FicWad

i’m going to die here, aren’t i? kokichi’s holding the blade close to my throat… this must be the end, right?

kokichi will kill me and all this suffering will be for nothing. i’ll just die here and i’m sure kokichi will cover it up, make it seem like a suicide. i’m sure no one would care, anyway, it would only be more fuel for everyone’s fire… about how i’m not good enough for kokichi.

i don’t want to die.

“well, kaito, do you have anything you want to say for yourself?” kokichi says, taunting me. is voice manages to be sickly sweet and laced with anger all at once. “any last begs for mercy? final apologies, for failing me?” he continues, and i gulp.

i don’t want to die…!

“p-please don’t kill me, kokichi…” i plead. “just because i’m going to kill you doesn’t mean you get to refer to me that way, kaito. correct yourself, okay~?” kokichi replies, ignoring my plea all together in favor of correcting my use of his name… he digs the knife in a little more, and it finally starts to break my skin even if not going in deep enough to kill me. yet.

i don’t want to die!

i wince a little at the pain, it hurts a little every time, no matter how often this happens. but this time, i don’t think this is a warning. i’m really going to die here, lying on the floor in a heap of clutter and filth.

fuck, i really don’t want to die.

without much time to think about what i’m doing, i shove kokichi away from me, and he falls down to the ground. i quickly move to pin his arms to the floor. “kaiiiiito, who told you that you could fight back?!” he demands, struggling under by grip. i’m not as strong as i used to be as i haven’t been able to work out and i’m pretty malnourished, but i still manage to keep him pinned down.

“KAITO! LET ME GO!! NOW.” kokichi wails underneath me, and i flinch. he takes advantage of my reaction and kicks me, hard. he moves to once again put the knife to my throat, but i grab the blade with my bare hand, slicing open my fingers. it hurts. it hurts so much.

i’m able to pull the knife away from kokichi and after a brief few seconds of fumbling around with it i’m able to hold it in my uninjured hand and point it at kokichi. from where im sitting, i can see how pissed he looks. his breaths are shallow and his eyes are wide with rage, and maybe a little fear.

it all feels so, sickeningly familiar. what the hell am i doing? if i back down or fail now, it’s the fucking end for me. i have no idea what he’ll do once im dead. and if i do succeed… well, prison would almost be better than this, wouldn’t it? so i hold my ground. i push the knife a little closer to kokichi, almost poking him as he had done to me just moments before.

“c’mon, kai-tan… you don’t really want to kill me, d-do you?” kokichi asks me, voice hoarse. “after all the time we’ve spent together, you can’t really want me dead, right? i’ve loved you and been there for you for years now… killing me now would be a betra-” i stab him.

i stab him again. “gah! k-kaito-!” and again. “aah…!” until he stops moving, and the gurgling and gasping turns to a final exhaled rattle.

i sat there for a moment, just looking at him. waiting. im not sure what i was waiting for, with his blood quickly drying on my hands, clothes and the floor. maybe i still expected him to wake up somehow, and finish me off.

numbly, i get off of his cooling corpse and stand. my legs are shaking, and im covered in cold sweat and blood. i… can’t think of the last time i had a shower where i actually got clean. i peel off the bloody clothes, wash my face off and bandage myself as much as i can stand to. afterwards, i leave kokichi’s dorm anyways, and wander the halls in a trance-like state.

as i walk throughout the halls, i bump into someone… that someone, as i try to clear the fog from my vision, is revealed to be saihara. “oh, m-momota-kun… are you okay? you’re crying…” he says, awkwardly fiddling with his shirt. it’s only then that i realize, fuck, i am crying… i hadn’t even realized. i don’t even know if i’m happy or sad. kokichi’s gone, but… i really don’t know how to feel about it.

“oh, sorry, shuichi…” his given name slips out so easily. it’s how i referred to him while we were friends, after all… “it’s nothing, just… walking around, yeah?” i say, trying to pull a smile onto my face. i don’t think it’s working. he can probably tell something’s wrong…

“um, where’s ouma-kun…? you two are always together when you’re out and about, ehehe…” shuichi asks, that chuckle out the end sound very awkward. he’s right though, me and kokichi are always together… before now anyway. i have to remember that i killed him, and that i’m not tied down by him anymore. it’s relieving, but i also have no idea what to do with myself.

i try to smile again. “oh, kokichi-sama…?” i begin, and realize i don’t need to refer to him that way anymore. “he’s… at our dorm. he sent me out to get something.” i continue. knowing shuichi, he won’t buy such an obvious lie. i can feel the sweat running down my forehead.

