Work Text:
- Kuina
Yuzuha can't help but frown as she watches Kuina hike her backpack up on her shoulders. She was finally leaving. Going off to find Chishiya and Ann. Leaving Yuzuha to look after Arisu. Leaving Yuzuha.
She'd known it was coming. Kuina had mentioned it a couple days ago. That in the wake of Tatta's death, it was more important than ever that they find the others. She'd tried to justify it by saying it would be bad to get caught in another team game with only three of them. Yuzuha could tell she was just worried. Frightened. They'd just buried Tatta, and it could easily be Chishiya or Ann next.
Yuzuha wasn't against looking. She was worried about Ann as well, and even if Chishiya was a traitor, she could admit he would be useful. His intelligence might be the only way to get through a diamond game in these upper stages. But she couldn't leave Arisu. The losses during the King of Clubs had sent him into a downward spiral. One reminiscent of when she'd found him lying down in the street all those weeks ago, waiting to die. She knew if she tried to drag him into another game now, he wouldn't make it to the end.
She knows most people don't have the patience to sit and wait for Arisu to get better. Their visas are counting down, and the King of Spades is still prowling—sitting in one spot like they are is beyond dangerous. It turns all three of them into sitting ducks. It's exactly why she doesn't blame Kuina for getting a move on, even if she can't follow. Yuzuha just... can't leave him. Not only because he's her best friend but also because she can't bear the thought of him just lying on the ground withering away. Alone. Like she had.
Still, she doesn't want Kuina to go. The dangers surrounding them will only get worse as time goes on, and while Kuina is strong, Yuzuha can't help but worry for her. “Are you sure?” She asks as Kuina turns to face her. It's not a real question; she can see the determination on Kuina's face. Can tell that she has to go. “Arisu might be up to searching in a few days. He's already making progress.”
“I have to find Chishiya and Ann,” Kuina says. Her brows are furrowed, lips pulled into a frown to match Yuzuha's own. Like it pains her just as much to separate. Or maybe she's just thinking about Chishiya and Ann.
It's not as though Kuina and her got along all that well before the second stage. While Arisu had jumped headfirst into the plan with Chishiya, full of naive trust and hope, Yuzuha had been more cautious. She'd been in the public eye for as long as she could remember—if only adjacently. She knew what lengths people were willing to go to when they were desperate. So she'd held her distance from Chishiya and Kuina.
Then there'd been the betrayal and the Ten of Hearts. Arisu had nearly died. She'd nearly been... well. And all that for some cards? Arisu hadn't been able to hold any serious grudge, merely hurt at being used, but Yuzuha had been furious. Was still furious, really, with Chishiya. Because after Kuina had sat them down and given them more details, she'd pieced together just how manipulative and cold the man really was. She'd also seen how Kuina's heart had been split between her family and her integrity—something Yuzuha could understand.
So she'd forgiven Kuina, and they'd grown closer. Protecting each other through the King of Spades and King of Clubs. Wrapping each other's wounds. Kuina had even tried helping her catch rabbits and cook them—though in the end she had been more of a hindrance than a help. It was enough for Yuzuha to consider them friends. To care. But maybe Kuina didn't feel the same... The thought hurts more than it should.
So lost in her own thoughts, Yuzuha isn't expecting it when Kuina pulls her forward. She stumbles over her own feet, face pressing into Kuina's shoulder as she's pulled into a tight hug. Kuina's arms tug her even closer. Until they're fully pressed up against one another. Yuzuha's heart begins a drum march in her ears as she brings her arms up around Kuina. She can barely suppress a shiver when she comes in contact with bare skin. Right, Kuina was still wearing a bikini top.
“Be careful,” Kuina says. Pleads, really.
“You too.”
There's so much more Yuzuha wants to say: Please stay. Please take me with you. Please don't die. Please don't make me bury you; I've already lost so much. Please look after Ann once you find her. Please find me once you find them. Please don't let this be a last goodbye.
And, more than any of that: I think I might care for you more than I should. More than friends should. Please don't tear my heart out just when you started making it beat again. Just when you'd started making me feel like life, my old life, was worth continuing. Worth returning to.
But she doesn't say any of that. Can't say any of it. Because Kuina is already pulling away and because Yuzuha doesn't want to guilt her into staying.
