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The cold and the quiet are in tandem when Kaede wakes. Of course, there’s sunlight, but it isn’t warm - it merely seeps across the room, choosing only to illuminate the dust in the air, hanging in some liminal balance between what is real and what is simply potential energy, another cog in a rollercoaster chain that either has peaked, will peak, or will keep crawling upward until the sickness in everybody’s stomach becomes simultaneously paramount and ordinary. Still, the facts are laid out bare on this cheap poker table that she calls her life, and she knows for sure that she is awake. From this, she can discern that she is alive, and that she is real, and so her mind turns next to the wellbeing of Miu, who is - another fact - not next to her in the bed.
For the first few weeks upon release from the post-Danganronpa treament facility, waking up alone left Kaede in the ghostly slick of anxiety. Whilst she didn’t see Miu’s in-game death herself, having long-since slipped into the coma of artificial mortality, her trauma in the aftermath surfaced in the more self-destructive of ways, as she forced herself, over and over, to watch the television clip of Miu, clutching her throat and imaginary pearls, the beautiful and bold falsity of the Ultimate Inventor trying to grasp onto reality like the only stranglehold it had was around her neck.
Nowadays, she knows that Miu is alive, if only because they have an unspoken rule to live as long as they can, just to spite Team Danganronpa. Stepping out of bed, Kaede traces her way through their shared house - the first purchase they made with their tainted prize money - until she reaches Miu’s inventory room. She doesn’t invent things any more, nor does she fix them; she spends her time dismantling household appliances, telling everyone that she has a desperate need to see how everything works. Half the time, Kaede is convinced that she just wants to destroy something that isn’t herself.
Not that she’s any better. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the garish grand piano that came with the house, covered in a thick layer of grime and dust. Untouched. Sometimes, she wishes she could be that way, beautiful, useless, and ignored, but her fingers itch to play the keys with all of the passion that she feels she remembers. Their talents stuck with them after the series, but they’re far too seeped in the heaviness of memory to be anything other than stones in their pockets. So the piano just sits there, too fragile to be played, too permanent to be dismantled.
“Hey, babe,” she calls through to the room. They’re both far too old and far too hurt, even in their misspent twenty-something years, to think anything positive of surprises. It’s a funny old life, to force yourself to lay claim to every space that you occupy, but it’s better than the alternative.
“In here,” Miu replies. Her voice is thick with tiredness, and when Kaede sees her, she’s surrounded by the dismantled remains of their toaster.
“All night again?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.”
“Understandable.”
“Hey…did you see the email from…her?”
“Tsumugi?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“She wants to meet up. Apparently she’s sent out some mass reunion-email bullshit, y’know for the year anniversary? I doubt anyone’s really gonna go, but…”
“I’ll go,” Kaede says.
“What?”
“She’s obligated to do some kind of follow up. If nobody shows, she’ll just keep at it, and none of us really need that reminder constantly hanging over our heads. I’ll take one for the team, make up some lie about being fine, and maybe she’ll finally leave us all alone.”
“You know, it’s not your responsibility to carry everyone’s burdens.”
“I know. But…if I do, I might not feel so sick any more.”
“Jesus,” Miu sighs, managing a dry and lifeless laugh, “that pre-arranged Team Danganronpa therapy really did fucking nothing for us, did it?”
“You got that right.”
“Are you really okay with going?”
“No. But I’ll do it anyway. I’ll go call her.”
“Okay.”
It’s all over before Kaede can truly contemplate what she’s about to do. Tsumugi sounds surprised on the phone, her voice different - genuine, perhaps? - but still, the echoes of her mastermind-song still linger for long enough in Kaede’s ears that she considers picking up the piano again. And now, all she has to do is go for coffee. Just coffee. It’ll be an hour at most, and she’s lied for a lot longer in the past. It’ll be a simple in-and-out affair, an explanation that yes, everything is fine and no, we aren’t experiencing any adverse effects from the simulation.
She almost forgets to kiss Miu goodbye in her haste and anxiety. It’s a rushed kind of kiss, the kind that says ‘see you later’ and ‘I hope you don’t die’, all sentiments that get muddled in the confusion of who exactly they’re meant to be, and who they’re meant to love.
She doesn’t see Shuichi any more. She couldn’t look him in the eyes, anyway.
Her hands fumble over peppermint tea, and she comments on how Tsumugi’s hair is shorter, now. All of this, and more, placed right in front of her - the permanence of time pricking into her like overripe fruit, and she’s wondering whether this was a good idea, right up until the moment that they shoot down the elephant in the room and Tsumugi invites her to dance in the metaphorical blood. Oh, the destruction. More of it, please. Self-sacrifice is an overfamiliar waltz, but enough of metaphor; she’ll claim her own voice, now, even if it speaks poison and lies to anybody but Miu.
“We’re fine,” she says, “is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Kaede…I know it’s my job to care. But even if it wasn’t, I still would.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I didn’t want to kill you.”
