PLEASE DON'T GO.

@lumnessence​

It’s a lot to process, winding up on a new island when you originally belonged to what was a glorified prison school.

Perhaps that was why Shuuichi beelined for the café. Sunny disposition aside, it also remained a nice place to think -- and it served coffee, too, which permitted Shuuichi the ability to have something to perhaps wake him up. The weariness of news crashing down upon him still weighed upon his shoulders, making his bones heavy as if they weighed as much as lead, and it was because of that that he hoped that caffeination might be able to jumpstart his ability to actually, well, get around. Shuuichi didn’t know how to feel about the whole situation so far, but having his brain on something that could kickstart his mind might help him form some kind of gameplan now that he was in some kind of...plan, separate from the game he originally came from.

It was so strange, not seeing overgrowth of foliage everywhere that he looked, and even stranger not to expect the presence of the monochrome bear who haunted him and the others every step. The greatest part about it that ailed Shuuichi, though, was the loneliness that it provided; suddenly the group that he gathered together and knew about at all times minimized to only one person in an unfamiliar area, completely isolated from the presence of his dear friends who he’d grown close to over the course of a month. No amount of coffee, sweet or bitter, would be able to erase the fact that he’d been displaced. And for what reason? Shuuichi didn’t know.

He winced as he fought the incoming headache as he lingered at his table, taking sips from the bitter coffee steaming within his mug. He knew he was part of some kind of project, but why? It sounded so different from what he’d become used to. Even now, he remained on edge as if waiting for someone to suddenly turn, waiting for an announcement to blare over speakers, announcing that a body had been discovered. It made it hard to even keep the amount of coffee that he managed to sip down, thinking about it.

@liarsking

Stumbling upon shaky legs hadn’t been the way that Shuuichi expected to spend his day. Apartments lined upon against each other within a city alight with activity scarce resembled the place that Shuuichi came from originally -- overwhelming amounts of buildings and streets faced him upon leaving what looked like a rather modern home, along with a cellular that he didn’t remember placing within his pocket. Obviously he needed to find his way to the island’s services so he could have some idea of where he was going; he knew that the cellular could probably provide a map, but it was different from hearing it in person. Especially disorienting was the given size of the damn place, nothing like the dome whence he came simply yesterday.

Fact of the matter was, aside from a letter of address, Shuuichi had no clue where he managed to wind up. He knew he had a roommate, at the very least, and he knew he was in some kind of program, but that’s about all he managed to glean and those were simply from observation. Everything else about this wasn’t so familiar to him, and it shook him to his core. So well he’d grown accustomed to a morning announcement waking him and fellow students that he did not expect to be anywhere else. It especially disoriented him given that he remembered seeing buildings and skyscrapers and cities galore, and all of them had been...well, collapsed to ruin. Not. Well, like this.

He sighed, and stretched as he made his way along the sidewalk, determining that the only that he’d manage to get answers was going to seek them out for himself; standing around in one place would hardly grant him the divination that he needed to determine his purpose here. His brain rattled within his head like sand, absolute mush and falling to pieces as nothing around him made any sense with what he observed before. It made sense of the fact that his body hardly felt like his when he walked, lumbering along concrete as if he was dragging a weight behind him.

Said weight became lead quickly within his stomach as taking his eyes off the pristine white lining the ground led to him seeing white of another kind... Specifically, white of a uniform, and of a uniform he never thought he’d ever see again outside of where he found it half-way flushed. Even more shocking to his system and freezing him in place, his breath caught in his throat, was the owner of said outfit, standing there in front of him.

And you know, decidedly not beneath a hydraulic press.

No way. Shuuichi had to be imagining things, right? He saw the video for himself! Had a whole trial around it, even! Multiple times did he watch that slide come down. Multiple times did he see the spill that it caused. And not once did he see the man in front of him, not once since the video was released. And yet. And yet.

“Ouma-kun?”