dorms but before you enter Kokichi’s room, you should definitely examine Kaito’s door.

Shuichi:  “The impossible is possible! All you gotta do is make it so!” (Kaito… Your words inspire me, even now. Thank you… so much.)

Aaaaaaa! They were FRIENDS. Kaito meant so much to him and that is never going to stop being true and this is adorable.

What’s also great is that he says it out loud, while Maki is with him, without caring about how ridiculous it makes him sound. Maki doesn’t comment – which is to say that she clearly doesn’t think he’s being unnecessarily ridiculous at all and it probably made her smile too.

I love that this is here and I hate that the game developers apparently didn’t want us to see it because of the stupid time limit. Most people probably won’t ever see this because they’re trying to hurry and this is obviously not what they’re supposed to be examining! This is the best example of why optional dialogue is sometimes Extremely Important and shouldn’t be something you should ever be told to avoid.

I’m not resetting over this one. This canonically happened, you can’t change my mind.

Another oversight on the out-universe writers’ part is that it shouldn’t actually be possible to just walk into Kokichi’s room. All the dead students rooms get locked even if they weren’t already, and the only reason we could investigate Ryoma’s room during his case was because his room key was on his corpse. The writers have apparently forgotten that Kokichi’s room should be impossible to enter unless we get Keebo to blow up the door for us.

Once inside Kokichi’s room, Maki asks for Shuichi’s opinion on Kokichi’s theory that someone’s watching this, and Shuichi agrees that it makes sense.

Maki:  “Monokuma is particularly strict about upholding the rules and livening up the killing game… Is it because someone’s watching? But we’re all that’s left of humanity, aren’t we? Even if he did say it was to show someone, no one else is alive anywhere else, right? I wonder if… someone really did infiltrate this place.”

You’re not thinking big-brain enough, Maki. One single person having infiltrated this place to put this on for their own personal entertainment does not explain why Monokuma is such a stickler for the rules. The person running this can in theory do whatever they want to the rules while still having fun. The point of keeping to the rules is for the sake of a larger audience who are not connected to the person running this, who would cry that this is unfair and potentially stop enjoying it if the rules were broken. Kokichi understood this kind of mindset well enough that he knew this straight away, which is why he had to have known that the only possible answer was that the outside world was a lie.

So… Kokichi’s room is a confusing mess, and I mean this in a writing sense and not just a literal one. It feels to me more like the writers just wanted to hammer home the idea that he was ~weird~ and ~eccentric~ and ~incomprehensible~, rather than that they actually had any coherent psychology in mind for Kokichi in terms of why he would have bothered to accumulate all this stuff.

Sure, it makes sense that Kokichi wanted to understand the past cases as best he could in order to both avoid being murdered and to come up with the bestest cleverest plan. Making notes about that kind of thing would make sense, but actually hoarding the evidence? Certain things, such as Miu’s modified cameras, he might hypothetically be able to put to use somehow, but how on earth is keeping the inner tube around going to help him with anything? Plus, if he was doing this to try and understand every potential kind of murder plot, shouldn’t that mean that he should have also grabbed all 52 files from Shuichi’s lab and been poring over them, since that’s a much bigger source of information than just the handful of cases from this game?

(The only actual purpose the collected evidence serves is to make it possible for Shuichi to re-use one of the photos of Rantaro later. In any other killing game, it’d most likely have been disposed of by now, but conveniently Kokichi was such a ~mysterious hoarder~ that it’s all still here!)

Maki:  “…No, it’s pointless to try and understand what he was thinking.”

Yeah, in this particular instance, I think it actually is.

And why does he have this whiteboard of all of the other students, featuring who killed who and his opinions on a few of them? It may serve as a convenient partial insight into his mind for us in the audience – I’ll get to some of that in a second – but why would he have written any of this down? It is all super-basic stuff! The implication that would give is that he has severe short-term memory problems and might not have even remembered who killed who and what he thinks of some of the survivors unless he had this whiteboard, but there is absolutely no hint of him being this way in any of his dialogue ever, so, ?????

Maki is labelled as “Suspicious”, because of course she is. Kokichi didn’t trust anyone at all, but of course he still had to make a specific point of how sneaky and horrible she in particular was because assassins are bad and scary.

Keebo is labelled as “Weird”. Which proves that all of Kokichi’s robophobia and bullying of him this entire time was not any kind of elaborate lie or reverse psychology or anything that could have possibly somehow had some kind of good intent behind it, since this whiteboard was meant to be for his own eyes only. He just saw Keebo as less than a person.

