#da6t

“Look at me- pushing daises,

Asking for the one true reason.”

~ ☁☂☔

“Look at me- pushing daises.

I’m not ready- to lay this to rest.”

The days following had no doubt been taxing on many of them. 

Well, if this entire event hadn’t been taxing to begin with. Murder was hardly a comfortable subject; especially when it happened graphically and happened to feature the bodies of people you’d just yesterday had breakfast with. However, following Chou’s death, Sarara Orikasa had taken things a bit… more personally than usual. Not that he couldn’t see why - a love story worthy of a drama serial of some sort took place just before her death, but…

… Well, that she’d holed herself up in the deceased’s room for days seemed to be a bit… excessive. Not that he was one to judge anyone’s grief, but there came a point when one’s coping mechanisms just became… erm, detrimental to one’s health.

Well, that, and he’d owed her half an apology and his condolences proper. Genta knocked on the door.

“Orikasa-san, it’s Sugai. Are you in?”

Even a total moron could see how much Chou meant to some. Senpai to some, lover to one, enigma to all, etcetera. It was difficult, awkward even, to watch the two lovebirds knowing one was about to die in a guaranteed horrific death. All that romantic build-up dragging on until Chou was yanked away to her pending doom was sure to make this experience hurt a lot more than it needed to.

And hurt it did. Hurt it did. (Classy music over an execution. Oh gee, what depth, round of applause for Monomi, ladies and gents!)

Ai jumped up at Chou suddenly slamming down in the middle of the courtroom, leaning over her podium to get a closer look at the mangled beauty. She visibly winced at the writhing girl, glancing over at Sarara right beside her. Was--was Monomi serious? Did she take Michiko seriously at last minute? If this is the amount of mercy they'll get, then--

*SPLAT*

oh. There we go.

The initial shock set in the court. The fact that a comically large flyswatter just flattened Chou into a pulp. Then eventually, it seemed Chou's final words got to them, Sarara especially. "We're all going to die." As if their previous soap drama-worthy moment suddenly lost its bitter-sweetness and the permeating scent of blood and crushed bone (Uh, does that even have a smell? Well you get my point.) hammered in the fact that another person had kicked the bucket under their own vote. Just like before.

As for Ai, she...stood. Covering her nose to block the overwhelming scent of Chou's crushed corpse, she looked to rest of her classmates, witnessing sense of despair several seemed to succumb to--Michiko, Sarara, Yuka. She blinked a few times as she balled her fists, still glancing around and waiting for someone to stand and speak up. Something--someone to break the damn doom and gloom. Are--are they serious? It was the same shit like the past three weeks, and they've been (relatively) fine, yeah? They've kept going--hell, it's amazing they've made it up to now. Why's everyone starting giving up NOW? WHY NOW?

...no. This wasn't the same as before. Two kids were gone this time--one of the most efficient (S-sort of. Let's forget that slip up, though, he's dead anyway.) investigators, to boot. No one was acting right all week, of course people like them would kick the bucket, right? To add to that...it felt different to see someone's life get snuffed right in front of your eyes rather than on a screen. There was a sense of doubt from a screening, perhaps of hopeful denial. Takahiro, Senji, Akio...even if their deaths looked very real, something about their purely on-screen deaths felt as if it was merely a movie. (Again, that's probably just hopeful thinking, huh?)

As the mangaka was itching for someone to break the silence, she looked down at the floor. Oh. Blood had gotten on her pumps.

---

Cue a bored Ai wandering into the second ward a few days after, still trying to find ways to ward off the bad vibes that still lingered after the trial. Sketchbook in hand, she had her sights on the costume shop. That could probably be good enough of a distraction for her--there didn't seem to be much people around, since the past few days consisted of silence and mourning (Christ, she knew it was serious, but geez.), so maybe there wouldn't be a mannequin fiasco like before. Shaking off the thought, she headed down the street until she happened to spot a familiar green-haired philosopher.

"Oh? Yo. Fancy seeing you here, Genta the Great."