“did something happen between you two?” shuichi asks, immediately proving my thoughts true. fuck. i don’t know what to do here… i have no idea how he feels about me anymore. he might hate me because of how our friendship ended. i’m sure, no matter what i do here, that he’ll report me to the police and have me jailed for killing kokichi. even if it was in self defense and any look at my body will reveal all the evidence of kokichi hurting me.

i let out a sob. i can’t help beginning to cry further, and starting to tremble. shuichi looks at me with a look of pity. maybe… maybe he wouldn’t be so harsh…? i can only hope. i’m too used to cruelty, but shuichi and me used to be friends, after all. maybe he doesn’t hate me, or hold anything against me.

“momota-kun… no, kaito. you can tell me if something happened, okay? i know we haven’t really spoken in awhile and i have a lot of questions for you, but… i don’t think you would do anything that you didn’t need to.” shuichi says, voice gentle. is this manipulation? i don’t know anymore. kokichi has warped my ability to tell what’s manipulation and what’s not… but i want to trust him.

its a weird feeling, deciding to try trusting in someone even while all your senses scream at you to stop. but what other choice do i have here? “do you think that we could… c-catch up somewhere a little more uh… private?” i ask nervously. i know the dorms are sound proof or kokichi would have been found out years ago, but theres always the risk of someone walking out into the hall. plus, im starting to shiver from how cold it is out here and all the sweat on me isn’t helping.

“ah…” shuichi looks nervous, but continues, “sure. i was just out here to make some coffee anyways.” i think… that he’s lying, i could always kind of tell with shuichi, and my mind is still screaming at me not to trust him, but i’m willing to give shuichi a chance. he was always kind to me when were friends in the first year, even if i was kind of a dickhead myself…

okay. “lead the way to your dorm then, um… is it okay if i call you shuichi? it’s been a couple of years now since we really… talked.” i ask, sheepishly rubbing the back of my neck. “sure, i don’t mind. we never officially ended our friendship, we just… drifted apart, when you and ouma-kun got together.” shuichi replies, making my nervous energy with his own.

he walks with me to his dorm. man, it’s been so long that i forgot which dorm shuichi was assigned to. i haven’t been here in ages. we don’t have much time left at hope’s peak, now that i think about it. we’re in our last month here. what a time to finally escape kokichi.

“um… you may sit wherever you wish to, kaito.” shuichi says as he closes his door once we’re both inside. his dorm is so much more cleaner than kokichi’s. i was so used to all the clutter and mess of kokichi’s dorm that i forgot what it was like to see one of the dorms all cleaned up. interacting with shuichi is making me think about a lot of things…

anyway, i nod and take a seat on the chair next to shuichi’s desk. all of the things on shuichi’s desk are neatly placed and organized, just like the rest of the room. but that’s not important right now. “i don’t really know where to start…” i say, feeling unsure of myself.

“well, firstly, i’d like to understand why we stopped talking. it was very sudden and without explanation, so i’m not really sure if it’s because i did something or not. either way, it really hurt my feelings, if i’m to be honest.” shuichi answers. oh.

that’s one hell of a way to start things.

“it wasn’t me who really choose to do that. it was… ouma, who did.” i reply, to which i can immediately see the look of concern on shuichi’s face. “ouma-kun made you stop talking to me? why, a-and how?” he asks, voice wavering as he speaks.

“he wanted to isolate me. keep me all to himself, and he did it by… threatening me. he would always claimed that if i tried to stay friends with you and harumaki that he would stab me, or physically assault me.” i explain, eyes flickering around the room. i know he’s dead. i killed him, after all. but part of me is still expecting him to pop up, and for him to hurt me. it’s a feeling i don’t think will go away for a really long time.

shuichi’s expression goes dark. “he… h-he really did that, didn’t he? is that why you’re covered in bandages?” he asks, clearly growing concerned. all i can is nod in response. the words are getting caught up in my throat.

