under the skin, against the skull
Oct. 11th, 2018 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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gloomychan[erin's ndrv3 virtual reality au. here be sads.]
[ you may have been told it, once; or maybe, you'd read it in a magazine.
"everyone is equal in death." and, well, congratulations! the majority of you are dead - or at least you were. that is, until you wake up, and the last thing that you remember is that you've been murdered. by the hand of another student, or a button pressed by a homicidal robotic teddy bear - well, it all shakes out to be the same, in the end, now doesn't it?
you push at the glass in front of you, choke on the liquid you're suspended in. do you know your name? can you even remember? it doesn't matter, because soon, the glass in front of you disappears. hands grip your limbs, an arm wraps around your waist, and you find that you're too weak to fight. a beaming man in a white coat speaks. he calls you a name you barely remember.
it takes a moment to process what he says. ]
Congratulations! You've made it through the 53rd Danganronpa!
[ well, not exactly. He'll explain, whether you choose to listen or not, and there's nowhere for you to run. your prize money has been deposited - and it's quite the pretty penny, even if it's nowhere near as much as a real survivor would earn. you'll stay here, in the facility, for medical testing and psychological care. You'll be reunited with your fellow students, some of whom have already woken up! isn't that exciting?
and then you're whisked off to a hospital bed, tied down as though you're a prisoner, stabbed with an iv drip that no one will tell you the purpose of. and you remember one last thing that the man told you. ]
You'll remember who you used to be, eventually! Of course, you'll keep your memories of the game - but hey, now you remember how to be talented! Your memories will come back...all in due time.
[ you may have been told it, once; or maybe, you'd read it in a magazine.
"everyone is equal in death." and, well, congratulations! the majority of you are dead - or at least you were. that is, until you wake up, and the last thing that you remember is that you've been murdered. by the hand of another student, or a button pressed by a homicidal robotic teddy bear - well, it all shakes out to be the same, in the end, now doesn't it?
you push at the glass in front of you, choke on the liquid you're suspended in. do you know your name? can you even remember? it doesn't matter, because soon, the glass in front of you disappears. hands grip your limbs, an arm wraps around your waist, and you find that you're too weak to fight. a beaming man in a white coat speaks. he calls you a name you barely remember.
it takes a moment to process what he says. ]
Congratulations! You've made it through the 53rd Danganronpa!
[ well, not exactly. He'll explain, whether you choose to listen or not, and there's nowhere for you to run. your prize money has been deposited - and it's quite the pretty penny, even if it's nowhere near as much as a real survivor would earn. you'll stay here, in the facility, for medical testing and psychological care. You'll be reunited with your fellow students, some of whom have already woken up! isn't that exciting?
and then you're whisked off to a hospital bed, tied down as though you're a prisoner, stabbed with an iv drip that no one will tell you the purpose of. and you remember one last thing that the man told you. ]
You'll remember who you used to be, eventually! Of course, you'll keep your memories of the game - but hey, now you remember how to be talented! Your memories will come back...all in due time.
TRYING THIS I GUESS
Date: 2018-10-11 03:11 pm (UTC)He runs the fingers, warm and soft, against each other, feeling the give of skin under pressure, watching the way they flush white and leak back into red after a moment. It's not normal.
He's not himself. This isn't real.
Kiibo looks broken, ironically closer to a computer rebooting than he ever was in the game. He doesn't participate in group, and keeps to himself in general. He could probably use a visitor to snap him out of things.]
wow so shocking
Date: 2018-10-11 03:47 pm (UTC)Miu is waiting, she knows that; waiting for bruises or scars to appear, waiting for proof that the life had been choked out of her. Even as the talentless Miu Iruma - the girl who she had been before - knows how impossible this is. But she had done it herself, hadn't she? In the context of the game, as the fabricated SHSL Inventor. As the genius.