Then Shuichi is singled out from the other survivors and labelled as “Trustworthy?”. And, again, why? First of all, why did Kokichi even apparently think he might be trustworthy? Shuichi had done absolutely nothing to try and reach out to Kokichi like Kaito and Gonta both did in their own ways (unless the player did Kokichi’s free time events, but Shuichi would clearly not canonically have done them of his own volition). He was every bit as openly annoyed by and dismissive of Kokichi’s bullshit as anyone else. It also can’t be that Kokichi approved of the way Shuichi was willing to use lies in trials, because he threw a tantrum as soon as Shuichi dared to use that tactic against him. The only actual reason for this I can think of is that this is caused by Kokichi’s completely irrelevant probable crush on Shuichi, which, wow, that sure is the shallowest and most arbitrary of reasons to have the least trusting character in the game apparently maybe start to trust someone, especially since literally nothing came of it.

Which is the second part of my “why?”: why did the writers do this? Like I’ve touched on before, him apparently finding Shuichi maybe-trustworthy affected absolutely nothing about how Kokichi acted and how the story unfolded. You’d think it would have led to him realising he should use Shuichi as the accomplice in his plan, but his kidnapping of Kaito proved that he fully intended to use Kaito at least from that point onwards. If anything, Kaito should be the person here who’s singled out from the rest, as Kokichi’s planned future accomplice, and possibly also labelled as tentatively trustworthy. That would have been far more meaningful and actually relevant to anything at all. (Even though the evidence last chapter did indicate that he didn’t ever actually trust Kaito.)

(Maybe the “Trustworthy?” label actually originally pointed at Gonta, and then when he did the murders and had to move Gonta’s portrait over into the murders section, Kokichi was not okay with the reminder that there used to be someone he trusted but not any more, so he wanted to put someone else’s portrait on that label to tell himself that was always the case. And he considered putting Kaito’s there first but then stubbornly decided not to because of his petty personal vendetta with him, so the only other candidate that made any vague kind of sense was Shuichi. Because, you know, this was definitely a thing he needed to do instead of just wiping off the word and definitely what the writers intended here and I am totally not overthinking this to try and make it into something other than pointless shipbait.)

Kokichi did also label the Monokubs as “Annoying”. At least that’s something we can all agree with him on.

Meanwhile there’s also a huge pile of blueprints for possible inventions to have Miu make, which actually does make sense. What also makes sense thanks to the fact that Kokichi was a massive obstructive dick (but wouldn’t make sense if he wasn’t) is how many of them are obviously unrealistic and impossible to make.

Shuichi:  “He could have prepared a few fake blueprints to mask the real ones. It’s nearly impossible to check all of them… lowering the chance someone would find it.”

Maki then volunteers to tediously slog through all of these to look for anything that seems relevant, from which she’s going to discover the Bugvac, which is necessary to let us learn about the Nanokumas. Because of course Kokichi couldn’t have just left that blueprint lying around alone in plain sight in case his plan failed and someone came to his room after his death looking for things that might help them. Because Kokichi didn’t give a fuck about helping anyone but himself.

Shuichi:  “M-Maki… … …Thank you.”

Maki:  “…No problem.”

This exchange when Maki agrees to do this is a small thing, but it’s adorable. They’re smiling at each other! Maki is happy to be helpful and no longer being all dismissive about it! They are friends and Maki has grown so much.

Then there’s Kokichi’s motive video, which is by far the most meaningful insight into Kokichi that there is in this whole room.

Monokuma:  “He caused mayhem the world over as the leader of the secret organization, D.I.C.E. And by ‘mayhem’, I mean petty nonviolent crimes and harmless pranks.”

So this is the other big localisation change around Kokichi: in the original Japanese, it made a point about how D.I.C.E. had an explicit motto of “don’t kill people”. And, again, I really don’t think it matters at all that this was removed. We can already very clearly tell from the way they did nothing but petty nonviolent pranks that Kokichi was not in fact the sadistic bastard he claimed to be at the end of chapter 4. From that, him being against killing people should be common sense and not need to be spelled out for us.