“it’s- it gets so bad”, i manage to choke out after a minute. i can tell the gears in shuichi’s head are turning, i know he’s thinking back to how much i’ve changed while attending hope’s peak. “it's just… too much.” i sniffle, trying to keep myself from hyperventilating and getting choked on tears.

“oh, kaito…” shuichi begins, eyes watery like mine. “i had no idea… i’m so sorry, kaito. i-i presume kokichi kept you quiet with the same threats he used to isolate you, right?” shuichi asks, voice shaky as he speaks. kaito nodded. “i- yeah it… after a while, it… became less of- of a threat.” i swallowed before continuing, looking down at my lap and squinting against my teary eyes. “it- became more… routine. sometimes it wasn’t to isolate me, it was just…” i shrugged and looked up, venom lacing the next words. “for ‘fun’”.

“i-…” shuichi hugs himself tightly, tears streaming down his face. “a-all this time i thought you abandoned me and harukawa-san. and it turns out all these years that you’ve been suffering all this horrible abuse. i-i’m so sorry, kaito, i really am…!” he chokes out those words, clearly struggling upon hearing the truth and having it recontextualize the last couple of years.

i tilted my head a little to the side, processing what shuichi had said. i… really hadn’t thought they had missed me, i really thought everyone… it’s like a rubber band snapping when i realize i had fully believed what kokichi had said, that everyone hated me now, that i had ruined all my relationships.

i was still hesitant to trust shuichi, but… hearing him say all this now, hearing someone else put the name to what it was, it felt like it was all rushing back how fucked up everything was. like a little bit of the numb fear of the past few hours was starting to ebb away. “i-” my words caught in my throat as i started bawling. “i- i thought you all- really-...”

shuichi approaches me, wiping away the tears from his eyes. he sets his hands on my shoulders gently. i can’t stop sobbing, to know the truth- to know they never hated me, when all this time i thought… “kaito. kaito, listen to me, o-okay?” shuichi says, voice still sounding uncertain, but i can tell he’s trying to sound reassuring… “i will help you. we can go to the police together, okay? everything will be alright, i-i promise…!”

oh, oh fuck no. “i- no- no i-” i’m shaking my head violently at this point, rolling back in the chair to back away from shuichi. he’s going to take me in. they’re going to arrest me for murder. i just got my friend back and i’m going to lose him all over again.

“please, we can’t- please- no- they’ll-” my words are coming out strained and cracked, i can tell i’m babbling through tears at this point but i can’t stop, i can’t even make the words make sense. i find my back hitting the wall and my eyes go wide. i’m completely cornered in here. fuck.

“k-kaito! p-please calm down… and don’t tell me…” his face goes pale suddenly. fuck. fuck, he has an idea about what happened. i’m fucked. “did you- are you free because y-you…” shuichi’s hand slowly move up to cover his face, and i can hear him cry and sob at his realization. he- he knows now, a-and… surely, he’ll tell, right? and i really will lose him…

my eyes flickered across the room in a panic, wondering if i could make a break for it and run. and just… keep running. but, shuichi was closer to me than i was to the door. fuck, fuck, fuck. i slid down the wall and pulled my knees up to my chest, hoping if he got closer to me i would at least be harder to grab and pull to the police station.

“it- it was-” i mumbled through tears, unsure if he could even hear me. “he was really going to- to k-kill me th-this time.” i stammered out. it was the truth, there was little use holding back now that shuichi knew. maybe he’ll take pity on me and ask for my sentence to be reduced, after he turns me in, i thought bitterly. “i couldn’t- i wouldn’t die in there. not like th-that.”

