#the truth of the matter is if Makoto had stuck around she would have given yayoi dojima a run for her money

[majimassqueaktoy]

Makoto really doesn't get enough credit for being wild like she was in a new country and she went out to strange city on her own hell bent on finding her brother which is pretty brave and scary on its own, I sure as shit wouldn't be brave enough to do that and then All That Shit happens and she's still remarkably held together for a girl with literally hundreds of Yakuza looking to get her- Majima drops a line about being handsome and she's all 😏 which still makes me cackle and then she fucks off still mostly blind into Kamurocho because she is going to get revenge for her brother if its the last thing she does and she goes right up and says right to the faces of the men who hurt him that she would like them dead. Not just dead, decapitated actually :) and then one of the last things we see her do is smack the shit out of two yakuza. Girl after my heart, tbh.

[danganronpa-21]

Naegiri Week Day 6: Flutter

Here’s Flutter, a soft-sweet one-shot with no warnings to issue. Just pure fluff! Yaaaaaay! I’m hoping that tomorrow’s prompt should be alike it in fluff, too. So if the heavy stuff’s not for you, you’re in luck.

I hope you enjoy it!

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This was it. This was the moment. 

Kyoko sitting across from him; her face untouched by the purplish hues of poison. His own just as clear of the blues of bruising, and the white bandages across his fractured-for-the-second-time nose. Their bodies both exhausted from the work it takes to fix a recovering world, and their eyes soft as they stared at each other. It was so rare that they got a minute to relax and breathe, yet Makoto couldn’t bring himself to settle. While Kyoko had already taken to stretching out on the couch and slipping her work jacket off her shoulders; his heart pounded so raucously that he could hear it in his ears. 

To be fair, she could settle a little more, given that she didn’t know that he was about to confess that he was in love with her. 

He could only hope that she didn’t already know. She was a detective, after all. Knowing everything about everyone practically her job. Everyone struggled to keep secrets from her; himself included. At this point, he half-worried it was only a matter of time until she said something to him.

Or maybe she already had, and he just hadn’t noticed. She had kissed him, after all. In private. With no one else around. During a tender moment between the two of them; where she cared for his wounds. But how much could that really mean? 

Thinking about that struck fear in his heart. While he didn’t necessarily want Kyoko to know already that he was deeply in love with her; he also didn’t want everything to be meaningless to her. He’d greatly enjoyed their time together, and that sweet secret kiss they’d shared… If he confessed and she rejected him, he felt certain that he would die on the spot. 

“Wow… I did not think I would be this exhausted tonight…” Kyoko remarked, letting out a cute grunt as she stretched her arm towards the ceiling. He couldn’t help but notice how one of her eyes squeezed shut as she did so. Cute, he thought to himself.

He couldn’t help but shrug his shoulders in response. “Well, you are the Branch Leader. I imagine your job’s pretty tough right about now. I’m not surprised that you’re tired.”

It became the detective’s turn to shrug; her hands moving to play with her hair. He couldn’t help but notice how casual she was being, playing with her hair in front of him like that. She’d even swung her legs up onto the couch, so they were stretched across his lap. “These days, I’m mostly just stuck in meetings and doing paperwork. You have the important job, being a figurehead for public relations. I admit, I struggle to comprehend how you can possibly be so comfortable talking in front of people like that. It’s a gift of some kind.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s a gift, per se…” But he appreciated her saying it. So much so that he felt his face start to flush, and not just because he was a couple minutes away from pouring his heart into her lap. “I guess I just… like giving people the reassurance that everything will be okay. Especially with everything we’ve been doing lately… The progress has been exceptional.”

She nodded in agreement; a grin threatening to overtake her expression. “It really has been superlative. I’m highly impressed with the job everyone has done. You, most of all.”

The smaller boy blinked, his voice squeaking as he attempted to answer.  “M-Me?”

She raised a brow, a smirk protruding through her iron mask. “Does that come as a surprise?” 