She watches, resisting the urge to ball her hands into fists as Kuina turns her back to them. Then she's looking back, just for a moment, and the drum march of Yuzuha's heart roars to a crescendo. “Arisu,” Kuina calls, waiting until Arisu meets her gaze head-on from where he's sitting on a bench nearby. “Look after Usagi for me.”
'For me?' Did Kuina mean for that to be as special as it sounded? As protective and caring? Arisu nods, and then Kuina looks at Yuzuha again and winks, exaggerated and full-bodied. As if to say: we both know who's really going to be looking after who here. It makes something warm pool in her chest. All at once fond of Kuina's ridiculous gesture and pleased at the acknowledgement of her strength.
Then Kuina is turning away again, back to them as she goes to face the unknown. Yuzuha can do nothing but watch. To take her in as if it might be the last time. It might be.
- Ann
Yuzuha nearly doesn't duck in time to avoid the King of Spades next round of bullets. Arisu has to pull her down, and he briefly glances at her, bewildered and worried all at once. She doesn't know what to tell him. There's no explanation other than that the moment she saw Kuina and Ann again, her body had frozen. Vision narrowing down into a dark tunnel as she forgot about everything but the sheer relief of seeing them again. Of seeing them alive.
They race to another car. Yuzuha can feel her pulse in her throat, thudding with every bullet that clinks around them. All the games have been terrifying, but there is something different about the King of Spades. There are no rules to exploit in this game, no mercy to be found. If they stop running, for even a second, they'll die. And the King of Spades will not stop hunting them until he's dead.
There's another wave of relief as Kuina and Ann manage to make it to the car next to them unscathed. Ann seems as pristine as ever, makeup put together and not a hair displaced. It's almost out of place. Like a beautiful painting left in an abandoned, decaying manor.
Kuina looks worse for wear, with thick scratches scabbed over across her arms and stomach. But there's a grin on her face and light in her eyes, like she's just as happy to be reunited as Yuzuha is. It's the happiest she's seemed since the Ten of Hearts, and Yuzuha feels a sudden need to preserve it.
“Hey,” Kuina says, breathing hard. “Have you guys seen Chishiya? Is he alright?“
Arisu nods hesitantly, as if he wants to spare Kuina the knowledge that Chishiya is even around. Refocus her attention somewhere else. Yuzuha understands. Chishiya had been in bad shape when they had been forced to leave him and Niragi. Blood slowly oozing out of the half-a-dozen bullet holes littered in his torso. He'd insisted he'd be fine, that none of it was fatal, but she doesn't quite believe him. Nor does she believe Kuina would cope well if she knew.
There is still a part of her that is frozen in that second before Chishiya fell. When she'd been lying on the ground, eyes shut, waiting for the bullets she'd heard to hit. And the horror of opening them only to find Chishiya standing in front of her, white jacket quickly turning red. The confusion. The terror. The grim acceptance. “Why?” She had asked. “Why would you do that?”
At first he'd laughed and said, “I wanted to do something out of character, for once.” Then, quieter, enough so that only she could hear, “And... I owed Kuina. She'd be upset if you died, you know. I don't need her angry at me for letting you get shot.”
Chishiya had turned his attention to Arisu then, trying to soothe the terror and guilt there. To explain his sudden change of heart. And Yuzuha is ashamed to admit that she'd tuned him out. That she'd gotten stuck on his words and started playing them on loop in her head. Trapped between being pleased to know Kuina cared for her so deeply and frustrated with his hypocrisy. His inability to understand that Kuina would be just as devastated to lose her best friend.
There was nothing she could do about it now. The best they could hope for was that Chishiya would be able to hold on until they beat the last two games. Until then, Yuzuha figures it's best to follow Arisu's lead and not mention it. They need to focus on surviving.
She turns her attention from Kuina to Ann. There is a small, stupid part of her that wants to risk running to the other car just to get closer. Just to be able to touch Ann and be certain that she's really there. They had been split up mere weeks ago, but that was forever in a place like this, where every second could be your last. Something in Yuzuha had been terrified at seeing history repeat itself right in front of her. Of seeing Ann run away and then never being able to find her. Of being left behind to deal with a grief that had no tangible body to even prove its cause.