She wants to put her fist through the mirror, but refrains; because she's always been a coward, and because she knows one of the other girls has already had privileges taken away due to similar outbursts. Her name escapes Miu's grasp, for the time being - Asui? Asahina? No, wait -
And her own voice, unbidden, echoes in her mind: Bakamatsu.
Right. That. Something like that. ]
Fuck!!
[ She kicks over the empty wastepaper basket in the corner of her room. There. Perfect.
She locates a thick black choker, pulls it around her neck and fastens it close to her skin. After she'd refused to leave her room without one, Team Danganronpa had provided an assortment of chokers. Miu adjusts its position carefully, over where she can still feel the phantom pain of unbreakable toilet paper around her neck. She counts to ten. Miu reminds herself that she can breathe.
And then she strides out into the hallway, heading for the common room with determination. If this is how those fuckers want Miu Iruma, they're gonna get Miu Iruma. She may seem smaller in her sweatpants and t-shirt and her hair done up in pigtails, but she's still the motherfucking genius that she had been!
She has to be, because the other option is returning to mediocrity.
Miu strides into the common area with purpose, heading to the kitchen - and stops dead in her tracks, staring at the face that she doesn't recognize. ]
Who the fuck are you?!
this... got away from me, oops
Date: 2018-10-14 07:17 pm (UTC)She's reaching for a glass of water, and her fine motor skills aren't exactly in perfect working order yet, and before she realizes it the glass is slipping out of her shaking fingers and onto the floor, shattering into a hundred tiny pieces that scatter across the tile. It doesn't take long for shame and guilt to settle in her stomach like heavy stones. The heat radiating off her skin informs her that her face is turning a bright shade of red, and she's pretty sure her brain is short-circuiting. She should find someone to apologize to. She should take responsibility for her actions and look for a broom and dustpan to clean up this mess herself. She should...
She should stop caring what the hospital staff thinks of her, god, how pathetic can she be? Kaede doesn't owe them anything. The only reason she thinks she does is because of a stupid game that she played what feels like centuries ago now. She wants to spite everyone around her, most especially herself, if only to make the chorus of conflicting thoughts in her head stop for just a minute. Once she manages to tear her gaze away from the glittering shards on the ground, her eyes flicker about the room before settling on a vase not too far from where the glass had been sitting. She steels herself, ignores the chorus that grows louder once it catches on to what's about to happen, and clumsily shoves the vase from its perch. The crash is satisfying. The silence that follows is even better.
Kaede stumbles out of bed, rips the IV out of her arm, and proceeds to tear apart anything she can get her hands on. Or she tries to, anyway. She's not in much of a state to do anything, less so without whatever fluids were being pumped into her, and it's not long before nurses are rushing into her room and putting a stop to her rampage.
She's not allowed to leave her room for a week.
That doesn't keep her from doing it again when the next round of students wake up.
It stops being satisfying long before she stops trying. Her reasons change. It's no longer because it makes her feel better in any capacity. Instead, it's because it gives her a valid excuse to ignore everyone else. She can't go mingle in the common room if she's basically grounded, now, can she? Kaede doesn't want anyone to see her like this, and for once her mind is in total agreement. Unfortunately for her, the doctors catch on eventually. They tell her that avoiding the others is bad for her recovery, and if she insists on continuing her destructive behavior, they'll be more than happy to make them visit her in her room while she's restrained to the bed.
The next day, she's out of her room and curled up on a couch in the common area.
Kaede makes no effort to seek out someone to speak to, and her body language isn't the most welcoming, but... She doesn't look outright hostile. So there's that.]
