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eternal-love-song · 5 months ago

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Who You'll Be When You're Already Dead

Years after the killing game, the participants keep meeting up once a year to keep in touch and Kokichi is sick of it. When Kaede decides to talk to him about his attitude, the two end up becoming oddly tangled with one another.

[Kokichi/Kaede] [Post VR AU, Kokichi POV, Unhealthy Coping Mechanism, Angst, Character Study]

Written for @dr-rarepair-week-blog

Kokichi hated these reunions. He spent the mornings watching Kirumi and whoever else decorate like it was a birthday party, hanging streamers and putting up posters. It was a ploy to make them feel welcomed and invited, instead of what they really were, shackled and miserable. It was a masochistic practice, seeking out their fellow killing game survivors and pretending that they were happy to see each other instead flagellating themselves over the fact that they'd signed themselves away.

Kokichi never helped, but that didn't make him better than the rest of them. He still showed up early every year to watch the decorating like he was staring at a sinking ship.

Kokichi didn't know who he'd been before the killing game. Those memories were gone for good. It was supposedly his signature on the contract that had signed away the life of his past self, but he'd never know that for sure. Just as surely, who he was inside the killing game was also gone. Murdered just as soundly as his virtual body had been.

All these years later, it hardly mattered. It was all that mattered.

"Could you at least do that outside?" Kirumi asked, watching him with a disappointed frown.

Kokichi took an extra long drag on his cigarette for that and blew the smoke into the air between them. "If I go outside, I'm not coming back in."

It shouldn't be a loss, but for whatever reason, everyone treated his attendance like it was the most important thing imaginable. Not just his, of course. He wasn't the only one that had to be hunted down and dragged into this practically against his will. Maki and Korekiyo were treated much the same, as if the whole thing would fall apart if even one of them was missing.

Kirumi walked around him and opened the windows, before going on her way to finish decorating.

Kokichi didn't get it. Most of them died in the killing game and woke up someone else. Kirumi was one of the few that seemed desperate to cling to the tatters of her in-game persona with both hands.

When Tsumugi arrived, it was always with her head held low and an apologetic smile on her lips. Kokichi always stared at her, surprised that she had the nerve to show her face even if she hadn't chosen to be the mastermind, and she shrunk back from his gaze like Shuichi used to when she noticed. Red face went red with shame, but after the first time she had offered an apology to him for her roll in the killing game, just after they had all woken up, and Kokichi had laughed in her face and refused to forgive her, Tsumugi had gotten the idea to steer clear of him.

Angie stepped into his line of sight, smiling as she blocked Tsumugi from his glare. "Hey there, Kokichi. Can you do me a favor?"

"No," he replied immediately.

Angie didn't listen. She never did. It made her one of the easier people to interact with. She placed her hands on his shoulder and turned him toward the windows. He wasn't sure whether he was being put in time out for bullying Tsumugi or being redirected because of his smoking, but he found it amusing either way.

"Stay right there, okay?"

"Anything for you, beloved."

He could hear Angie trying to convince Tsumugi to ignore him and enter the building. Amusingly, it took ten minutes for Angie to talk her around. You'd think it would get easier the more time passed without him doing anything, but it seemed like it never did.

Kokichi hung out of the window until his cigarette was down to the butt, tossing it carelessly out the window and privately hoping that it would set the whole place on fire. Sadly, there wasn't anything out there for the cooling embers to catch on, but he could dream.

"You could at least try to enjoy yourself."

Kokichi raised an eyebrow as he turned, seeing Kaede staring him down. Somehow, she looked more like herself than she had in the killing game. Shorter hair, sharper eyes, but exactly the same amount of presumptuous and bossy. "What's to enjoy?" he asked.

"The food that Kirumi made," she answered immediately.

"Just what I need, to be fed by a murderer," he said flatly.

"The decorations that Angie made."

"The same decorations that I see every single year, joy."

Kaede glared even harder. "The room full of all your friends?"

This one gave Kokichi pause, if only for the hard laugh that forced its way out of his throat. "Are we friends now? Wonder when that happened."

Kaede opened her mouth to say more, but Kokichi wasn't in the mood to listen. He walked away, vaguely taking stock of the room as he went toward the hall that led to the bathroom.

Miu was making a scene at the bar. Maki had dyed her hair and kept self consciously running her hands through it. Rantaro was telling stories to everyone. Seemed like the gang was all there finally. Whoop-de-do.

"I wasn't done talking to you," Kaede said, but not until after he'd already left the main room. He wasn't sure why she bothered. He was sure none of them really wanted him there, even if Miu or Ryoma occasionally spoke to him. It would be easy enough to just not invite him to one of these little reunions and get on with their lives, or else just not have them altogether. He was more sure than ever that it was Little Miss Piano Song that was the driving force behind these things.