Yuzuha and Ann weren't exactly close; they had barely even spoken properly. She'd seen Ann around the Beach of course, and had been there to witness Ann's reveal during the Ten of Hearts. Not to mention when Ann and Tatta had come to save them during the start of the second stage. Ann had masterfully weaved through cars at frightening speeds without breaking a sweat. But they'd never talked. Yuzuha had nothing but brief moments and Kuina's praise-filled ramblings to go off of.
That being said, she wanted to. She wanted to have those conversations. To really get to know Ann beyond the perfect, composed front she put forth. Wanted to see all the things Kuina had discussed for herself.
She'd thought she'd lost that chance, but she hadn't. Ann was back. She was alive. Kuina had found her.
But there's a possibility that chance will slip away again, and Yuzuha nearly confesses right there. Nearly opens her mouth and admits that she wants to get to know Ann better. That she wants them both to survive so she can find out the story behind why Ann got into forensics. Why she wears her lip in a bold red. Why she seems so composed even in the face of disaster. Nearly spills her guts out right in the open with no regard for the danger they're currently in—because confessing those desires almost feels more pressing. More important.
Then there's another shower of pings, bullets raining down over them, and Yuzuha remembers how to hold her tongue. They've made it this far. There will be another chance for her to say what she wants. Hopefully. For now, she settles with something simple. “I'm glad you're alright, Ann. It's good to see you.”
Ann smiles at her. “It's good to see you too, Usagi.”
- Kuina and Ann
Yuzuha has always liked the sky. The way it expands upwards and outwards, cradling the world in its careful hold. She still remembers the days when her father and her would sit on the edge of rock faces and stare up. Taking in clouds or stars or whatever else the atmosphere had to offer them. Before her father's death the sky had felt like a reminder that the world had so much to offer. That there was so much to explore.
Now, Yuzuha looks up at the quickly darkening sky, the copper taste of blood in her mouth, and she finds herself feeling small. An ant beneath an uncaring, unwavering magnifying glass. World burning her alive just for the fun of it. Just for the fun of watching her fight despite the uselessness of it. Even if the sky of this messed-up world she's found herself in goes beyond Shibuya, it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't care about her. That all the exploration that it promises can be ripped away at a moment's notice for no particular reason.
Before, that hopeless, small feeling had made her hesitant to return. She'd lost sight of why she was fighting so hard to continue. Yuzuha had pushed forward to help her friends, but she'd lost the ability to fight for herself. Knew that she would only be returning to a dismal, empty apartment and nosy journalists and the ever-present ache of her father's absence. For a time it had seemed better to just leave it all behind entirely.
But then something had shifted. In fighting for her friend's ability to return, for an end to these despicable games, Yuzuha had found something new to continue for. A new purpose. She had found a new family for herself, completely by accident, and had discovered that the idea of separating from them was unbearable.
They would never replace her father, but they had made missing him not so impossible. Her grief had left life a continuous climb with no oxygen or gear in sight. A constant, desperate grabbing for the next handhold with the knowledge that any minor slip could send her into a freefall. Her friends–her family–had finally provided her with the aid that she needed. And maybe it was less impressive to push through that climb with so much help, but Yuzuha had never looked down on her father for it, and so she can't look down on herself either. She's finally realized that life isn't supposed to be about pushing through the impossible alone. That a challenge can still have merit even if it's not faced with the worst odds.
Which is what makes the fact that she's dying so frustrating. Because, a couple of days ago, Yuzuha wouldn't have felt nearly as afraid as she does now. But with her new realization, she finds herself shaking from the pure terror of it all. Of feeling her bones grind against one another with every tremor and blinking white spots from her vision when she breathes too deeply. She has just found a reason to continue living, and now she will never get the chance to live for it. She is dying, and so is everybody else.
She's on her side, curled up as if to protect the already pummeled softness of her middle. From here she can see the top of Kuina and Ann's heads. The blood puddle that is pooling larger and larger between the two of them. She can't see their faces, but she can tell that something is wrong.
Ann is deathly still. A doll cut from its strings. There is something unnatural about the way her hand is splayed out on the concrete, not even twitching, as if the muscles have already grown numb. Yuzuha isn't sure if she's still breathing, and there is a cowardly piece of her that doesn't want to know. She'd rather pretend, if these are her final moments, that she hasn't lost anyone else. That, with Arisu and Chishiya on their way to the final game, there is still hope for all of them.
