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A deafening silence has swallowed the facility, and Tsumugi can’t take it anymore.
She thought she’d be fine just going for a walk. First around the courtyard, then around the corridors. They used to be…well, not full, nor comfortable, but certainly not this empty. In the beginning, when she was first getting accustomed to this prison dressed as a school, there was not much else to do except explore. So explore she had- and back then, it seemed like there was always a fellow student waiting around a corner, someone to chat up or search alongside.
It’s hard to tell how much time has passed since she left her room- an hour, maybe, of hearing the ground change under her shoes as she walks. Which should really be sufficient in calming her nerves.
It isn’t. It isn’t working.
Whether open air or spacious hallway, she feels like a wind-up toy cramped in its box. Each heavy second is a turn of the key. A battle not to burst under the pressure.
Without realizing, Tsumugi quickens her pace. She traces a beaten path along the gardens and finds only plants- not even an insect to make her hairs stand on end. She goes inside and scours the first floor. The second. Third. Fourth. Circles back down to the basement. She ducks into rooms with empty tables, passes by Ultimate Labs that should have been occupied.
There is nobody around.
Unsurprising, come to think of it. The last of their number are probably all shut away in their dormitories despite the plentiful leeway before nighttime. She could have knocked on someone’s door and asked for company, but…that didn’t seem like such a good idea.
Tsumugi begins to hum in a desperate bid to soothe herself. Information flits through her brain, second nature at this point. Sword Art Online, OP 1. Crossing Field, by LiSA. I remember when I went to a convention in an Asuna cosplay- I met seven other girls who had the same idea. They all had partners dressed as Kirito. I was the only one without a Kirito. We took a photo together- I loved that photo. I framed it in my bedroom.
Her speed is just a little too much. The girl collides with a closed door, hard enough to make her squeak out an off-key chord. She shivers off her disorientation, then turns the doorknob like a normal person. She glances inside, as she has with every other location within the academy, but staring for longer than two seconds makes her freeze.
This is a basement classroom that has been here since day one. Everything about it suggests that it was purposefully designed to identify on the retro side of stylization: there’s a chalkboard at the front instead of the usual projector screen, and the furniture is rickety, composed entirely of splintered wood and screws. One of the corner desks has a short leg that makes it wobble.
Tsumugi knows from experience that the chairs are uncomfortable. Cushions and blankets from the warehouse have been thrown on them- a measure taken to increase their suitability. Strings of little bulbs are taped to the walls. Cobwebs stick to the corners. Several chairs are unaligned. Writing utensils and trash lie disorganized on the shelves and floor. It smells like dust, cloth, and cola.
The slate still bears an assortment of little messages and drawings. Centered in the lower quadrant is clumsy chalk penmanship:
DETENTION ROOM ☹
Her glasses nearly fall off her nose. She pushes them up and feels like crying, because she remembers. She starts to slam the door, but stops partway through the action.
…After a moment, she tentatively lets go of the knob, and enters.
The string lights are motion-activated. They automatically switch on, imbuing the room with a yellowish glow. It feels like blasphemy to tread upon this frozen slice of the not-so-distant past. Tsumugi tiptoes around a discarded soda can. She takes a chair, one with a thick autumn-patterned pillow that sighs under her weight. She looks at the board. And she reminisces.
Voices. Creaking chairs. Crayons and paper. Fabric rustling. The crisp snaps of fizzy drinks being opened. Chalk, scratching. Warmth.
Ghosts.
Some seated, others standing. A few at the front of the classroom. One of them has a wide smile that screams mischief; he grips the chalk and stands on his tiptoes, moving along as he writes with all the passion of a childish artist.
“Welcome to detention!” he chirps, before circling the frowny face he’d drawn. “Since this academy is pretty much a prison, we’re imprisoning ourselves in here to make double negatives. Ta-da: paradise!”
A girl in the front row nibbles on a bag of chips. “I’d prefer paradise in, like, the arcade. Not some 1900s classroom.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers!”
Tsumugi hears herself pipe up. “I think it looks much nicer after we added all the blankets and lights.”
“And snacks.” A young man adds.
Another teenager nods in agreement. “We’re making our own paradise!”
