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Having to eat is something that Kiibo still hasn’t gotten used to yet. They come to breakfast and sit without grabbing a plate, thumbing through the pages of the book they fell asleep reading last night, and don’t tune into what’s going on with everyone else in the cafeteria until a plate loudly hits the table in front of them.
Kiibo jumps and lowers their book. Miu shoots them a fleeting, subtly apologetic look as she sits across from them, pointing her chin at the plate.
“You gotta eat breakfast, Iida.” She’s the only one who calls them that now, Iida—or any variation of Iidabashi at all. Everyone else still calls them by their given name. Something leftover from the simulation, Kiibo supposes. It’s not like they mind, but there’s something about the amount of agency that Miu gives them—calling them by their surname, pointedly listening to them whenever they speak—that they have to appreciate. Because of that, and because it’s her, Kiibo marks their page (or what they think is their page) and tucks the book to the side, scooting forward in their seat and lifting their spoon.
“Thanks.” They glance up at Miu again, watching her shrug her braid over her shoulder. She looks more lively this morning than she has in a while, save for the scabbed over crescent-shaped indentations on her neck. Kiibo looks away from those and up to her eyes, which are affixed to her coffee, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she pours what Kiibo deems to be an unacceptable amount of sugar into the mug. “Um. Iruma-san, can you really drink it when it tastes like that?”
“Like what?” Miu picks up the carton of milk she brought over from the front of the room and pours a splash of it into her coffee as well. “I need the caffeine, but I hate the fuckin’ taste of coffee.” Her nose wrinkles. “It’s not like in the simulation, y’know, when you saw me drinking this shit all the time. I gotta make some adjustments to make it palatable.” With that, she tips the mug back into her mouth and swishes it between her cheeks, experimental, leaving Kiibo surprised that the word palatable is in her every-day vocabulary. Maybe she was a more dedicated language student before the simulation. Or maybe she’s just feeling verbose this morning.
It would probably make her feel awkward if they called attention to it. Kiibo looks back down at their bowl of rice pudding and dips in the spoon, blowing twice on the food before they slide it into their mouth. It’s not quite hot enough to scald their tongue, but it’s still pretty warm. They do the same thing as Miu just did, squishing the food back and forth, until it’s cool enough to swallow, and let out a breath. This still isn’t a sensation they’re used to.
Kiibo doesn’t really like thinking about it. Everything about living now, from breathing to clenching fists to stretching their legs and walking around, is so completely human—it’s hard to believe they were ever a robot in the first place. And yet, when Kiibo goes to sleep, they do it half-expecting to wake up attached to a charging cable and leaning against the wall. They had dreams of being human back in the simulation. Everything since waking up has been almost painfully, viscerally real, and yet a part of Kiibo doesn’t believe it. A part of Kiibo thinks it’s all going to be revealed to be a dream.
Across from them, Miu stiffens, her spoon freezing halfway between her coffee mug and the sugar bowl, and Kiibo looks up at her, inquisitive. Her gaze isn’t pointed in their direction though, her head half turned and her eyes focused on the door. Kiibo follows it just in time to watch Kokichi stride into the cafeteria, arms tucked behind his head, followed by Kaito, who walks with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. They’re both laughing about something, affectionate grins on their faces, and Kokichi takes one hand away from his neck to gesture with it. He’s too far away for Kiibo to hear what it is, but he says something that makes Kaito laugh loud, this full-belly laugh he never did back in the simulation, and then the two of them walk to the table at the front of the room for food, standing side by side like old friends.
It’s rude to stare. Kiibo looks away and eats another bite of pudding without blowing on their spoon. From the very moment that Kokichi woke up, he’s been acting as though nothing happened. Or, well. It isn’t as though he had much of a chance to do that upon getting out of the simulation. He’d been as weak of the rest of them, stumbling out of his pod with shaking knees and arms, skin pallid and hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. But at the end of their mandatory bedrest period, Kokichi walked right into the cafeteria in much the same way as he did just now, lying and laughing and jabbing like he did nothing at all, like the killing game was nothing more than a hallucination they all shared.