IF THERE ARE ANY TYPOS PLS TEL L ME IM IN MOBILE LAND
Date: 2018-10-15 06:10 am (UTC)it makes it better, in a way. maki can't imagine waking up to find kaito - no, momota - waiting by her bedside, not knowing that everything in the simulation was a lie. maki isn't happy, but she's comfortable enough sitting around with saihara and yumeno. unlike the others will, they don't have physical limitations other than a little bit of weakness attributed to muscle atrophy. maki harukawa is as fit as she's ever been - outside of the simulation. she can probably run a mile, even if she can't really climb walls.
days pass between the three survivors as they wait for their memories to return. they have access to board games and videos, virtually everything but the live news or internet. they're forced to therapy a couple of times a week, during which maki is aggressively quiet.
they get the announcement that the first round of the dead has woken, and maki confines herself to her room until she gets word that k-- that momota is not among them.
it doesn't matter. they're allowed to visit those recuperating, but maki never does. even when she begins to remember herself from before, the pathetic emotional maki who knew every goddamn piece of danganronpa trivia as though it was her life, she does her best not to regain her past self's sense of empathy. now isn't the time to get soft, she decides.
it's early one morning when she finally decides to return back to the common room. maki's flip flops squeak and slap against the floor, echoing down the clinically white hallways and announcing her presence to anyone who might be listening. she hates it.
maki wears her hair the same way she did in the simulation. it's nice to have some control over that aspect of herself, especially when she's forced into the same sweatpants and shapeless t-shirts as anything else. the red scrunchies were provided to her without comment.
the twin-tails make it easier to fidget with her hair, anyway, twisting it between her hands in a rare display of anxiety.
which is exactly what she's doing when she enters the common room, only to be greeted with the sight of kaede akamatsu. kaede. she wonders if saihara knows. she wonders if kaede was able to watch the rest of the game. maki wonders.
instead of asking that, she crosses the room to the vending machine, punching in the right combination of buttons for a cup of black coffee. before-maki drank her coffee with milk and a lot of sugar, and maki wants to leave that girl behind. after a life-sustaining sip, she nonchalantly sinks into an armchair at the opposite end of the room. ]
Akamatsu.
[ if she keeps both hands on the cup, she won't have to fight the urge to play with her hair. ]
no subject
Date: 2018-10-15 08:17 pm (UTC)[Her knees are pulled up to her chest with her chin tucked in-between them, and she has to shift her head so she can peek over them at the other girl. Let's see... Same twin-tails, same blank expression, same curt response. It's a snap judgement (she
wasismight be fond of these), but near as she can tell, Maki's personality seems relatively intact. The glimpses she's caught of the others largely suggest the same. Maybe they're hiding or coping with the differences cropping up better than she is. Or maybe Kaede's real personality is just so terrible that it's aggressively forcing its way in sooner than anyone else's. If she were alone, she might laugh bitterly at the thought. Instead, she swallows dryly.Kaede lifts her head up fully, moves to sit properly on the couch with her hands folded in her lap. She forces a smile on her face that would almost look convincing, if only it reached her eyes.]
It's... Good to see you. I'm sorry I haven't tried to reach out sooner, I've been... [She trails off, staring into space momentarily with unfocused eyes as she tries to come up with a pleasant lie. She's not-so-blissfully unaware that Maki has been making herself scarce, too, otherwise this would be so much easier.] Preoccupied. [Sure, that works. Keep it going. Kaede snaps back to attention, smiling wider. She can do this. Just... Say something encouraging or something.]
B-but, hey! I heard you won the game? [She heard winning isn't exactly the right way to describe it, to be accurate, but close enough. She also heard Maki was an assassin. She's heard all of these things and not much else because she hasn't watched any of it herself, not yet.] That's great! I mean... Sort of great? All of this, [She gestures vaguely,] has been pretty shitty, but at least you got something out of it, right? Silver lining and all that-- [crap, she wants to say, or maybe sappy nonsense, to be nicer, but that doesn't sound genuine enough either.] stuff.
[Nailing it.]
no subject
Date: 2018-10-16 08:57 am (UTC)maybe that's why the gap between the two makis feels fluid, something easily bridged from time to time. their skills have some overlap, though not as much as she might have liked. but it doesn't matter all too much where it comes from, which maki might have realized first - the fact remains that kaede akamatsu is lying.