Kuina is shaking so hard, Yuzuha can hear the broken glass and debris shifting beneath her. She keeps coughing, the sound wet and deep, like it's coming from the very bottom of her lungs. Every cough ends with a whimper of pain, and the sound of it is a fresh hit to Yuzuha's stomach every time. It is one thing to lose someone you care about; it is another to watch them fade slowly. Knowing they're in agony and there is nothing you can do to ease them of the pain.
I want to be with them. Yuzuha already knows what it's like to lie on the ground and slowly fade in solitude. To have every breath be one of anguish and know that no one is there to witness as you slowly perish. It isn't something she would wish on anyone; it's exactly why she'd saved Arisu all those weeks ago. She doesn't wish to go through it again.
Gritting her teeth, she forces her body to roll, getting her elbows beneath her. Her head spins, mind blanking momentarily as she fails to register anything but the incessant throbbing of her insides. Then her vision is clearing, hearing slowly returning, and she forces herself to continue before her body gives out. Dragging herself along the concrete with only her arms to pull her along.
Kuina must hear her because she tilts her head back, revealing bloody teeth and watery eyes. Despite the clear pain she's in, she smiles when she sees Yuzuha. “Usagi,” she breathes. She looks over at Ann. “Ann, Usagi's coming over.”
“That's... good.“
Ann's voice is weak, hardly more than a frail whisper, but Yuzuha is just relieved to hear her speaking. To know that she's alive. She wishes desperately, hopelessly, for an interaction between them all that isn't tainted by their miraculous survival. For a moment where she could just be with them without feeling like every word, every action must count. That, for a moment, they could just be.
But it is too late for that. This is the final moment. The final interaction. The final chance. Every second they continue is a miracle, and every second must count.
Yuzuha nearly sobs with relief when she finally makes it over to Kuina and Ann, muscles giving out from the strain. She'd managed to reach a hand out, fingertips brushing Ann's open palm. If either of them were stronger, maybe they would have held hands. Linked their fingers together in one final act of affection. But Ann's palm is clammy beneath her touch, and Yuzuha doesn't have the strength to do much but lie and battle for air.
Kuina has turned to look at the both of them, wide eyes betraying her terror. Her torso is covered in thick ruby blood, chest hitching on each gasping inhale. Yuzuha has always seen Kuina as a pillar of strength. Someone who saw a challenge, saw the goal at the end of it, and continued until she reached it. She would make a good mountain climber.
Yuzuha dreams, briefly, of taking Kuina and Ann with her on a climbing trip. Of teaching them how to find the proper holds. Of hunting with Ann, who she’s sure would have plenty of tips on how to be even more efficient. Of falling and not feeling any fear because she knows Kuina will be there to catch her. It is only for a second, but Yuzuha allows herself to dream of a future where they make it. Where they are happy. It convinces her to keep pulling in air even when every breath is another stab to the chest.
She thinks about confessing. About using what could be her final moments to tell Kuina and Ann just how much they've come to mean to her. How, without trying, they've become her reason to continue. To fight to make it back home. But before she can, Ann is speaking, and the acceptance in her tone has Yuzuha's blood turning to ice.
“Both of you, promise me...” Ann sucks in a small, barely-there breath. “Promise me that, if we meet in the next life, we'll still... we'll still care for one another.”
Kuina doesn’t hesitate. “I promise.” She says the word like a gasp, a desperate plea to halt the inevitable. Yuzuha watches through water-logged vision as Kuina shakily reaches a hand up to meet theirs. Three sets of fingers knocking together. “Ann, Usagi, I promise.”
“I promise too.” It hurts to speak; she feels like she's been swallowing rocks. But the idea of leaving Ann with nothing but silence is excruciating. It isn't a confession, not a proper one, but it's the closest she can get given the circumstances. There is no time to say all that she needs to. Ann doesn't have the time. ”In the next life, I promise. I- I want to be there, with both of you.“
Ann falls silent. Kuina begins to cry. Yuzuha can do nothing but inhale, inhale, inhale. Until the sky lights up in neon explosions and a choice is being asked of them.
Maybe this wasn't her last chance. Maybe that next life is closer than any of them realized.