Kokichi sighed as he turned to face her. "Can I help you?"

It seemed he could, because she opened her mouth and didn't close it for the next five minutes. Kokichi did not listen. He'd heard it all before, if not from her then Kaito, if not from him, then from Gonta. It all added up to the same thing in his mind. If Kokichi wasn't around then they would feel guilty and if they felt guilty they couldn't pretend that they were getting over it.

Which they weren't. It couldn't be more clear that they weren't. If they really wanted to get over they would all go their separate ways and never talk to each other again. Or else only when they accidentally see each other in the streets five years from now when it can be awkward and the sight of each other covered in blood wasn't still the most prominent thing on everyone's mind.

Kaede couldn't be convinced of that though. She was too stubborn. It had to be all or nothing with her. Kokichi gambled for nothing.

He took a few quick steps into her space, startling her enough that she stopped speaking for just a moment, then he pressed his lips to hers.

The silence really was golden.

Kokichi was pretty sure that she was with Shuichi. He'd seen the not really a detective nipping at her heels the same way that he had while in the killing game and assumed. It was an assumption that he hoped would make her back off, run back to her boy toy, and be too embarrassed or angry or whatever to talk to him again. He didn't need her to nag him about being friends. All he needed was to be left alone.

That wasn't what happened though. Instead, she froze. For much longer than he thought was reasonable. When he finally pulled back from the kiss, he found that she was red from blushing and her pupils were blown.

"Huh." He took a step back. "If nothing else, you're still not boring," he told her. Then he continued on his path away from her to the bathroom.

He didn't actually have to pee. He just hoped to pass some time until he could leave without anyone nagging him about it. The last time he'd tried to duck out early, Kiibo had tried to make small talk with him to get him to stay and it was almost more painful than the press. Almost. He was considering just taking out another cigarette when the door burst open and Kaede barged in.

"You can't do that!" she yelled.

Kokichi decided not to make a joke about the immense delay of that reaction. "Pretty sure I already did."

Kaede slammed her hands against the wall, interestingly choosing to box him in against the wall. "I'll have you know that I'm happily seeing someone," she proclaimed.

"I don't recall asking," he smirked.

Kaede practically growled in frustration, making his smirk widen. "Why do you have to be so-"

He kissed her again. It just seemed like the right thing to do. After all, you didn't follow someone into a bathroom and practically push them against a wall just to yell at them he was pretty sure. The fact that she didn't pull away really just proved his point.

Kokichi made this kiss last longer than the first, grabbing onto the front of her shirt and pulling her closer. Kaede didn't make an attempt to pull away. When he slid his tongue along her lips, she parted them easily, welcoming him with an enthusiastic moan. The first kiss had just been to shut her up, but he actually enjoyed this one. He was smiling when he finally pulled away.

"You're awful," she told him quietly once he broke the kiss, unable to meet his gaze.

"Yeah? I'm not the one dating someone," he replied.

"You didn't have to-"

"Neither did you," he said. "You could still leave, you know. Someone could walk in here any minute."

Kaede made a pained noise of uncertainty that actually amused him. This wasn't the same person that had been inside the game. Kokichi didn't know who she was, but he had to admit to finding this Kaede much more interesting.

"I think," he said in a low tone, "that you have two options here. Either go back out there and pretend that nothing happened or go into one of those stalls and accept that whatever happens next, you choose it."

Kaede's face only got more red, her gaze only dropped lower and lower. When she finally stepped away from him, he thought for a moment that her good sense had returned to her and that she was going to leave.

She didn't.

Kaede took several steps away from him, raised her gaze to meet his own, and then stepped backwards into one of the stalls.

For a moment, Kokichi considered just leaving. That would be the surest way to get her to leave him alone, to leave her embarrassed and humiliated in a stall in the men's room. The truth of that matter was that he didn't really want to. Kokichi wasn't his game self either, he wasn't better than her. Better than this.

He followed her into the stall.

They didn't speak. They had said all that needed to be said already. The only thing that was left was for Kokichi to burn a mistake into her skin. He left marks under shirt, hickies and scratches as punishments for the fact that she'd bothered him long enough for it to come to this. In turn, she left the feeling of her hands in his lingering hair for days after they parted and the sound of her soft cries practically haunted him.

When they parted, Kokichi left quickly, hoping to avoid the regret in her eyes and the hesitation in her movements.

He didn't.

Kokichi avoided her for the rest of the night and managed to be the first person to leave.