As the vial was first handed to him, the Prince had scoffed.

“Do you offer us poison, Rabbit? This appears to be naught more than Windex.” 

… Still, both Chou and Sarara had downed it without any fuss, as were others; if it would ease this headache, perhaps death or full-on madness would have been worthwhile. Bottoms up.

The results were… more instantaneous than he was expecting. Almost immediately, his headache had faded and the cold sweat that had taken him over the past few days had seemed to vanish, as if from thin air… and in its place, his awareness was drawn to a newfound difficulty breathing. Sucking in a low breath, he reached up gingerly to touch… a dent he hadn’t quite conceptualized in his weakened state in the side of the bridge of his nose.

That… probably wasn’t good. And neither was the chill on his toes, or the draft on his… erm…

Where in the name of every great philosopher were his pants.

A faint memory came to him, one of authority being permitted to do whatever he desired in public. Meaning he… the entire time…. oh. Wordlessly, he pushed his former ‘cape’ from his shoulders in favor of tying it around his waist, hoping to preserve whatever scrap of modesty he had left. 

“……” 

Maybe this could be …. mmmm….  overlooked in light of the Shakespearean-esque tragedy unfolding near the elevator. As much pity as he’d felt for both of them, he faintly remembered their abuses and recalled having said his piece. He was staying firmly out of that one.

[cw: serious unreality episode]

Blank canvas.

That was what one always started with, wasn’t it?

And x-rayed past the layers, the hidden corrections, the undersketch… that was what always lay beneath even a masterpiece.

She’d only been an arm’s length away from Chou, when it happened. One more second, and she could have reached out and…

Ah. That was her arm, wasn’t it?

Oh, Chou was right there.

She’d studied French for a time, hadn’t she? Rococo, Fauvism, Surrealism… she’d always had an interest. And the words being spoken, combined with the half-finished picture she had of the girl before her, fit together to make… something Cubist. Unnatural angles, which together gave a complete perspective of a form.

Chou was the perfect name for a young person like myself, as it’s multifunctional…

We’re all going to die.

It seemed as though the rest of the room had vanished. Just an infinite, white net of identical points. Whatever Michiko and Yuka were saying was beyond the four corners of this frame. There was only… the girl before her, her dearest heart, just a pace or two away.

…How were they alive with their torso bent like that, anyway?

It took two steps for her to close the distance between them. Then, just a moment to sit seiza beside them, the pool of blood coming up to touch her knees like a slow tide. The sight was oddly… out of place, as though she was just sitting by the woman’s bedside, waiting for her to awaken again.

“You can’t die. They can’t kill you. I won’t let it happen. So don’t say farewell, Chou. Chou. Ch— Ch…”

The same words as before, this time in barely a whisper. It was clear they really were addressed to Chou, as though the other woman could listen now. The same full-body convulsion as before was slowly taking her over, her eyes glassy in total lack of recognition of the classmates before her. And then… as though the life was leaving her own body too, she slowly crumpled next to the corpse, her face just inches away from what had been the other woman’s.

A voice that wholly wasn’t her own left her, still quiet as a ghost. For a moment, it almost sounded like Chou’s spirit really had returned.

“Fate isn’t done… Oh… my… god…! I’m empty…!”

What else, indeed?

Sarara had resisted crying until now. The combination of the adrenaline rush and her determination not to let her girlfriend see such a sight in her last moments had held her back. To tell the truth, while she was fragile in many other ways, she wasn’t the kind of person you could ever remember seeing crying in general — her feelings more often remained in the realm of the abstract, locked behind some door incomprehensible even to her.

But there was something about Chou’s response, and the soft, soft contact, that just...

Ah.

A door had opened.

(Chou really, really wanted her to have— a future.)

When Sarara shed the first tear, her forehead still rested against Chou’s, the smile she wore this time was genuine. Bittersweet, at the thought of what was to come, but... the earnest love behind such a wish, being made for her, made her believe the words coming out of her own mouth more, just a little.