That description wouldn’t be inaccurate, but Kiibo doesn’t like that Kokichi acts so casual about everything. Some of them—Rantaro, Kaede, Kirumi—treat Kokichi the way they did before they died, and Kiibo can’t really blame them for that when they never saw how he started acting after Korekiyo’s trial, but everyone else, Kiibo can tell they’re uncomfortable. Maki hates him and has said as much more than once—an honesty that almost lost her her relationship with Kaito—and though Shuichi and Himiko don’t verbalise it in the way that Maki does, they’re openly distrustful. The three of them sit together across the cafeteria from Kiibo and Miu, and Kiibo looks away from Kokichi to watch the grey of Shuichi’s eyes as he too tracks Kokichi and Kaito’s journey, a wrinkle in his brow and a frown fighting to turn his lips.
It isn’t even Maki, Shuichi, and Himiko whose reactions unsettle Kiibo the most, though. Gonta treated Kokichi with nothing but kindness at the beginning, smiling and saying that Kokichi is his friend—but something must have happened between them when Kiibo wasn’t around, because now Gonta avoids Kokichi entirely if he can help it. He sits on the other side of Shuichi from Maki, staring down at his hands and chewing his lower lip, and Kiibo has to look away before their stomach twists too terribly.
Their eyes travel, inevitably, back to Miu, who is twirling the end of her braid and looking away, a haughty, forcefully unbothered expression on her face. Kiibo knows better. Kiibo sees the slight tremble of her lip, Kiibo hears the way her breath hitches as Kokichi and Kaito turn around and start back across the cafeteria. Kiibo is expecting the two of them to head to their own table, where they usually sit with Kaede and Rantaro and Tsumugi, but instead they come over to the end where Kiibo and Miu are sitting, and Kokichi leaps into the spot beside Miu, leaning too far into her space.
Miu leans away, perhaps on instinct, and then stops, staring at Kokichi with wide eyes, like a prey animal. She doesn’t say anything. Kiibo hears her swallow and sees her fingers twitch, like she wants to grasp at her neck.
Kokichi doesn’t seem to notice, but he must. Kiibo knows he’s smart; he always has been. The smile he gives Miu is light and innocent, eyes crinkling with what on anyone else’s face would be earnesty, and Kiibo has to stop themself from asking, What do you want. Instead, they clamp their mouth shut and breathe in and out through their nose, finding a small smile for Kaito, who sits beside them and claps their shoulder.
“Hey, hey, Iruma-chan! It’s been a while, hmmm? We’re staying in the same facility and all, but it feels like I never see you!” Kokichi’s eyes are wide, glittering. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were avoiding me!”
Well, that’s because she has been, and Kokichi must know that too. Kiibo thinks back to yesterday, when they and Miu were wandering the halls of the facility. They’d heard Kokichi down the hall, regalling Rantaro with some extravagant lie, and Miu had grabbed Kiibo’s wrist and yanked them into the girl’s bathroom, huddling with them against the door until Kokichi’s voice disappeared around the corner. It hasn’t always been as obvious as that, but Kiibo supposes they shouldn’t be surprised that Kokichi noticed, anyway. If Kiibo were in Miu’s shoes, they wouldn’t want to be around Kokichi right now. They’re not sure they want to be around Kokichi at all as things are.
“Tch.” Miu adjusts her braid, movements slow and deliberate, likely to keep her hands from shaking. “I’m not avoidin’ ya. You’re not worth that.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m just busy. I got shit to do that doesn’t include your ugly face.”
Kokichi’s lower lip wobbles, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. “That’s so mean! I’m totally hurt! I can’t believe my bestie would say that to me!”
“Your bestie?” Miu repeats. An emotion flashes over her face but it’s gone too quickly for Kiibo to make it out. She swallows again. “I-I’m not your bestie. I told you, you ain’t worth my time.” She clears her throat, then reaches out with two fingers and pushes Kokichi away from her by the middle of his forehead. “Hands to yourself, shit dick.”