Someone grumbles, “Shouldn’t plan on staying long enough to need it.”
“W-well…if we really can’t leave, then…”
“Tsumugi?”
Broken from her reverie, she flinches and looks up. Standing in the doorway is a boy with green hair and deep, searching eyes. One hand is resting on the wall as he surveys the area, gaze lingering on the words in white.
It takes a beat too long for her voice to work. “Rantaro,” she greets. “Hello. I was just, um…thinking.”
Rantaro Amami, the Ultimate Adventurer, hums a low note. He approaches, letting his palm slide off the dull plaster. “Thinking can be dangerous.”
“I-is that so? I guess that can be true…” Tsumugi fiddles with the pleats of her skirt. In the context of a Killing Game, she isn’t sure what’s worse: being alone, or being with a single person and no one else. But she’s always liked Rantaro- they worked together repeatedly to investigate and solve class trials- so perhaps this will be fine.
He claims the chair right across from her, which is adorned in a padded baby blue blanket. He drags it closer to her and sits facing its backrest- feet on either side of the seat, arms resting on the top rail. The chair totters as if taken off guard by the sudden occupation, but steadies quickly. He’s quiet at first, merely watching her and the surrounding area. Silence marks the air.
Tsumugi hates it enough to clear her throat lightly. “So, erm, why are you here?”
“I was walking around when I noticed the door was open, and you were inside.”
“Everyone else is in their rooms, though. Why not you?”
In a fluid movement, he tilts his head and brings it to rest on his knuckles. “Two other people hardly qualifies as an everyone else.”
She tries not to bristle, because everyone else is dead. Her friends, his friends. Allies-turned-enemies. Gone.
Thankfully, Rantaro dials it back. He shrugs. “Anyway, I just didn’t feel like doing nothing.” He blinks slowly, then gestures languidly at her. “Neither did you, it seems.”
Tsumugi has always been intrigued by this boy. The way he moves is catlike and effortlessly calculated. Every word from his mouth is honey to her ears. She likes his demeanor, the way he carries himself and speaks. Knowing, yet enigmatic. He’s like an ocean of mystery that warmly invites her to linger. Fiction come to life. And goodness knows she loves fiction.
She could get lost in his eyes, their depth and ripples of soul. Right now his attention is momentarily diverted to his nails, which were painted mauve but are now mostly chipped, revealing the tender keratin beneath. Light reflects on his piercings, as captured as she is by his presence.
She coughs and answers before things can get awkward again. “I’m only trying to wind down a little. I’ve been feeling plain awful since the last trial…”
Rantaro blinks, eyes lidded. His bangs drape over his face like a gloomy curtain. There’s a darkness there that the ornamental lanterns can’t chase off. “Only since then?”
“Well. The first trial was the worst.” She admits. “But this doesn’t feel much better…”
He flexes his fingers. Silver clinks against silver. A few of his rings are spiked, so Tsumugi thinks of a particular set of prop gauntlets she’d once worn. If he punched someone, it would hurt a lot. She knows it would. Those spikes have drawn blood.
Since he doesn’t answer, she refrains from pursuing the topic- it wasn’t one she was fond of, to begin with. She plays a new song in her head, wishing she could turn up its volume and shatter the quiet. She wonders if the other two survivors are faring alright. They’ve been so frightened…
“It’s weird,” Rantaro whispers suddenly. “Now that they’re dead. Everything’s so…quiet.”
Tsumugi is almost taken aback by the comment. She smooths down her shirt and hesitates before replying. “…It really is. That’s why I had to walk around, you know? Try to…get my mind off of the silence.”
“Things weren’t really loud before.” He muses.
“I suppose we can just tell when something’s missing.” She glances at the garbage on the ground. “Sixteen people is a lot. For it to be only four now…”
She briefly lets herself lapse back into her earlier trance. The phantoms fizzle into her mind’s eye.
“HEY!” The troublemaking boy shouts, waving his hands incessantly. “RANTARO! C’mere!”
The Ultimate Adventurer of the past pushes off from where he’s observing against the wall. He walks up. “Yes?”
“I have something to tell you.” The boy chirps.