( she reminds maki of saihara, in a way. they'd all seen his audition, they'd all heard his desparation, and he seems almost determined to put that boy behind him instead of slipping into the spaces left between. )
maki considers her, hands still cupped around her coffee. it's hot enough to almost burn her palms. that annoys her. ]
You were busy breaking things. Iruma told everyone.
[ iruma is one of the people who seems thoroughly determined to shed her past self, and thus, has retained her status as the resident loudmouth. maki can't imagine why, but she doesn't particularly care.
maki's eyes, still as red as they'd been in the game, slide towards akamatsu's. her face doesn't betray the discomfort rising in her chest. what it does give away, though, is the cold anger that she feels whenever she thinks about the game - an anger that isn't exactly directed at kaede. she balances the thin paper cup on the arm of the chair; it's easy enough, but it gives her something to focus on for just a little longer. after a moment, her eyes sweep the rest of the room. the finger-painted banner that angie, still bound to her hospital bed, had made makes it feel even more like a kindergarten playroom. the soft color scheme, small bookcase with rounded edges, and careful lack of anything sharp don't hurt that impression, either.]
We all got money. I got a little more. I guess you could call that 'winning.' But winning isn't everything.
[ a phrase she's said many times to various children. hearing herself say it again, this time in a voice that sounds dull and hoarse and tired feels odd. nostalgia, a finely-sharpened knife, slides easily through her ribs to pierce her heart. maki gives in and twists one of her twin-tails around her hand. ]
Have you watched it?
no subject
Date: 2018-10-16 09:54 pm (UTC)[ (The staff are only accessories, the one to blame for being put in this situation is her her her, but blaming someone else is so much easier out loud.)
A smile is eased back on her face, a little gentler this time. Easier. She can get this right. Be warm, be inviting, be the best version of Kaede Akamatsu. The version that can take Maki's anger in stride and cheer her up instead - or try very, very hard to, in spite of knowing how futile it is, not giving up until she makes a hint of progress. Slip back into the game. Let go.]
Of course, of course! I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I wanted to be happy for you, that's all. You deserve a little happiness after everything, I think.
[As Kaede starts to answer Maki's question, however, her smile ever so slowly slides away. Her hands ball up into fists in her lap. Slipping back is like going on autopilot, which she only realizes when it's far too late to stop it. She gives in to let it guide her to the highs, and before she can wrest control back, it's veering her off course to the lows she's been so carefully avoiding.] I've been told the broad strokes of what went down, but... No, I haven't watched it. Why should I? So I can get a good look at the exact moment I willingly fridge myself for a stupid promise that gets broken over and over? Not fucking likely. [By the time she reaches the end of her answer, it's like a shadow has passed over her face, taking every pretense with it.
Passed being the key word, as it's gone as fast as it came. Kaede makes this apparent as she flinches violently with her hands immediately flying to her mouth in shock, acting as if she's the one who's been burned. A few muffled curses hide behind them while her wide eyes dart around the room in a panic.
Needless to say, she is no longer nailing it.
But she can salvage this! Take back the reins. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. The pianist drags her hands down her face, and now she is nothing but genuinely apologetic. No fake smiles needed here, no fake anything.]
I didn't mean-- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that. I don't know what came over me.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-17 12:46 pm (UTC)[ maki will wait until akamatsu finishes speaking. she's not a good listener - or, maybe she was. was she?? was maki harukawa quiet, a good listener, a caring person? is maki any of those things? thinking about it in those terms gives her the beginnings of a headache. instead, she just watches impassively.
one of the gifts team danganronpa gave her, it seems, is the ability to not give away any emotion. it feels safer to mask herself with the uncaring, so she does. it makes it easier to listen without flinching, despite akamatsu's outbursts.