“Well… a little, I guess.” He laughed awkwardly. If he had to be honest, he wasn’t sure whether the praise from her made him feel more or less sure of himself. Was she saying that stuff because she loved him and wanted to indirectly know? Or did she just think he was a great employee? Employee-zoned. If she didn’t want to date him, he imagined he could respect it, but the thought of being just an employee to her made him nervous. He wanted to be her friend at least. “You know I don’t tend to think of myself or my work as anything special.”

Kyoko sighed, shaking her head. “I know… and I rather wish you would. You always do such an extraordinary job. I meant it when I called you the Ultimate Hope.” She leaned forward to nudge his shoulder affectionately. It was done with the awkward tenderness of someone who had never done it before. “I’m not so sure that there are many people who could work as diligently as you after going through what you did. It both impressed and worried me that you were so eager to jump back into the workforce after the Future Foundation killing game.”

Though he knew she didn’t mean anything by it, he detested how calmly the words rolled off her tongue. Despite the time that passed by, the incident still felt so fresh in his mind. Nightmares of the incident still haunted his sleeping hours, forcing him awake in a blur of horrifying memories. Kyoko’s passing was always his worst of all. Every time it crossed his unconscious mind, he woke up with a tear-stained pillowcase.

“I… needed something to take my mind off it I guess.” He murmured gracelessly; his eyes falling down to stare at his lap… and the legs that lay upon them. Her legs. He hadn’t realized how close she was to him until that moment. “There was a lot I learned during that killing game that I thought I could use to help people.”

“Such as…?”

The prodding didn’t mean much. It was just a simple means of conversation, but he knew he could get it to work in his favour. He swallowed, feeling the lump in his throat. If he worked this properly, it would be possible to segway it into the targeted conversation… although he hated to think of how easy it was to jump from death to love in such a short period of time.

“I feel like I learned so much more about loss and the value of life, and the differing ways that people cope with their despair… and what we can do to save them. I think what put the nail in that coffin for me was actually experiencing that low myself… where everything is dark, and cold, and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel… When it seems like there’s nowhere to go but down.”

He shivered at the memory; the calling of Kyoko’s voice in his ear. Even weeks after the ordeal, her tone was still so sharp in his mind. Or had the voice belonged to Sayaka…? The hallucination had blended together in his mind; his whole head aching when he thought of it. At this point, it was as if both girls had whispered the same atrocities.

You should have died instead of us. 

Kyoko tucked her feet up close to her body suddenly. At first, he expected it to be out of fear for his behaviour. But as her expression softened, and she shuffled closer to him, he realized that couldn’t possibly be the case. Kyoko wasn’t the kind of person to abandon a friend in need. 

“Don’t think about it if you don’t have to.” 

“I always have to… It’s always there.” He protested, closing his eyes tightly. “And I can’t make it go away. I won’t, but… It still taught me so much of what I need to know. Not just for helping people, but for going through life as well. It made me realize that you can’t always wait for the right moment for things to happen. That you don’t always have forever with someone.”

Kyoko’s brows lowered even further, and she placed a concerned hand on his thigh. “Makoto-kun… what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that… that when you died, I felt like my whole world fell apart. Like I lost apart of myself.”

“Naegi-kun…” He couldn’t decipher the tone she spoke in, or the emotion it held. He knew only that she said his name.

“I mean it. When I thought I lost you, it was like I’d lost almost everything. If it weren’t for what you did for me, I wouldn’t have known where to go or what to do. Your life and your sacrifice meaning something… it’s one of the only things that kept me going, and doing things that were tough. I didn’t have it in me to let your sacrifice be in vain. I just… I couldn’t bear to have lost you, so it’s all I could rely on. I couldn’t bear it, because… Well, there’s a lot of reasons because…”

The lavender-haired woman leaned in closer; her voice near a whisper. “Reasons like what?”

Makoto stopped himself for a moment, and inhaled deeply. This would be it. This would be the moment.

“Reasons like… my being in love with you.”

Kyoko jerked herself back suddenly, blinking at him like he had randomly sprouted a second head. Shock wrote itself all over her expression; her mouth hanging open at his confession. Her eyes were wide and round as she watched him; a meek blush skirting across her cheeks and nose. 