In fact, if D.I.C.E. really did have an explicit motto of “we don’t kill anyone!”, that just reads as incredibly fucking suspicious, and maybe they’re saying that because actually they really do kill people behind the scenes. Which, sure, could also be a double-bluff prank to make you think they might kill people when they really genuinely don’t. But at that point, it can no longer be taken as a legitimate, sincere statement of their principles (because lol what is sincerity, this is Kokichi) like the original apparently wanted us to think of it as. Removing that line from the localisation is, if anything, an improvement in how Kokichi comes across.

Monokuma:  “Anyway, Kokichi had ten loyal goons working for him.”

Looks like Monokuma, or the writers, can’t count. There’s ten people in this picture including Kokichi. He only had nine goons.

Monokuma:  “These goons were like friends and family… The most important people in his life…”

So apparently, despite his blatant massive trust issues, Kokichi did actually have people he cared about! Perhaps the fact that he was their leader somewhat mitigated his issues here, because he could hide behind the fact that they were just following his orders and tell himself it didn’t have anything to do with him trusting them. Plus the fact that they probably constantly played pranks on each other for fun would let Kokichi tell himself that he didn’t really trust them because he was always on guard for them potentially pranking him, even though said pranks would be petty and lighthearted and their way of showing affection and not anything close to the kind of betrayal he really fears. This was probably the best kind of relationship Kokichi could ever have with anyone, one in which he could genuinely trust them and care about them deep down while being able to tell himself on the surface that it’s not really affection or trust at all so that he wouldn’t be constantly terrified of being betrayed. On the flip side, since they weren’t regular friends whom he had no choice but to accept that he trusted, that meant that they never actually helped him get over his trust issues, and so he still had those issues in full force.

This also goes to show that Kokichi’s constant lying trickster nature is not necessarily always an asshole thing. If everyone he targets with his tricks is in on the joke and on board with potentially being pranked because they personally find that kind of thing fun, then it’s cool and they can all have a great time! Imagining the ridiculous pranking shenanigans that D.I.C.E. got up to with each other is honestly kind of adorable, and that’s the only time you’ll ever hear me use that word for Kokichi. What makes Kokichi a dick in the context he’s seen in in this game is that he’s doing this kind of stuff to people who don’t want it. Which is of course also the kind of thing D.I.C.E. does to other people and what I was getting at when I said that Kokichi kind of did already enjoy people’s suffering, albeit in a far, far more petty and relatively harmless way.

Plus, this could partially explain why Kokichi was always so infuriatingly entitled and self-righteous and incapable of admitting when he was wrong about anything. He was used to being essentially surrounded by yes-men, people who looked up to him as The Coolest Prankster Ever and probably constantly agreed that he was right about everything as a result. He may well have got so used to being unquestionably right all the time that he automatically kept insisting as much even when in the company of people who didn’t agree with everything he said. Doesn’t make him any less infuriating for it, but I appreciate that there’s at least a potential reason for that particular part of him.

This motive video is pretty half-assed as a motive, though. Kirumi’s was an actual Flashback Light giving her new memories, and Kaito’s had the “oh no something bad’s happened to your loved ones” part tacked on at the end as an afterthought while the real attempted motive was his grandparents telling him to live, but this one’s just as basic as it gets. It shows a picture of his goons trapped and seemingly injured, but that could easily be faked. Kokichi in particular is going to be aware of how easily fakeable that is, especially when it could even be something his goons might decide to do just to mess with him (though he’d be a lot more mad about such a prank than usual for reasons he’d never admit, because god forbid he acknowledge that he was genuinely worried about them). It doesn’t seem like the gamemakers were trying very hard to get Kokichi to murder someone at all. Which is perhaps because they already figured that he’d most likely be planning something far more elaborate than just a straight-up murder and wouldn’t need an extra motive in order to do so.

Of course, Kokichi’s goons didn’t ever actually exist… and it’s very possible that he realised that himself before he died. I wonder if that was part of why he seemingly snapped in chapter 4, if he’d realised as much – here were these people he felt like he could trust, even if he wasn’t quite wording it in that way to himself, but whoops, actually they’re just a lie too and he never should have “trusted” them in the first place. Like even they’d “betrayed” him.

Now that Shuichi’s done in Kokichi’s room, Maki’s going to stay behind to check the blueprints without him.

Maki:  “We rely on you the most, especially in this situation. After all, you’re… Kaito’s sidekick…”

So are you, Maki Roll! Why are you still forgetting that!?

But it’s lovely the way that Maki is acknowledging how important and reliable Shuichi is, and that she’s doing so because she knows that Kaito brought that potential out of him. Aww. Shuichi may have been the better hero in the end, but that’s still only because of everything Kaito did to help him reach that point.