---------------- Kokichi didn't think about them much the rest of the year or he tried not to. Remembering his not friends mostly just brought up bad memories. There were some things that were unavoidable though.

He woke from nightmares that he couldn't remember with a full body ache. He froze when he saw a weird shade of pink and had to remind himself that blood was really red. Sometimes it didn't sink in until he pricked his finger and then the bright red would remind him of cold, vicious eyes waiting for him to die. It was a constant struggle between thinking of nothing and being followed by these tiny snapshots of life that wasn't his.

The Kokichi Ouma that he used to be would bottle it all up and smile. He would be loud enough to walk right over those thoughts, stubborn enough to push them aside. That Kokichi had been someone that would fight until the very end. His weapon had been wits, and he'd wielded them to the very end.

This Kokichi armed himself with a bottle and a cigarette and constantly wondered how big of a mistake he could make with them.

Like clockwork, however, the invitation came. He always told himself that he wouldn't go. He didn't want to see them, that much was true, and he repeated that truth over and over as he turned the envelope over and over again in his hands. He watched it burn beneath the ashes of his cigarette. Then, just like clockwork, he found himself standing outside the meeting place once more.

Angie smiled at him and looped her arm with his to drag him in. He almost never walked in himself, someone always dragged him. Kokichi thought if they didn't catch him, he could probably just walk past content in the knowledge that they were there and he wasn't. Unfortunately, no matter how he dragged his feet, nothing ever changed.

It was a good thing he was dead, otherwise he was pretty sure that he would hate himself.

"Have you come to help this time?" Kiibo asked. He never got used to seeing him in flesh and blood. Kiibo moved like it was awkward to be in his body, as if his hands and feet never quite did what they wanted him to. He wondered if Kiibo wasn't used to it yet either, if he never would be.

Kokichi answered his question by reaching into his bag, holding up a bottle of alcohol, and taking a long drink.

"It's much too early in the morning for that," Kirumi sighed. "At least allow me to make you something to eat."

Kokichi raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't you have better things to do?"

Kirumi pressed her lips together as she frowned. He could see it easily, when he looked at her, the way that she tried to figure out what the maid in the game would have said or done. The way she tried to step back into herself like it was a favorite shirt she could no longer fit.

Kokichi turned away from her to save her the trouble, sitting himself on a table and settling in to watch as he always did.

The day passed in snapshots as he tried not to think too much, not to watch them, not to see the ghost of their former selves overlaid with the people in front of him. The more of them that arrived, the harder that became.

One blink and there was a plate of toast beside him.

One blink and Angie was stealing a swig from his bottle.

One blink and Tsumugi was peeking her head into the room, spotting him, and backing out again.

Until finally every blink became the same as there were more bodies and more bodies and more bodies in the room.

"Hey, can you get off the table?"

"No," he answered immediately, before finally turning to see who it was. He was surprised that the subdued voice he'd heard was Kaito's. He knew that the idiot was still stubborn, still self righteous, but he guessed he'd left being loud back on his gravestone.

Kokichi hopped off the table, wobbled, then reached back to take his bag. His bottle was empty, between his own drinking and Angie constantly stealing sips, that wasn't really a surprise. He decided to leave it where it was.

"Where you going? It'll be time to eat soon," Kaito called after him.

"Smoke," Kokichi answered without turning back. He could feel the ground beneath his feet a little too keenly. If he turned, it would be obvious that he wasn't steady on his feet, if it wasn't already. Best to just retreat now and hope that no one followed him.

That hope was sadly in vain.

"What's wrong with you today?" He didn't even have to turn this time to know who was nagging him.

"Still have that boyfriend?" he asked as he tried to fumble around for his cigarettes. He wasn't sure that he really wanted one, but he didn't want to stand still either.

"Huh?" It was a little surprising that he'd taken her so off guard with that. "Why would you ask..."

"Because it seems like you could be bothering him instead of me."

Silence followed. Silence in which he finally discovered his half empty box of smokes and hoped that she had gone on her way. That was foolish though. Not even this new Kaede seemed like the type to give up so easily.

But she was the type to fuck boys in bathrooms when she had a boyfriend. Funny that.

"If this is about last time--"

"It isn't," he told her. But it was. He might not have thought about it if she hadn't sought him out again, if he wasn't tipsy, if he didn't think his hand would be too unsteady to light a cigarette. He could still feel the grip she had on his hair that night when he wasn't paying close attention. Anothing thing to haunt him, to follow, like the guest hall full of ghosts that he'd just walked out of.

Kaede huffed as she stomped around to stand in front of him. "Everyone is trying their best!" she yelled.