“You were… in love with me?”

Makoto shook his head. “I am in love with you. Present tense.”

“I… I’m afraid I don’t understand.” She fumbled with the studs on her gloves, unexpectedly unwilling to look him in the face.

Makoto could feel them now. The butterflies beating about in his belly. At the start of the conversation, he might have described their feeling as a light flutter… but now they were a thundering roar. They urged him to speak his truth, no matter the eccentricities of her reaction

“Kyoko, I’m… I’m madly in love with you. I think I have been for a long time now… even before the whole Tragedy thing. I know it’s a lot for you to hear, and you’re probably not ready, but I… I just… I love you, Kyoko. And I couldn’t live with you not knowing anymore. Not after what happened. I need to take this moment to tell you while I still have the chance.”

The air between them fell still. He found himself clutching tightly onto his work pants in some pathetic attempt to ground himself, for he felt rather certain that this wasn’t going to go as he’d hoped. Kyoko was kind, and beautiful, and intelligent. He knew thinking that someone like her would want to be with him was daydreaming a little too hard.

The look on her face wasn’t doing him many favours either. She began to run her fingers through the strands of hair that hung loose from her ponytail, her eyes focused on literally anything but his face. Despite the bowing of her head, however, he could see how rapidly she blinked. It almost seemed as if she wasn’t processing what he said at all. 

When the silence broke, it wasn’t with an answer. Quite the opposite, actually. It was a small set of words, uttered in an even smaller voice. Like Kyoko’s own had been stolen away from her in a matter of seconds, and replaced with a mockery of it.

“Are you sure?”

He gulped quietly. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“But… why?”

“What do you mean… why?”

“I mean: why? Why me?” Her head lifted up scantly. As much as he craved it, he couldn’t read her expression. Some sort of mix between worried and auspicious, he guessed. It was all he could judge from the curve of her eyebrows and the glimmer in the pools of violet that were her eyes.

“You’re… amazing, Kyoko. You’re brilliant, and kind, and talented… not to mention incredibly beautiful. Being with you is like being on an adventure every day. We always have so much fun together, and you never let me short change myself over anything. You care about me and all of our other friends so deeply, even if you may not show it obviously. You’re like the coolest girl I’ve ever met. I might even say that my falling in love with you was inevitable.” 

The detective’s face turned bright pink. For a moment, it seemed as if she were unable to respond. Then, just as suddenly, she leaned towards him again. 

“Makoto. Could you say that again?”

“Say what again?”

She closed her eyes. “That you’re in love with me.”

He paused, biting his lip. Where was she going with this? 

“Kyoko, I’m in love with you.”

“Again.”

“Kyoko, I’m in love with you.”

“Again.”

“Kyoko, I’m in love with- mmf!”

Oh god. She was doing it again. Kyoko was kissing him again. In the form of the most ferocious affection he’d ever felt, he might add. Not that that made it unenjoyable — quite the opposite, if he were being honest. Feeling the softness of her lips against his own for a second time was just as extraordinary as the first; perhaps even more so this time around. His eyes fluttered shut without thinking, and he found himself wrapping his arms around her. She reciprocated just as well, choosing to drape her arms around his neck. 

It had been so little time, and yet he wondered how he could have forgotten the taste of her lips. This time around the flavour was caught somewhere between the sugary sweetness of the balm she wore, and the dark smooth taste of coffee. If he were being honest, he wasn’t sure which he loved more. Or maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe he just loved that he was kissing her the most. 

He wasn’t exactly sure when they broke apart. He only knew that for him, it was too soon. He assumed it must have been after awhile: both of them were panting and short of breath by the end. When they finally did manage to separate, though, he found himself staring at her. Kyoko’s gaze fixed itself so intently on him, and for a moment, it seemed like time had stopped. The only things that were allowed to move were the beating butterflies in his stomach, and her lips as she whispered the words:

“I think I’m in love with you too.”