“My dear— that’s... that’s a wish I’ll carry with me for the rest of my days. I will. But, until then... can you... watch over me? If you can? And I’ll tell you all about that long, warm life, when...”

A choked-up pause — as she reached up with both her hands to cradle Chou’s face, gazing up just as intensely, fingers lightly, lightly tracing the shapes everywhere she could reach. The gesture was just as much to soothe the other girl as to form, well... a memory. Sarara had a very, very good memory, but she didn’t think she’d ever be able to capture this moment to her satisfaction.

She could feel the tears flowing down her face now. They wouldn’t stop. How strange was that?

“I would have adored spending a future with you, Chou.”

The fever had made Sarara truly fearless. At any other time in her life, she might never have accepted the antidote. But, seeing her girlfriend like this... she’d never been more certain that she needed to tell Monomi to lift the fever. If that was what it took for them to talk as the real Sarara and the real Chou, she would stare their death in the face with all the terror her heart could muster.

So, quietly, she chose fear. Fear, and tenderness, too vast for her to name.

Besides — she didn’t really think Chou Nakahara would go down that easily.

A sense of purpose none of her classmates had probably ever seen in Sarara before was present in her walk as she made her way to Chou’s side, downing the antidote in one shot. And then... for a moment she just gazed up very seriously, leaning up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her girlfriend’s ear, then fondly smoothing down the creases in their jacket.

“...Chou. I'm— so glad to see you again! I wanted to wait until... I could be truly certain it was ‘us’ speaking. And, well... I’m not sure whether what you said earlier was due to the despair fever, but I really wanted to talk to you about that.”

It was clear she had something big to say to Chou. Unusually straight to the point, and there was a strange, steely look in her eyes as they met her girlfriend’s. Was it the leftover adrenaline rush from the despair fever, or...? No. This was, without a doubt, the genuine Sarara Orikasa. The resolution in her eyes was different to minutes ago — not full of fearlessness, but something warmer, fixed entirely on Chou in that moment.

“...It’s... alright to be empty. You know that, right, Chou? It hurts, but... it’s not wrong. I promise I understand, because, well...”

A pause. She didn’t seem to want to focus this on herself — rather, her subtle goal seemed to be to give Chou something steady to focus on right now rather than imminent death — so she took another breath and tried again.

“Sometimes, I think, it’s impossible to escape the chains of fate or expectation fast enough. Or... even when you do break free, the damage can’t be undone. But, what we can do is... keep surviving until the very last. You were the one to remind me of that, Chou. We did that, together. And... for as long as you’d like me by your side, we’ll keep searching for a place where we can live the way we want to.”

Despite the urgent firmness of her words, the way she gathered her girlfriend’s hands between her own, strangely unshaking hands was nothing but gentle. So, in fact, was the chaste, tender kiss she then pressed to the gloved hands, eye contact still unfaltering.

“...I don’t wish to invalidate anything you said about yourself, but there’s one statement I truly need to correct. When you said you were nobody’s favourite person? You’re... well, you’re mine. And, more importantly than that, you deserve to fly free. I promise, my dear heart... you already are. Since the first time we spoke — I mean, really spoke — I’ve thought that if anyone could metamorphose beyond their fate, beyond anything, it’s you. But you don’t have to do it alone, Chou. Chou, I...”

Whether or not Sarara stated her love now, she was certain she was radiating it with every gesture. The fact had become impossible to hide. But... now wasn’t the time to selfishly state her emotions, and that really would give this speech the air of a goodbye.

Chou wasn’t going to die. She couldn’t. The very thought broke her heart with its impossibility. And she could profess every single feeling in that heart of hers, that heart that had grown so very large lately thanks to the woman by her side, once they were both somewhere far, far away from here. Right now, getting her girlfriend there was her duty.

“...I’ll... remind you of that every single day, you like, once we get the hell out of here. Ah... pardon my French. Now, my dearest... can I help you try and survive?