Before he leaves, Maki shows him an envelope from Kokichi labelled “This isn’t a will.” In other words, it’s a will. He totally knew he was planning on dying but apparently didn’t quite want to admit that to himself when he wrote this.

Shuichi:  “He left us this information in case his plan failed…”

Maki:  “…He did? I don’t think he would do something like that.”

Maki knows what’s up. If he’d actually cared about giving them all the information he possibly could, Maki wouldn’t need to be staying behind to pore through all his ridiculous diversion blueprints right now because the important ones would be in plain sight and labelled as potentially useful to them.

Also, we’d have the last Electrobomb and the Exisal remote in our hands and Keebo wouldn’t need to be fighting any Exisals at all. Don’t forget that!

The only thing the envelope contains is a note pointing them towards the second message, meaning the “twins b” to match the original “horse a” that Kokichi edited. Wow! How incredibly useful! The full clue to a puzzle that Kokichi never even knew existed, because he’d never been inside Rantaro’s lab! And a puzzle which could have been solved fast enough with brute force anyway when we already have the one clue.

Once again, even in death, Kokichi is the most frustratingly unhelpful person even when he is actually being slightly helpful. The gap between how much he bothered to help and how much he was capable of helping is and has always been absolutely immense. He did not care.

After checking out said message in the boiler room, Shuichi has another flashback in which Makoto – the fictional one this time, as headmaster of the new Hope’s Peak – told him not to give up on hope.

Shuichi:  “I’m going to do everything I can… No giving up…” (I won’t give up on hope… I need to keep hope alive…)

And this is real, present Shuichi, unfortunately apparently being a little brainwashed by that. The real reason he needs to not give up is because Kaito believed in him and wanted him to survive and end this, as did all of his other friends who’ve died. It’s got nothing to do with this backstory that barely has any connection with this killing game anyway. Keeping hope alive purely for the sake of “hope” itself is tautological and meaningless. It should be about what they’re hoping for, which is to survive and escape and find somewhere to live.

Next is Rantaro’s lab, which contains a round table with sixteen chairs, much like a class trialground. Not sure what’s with all the rest of the weird décor of frames and notes hanging from everywhere, but at least the table part is relevant to his “talent”.

Himiko’s here to help Shuichi investigate this room.

Himiko:  “Be happy! The legendary mage is your sidekick!”

It’s adorable of her to reference Kaito like this! She knows that Shuichi and Maki were Kaito’s sidekicks, so she’s trying to help Shuichi hold onto the strength Kaito gave him by bringing that concept back – while also acknowledging that Shuichi is the real hero whom everyone’s relying on, so this is her being his sidekick. (Evidently she never figured out what Kaito actually meant by that word and is using the normal-person definition of it here.) Himiko is an entertainer by trade, so it’s only fitting that she’d try to help Shuichi by influencing his mood and trying to cheer him up just like Kaito did!

(It’s also amusingly appropriate considering the whole deal with her free time events and how her relationship with her master was very reminiscent of Shuichi’s relationship with Kaito. Himiko’s had some practice in this “sidekick” role herself.)

There is quite a lot of interesting bonus dialogue with Himiko in this room and you can bet I’m going to be going through all of it.

Himiko:  “Maybe… That Keebo isn’t the real one! It’s probably his spare, K2-B1, AKA, ‘K-toobie’!”

This is probably meant to be a Nier: Automata reference – I haven’t played it but I gather there’s a major robot character in that called 2B (who incidentally shares a voice actor with Kirumi). But that aside, if Keebo actually had an evil version of himself, I think it’d probably be an evil twin sister, named Z2-B0, or “Zedtubo”.

…“Kibou” means “hope” and “zetsubou” means “despair”. That’s the joke. I realise it’s not a great joke when it has to be explained for anyone who doesn’t know those Japanese words, but it’s a fun coincidence how it’s also possible to make the Japanese for despair out of a bunch of numbers and letters. Z is even pronounced “zed” and not “zee” in Japanese, just like in British English.

I guess this is also a fun fact about the point of Keebo’s name for anyone who didn’t know. His whole hope thing is extremely unsubtle in Japanese. I also always felt that his appearance was meant to somewhat resemble Makoto, so Keebo’s hypothetical evil twin sister Zedtubo would probably have big poofy robo-pigtails.

The rest of Himiko’s optional dialogue comes from her giving you a series of hints for the puzzle.