“kaito…” shuichi begins, as he slowly pulls his hands away from his face, revealing his crying face. “we- i-... if i had known, i-i wouldn’t have suggested turning to the cops at all…” his words come out slowly, bit by bit. he’s clearly struggling just like i am in this situation. “i-… we… we can go talk with harukawa-san. explain everything. i- i’m sure she would do anything she can to help… okay? we’ll… cover this all up. and you can be free, just like you deserve to be… d-does that sound okay to you?”

i feel like i’m going to vomit as i cautiously nod, feeling tense as i start to unfurl from my position. “i- yes. please.” i let shuichi take my hands and shakily help me up. i feel so awful, dragging him into this. i know he’s a detective. the law is probably really important to him, and now this. but at the same time, i’m so, so glad it’s him that ran into me. i don’t think anyone else would have been as understanding as he’s been about this.

i unsteadily rise to my feet with his help and lean my back against the wall, trying to steady my breathing. i’m… truthfully, still not totally convinced shuichi isn’t going to corner me with maki and call the police, or drag me there themselves. but i’ll follow anyways. i’ve missed harumaki, too.

shuichi leads the way to maki’s room, which just like shuichi’s - i had forgotten the exactly number to. both of us take a moment to attempt to calm down and stop looking so miserable. which is difficult, given why we’re here, but we manage what we can. shuichi, after taking another moment to ready himself, knocks on maki’s door.

the silence that comes after is kind of… horrifying, in it’s own way.

waiting to see what will happen, if this will all turn out to be a trick. i want to trust shuichi, and i want to trust maki… but it’s difficult. it’s so difficult. kokichi warped my view of the world, of other people, to such a degree that i literally can not even begin to understand. but just as i find myself starting to lose myself in my thoughts, the door opens.

“oh, hey saihara…” maki begins, but she pauses when she sees me. “... and momota.” i don’t know what’s going through her head right now, but it must be a lot. we haven’t spoken in years, i’m sure she must’ve come to the same conclusion shuichi did, before i cleared things up…

“may we come inside? w-we have something very important to talk about…” shuichi asks, and i’m glad that i don’t have to be the one to do the talking just yet. maki stands there, silently, before sighing. “... i guess i should’ve seen this coming some day. i can’t promise that i’ll be nice about everything, but i am willing to hear you both out, assuming this is what i think it is…” she says.

i let out a breath of air i didn’t even know i was holding. i’m so relieved, but all at once still very much scared and afraid what will happen… but i have to trust my friends, even if i end up being jailed.

i don’t have any other choices at this point.



…



it’s been a long couple of hours. i’m so… exhausted. so are shuichi and harumaki.

harumaki gives me a side glance. i can tell she’s a little more wary of me than shuichi was, she’s not quite as trusting. not that i can blame her, from their perspective i had just disappeared from their lives for no reason, and then showed up at 2 in the morning to ask for help burying the body of my… ex boyfriend. yeah, i guess thats what he is to me now.

my ex boyfriend, ouma kokichi.

it’s.. so strange, to think about how so much has changed in the past six hours. how because of one night, and happening to run into shuichi, my life- no, none of our lives, will ever be the same. i had these thoughts while we blearily walked to the train station, being too tired from digging and hiking to walk all the way back to school.

the walk and ride lasted in comfortable silence, the streets being fairly busy as it was mid morning by this time. what few words were spoken were mostly between shuichi and harumaki, filling me in on things i had missed. breaking news from social media, things in class, ongoings in their personal lives.

it felt… decidedly nice, to be with them again. i hadn’t realized how much i missed this until i saw them again. before, i was too blinded by a fabricated betrayal to think about them at all. but seeing how pained they both were to hear what had actually been going on, how quickly they agreed to help me with this… there’s no doubt in my mind right now that they missed me too.

the train halted at our station, and we got off.

“what do we do now…?” shuichi asks as we walk back to school. i don’t know what to say, and it seems like harumaki is in the same boat as i am. we kind of just look at each other in silence for a moment, all knowing very well what we’ve done today.

“... the most we can do is lay low for the rest of today. relax a little.” harumaki says, finally breaking the silence. “if we do anything too ridiculous today, we’ll get caught. tomorrow we can start attending classes again, it’s already too late to head to class at this point. and we’re kind of gross anyway. would probably be best to take an actual shower too, rather than just going with the stream water we used to clean ourselves up earlier.” she continues, speaking in a hushed tone.

“y-yeah… that would probably be the best at this point. i could definitely use some rest, and a nice shower.” shuichi replies, letting out a nervous chuckle. “what do you think, kaito?” he asks me, and it takes a moment for me to process that he was addressing me. i’m feeling… kind of out of it at this point, this whole thing has definitely taken it’s toll on me.