Kokichi looked up to meet her eyes. "I never asked them to," he said. "I didn't ask anything from any of you."

"After everything you did," she said, stepping closer. "After how hard you tried, you're going to just... throw this away?"

"That person is gone," he said firmly, glaring at her. He held up his hands, bringing one down on top of the other. "Crushed, just like my concern. Shouldn't have savored him while you had him."

Kaede shook her head again. "I don't believe you."

"I don't really care what you believe. Doesn't change anything." He shrugged and half turned away from her. "All this Kokichi can do is fuck you again, and probably not even well since I can barely see straight. There's nothing here for you."

Kaede stormed forward to turn him back toward her, almost knocking him off his unsteady feet. "There is."

He knocked her hand away. "There isn't!" he yelled back. "You're not that fucking desperate for cock, are you?"

"You don't know what I am," she yelled back.

Kokichi stared at her. Her stance was like he remembered it, but her eyes were different. Meaner, sharper, louder somehow. It was much easier to see when there were so many of them swarming in his vision. He sighed, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. "You're right. Go home."

Surprising no one, she didn't leave.

What was surprising was when he felt her hands at his hip and he opened his eyes to see her on her knees in front of him. He opened his mouth, but found himself at a loss for words as he looked at her.

Kaede's gaze seemed to get harder, more determined. "You don't know what I am," she repeated.

Well. Guess she was right on that one.

Kokichi hoped that the feeling of his hands in her hair would follow her the same way her touch haunted him. She hoped that when she went back inside it was with a sore throat and that his taste lingered longer far longer than it should. He wondered if he would remember this later or if it would fade away like the memories of his past self. He wouldn't mind if it did. He had survived losing worse, and better. He wouldn't mind losing this.

"Um, is anyone out here?"

By the time the soft call came, they had long since stopped. Kokichi was sitting on the ground, holding a cigarette that she'd barely touched, and Kaede was staring up at the stars. He wondered what she was thinking, but he didn't ask. Kokichi didn't have room for anyone's thoughts but his own.

"Shuichi?" Kaede leaned toward him, but she didn't move, rooted to the spot like she had been for the past several minutes that his cigarette had been burning down to the butt.

Shuichi looked both ways before stepping outside and coming to her side. Kokichi thought he might have been more anxious now than he had been in the killing game. He had a better hat to hide behind and a scarf around his neck that served almost the same purpose, as if he could bury his body in accessories and escape his fears that way. There was a time Kokichi would have considered helping him. A time when Kaito already would have been. A time when Kaede would have gone to his side and pulled him after her.

Where did the time go?

"We were looking for you both," Shuichi said. "Everyone, um, we're about to leave so..."

"Wow, the time went so quickly," Kaede told him with a laugh. It was fake, but was that because it was guilty? Nervous? Embarrassed?

Kokichi didn't listen to whatever they said next, tossing his cigarette butt to the ground and watching as it slowly fizzled out.

"Um, are you coming?" Shuichi asked.

"No." Kokichi didn’t need to look at him to know that his tone would make Shuichi shrink back and frown and retreat like he always did. He had more shadows now, but Shuichi really was the same.

Kaede sighed. "We're not gonna leave you out here."

"Then don't leave," he said. "I'm not gonna stop you."

When Kokichi failed to be moved by Kaede's glare, she said something to Shuichi. A few minutes later he was being forced into Rantaro's car and driven home. When Kokichi refused to tell Rantaro where he lived, he was taken to Rantaro's house.

Kokichi snuck out in the middle of the night, but he had the grace to leave a note.

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

Kokichi resolved not to go to the next reunion. They had to end eventually, didn't they? It wasn't like he enjoyed being there. It made him crazy sometimes, spending the whole day cataloging all the ways that they had changed. Who had changed their hair or their personality or their body this time? Who had died and who had come back to life? Who was desperately trying to be someone they weren't and who had stopped being anyone at all?

Maybe that last one was just him. Some of them were getting along just fine, dragging these chains from one room to another like they were treasures instead of shackles. He used to be good at lockpicking, he should be able to break free.

Kokichi was used to carrying around a lot of dead weight. He had been doing so at least since the second motive. Carrying around the dead weight of Dice, of his dead not classmates, of Gonta, and Miu, and his past self that had declared that he would win. He hadn't won anything though. No one had.

In the end, Kokichi was just as much of a loser as the mastermind had been.

Kokichi managed to spend the morning of the reunion in bed. He was hyper aware of the passage of minutes ticking by the whole time, but that was to be expected. Just like he had been very aware of the weight he'd carried in the killing, he was equally cognizant of putting it all down.

