IN VIOLET LIGHT

This first ‘motive’ as Wataru supposed they were being called made him not feel quite all right. He wasn’t distressed or upset, or even angry, for that matter. An amnesiac presented with the possible threat of people forgetting who he was just seemed like a sick joke, and the place it was presented in and the person- er, thing it was presented by supported that. Even when the first threat came true today, Wataru was barely more than apathetic. He felt sorry for Tokiyo and the jokes being made about her by a disgustingly satirical state, but at the same time didn’t see the real problem. Amnesia was hell, but what this was barely compared to the events the boy scout had been through; he has the bandages to prove it. Entire chunks of memory, gone. Whatever didn’t get pushed to the caverns of his cranium was knocked out, and lost completely. It was amazing how much doctors were able to have Wataru remember through modern science and therapies. While citizens (according to the robotic serpent that claims such) forgetting that Tokiyo was ever a part of their lives is a definitely a problem, simply the sight of her could be enough to have them remember

Then again, Wataru was a fan of rock music, and he didn’t recognize the band 4/5 Doctors from his conversation with Hokori. If they were famous enough to get accepted to the school, then surely the kid heard something of theirs before his head trauma…

Nevermind that! Wataru was at Tokiyo’s door for a reason, and that was to reassure her that things weren’t as bad as it seemed. So he bravely raised his fist up, and gave the wood a few quick raps.

*Thmp Thmp Thmp*

She might've actually passed out from screaming so much. The knocking on her door had finally woken her up, and her slightly reddened eyes flickered open to glance over. With a frown on her face and an uneasiness in her step, she put her hat on and opened the door, expecting her bandmate to be on the other side.

"Aoki-kun, now'th really not the--"

That was not her bandmate. She stared down at Wataru through narrowed eyes, immediately trying to fix her very unhappy posture. No one needed to know of her true reaction to the whole thing. Certainly not... whoever this kid was.

"...Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here."

Everyone knows what’s wrong, anyway. And it’s hitting Hokori just as hard.

"…"

Without even asking permission, mostly because he can’t find the words, he slips into the room, pushing her away from the door and kicking it closed behind him. With a click, he can finally choke out the sob that he’d been holding onto since his venture down the hall started. Throwing his arms around Tokiyo’s waist and clenching her tightly, he closes his eyes, wailing away into her chest.

She can barely bring herself to look at him for more than a second or two. She was completely useless now and she knew it. Nobody was going to kill to save her reputation, why would they, so she's completely off the map now. Nothing's going to stop it. She watches the door close, and stares down at the teary-eyed vocalist. 

"...Nothing. It'll just... Be like I was never there. Not like that changes much anyway."

She grumbles throughout most of her reply before slowly reaching up to pat him on the head. Despite how unsure she actually is about it, she can't make Hokori any more worried about any of this, that'd be terrible. 

"You're the star of the show, Aoki-kun. It'll go on without me."

As the days had gone by, the apprehensions that Hokori had over their new life had whittled away significantly. Each day, he’d either spent his time alone locked in his room, or clinging to Tokiyo for safety, lying in wait for something, anything to happen. But nothing… ever happened. There was no murder to speak of- thank whatever god is out there for that, but his fears had left the pit of his stomach inch by inch until nothing was there at all. Nothing but boredom. The new living situation wasn’t ideal, by any means, but there hadn’t been any murders. Perhaps barring a few shows that they’d already missed, things would be just fine.

Of course, that’s when Monocobra decides to up the stakes.

Wordless for once, he’d followed quietly in Tokiyo’s shadow until they parted ways. The words hung low in his throat, but he never found the ability to verbalize them, and so he simply didn’t.

Even now they don’t find their way into the paper, only known as meaningless scribbles that are symbolic of nothing. Of course, it’s not as if it’s too dissimilar to another sleepless night, aside from the fact that he doesn’t have the words to from songs or even coherent sentences. Rising to his feet, he crumples the paper and chucks it at the wall, barking out his first word all night in the form of a curse. Who cares if it’s well after midnight? He’s already on his way down the hallway to Tokiyo’s room.

"Toki-san? TOKI-SAN? TOKI-SAN?!”

Nevertheless, it still bothered her. What was going to happen to the band? The band? The band? She acted like it wasn't a big deal. After all, she was made of iron and there was nothing that could break her. 

So long as other people were around, at least. The moment she managed to get away from everyone for a while, she screamed into a pillow and probably almost passed out in the middle of it. She was supposed to be the most successful person in the Murakami household! She was supposed to prove to all of them that she had talent and that they were going to regret everything. She was... nothing.

She stared up at the ceiling of her room as the door was pounded on. She really didn't want to answer that, no matter how urgent it sounded. No, Hokori, don't bother her right now, she hasn't even gotten any sleep. Eventually, though, she rolled out of her bed and dragged her feet to the door, opening it with a less than happy expression.