Himiko:  “Hm, there’s a technique mages use when casting spells. For example, when we cast big spells, we add a bunch of flashy over-the-top stuff. We have the audience focus on all that stuff… to hide the source of our magic.”

She’s talking about misdirection! She’s doing so in a way which continues to insist that it’s totally real magic, of course, but this is proof that she really is a genuine magician and knows all of the tricks they employ to make what isn’t really magic seem like magic to the audience. It’s neat to have this here to show she does actually know her stuff and all of the mage talk is just part of her constant act.

Himiko:  “Of course, the source of my magic is very advanced, y’know? Even if the source of magic for my spells was leaked, not just anyone could copy them!”

I definitely believe that. After all, she became even better at magic than her master in the end, and he was the best, wasn’t he?

Upon hearing this hint, Shuichi goes on to explicitly remember that Kokichi’s message used to say “horse a”, and this matches with “twins b”, thus the solution. And then the game developers still wrote more optional “hint” dialogue past this, even though absolutely nobody should ever need it and it would waste their precious time limit to see it.

Himiko:  “Then let’s try it out! As your sidekick, I’ll watch over you!”

Shuichi:  “My sidekick watching over me…”

Shuichi has a rather bewildered sort-of smile here, so we can imagine that he’s thinking of how Kaito felt to have his sidekicks with him. …At least, if Kaito was ever the one to be doing a thing while his sidekicks watched, which was never really what “sidekick” meant to him. On the other hand, Kaito did plenty of watching over Shuichi while he did detectivey things, so Himiko’s line still kind of works to remind him of Kaito.

Himiko:  “At times like these, the truth will hit you like a bullet! You just need to read it!”

Shuichi:  “Like a bullet?”

Himiko:  “Nyeh? What am I saying? Those words just came to me… from somewhere.”

Heh. Look at all of the brainwashing these Flashback Lights can do, to make someone make unintentional Danganronpa references without knowing why. I really like the acknowledgement that Himiko has no idea why she said that, proving that this reference was deliberate on the in-universe writers’ part as well and actually legitimately caused by brainwashing.

Himiko:  “Those are the words that suddenly came to me, but… what in the world do they mean?”

Yeah, it’s not like anything here has had anything to do with bullets at all, right? The only guns there’ve been are in Maki’s lab, and those ones don’t even fire real bullets!

Anyway, let’s move onto actually solving the puzzle and watching Rantaro’s video to himself.

Shuichi:  “The video was clearly recorded in Rantaro’s lab. But we were only able to get inside this room just now.”

Okay, wait a goddamn second. If this video of Rantaro was recorded in this lab, how? The lab wasn’t just locked, it also wasn’t built until chapter 5, or 4 at the latest. Uhhh???? Thaaat’s probably another oversight. I mean, maybe he was just made to record it in a room with similar décor to the lab in order to be more mysterious and confusing for himself if he found the video, but.

(Shuichi says it’s clearly Rantaro’s lab, but the actual background in the video is too vague for us to be able to confirm how similar it looks.)

Rantaro:  “Now, Monokuma probably already told you this, but just in case… The killing game will continue until there are only two people left. Now, the important part of that rule is that—”

*buzz!*

Rantaro:  “Hahaha… Looks like they didn’t want me sayin’ that, huh?”

Presumably what Rantaro was about to say about that rule, since it’s the only way in which the rule ends up relevant, is that this is why he’s here in another killing game and not in the outside world. Shuichi figures out during the trial that Rantaro must have been in a similar situation to the one they end up in, where the mastermind refuses to let more than two of them escape and everyone extra has to be “punished”, which in this case means going through it all again. So Rantaro chose to sacrifice himself to let two of his friends escape, thinking he’d just be killed for it, and now here he is.

Just imagine how the Rantaro recording this video must have felt, though. He’s just gone through the hell of watching most of his friends kill each other. He finally manages to at least see two of them survive and escape, only to realise that they’re just going to do another killing game anyway, and he’s going to be put through it all over again. Not only that, but his memory of all of his previous friends and how much they all suffered is going to be completely erased, like none of what he’s just been through even mattered. And on top of that, the gamemakers make him acutely aware that they have complete power over him and he’s not allowed to say anything that might actually be clear and helpful to his future self. He just has to desperately hope that maybe future-him will manage to figure it out and do something with the vague clues he’ll have.

(When really this whole Survivor Perk thing was just one big handicap designed to get him killed off as early as possible.)