“Geez! You say that like you didn’t just put your hand on me!” Kokichi huffs.
“Ouma,” Kaito cuts in, frowning. Kokichi looks at him for a moment, face neutral, and then smiles again, looking back at Miu. He rests his cheek in his palm and squishes his face into it.
“Soooorry. That’s super my bad.” Kokichi’s eyes roll. “But anyways! It super sucks that you’ve been avoiding me, because I wanted to talk to you!” He perks up at that and lifts his chopsticks, picking up a piece of fish and cramming it into his mouth before continuing to speak as he chews. “I need a favour!”
Miu blinks at him, incredulous. “A favour?”
“Yup yup!” Kokichi nods eagerly. “I can’t talk about it here, y’see, but I thought I’d tell you in advance.” His eyes gleam. “Sure, our personalities are artificial, but I hear the talents they gave us are all based in reality, save for the obvious.” He looks pointedly at Kiibo and then back to Miu. “So I wanted you to make me something.”
It’s such an audacious request, Miu is clearly speechless—which is fair. Kiibo is too. They send Kaito an incredulous look, like, Did you know he was going to ask this? but Kaito isn’t looking at Kiibo. He isn’t looking at any of them. So then he must have known, but he must have known also that it wasn’t going to go over well. But then, why wouldn’t he say anything about it? Is what Kokichi wants that important? Kiibo can feel their brow knitting—a sensation they’re still not used to—as they try to figure out what Kokichi could possibly want, bringing their thumbnail up to their teeth. Something to use against Team Dangaronpa, perhaps? That’s the only thing he could need right now, right? Or maybe it’s something else?
“Th-That’s—” Miu’s voice brings Kiibo out of their thoughts. They look up in time to catch her face contorting, one of her hands moving up and rubbing her neck as she takes a breath. “That’s—You’re kiddin’ me, right?”
“Am I?” Kokichi flutters his eyelashes. “‘Cause I think that’d be a pretty stupid joke, y’know? I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want it.” He widens his eyes and gazes up at Miu, full pleading puppy-dog eyes. “Pleeeaaase, Iruma-chan? I seriously need your help! Pretty pretty please? Pretty please with cherries on t—”
Something inside of Kiibo snaps. They slam their spoon into their bowl and ask, “How can you talk to her that way?”
Kokichi’s face blanks. “Do you want something, Kiiboy?” His gaze settles, flat, on Kiibo, but Kiibo isn’t Miu. They’re not afraid of Kokichi.
“Yes, actually. I want to know what makes you think you can just ask Iruma-san for favours after what you did.”
“After what I did?” Kokichi scoffs. “I’m sorry, Kiibo-chan, did you forget that Iruma-chan tried to kill me? If anything, she owes me the favour.” He rolls his eyes and ignores the way Miu cringes beside him. “But I’m not playing it like that, ‘cause I’m a nice guy! So what’s your problem, huh?” A sneer contorts Kokichi’s expression. “Are you still all mad from all the ‘robophobia’ from the game? You know none of that was real, right? Even down to you being a tin can! It’s not healthy to bottle up your emotions, y’know, or to make Iruma-chan your scapegoat! So if you’re mad at me for my silly little insults, than you can just—”
“Stop mocking me!” Kiibo snaps. “I’m tired of your shit, Ouma-kun, what part of that is so hard to understand?!”
Kokichi falls silent, blinking, like he’s shocked. Kiibo realises that they cursed—and they can’t remember ever cursing, in their life, but there’s something so deeply satisfying about seeing Kokichi stunned to silence that they don’t bother feeling bad about it, shoulders shaking with rage and adrenaline.
“Ever since we woke up, you’ve been—you’ve been acting like nothing happened! You’ve been acting like everything is just supposed to go back to normal, as though the rest of us don’t have very good reasons to resent you for everything you put us through!” Kiibo lets out a breath, running their hand through their hair. “I believe you had good intentions, Ouma-kun, but that doesn’t excuse what you did—and that especially doesn’t mean that you have the right to go up to Iruma-san asking for favours after you killed her!”