maki plays idly with her hair, twisting one of the twin-tails in her closed fist. she opens it after a while to card her fingers through the long, dark strands. she doesn’t take her eyes off of akamatsu, though; she wouldn’t want the other girl to think she isn’t listening. that might make her even angrier, and maki really doesn’t have the energy for any of that right now. akamatsu seems...split, somehow. maybe more than anyone maki has seen so far - not that she’s exactly been a social butterfly. kaede had had the least amount of time to be the “kaede akamatsu” that team danganronpa had envisioned; even if that weren’t an issue, the two personalities seemed to be totally opposite.
interesting. but maki doesn't really get one thing. ]
Why do you care so much? About what we think of you?
[ a beat. she surprises herself by considering her wording, something she’d never done in the game - and while it’s still blunt, maybe even still harsh, there’s something softer about her voice now. maki begins toying with her other twin-tail. her anxiety lifts, however momentarily. ]
We’re all different people. And we’re all angry. You aren’t the girl from the game. You don’t have to be.
[ the words are hypocritical and hollow, echoes of a therapist who smiles too brightly and calls her harukawa-chan. but it’s different for maki - she had been quiet in her life before, and many of her life experiences had carried over to her in-game persona. this seems...different. maki’s mouth thins, drawing into a frown. ]
They turned us all into jokes.
i'm done with exposition now i swear,
Date: 2018-10-17 09:33 pm (UTC)[Maki sees right through her. Kaede is utterly exposed, transparent, her muddled mind laid bare. She thinks the only reason Maki even has to ask is because neither one of them know the answer, and what better way is there to fool someone staring straight into your soul than to fool yourself? She just had to run into the assassin with piercing eyes and disarming twin-tails first. Forget salvaging this, she should get out while she still can. Maki Harukawa is a lost cause. Which means...
... Which means... ]
Fine. You really wanna know? Sure! Why the hell not.
[She has nothing to lose. Kaede makes no attempt to hide her exasperation. No more hands folded prim and proper in her lap. She is animated, expressive, and her words carry raw emotion. The floodgate is open.]
The truth is, Harukawa, that I wasn't-- I'm not a good person. I don't do people. I don't trust people. Whoever's in charge must have thought it would be hilarious to make the girl who trusts no one trust everyone, because that's what happened. That's the joke. I woke up in the game, and I believed in everyone so, so much. I cared about every single person, even when they didn't want me to. [Maki gets a pointed look there.] Even when it cost me my life. I became the prime example of why I don't trust anyone in the first place.
And then I woke up for real. And those feelings? They didn't go away. They only got crowded with things from before. I remembered just enough of who I used to be to hate who I'd become. And every version of me is as stubborn as I've ever been-- which is too damn much-- so I was stuck in a stalemate. Still am.
[Kaede collapses into the furthest reaches of the couch, staring at the ceiling. Protagonist proclivity for speeches is still working, apparently.]
I have all these warm, fuzzy feelings that I know deep down are fake and weak and worthless. But even then, I... [She squeezes her eyes shut.] They feel so real. They feel better than anything I ever felt before the game. [A bitter laugh as she palms her forehead, no longer caring that she's not alone to mask it.] A fucking killing game, can you believe that? God.
[Kaede pushes her hair back and opens her eyes, lets her head lull to the side, takes a deep sigh. Goes quiet. Lets it all sink in. Contemplates how to turn that stream of consciousness into something solid. Eyes Maki toying with her hair and regrets being so willing to burn bridges for the sake of getting this weight off her chest and forcing it on someone else, because she wants to keep seeing her. Selfish. This whole thing is selfish, but she is, at least, being upfront about it.]
So... I care because they made me care, I guess. I don't know. I'm a bad person that wants to be a good person, and I hate that I want to. That's where I'm at.
[It keeps sinking in. It takes root. It gives shape to the jumbled mess that's been tearing her apart, shaky and unstable but a definite something, and suddenly this is way more than she bargained for. This is too much too fast. Kaede rises to her feet and hugs her chest, takes a step towards the door.]