It was the middle of the afternoon when his doorbell rang. Kokichi dragged himself out of bed and to the door.

"How did you find where I live?" Kokichi asked when he opened the door.

Kaede brushed past him as she entered uninvited. "I asked Kirumi. She's the one that sends out the invitations. I figured she would know."

Funny that he never questioned their arrival. His past selves must be rolling in their graves.

"And what do you want?" he asked with a sigh as he closed his door. He was sure that if she'd come all this way, it wouldn't be that easy to get rid of her.

Kaede's eyes were downcast, making her look surprisingly like her killing game self. "You were late. You've never been late before."

"I wasn't going."

She looked up, meeting his gaze with a frown. "Yeah, I figured."

It was quiet as they both looked into each other's eyes. Kokichi couldn't tell what she was thinking or why she was here, but he waited for her to get on with it already.

Finally, Kaede sighed, crossing her arms and almost pouting at him. "I didn't want that to be the last time I ever saw you."

Kokichi blinked at her. "Why?"

Kaede huffed. "I wanted to get to know you better! Back then, I died so fast..." She meant in the killing game. She was surprised that she was acknowledging it. Almost no one did, not outloud. "So I wanted to do now what I couldn't do then."

Kokichi scoffed. "You wanted to do what? Save everyone?"

For a moment, she looked chastised. "Yeah... Only I couldn't. When I first woke up, I thought that I could but... I died... for them... and it didn't help. People still died and the killing game kept going and... And I'm so angry at them all!" Kaede began abruptly pacing. "It was all for nothing! I ki- I thought that I-" She made a frustrated noise.

"You sound like you could use a drink," he told her.

"Yeah, maybe I could."

He didn't go get her one. Instead, Kokichi just sat on his couch and watched her to see what she would do next.

"You're a jerk," she told him. He didn't disagree. "But you're an honest jerk. You're one of the only people that isn't trying to be someone they can't be anymore and I hate you for it."

"Hmm, new reason to be hated, but I'll take it."

Kaede stomped her foot. "That's what I'm talking about! You just... accept whatever happens. You aren't fighting anything anymore."

"What's there to fight?" he asked. "We aren't in a killing game anymore. I'm not a supreme leader."

"Then what are you?" she yelled, stomping over to him. "Because I can't figure it out and it's driving me crazy."

"I'm a dead man," he told her. "And so are you. We're all just ghosts but the rest of you refuse to leave the graveyard."

Kaede's expression fell and she sighed. "I hate you," she said again, softer. "But I don't. You make me feel... something. Alive maybe. Not just pretending to be myself."

Kokichi reached out to grab her hand and pull her closer. She startled, startling and falling onto the couch next to him. He got onto his knees and ran his fingers through her hair. "You're not. The you in the killing game wouldn't be here and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have had sex with me in a bathroom."

He expected her to blush and was surprised when she didn't. More proof that she wasn't the same, even if she did look away from him for a moment.

"We broke up, by the way," she said softly.

"Oh? You and whoever?" He still wasn't sure if it was Shuichi that she'd been dating, but if he hadn't cared enough to ask when they were in a bathroom stall, he didn't see a reason to ask now.

"Yeah. After that time... well, it seemed like a sign, you know."

Kokichi watched her as she moved into a more comfortable position, which coincidentally brought her closer to him.

"I don't want you to disappear, Kokichi."

Kokichi chuckled as he pulled back from her, slowly turning into an all out laugh. "I don't know why you would care," he told her. "You died so soon, I guess I'm the only Kokichi that you really know."

"I like the Kokichi I know," she told him. "Even though you hate it, you kept coming back to check on us. You care about us."

"I wouldn't say that."

Kaede smiled. "No, you wouldn't." Slowly, the smile fell from her face. "You moved on faster than the rest of us, but... I want to do that too. I don't want to feel trapped by a world that killed me."

Kokichi met her expression with his own serious one. "I can't do anything for you."

"I'm not asking you to." She smiled wryly. "I'm not even asking you to fuck me again. Just... don't go anywhere. Even though you weren't trying to help me, you still did."

"I wouldn't mind if you did," he told her. "It wasn't that bad."

Kaede laughed and he could see relief in her smile. "Maybe I wouldn't either. I don't know."

Kokichi pushed himself up off the couch. "Come on. My kitchen's empty, so you might as well come with me to get that drink I didn't offer you."

Kaede followed him out the door. This time, he didn't feel quite so haunted.

#Oumatsu #Kokichi Ouma #Kaede Akamatsu #Danganronpa V3 #ELS Writing #Fanfiction #genre: angst #Oumaeda #dr rarepair week 2024

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