You get the feeling whatever he’s about to say isn’t going to be good. In fact, you’re willing to bet it’ll change your life forever.

The fuck is going on?

The events of the previous day seemed like a nightmare, if even that. Maybe just an odd dream with a few prophetic undertones about how shitty of a person Hokori’s bandmates think he is (self-betterment or something), but he wakes to find that unless he’s still dreaming, that simply isn’t the case. Seriously, he’s not a shitty person at all. He doesn’t need self-betterment! Oh yeah, and he’s waking up to the walls of that pink room that he fell asleep in just a few hours ago. It was probably one of the loneliest nights he’d suffered through in a while, the usual tossing and turning and rampant thoughts exacerbated by only being to focus on if his bassist is okay or not.

He hopes that he’ll run out into the hall and finally wake up to the harsh light peering through the blinds of his tour bus.

But that isn’t the case either. He’s lucky that his ‘dream self’ took the time to get dressed and straighten his hair.

She didn't need self-betterment anyway! She was the best Tokiyo anyone was going to get and... okay, so that probably wasn't a good thing, but it could've been worse. She could've been the worst Tokiyo anyone was going to get and that was definitely not something anyone wanted. Anyway. She was bitter about everything, and that certainly wasn't going to get any better. Actually, after the snake showed up, it only got worse. She was in a terrible mood and she didn't even want to leave her room any more.

The bassist, though, is sleeping. She had a problem with sleeping in late all the time, but she didn't seem to care. She only ends up waking up because of the knock on her door. Okay, so it wasn't so much knocking as it was a door getting beaten up. With a quiet groan, she gets up and opens the door a crack to see who was outside.

Typical. Okay, she probably should've expected Hokori. Good job Toki. 

"...Aoki-kun, god fucking damn it. I wath sleeping," she scolded.

Despite it, she opens the door anyway with a slight frown on her face. In a less annoyed voice, she continues.

"Relaaax. We’re together now and that’s all that matters, am I right? No one like, died or anything and we can probably get out just as easily as we got in. However that was. ‘S no biggie.”

Something gives him the seriously gross vibe that Tokiyo isn’t buying it at all. Hokori doesn’t exactly have the best track record for being the voice of reason. Nah, that’s always kinda been her thing. He certainly has one hell of a capacity to freak out, but for him, just being around Toki does a good job of absolving that. Then again, seeing her start to lose her cool isn’t exactly comforting either.

…Message? What message… oh yeah, that little card thing. He didn’t care to read it. How can you be expected to read something first thing in the morning when you wake up in an unknown location probably hungover?

"...That'th the thing. I don't know how to get out of here."

The place was far too big for her to scan the entire perimeter of it, her feet would hurt, but she doubted there would be a real way out if someone really did kidnap them. Judging from the memo, that seemed to be the case, and it only bugged her more. The cap of the lighter clinked rhythmically, keeping a steady beat as Tokiyo tried to make sense of the situation.

...He skimmed it. Of course. Why did she expect any different. It was okay, though. No problem. Now all she has to do is explain the situation and maybe he'd get a little bit of a grip on the situation. Yeah, that's exactly what's going to happen.

In any event, she responded, “Two of my friends! They also happen to be my bandmates.” Looking thoughtful, she retraced her steps to the best of her ability. No doubt she’d been wandering for a while… and their paths still hadn’t intersected. “With their orange and blue hair, they should be impossible to miss.” Yasue was one to talk, too. Her hair’s pink color had to be visible from a mile away, and only more so in places outside of Shibuya’s streets.

…Oh! She had almost forgotten! “My mistake. I haven’t introduced myself, huh? I’m Nozawa Yasue.” She hesitated for a second before deciding to voice her concerns too. “I can’t explain it, but you seem oddly familiar. May I ask your name?” If this really was Hope’s Peak, she was surely famous for something. Yasue could have very well heard of her, which was both an exciting and wacky prospect. And if she was, in fact, familiar, then maybe this ‘Aoki-kun’ was on the same level! 

...Wait.

"Bandmates?" Holy shit. No wonder this girl looked familiar. Tokiyo's eyes widened for a split second before returning to her usual scowl. Orange, blue and pink... That was... That was.... Nozawa Yasue! Of fucking course she knew that name... She was the drummer from...

"Evening Moonshine...."

Of course she's heard of that band. No wonder Yasue was so familiar. Fuck. If she was here to rival them, Toki had some news for her. No one was going to beat out 4/5, not now, not ever. At least Toki seemed familiar to the drummer as well, or else that would've been super awkward. Haha, yeah, I know your band, do you know mine? No? O...h... Right. Okay. Thankfully, though, Tokiyo managed to evade that problem for the moment. As long as Yasue recognized her name, at least.