“Let’s hear it, then.”
“Nuh-uh! Read it!” He turns to the board and scrawls something short, waiting for a reaction.
I ♡ you (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)
That’s what it still says.
Rantaro stares at the message, then at the author. His face is carefully blank. “It’s been maybe five hours since I found out you and the others even existed.”
The gremlin scratches an addition to the message (it says I ♡ you (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) forever) and bats his eyelashes innocently. His right sneaker gives away a hint of nervousness; the sole traces a small circle on the floor.
Rantaro reads the new word, and his mask melts away. He smiles with the warmth of a hearth in winter. He takes a spare piece of chalk and writes underneath: love you too, little guy :)
Then he pats the boy’s head, gently ruffling the hair there. The reaction is a flinch at first- but when no pain follows, the boy opens his eyes and gingerly leans into the contact.
Tsumugi ends the memory there. That little boy is dead. She cannot bear to think of how his lively, twinkling eyes were found open and soulless and no longer crying in pain. She never did forgive his murderer- and neither did Rantaro, who had sent the blackened off with a vicious strike to the face.
The present Rantaro’s eyes clear up as quickly as they mist over. He rubs his chin, digits dragging slowly over his cheek. “I don’t think this is the best place to get your mind off of the killing game, is it?”
The girl sighs. “No. No, you’re right. I just…” Her voice wobbles, shakier than that stupid desk in the corner. “H-how could this happen? To them? And us? For them to die in such horrific ways- it’s so t-terrible…”
He averts his gaze to a crumpled napkin on the nearest table. There’s something sticky, probably spilled juice, that holds the paper fast even as it dangles partially off the edge. How odd, that Monokuma destroys their lives- erases the bodies and crime scenes- but he keeps this lived-in room intact.
Maybe it’s kindness. More likely it’s mockery. Most probably, indifference.
“I’m sorry,” Tsumugi blurts as her glasses start fogging. She’s losing the battle. “I-I’m so sorry…”
“Ya got nothing to apologize for.” He counters, but still doesn’t look at her. After a minute, he adds quietly: “I miss them, too.”
Tsumugi sniffles, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. “I-I suppose crying won’t solve anything, huh?”
“Never did. Never does.” Rantaro reaches into his pocket and pulls out an orange handkerchief, extending it to her. How cute the fabric is, embroidered with miniature ruby-red apples and emerald stems. Tsumugi accepts it. She recognizes the handiwork as she wipes away her tears- smells a trace of perfume- and her heart aches worse.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. Despite his aloofness, he still made a kind gesture. She gives the handkerchief back.
“No problem.” Rantaro begins to pull away. His fingers brush against hers.
Warm. Real. Alive.
Spontaneously, Tsumugi’s hand twitches to cover his, as if she could steal its comfort. After twelve students were ripped away, having the reassurance of someone living became a privilege. As embarrassing as it is, she craves it.
Rantaro stops. Their eyes meet. He’s surprised, but…perhaps not opposed? If anything, he looks sad. Remorseful.
A fluttering heartbeat passes. He lets his hand curl tentatively around hers, guiding their arms to rest on her desk. Tsumugi tries not to hold her breath as her cheeks warm up. She can feel his pulse. Steady, strong. Gentle.
“It’s alright,” he soothes her. “You deserve to rest.”
A killing game has no place for love. They’d loved their fellow students, brief as their bond was. Monokuma made clear that attachment and cooperation only deepens grief. Yet here she is, hands intertwined with a boy that fascinates her and makes her feel real.
Tsumugi will die in a few hours. She does not know this. She hopes that herself and the three living students can gather one last time in the detention room and be together, but this will never come to pass.
Rantaro will kill her and the two others who remain. He is fully aware of this. He has been planning to ever since the last execution.
But that is later. For now, they are here.
Here, in this copper-warm classroom, where the silence of the dead is a little less suffocating, the two of them taste peace. They grasp at the vestiges of people they knew and cared about, if only for mere days, and dream of their ghosts. Here, where they laughed within a prison of their choosing, their selves are not erased and their consciences not yet blackened.
Here, for a little while, they can pretend nothing will change.
Here, for a time too short, they can love.