“i…” i begin, but the words aren’t entirely coming to me yet. “i- i’ll have to grab my dorm key, and my stuff. what’s worth saving, anyway. you both saw what a dump kokichi’s dorm room was. i’m not entirely sure how much i have at this point, too… kokichi threw out a bunch of my shit when he had me move into his dorm…”

“every word you say confirms exactly what i thought about ouma this whole time…” maki comments, but not unkindly. i can kind of remember how she seemed kind of unsure on how to feel about me and kokichi’s relationship at the start. i think she pushed her feelings down and just forced herself to accept the relationship even with all the red flags because she wanted me to be happy, and thought i was happy with kokichi…

and at first, i was happy being with kokichi. it took months before kokichi started to really become abusive, and at that point i was in too deep to just leave, especially not when he was threatening my life.

kokichi’s going to dominate my thoughts for a long time, i think. he won’t get out of my mind until we’re years away from now, if even… but i have my friends by my side. i’m sure i’ll be okay. i couldn’t have done this without shuichi and harumaki… they mean so much to me. i’m so glad i put my trust into them, and that i could rely on them, even if it’s been a couple of years.

we eventually made it back to hope’s peak and headed for the dorms immediately. maki split from us, heading to her dorm to get a shower in, and me and shuichi headed to kokichi’s dorm. together, we managed to gather up what we could of my things and found my own dorm key. after delivering my stuff to my dorm, shuichi insisted on taking me back to his dorm, and i followed him there…

“what was it that you wanted, shuichi?” i asked as shuichi closed the door. he turned to me, looking unsure of himself. “what… what do you plan to do when this school year is over?" he answered.

i… hadn’t thought of that, in a very long time. i had honestly lost hope of ever escaping kokichi and given up on any dreams i had. it took me a moment to respond, and shuichi was patient. “i… i have no idea.” i chuckled dryly. “i think for now, i just want to try to make it through the day.” i rested my head against the door frame, staring off into space. “who knows where i’ll end up?”

“ah. i see…” shuichi replied with a little nod. “i was just wondering since the school year is almost over, after all. but just wanting to get through the day make sense. this is the first time you can enjoy proper peace in… years.”

i scratched the back of my head awkwardly, “i didn’t mean for it to come out so depressing, but… yeah. things haven’t looked this good in.. too long. i just want to enjoy it while it lasts.” i stopped leaning against the door frame. “do you have any plans?”

“i plan on… moving into my once place, having a proper job as at detective at the place my uncle works. i… i-i don’t want to seem like i’m trying to pressure you into this, it’s totally fine if you say no, but maybe… if you’re okay with it, we could stick together. live as room mates.” shuichi says, as he awkwardly fiddles with the hem of his shirt. i can remember know that doing that is a nervous habit of shuichi’s, actually… but more importantly…

“that sounds like it could be nice,” i replied after a moment of thought. i… really dont know how i would do, on my own. and i’m starting to trust shuichi more and more, and it’s not like i couldn’t tell him if i changed my mind… “yeah. that sounds nice.” after a moment of silence i added, “is there um, anything else you need?” i imagine there's something else, this wasn’t such private info that it couldn’t have been said at my dorm.

“oh! um, yes, i-i do in fact…” shuichi answers, walking over to his coffee maker. he unplugs it from the wall and carefully walks with it up to me. “i want you to have this, kaito. i’m so glad you like my room mates idea, too…” he lets out a relieved sigh, “i was worried about how you would respond.” he says this all in a surprisingly light tone despite everything we’ve been through today, holding the coffee maker out for me to take. i take it in my hands and turn it around to look at it and feel myself relax a little for the first time in years.

“thanks, shuichi,” i say quietly, smiling a little despite myself. “come by my dorm anytime you need some 2 AM coffee again.” i look up to see his reaction at having been a little caught in what he had said earlier. for a moment my blood runs cold, and i'm so scared he’s going to react like kokichi did when i used to tease him and joke around all those years ago. but he doesn't. instead, his eyes widen a little bit, and his face gets a bit flushed.

“i- er… i will. thank you, kaito.”