"H… Hey. Seriously, that could be worth some money, you know.  That’s a perfect replica!  You might be famous, but you know it wouldn’t hurt to… to…. to just sign something!!"

Was her voice breaking? Gotta keep up with those mineral throat washes, Junko, no one likes a model with a squeaky, scratchy voice. This is so frustrating, though, Yo is starting to lose her shit. Why was getting a good, genuine signature to trace and copy over 1000 times so hard????

"Look. Here, okay, I get it. I’ll settle down. You probably get this a lot, and you just want to be treated like a regular gal. I understand. Did you… want information, or what??"  

"...A perfect replica. I'm so impressed." Her s' hissed, the only tone that was noticeable in her otherwise flat voice.

She wasn't sure what was wrong with Junko, or why Junko was affected by things like this so much, but she figured that maybe she always just overestimated models or something. Could they really not take this much backlash? Weak. 

Though she didn't really mind being famous and all, she also didn't really like other famous people because it obviously threatened her fame. Especially since she was just a bassist and some people were so much more. Like models. Like the one in front of her, presumably. She wasn't going to argue with her, though. Too many words.

  "…?"

Yeah, that’s definitely Toki.

"You and your conspiracy theories, I swear to god."

Who the fuck would kidnap them? Well… they are pretty famous and awesome and everything. Who wouldn’t want to kidnap them? But that’s still a hella worst case scenario conclusion to draw. Kidnappings… that stuff’s reserved for shitty action films or something. There’s no action here. There’s nothing. And if they were really kidnapped, wouldn’t there at least be the one dude telling them they’ll never see their families again, or something stupid like that?

"But I do wanna know how we got here. You freakin’ left me for dead, asshole!"

He manages to laugh in spite of his harsh words. It’s such a relief to see Tokiyo again. Not that he’s even been conscious for more than thirty minutes. It’s almost like his mom went to the store for milk and he accepted his fate of never seeing her again, only for her to return half an hour later.

What a needy child.

"... Yeah. Conspiracy theories." Maybe if she was a less angry spirit, she'd have laughed nervously there. 

Life is hard when you're a seasoned squirrel conspiracy theorist veteran. When things were finally important, no one ever believed you. What a pain. She wasn't going to say that they were kidnapped by a weird animal with black, beady eyes, but from the sound of "Monogoose" she wasn't exactly sure if she'd be lying or not. Fuck, maybe there's a mongoose or some shit running around here. She did not want to come face to face with a mongoose. That was just too much for her.

"If I knew where I left you for dead, maybe I would've gotten there faster, but I don't even know where the fuck we are right now."

Now all she has to do is try and come up with a good explanation behind the whole 'we woke up in some next theme park or some shit and I don't think there's an exit and our captor wants to see us at 6 and holy fucking shit I don't know what to do, we've been kidnapped, can't you see' without having to say all that much.

Sure, there were a lot of shitty-ass people around, and she was sure that nobody there really deserved to be kidnapped along with Hokori and her. They were kind of. Really big. But then again, there was that Junko girl from earlier. Who knows who was really popular here. Toki silently wondered about that for a while. How many famous people were there?

"E-E-Excuse me?? Wait, that was a pen. Are you blind??”

Watching as she is totally and utterly destroyed, the disguiser lost her cool pretty easily. She wasn’t used to talking to real celebrities, and when she had, they’d never been this. Well.

"Was that really necessary?! All I did was ask for an autograph; you know, you need to respect your f-  Uh. Fellow celebrities." 

Hmph!!! It was one thing to slight an over-enthused fan, but to be so rude to Junko Enoshima, of all people?? Toki had guts. After a few seconds of being generally appalled, the set of pigtails with eyes fumbled around behind the kiosk for another pen, signed a map brochure, and held it out. It was a flawless Junko Enoshima signature print, of course. 

Was she blind? "Almost."

Fellow celebrities. She never bothered to care about 'fellow celebrities'. Toki was a rock star and she didn't give a shit about whoever else was popular. All that mattered was that she was popular and that was it. She didn't even seem very enthusiastic about seeing Junko Enoshima in the flesh. Then again, she never really did seem enthusiastic about anything. 

"Is any of this really..." Fuck. No, she wasn't going to even try saying 'necessary'. Instead, she trailed off as she watched Junko Enoshima write out an autograph. She didn't seem any more interested at all. Slowly, she reached out to pick the autograph up. She took a look over it, as if she was inspecting it carefully or some shit, when really, she wasn't. 

After a moment, she slowly turned her gaze back to Shiro, stared right into her eyes, raised the sheet of paper into view, and ripped it in half with a straight face. She didn't even say anything for a while, just to emphasize on the fact that yeah, she didn't give a shit.