That was-- This is stupid. I'm not one of your little kids that you need to take care of. I should go.
its ok exposit all over me
Date: 2018-10-18 09:56 am (UTC)[ for a brief moment, maki is almost grateful for how easily detached the simulation had made her. she finally looks down, though, self-conscious of exactly how expressionless her face is. it probably makes her seem pretty bad, huh? to be so dispassionate about their worth as people?
but she knows she’s right. ]
We all signed up to be a part of this. I asked to be made the Super High School Level Assassin. Momota--
[ maki can’t finish that sentence, for a second. if kaede hasn’t seen the game, then - she couldn’t possibly know how that all panned out. maki’s hands tremble slightly, and she tugs at both of her pigtails before briskly getting up and choosing a deck of cards from the nearby shelves. she sets the deck down at a small circular table in the corner of the room and gestures for akamatsu to sit. maki takes a deep breath before she continues speaking again, softly. ]
We saw some of the audition tapes. Momota’s - he wanted to kill as many people as possible and be famous. We came here for selfish reasons at best.
[ she won’t bring up saihara, she decides. maki is blunt, but not blunt enough to open that particular can of worms - especially because she knows the (fake?) detective has yet to even try to talk to kaede. she finally brings her eyes back up to meet kaede’s, suddenly more confident in her words. ]
None of us are good.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-18 08:53 pm (UTC)[Maki's not making her leave. Maki is inviting her to play cards. Why isn't she making me leave?
It's not just apathy on the assassin's part, Kaede's sure. Actions speak louder than those cold expressions do. The gesture sparks conflict anew within her, excitement and suspicion vying for dominance, but she can handle it this time. Crafting a working definition of her predicament has given her some power over it, at least temporarily, and she's able to settle on mild confusion.
Kaede can tell Maki is feeling some sort of way, after all, she just can't pinpoint what it is beyond negative. It's not directed at her, though, near as she can tell. Baby steps.
She shakes out of her dumbfounded stupor and moves towards the offered seat.]
That... Does make me feel better, in a backwards sort of way. I guess we can all be trash people together. Go, team.
[That last part is delivered with all the sarcasm it deserves. She sits down, and the urge to follow it up with something comforting is there like it always is, now. She almost ignores it, but Maki's eyes are lazer-focused on hers, so earnest, and that convinces her to make a butchered attempt.]
I used to think good and bad people didn't exist, you know. I thought we were all just people, terrible by design, and there were people who accepted that and people who pretended to be better. Now... I don't know what I believe. But I know that good and bad people exist, because I've been both. It's figuring out the in-between that's the tricky part.
[Kaede looks down, looks back up, and adds on to her statement at a lower volume with a hint of a smile. Or a smirk? Hard to tell. She's not quite serious, not quite joking.]
I also know that you must be better than you give yourself credit for, at least a little bit, because you haven't kicked me out yet. And I'm kind of an asshole.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-18 09:50 pm (UTC)akamatsu needs to talk, it seems, and maki surprises herself again. she doesn’t mind listening.
maki never paid ethics much mind; she never really thought of herself as either a good person or a bad one, at least before the game. and yet, despite kaede’s attempted optimism... it’s pretty clear where maki harukawa stands now on that sliding scale. ]
I signed up for a game that involves murdering people. And asked for a talent that makes it easier to murder people.
[ and maki smiles.
because it’s kind of funny, even though it totally isn’t. in a way that’s morbid and a little bit inappropriate, to boot. because she’d asked them to make her this way, interviewed to be a part of it, fantasized about being as badass as one of her favorite characters and making something, anything out of her life. they’re all bitter and angry and hurting, and they’d all asked for it.
it’s hilarious.
her smile is more than a little tired, and more than a little bitter. ]
I was shy before. Quiet. But they kept some parts the same. It seems different for you.