“I was protecting myself,” Kokichi hisses back.
“No, you weren’t! You could have told us what you knew, if preventing Iruma-san from killing was so important to you.”
That sneer returns to Kokichi’s face. “You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“You have no way of knowing that,” Kiibo bites back. “I can’t speak for everyone else. But I would have believed you. I always believed you, even after you killed two of our friends and pretended to be a mastermind and forced Momota-kun to become a killer.”
“Hey,” Kaito interjects, as Kokichi cringes, “Ouma didn’t force me to do anythin’, I killed him of my own volition.”
Kiibo shakes their head. That is not important right now. “I apologise for speaking for you,” they manage to say, “but regardless, it isn’t just Momota-kun and Iruma-san who you messed with—you messed with Gonta-kun too. Not just when you manipulated him and tossed him to the side, but even now, you’re hurting him. You haven’t even said you’re sorry.”
“When did you become the expert of my personal relationships?” Kokichi asks. “I wasn’t aware that Kiibaby was some kind of Buddha. How do you know I didn’t apologise to Gonta?”
“Did you?” Kiibo snaps. “Did you apologise to Gonta-kun? Because he looked down when you came in. He can’t even look at you now, after whatever you did to him.”
That shuts Kokichi’s argument down cold. He takes a breath, face once again neutral, and then speaks. “So what do you want from me, then? Do you want me to grovel? Want me to go over there and kiss Harukawa-chan’s feet and tell her she was right when she strangled me? What about Saihara-chan, who sent Momota to his death? Want me to go tell them how sorry I am? How right they were for hating me? Want me to tell Shirogane-chan I’m sorry, too, for usurping her killing game?” Kokichi stands and leans into Kiibo’s face, face contorted and ugly. “Would that make you happy?”
Cold settles over Kiibo’s chest, their stomach, their voice. They rise to meet Kokichi, and they don’t touch him, they don’t even look away, they just say, “Honestly, Ouma-kun? I doubt that anything you could do now would make me happy. I don’t know what you’re doing here, at this table. I don’t even want to see your face.”
It’s mean, almost too mean—and not entirely true. Kiibo is angry, sure, but Kokichi is their friend. They care about him, and they know that everything he did was for the sake of ending the killing game, regardless of the pain that it caused everyone else. If Kiibo was in Kokichi’s shoes, if they had been smart enough to figure out what he did, if they hadn’t had the audience in their head—would they have reacted differently? Would they have acted with compassion? And on the opposite end—would they have been able to go as far as Kokichi did? Would they have been able to die to end it?
Still, Kiibo isn’t done. Even as Kokichi leans away, again visibly shocked by Kiibo’s words, they plow forward, clenching their hands into fists.
“What Harukawa-san did to you was wrong. And the way everyone always expected the worst of you, the way that even after you were dead we continued to think you were a Remnant of Despair, that you were our enemy… that was wrong too. Every day, I regret not being able to be there for you, that you had to go it by yourself, the only person who had knowledge of the full extent of our situation.” Kiibo scowls and looks down. “It must have been so… lonely, and overwhelming. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
“Kiibo…” Kokichi trails off. Genuine hurt flashes in his eyes before he stifles it. That must have affected him worse than anything else Kiibo could have said.
“But you were wrong, too, Ouma-kun. You were wrong when you used Gonta-kun for your schemes, and you were wrong when you got Iruma-san killed, and you were wrong for every second you were manipulating and taking advantage of us, and you’ve been wrong since you’ve woken up, acting as though you have nothing to apologise for and nothing to work through and like you can just walk up to Iruma-san and ask her for a favour after the trauma you left her with.”
Kiibo takes a deep breath.