This being alone thing was kinda not the worst thing that ever happened to him. At first. Now, however, it’s gone on too long and it’s getting a little too weird. He’s met a couple of people, no one worth writing home about, but god if he doesn’t wish he was talking shit about them with Toki right now. If he doesn’t wish he just knew where he fucking is.

"Huh?"

The vocalist peers around an unassuming corner just in time to catch a glimpse of- yes,he would recognize that bassist anywhere. It’s hard not to, really.

He takes off in a sprint towards her, barely stopping before colliding into her towering frame- but stopping nonetheless. He’s aware that if he sent her to the ground, they’d both be in even deeper shit.

After god knows how long, she was so ready to just give up. Obviously if she didn't find him yet, he was nowhere to be found at all. It was probably for the best, though. He probably wouldn't live in a place like this, she thought. It was far too empty for a guy like him. She was kind of worried, though. What if he WAS here, and he was completely lost and freaking out or something? That wasn't exactly a good think to think about while trying to look for him, but it was what she was focusing on.

She was basically hopeless, until a very familiar boy in pink and black started heading toward her. Fuck. There he is. Her eyes widened slightly before her shoulders lowered in relief. Thank fucking god.

"...Where have I been. Where does it look like I've been. I was looking for you thith whole time." Should she tell him? Yeah. She was going to tell him. "I don't even know where we are. We might've been kidnapped." 

Good grief, was this woman a tree?

In their moment of silence, she continued to contemplate where exactly the two could have crossed paths. Maybe they hadn’t even spoken before. If they had, Yasue would seriously be contending for the record of ‘World’s Worst Memory’ - who could ever forget a person that noticeable?! And when she spoke, she revealed her lisp. That made two things that were hard to forget, yet Yasue could scrounge up no memories of talking to her until now. She never thought a day would come where even her forgetful bandmate could remember better than she could.

Her curly hair swayed slightly as her arm reached to part her side ponytail. Not only was the woman tall and lispy, she was also dangerously crass - but that was no excuse to be just as rude back! “Aoki-san, huh… I don’t believe I’ve seen them.” The smell of tobacco filled the air, and Yasue hoped for both of their sakes that someone would come along and tell them if smoking really was allowed around here. If there were signs, the drummer couldn’t see them.

Her lisp. She didn't want anyone to notice that. She fucking hated it. She didn't want to be recognized for something like that. The fact that she even had anyone that knew about it got on her nerves the most. Maybe she should just become mute. That would save her a fucktonne of trouble, now that she thought about it. Whatever, though. She already spoke and she wasn't going to do very good if she replied to 'do you want some help?' with nothing. Maybe that would just heighten this girl's worry. Not exactly what Toki wanted. Maybe it was just a good idea to try and co-operate, even if just for a little. She was looking for someone, too, right? 

"...Tch." She put the lighter and the rest of the box away again, of course she hasn't seen him. God fucking damn it. She was pretty disappointed, but what else was she supposed to expect, really? This place was probably huge and it would be fuckin' impossible to know the first person you meet has seen your bandmate. She was getting pretty doubtful, but it was worth trying a little bit. 

Upon hearing her name, since of course Junko was her name, since of course she was not some kind of impersonator, she looked up from her diligent examination of the park map with surprise. Oh, someone was here now, and.. she was just staring?? What did she want, exactly? Sure, Junko Enoshima was not afraid of crowds, but this was pretty weird.

"Yeeeessss? Please, hold the applause-"

Wait just a second. Sure, a world-class model like herself would hardly be taken back by a fellow celebrity greeting her in public. It probably happened all the time. This one, though. This was 4/5 Dentists.  This was a BIG DEAL!!! And…. uncharacteristically, Junko’s eyes widen in interest.

"Wait. Wait wait. Murakami Tokiyo?? Bass legend??? Hold on, you HAVE to give me your autograph! Er. I mean, you know… I’m just a big fan of your work, haha.” Smooth recovery.

She watched as this girl suddenly freaked out over her, and slowly looked down at the paper and pen in front of her. An autograph? She didn't know what to say. Oh, wait. No, she got it. It's okay. She raised a brow and nodded very slightly, first deciding to correct her on her name.

"... Murakami. And..." At that point, she reached over, picked up the pen, and...

Threw it over her shoulder. "I don't have a pen."

Denied.

Wowee, were these circumstances suspicious or what? A strange, nearly uninhabited village theme park? Fuzzy, missing memories of ever arriving at such a place? And, above all else, the suffocating stench of cotton candy??? None of this was very  normal, but hey, this girl isn’t one to complain about a little mixing it up.  In fact, she spent very little time going through her ID in confusion, brushing dirt off of the stylish new outfit she picked out for her first day at school, and beginning to explore the park.  Instead of dwelling on all that ch:0 noob nonsense, she had picked up the perfect place to wait out until 6pm.

"Yooooohooo!!  Anyone need some help? Huh?? What about you over there?!"

"...Junko."