#ch2 do2

[♫♫♫]

Aiichiro couldn’t help but feel grumpy about this whole thing, but then again, when was he not feeling grumpy about something? A talent show? It seemed so trivial. Two people were dead. Dead. One murdered, and the other murdered in turn. Two corpses and they wanted the rest of them to have a talent show? 

It was insulting. If the blue mascot really wanted to be helping them it could be giving them a way out. Not this. Bullshit.

But, on the other hand, maybe that thing was right. Maybe they needed something, something to keep them from being too self destructive. It was like trying to bandage a fault line, but maybe it would give them the time they needed. If everyone worked on this talent show, it could distract them long enough to get murder out of their minds, and then maybe Aiichiro could... do something. Once they’d been far enough removed from this whole murder thing, they might be more willing to cooperate.

Aiichiro was mulling this over to himself while enjoying a cigarette. He’d had a lot to think about the last few days. So much had changed. So much had been lost. He had planted himself on the floor of the viewing platform, staring out into the ocean pressing down on their glass cage. The smoke was held between his teeth and he puffed little grey clouds into the air with each breath. He missed Matsuyama, and his boys, and the councillors. Missed his pal Isamu. He’d never thought about how hard life would be without them. Would he have been able to survive Hope’s Peak Academy without them there?

In his bandaged hands was his guitar, idly being played. His fingers ran up and down the neck, striking frets in time with the pick in his other hand, playing scale, arpeggios, and abstract melodies. He’d probably prep a song for the show, but hadn’t decided which yet.

[♬♬♬]

With the trial over and done with a number of days ago, things had more or less settled down to a usual rhythm. Except it was a usual rhythm that no longer included Michi or Tyler. Aiichiro hadn’t know them well, hardly at all, but there were always just around, and now they weren’t. 

Some people would have been left with grief or fear after the trial, but what Aiichiro felt was anger. He was angry at Tyler for stooping so low as to commit murder. He was angry at that robot for twisting their arms so hard as to make one of their own commit murder in the first place. He was angry at those among their number who had had the audacity to jeer Tyler and act so flippantly about his sacrifice. And he was angry a himself, for he felt that, somehow, somehow, he should have been able to stop this.

Aiichiro was a leader. He protected his gang, looked out for them. He knew how to keep the ones worth keeping in line, and how to weed out the ones who would bring the enterprise to ruin. He knew how to keep them safe. And he had failed. He should have done something.

But, all the same, he couldn’t help but feel a little grateful. Isamu was safe. The student council was safe. The Bleeding Hearts were safe. He was grateful for that. But they were safe because Tyler and Michi had died in their place and he hated himself for it.

He had just finished yet another round of beating the shit out of yet another punching bag. He’d managed to tear the bag, and tear his knuckles. He’d changed his wrappings yet again. And then he’d showered, and then meticulously combed and gelled his hair, because for fuck’s sake, everything was going wrong, and he deserved some goddamn level of decency and routine in this hell.

And so, Aiichiro Koibuchi found himself in the dining hall, working his way through a post-workout meal, too tired to feel angry. He just felt numb, Spent. He didn’t even care that someone was approaching him.