Rantaro:  “You’re the Ultimate Survivor. You survived the last killing game.”

Which is to say, this isn’t really a normal talent at all. It’s not that Rantaro is so super talented at surviving killing games that he survived several. He just survived the one, which any given person has a small but reasonable chance of doing. He’s only been given the title of “Ultimate Survivor” as a statement of the fact that he’s from the previous killing game, since they like to theme everything around these Ultimate talents. He does still have his original talent that he had in his first killing game, since he wouldn’t have been the Ultimate Survivor then – but they’re going to erase his memory of both his Ultimate titles just to make him more mysterious and suspicious and handicap him even more.

Rantaro:  “Anyone who finds out who you are is gonna come for you… So watch your back. Trust no one.”

Geez, what happened to Rantaro in his previous game that made him think this was the best approach? Because it is not. If people find out who he is, surely they’re actually going to think, “damn, this isn’t the first killing game? How many have there been?” and probably be even more determined to do something about it instead of just playing along and killing each other.

Rantaro never actually saw this message of his so this didn’t end up affecting anything, but that would not have helped.

Rantaro:  “You wanted this killing game, so you have to win no matter what.”

I mentioned last time we saw this message at the beginning of chapter 4 that him talking about “winning” doesn’t really make sense and that this line was probably written more to be a teaser in chapter 4 than to make sense now. But I suppose it could be possible that he did “want” it – maybe when he made his sacrifice, he was already aware that the punishment would be this rather than death, and so he chose it in the hope that he might be able to do something to end the killing game for good. Calling that “winning” is still very off, though. He was not Kokichi, after all.

Shuichi:  “He was the Ultimate Survivor… An expert at death games…”

Himiko:  “Th-Then… why did he die so quickly?”

Because he wasn’t an expert at them at all. The “Ultimate” in his title was just for show. He’d only been in one and had lost all memory of that.

Shuichi suggests that the reason he died is because of what he said about how anyone who finds out his identity would come for him. From that, they decide that, since the mastermind would have known his identity, maybe the mastermind set him up to be killed. Which sure is coming to the right conclusion for totally the wrong reasons. Obviously the mastermind always knew his identity, so this has nothing to do with Rantaro’s warning of “don’t let anyone find out who you are or they might kill you”. Shuichi’s essentially suggesting that the mastermind killed Rantaro because they were afraid of his amazing killing game talents, but really, if that was a problem to them, they could have just not included him in this killing game.

Then we get another flashback, this time of Shuichi talking to his supposed friends at Hope’s Peak. These guys look like the absolute most generic ordinary dudes ever, even though they’re supposed to be Hope’s Peak students and should be Ultimates at something, which generally, in a Danganronpa universe, would make them look a lot more distinctive even with the Hope’s Peak uniforms.

Classmate 1:  “Now that I think about it… 16 boys and girls going on a space trip together… You guys gonna do it?”

Yes, Classmate 1, that is literally the point, since they’re going to need to repopulate whatever new planet they land on.

Classmate 1:  “If things get too rough, then just remember all the fun times we had together.”

Yeah, all those fun times that we as an audience totally have every reason to care about! Shuichi still probably doesn’t even properly “remember” any of it, either. This is the same kind of writing problem chapter 5’s Flashback Light had in that it’s acting like we’re supposed to care about these characters we’ve only just seen who had literally no importance to Shuichi until just now – but this time, that problem is a lot more apparent to us in the out-universe audience because we don’t know these guys either. They’re not even given names! And, of course, that’s still very much the out-universe writers’ point here.

It’s even more clearly out-universely deliberate when you remember how Shuichi said himself at the end of chapter 5 that his hope comes from all of his friends in here, both those still with him and those who’ve died. That is more than enough to keep him going. These randomers are completely not necessary to inspire him with anything, no matter how much Tsumugi is trying to pretend that her backstory is so super important.

My favourite one is Classmate 2, the one who’s already pretty badly sick, but presumably not too close to dying or he wouldn’t even be able to be in school. Because this is the virus Kaito had, and so this shows us how bad it actually is, even probably like a week or two before the end. Check out the voice acting for this scene and listen to how absolutely miserable this guy sounds. Which means that Kaito himself had to have felt at least this awful beneath it all, but he fought through it and refused to show a single hint of it because he was stubborn and selfless and idiotically convinced that he could not afford to worry his friends or let them see any kind of weakness. Kaito was incredible.

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