“Doesn’t matter what you wanted. You did.”
“It was you or me. If the killing didn’t start, I’d lose my job.”
“You knew I would never have done that to you. You knew that if it was my life on the line - and it was - I wouldn’t have let someone dear to me take the fall for it. I just can’t understand you.”
“Can you understand yourself?”
“Don’t try and trick me into talking. You’re not a counsellor.”
“I could be.”
“You think you can be anything, don’t you?”
“Well…as the Ultimate Cos- I mean…yes, I suppose I can.”
“Then you should try being a good person.”
“Kaede.”
“No. You don’t get to talk. I came here thinking I was just going to lie to you, make up some bullshit about Miu and I being fine but…I can’t. I just can’t do it, Tsumugi. I can’t do anything but hate you.”
“I suppose I don’t have the right to try and change your mind?”
“No. No, you don’t. I’m sorry. Part of me wishes I could forgive you, but I guess Danganronpa couldn’t make me into someone capable of forgetting everything that happened.”
“So why did you come?”
“Because if I didn’t, the others would have to. And I think I speak for all of us when I say that we simply can’t go through that again. Look - I get it. I get you were just being used by Team Danganronpa, too. I get that you applied, just like we all did. I’m not blaming you for everything, but it’s enough that I don’t know if I can be in the same room as you without losing all sense of myself.”
“This is it, then?”
“Yeah. Have a good life, Tsumugi, but stay out of mine,” Kaede says, less venom in her tone than she’d intended. It’s hard to fully blame her, after all. The mastermind was pulling their puppet-strings, but she was by no means the ringleader of this shitshow.
Still, all of the anxiety and hatred that’s built up in her chest dissipates, now, into a sinking ball of depression. As she makes her way back home, she thinks of how hard it will be to face that piano, to face Miu in her own sadness, to exist and exist and exist until she can’t exist any more, and then she’ll be forgotten. There’s far too much fear to compensate for who she was, and what she went through. All that fakery. Perhaps the only thing that is real is the rejection of the truth.
She spends the afternoon in bed. Even when the sun sets, she can’t bring herself to get up and make food or take basic care of herself.
But then she hears Miu’s voice from the doorway, and everything sounds like it’s coming from underwater.
“I said,” Miu says, sitting on the edge of the bed, “get up. There’s something I want to show you.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“I know. But you’ll only feel worse if you stay in bed all day. C’mon.”
“Alright,” Kaede says, stepping out of bed.
“Get dressed, yeah? I’ll meet you downstairs in ten.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
For the first time today, she manages to feel something beyond negative emotions. The thought that Miu has prepared something for her, even despite her own hardship, makes her feel wanted. So, she gets dressed and doesn’t complain about it.
Downstairs, Miu is waiting by the door, holding her car keys in her hand. She’s smiling, and it makes Kaede smile too, even if it is a little forced.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”
“Not yet,” Miu grins, “it’s better as a surprise.”
Inside the car, Kaede notices a large picnic basket in the back seat. She starts to understand, now, what Miu has planned. Although she spends half of her time dismantling and destroying things, she’s found a small release in cooking, and there can only be an assortment of food in the basket for them to eat somewhere nice and quiet.
When they pull up at the beach, it’s approaching 10pm, and there’s nobody else around. Under the cover of the stars, Miu takes Kaede’s hand and walks with her down the little beachfront path, the cobbles beneath them cooled by the night air, until they’re sitting right at the shoreline, watching the waves recede and creep towards them like the whole of the world is breathing in time with their date.
The sandwiches that Miu has prepared taste amazing, a fact not negated by the inevitability of getting sand in them, because it just feels so free to not care about perfection. Slowly, they learn to laugh again, not as a permanent fixture, but just for the present; just for right now, they can forget about their own deaths, the mortality that hangs over their heads, and they can just be together, be in love, be happy - or at least close enough to it that it feels okay.
“Y’know, it’s weird,” Kaede says, “but there are things I never thought I’d have a hard time with after Danganronpa.”
“Like what?”
“Like…well, I mean, even my name feels weird when I say it. Kaede Akamatsu. It feels like it should have ‘Ultimate Pianist’ after it, but that’s…that’s not me, y’know?”
Miu laughs. “Jeez, I’m glad you said that. It makes what I’m about to say so much easier.”
“Oh?”
“Well, I mean…if you hate your name, take mine.”
“What?”
“If you want,” she pulls out a small box from her pocket, “I don’t know how to say this. I’d like to…will you…ah, fuck it. Marry me, Kaede.”
“I…yes. Yes!”
“Well thank fuck for that,” Miu says, “because I lost the receipt for this ring.”
Then, laughter. Then, love. Then, the stars looking down on them, and teaching them about shining bright; there’s no warmth here because the sun has set, but they can rely on the unspoken promise of it rising again.