“And you know what? You were wrong for how you treated me, too. I’m not a robot—but that doesn’t matter. In the simulation, I was in every way your classmate and I would have been your friend too, but you took every possible opportunity to belittle me, using every chance I gave you to treat me like I was lesser just because I was a robot. You had me thrown into a glass tank.” They shudder at the memory of how the warm, bloody water had rushed over them, the way Ryoma’s bones had clattered against the gym floor. “And even now, you’re still looking down on me. When I first started talking, you mocked me and tried to distract me from what I wanted to say. Isn’t that wrong, Ouma-kun? Don’t you have any self awareness at all?”
All the fight has drained out of Kiibo by the end of their rant, leaving their breathing laboured, their shoulders shaking slightly. Kokichi stares at them, face and eyes blank, hands loose at his sides.
Eventually, he says, “Of course I do. I know I messed up just like everyone else did. I did what I had to, and what I had to hurt.” Kokichi twirls a strand of hair around his finger. “I know I should apologise, I’m not dumb— but it’s not like anyone would even believe me. Who would believe an apology from someone who would do it again if he had to?”
“I would, Ouma-kun,” Kiibo says quietly. “Once again… I would. If you gave me a reason to… I would believe in you. In a heartbeat.”
Kokichi’s eyes go saucer-wide. “Kiibo—”
“But not right now.” Kiibo shakes their head. “I don’t want to look at you right now. And Iruma-san isn’t doing you any favours.”
Miu blinks, as though surprised to be brought back into it. “I-Iida—”
“Well, I mean, it’s your choice, Iruma-san,” Kiibo continues, a bit rushed, picking up their bowl, “but I don’t think you should. You owe Ouma-kun an apology too, for what you did, but you don’t owe him your skills. You don’t owe those to anybody.” They shake their head. “Um… I’m going to go. I think I need to calm down.” The back of Kiibo’s neck pricks with the awareness that everyone is looking at them, that perhaps everyone has been looking all this time, listening to their rant. They clear their throat, feeling their cheeks colour. “I’m… sorry for the outburst, everyone, but I meant what I said.”
With that, Kiibo ducks their head and speeds out of the cafeteria, clutching their bowl to their chest. It’s not until they’re halfway to their room that Miu catches up to them, bumping her shoulder against theirs. They look up at her, but before they can speak, she does.
“Thanks. And I’m sorry, too, y’know.”
Kiibo blinks. “What?”
“I mean, I’m sorry for… tryin’ to kill Ouma. ‘Cause if I’d lived, that would’ve meant trying to kill you, too. You and Ouma were the only ones I respected, and I betrayed both of ya. So… sorry.” Miu doesn’t meet their eyes, but Kiibo gazes at her profile, anyway, watching her face. It’s hard to tell what she’s feeling. Kiibo wonders if perhaps they shouldn’t try.
They look forward, instead. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.” They look down. “I’m sorry too. From time to time, I’ve thought… perhaps if I was a better friend to you, if I’d spent more time by your side… I could have convinced you that we would get through it together. I could have convinced you that the way out was through working together, not playing the game. Maybe it’s irrational of me to feel that way. But… still. I’m sorry that you felt alone, even when you had me.”
Miu is quiet for a long moment before she says, “I don’t feel alone now.”
Kiibo smiles, genuine relief and happiness fluttering in their chest. “I don’t either. Thank you for being my friend, Iruma-san.”
“Tch. You better be grateful. Not just anyone gets to be friends with the Gorgeous Girl Genius.” She snickers, as though unable to take herself seriously. “Nah. You too, y’know? For bein’ my friend, and… for sticking by me. Sticking up for me. I’m gonna return the favour.” She finally meets Kiibo’s eyes. “Can’t stand owing people.”
A laugh bubbles out of Kiibo. “You don’t owe me anything,” they promise. “But, well… I’ll look forward to it, anyway.” They reach over and squeeze Miu’s hand, and she grins at them, and they stay there, sharing that smile, for a moment before continuing to walk.
They mean it, too. After what happened in the game—the taunts, the murders, the whispering in their head—Kiibo thinks it’s something of a relief, that they finally have someone around to stand up for them.