+1. Usagi
It's only been a month since the incident, but Yuzuha has finally been declared ready to leave the hospital. Her leg has been healing well. While she still has months of physical therapy and showering with plastic over her stitches left, she is finally free to go home. She wishes she were more excited.
The truth is that her time in the hospital has been some of the best weeks of her life. At least, since her father's disappearance. Death. Since her father's death. She can accept that now, even if it hurts, because she's finally found others to lean on. Accepting the truth that her father isn't going to return, that he lost the will to continue, is a weight she finds easier to bear with people to help her carry it. And she's found that in so many people. So many other survivors.
Arisu was the first person she met after waking up. He'd been hovering in front of a vending machine she was trying to use, and even after he'd moved, had tried to strike up a conversation. Had insisted they'd known each other from somewhere. Yuzuha had found herself indulging him. Both because the silence between check-ups had begun to eat at her and because she couldn't help but feel that he was right. That they'd known each other in some way she couldn't place.
And then she'd had the same feeling again and again. With Chishiya, who annoyed her with his smirks and condescension but who she could tell was trying to be better. Was fighting to be someone different than who he'd been. With Heiya, who was all curses and anger and judging looks. Yet always seemed so grateful when Yuzuha brought her a snack from the vending machine or kept her company in the darkness of her hospital room. With Aguni, who Yuzuha didn't talk to often but found herself appreciating. Who sometimes helped her up the stairs or opened up with a story about the friend he'd lost.
Then there were Kuina and Ann.
Yuzuha had felt a strange, déjà vu feeling with the others. Like she'd had a brief conversation with them at some point and should recognize their faces more than she really did. But with Kuina and Ann it had felt less like déjà vu and more like separated magnets finally finding each other again. Opposite poles clicking together through sudden, inevitable attraction.
She'd found herself spending most of her time in the hospital with them. Visiting Kuina's mom with her or walking the hospital gardens at night together. Listening to Ann talk about fingerprints and DNA while they watched old crime shows on the hospital's shitty TV. All of them trying to fit together on one hospital bed while they talked about what they'd do once they were released. Knees and shoulders knocking together and lingering.
They had made recovery tolerable. Even when her knee was screaming and her arms shook from using her crutches, Yuzuha could count on Kuina to make her laugh or Ann to distract her. And she found herself returning the same comfort. Letting Kuina squeeze her hand when her side-stitches itched and burned from healing. Running fingers through Ann's hair and gently rubbing at her scalp to try and soothe her headaches. Being with them almost made Yuzuha forget that she was in pain.
But now she was getting released. Was supposed to be going back home; getting back to her life. Kuina had been released a week prior, but she was still at the hospital more often than not to visit her mom. Yuzuha had never truly felt her absence. Now, she found herself afraid that without the excuse of recovering, of their general vicinity to one another, the connections she had made would begin to wither. That she would, once again, be left to fend for herself.
She finds herself walking through the garden, trying to take it all in one last time. Trailing her hands over different flowers, feeling the soft petals give beneath her fingertips. She finds herself thinking of all the times Kuina and her had walked these exact paths. Had touched these same flowers. How they'd talked about doing the same with Ann once she'd finally recovered enough to manage such a trip.
I don't want to leave. She didn't like the hospital. Didn't like feeling trapped within white walls and low ceilings, surrounded on all sides by death and sickness and misery. But she'd liked the reprieve that the place had provided her. The safety from the public eye and rumors and solitude. The friends that she had made and the solace she'd found with them. She couldn't bear to lose any of them now that she'd found them. Yet Yuzuha knew from experience that once a person was ready to leave, you couldn't make them stay. If they didn't want to stay in contact, she couldn't make them.
She thinks losing Arisu would hurt. That she'd be sad if Chishiya and Heiya didn't reach out at least every once in a while. But it's Kuina and Ann that she finds herself most scared to lose. Her care for them has grown beyond simple friendship or bonding over their shared experiences. She likes them. Really likes them. Wants to pull them into her life and make them focal points of it. Wants to take them rock climbing and text them good night after talking for hours and wake up to them every morning. She's found herself in a freefall of emotions, tumbling down fast and hard, and she can't seem to find a handhold to halt her descent.
“Usagi!”
Startling, Yuzuha glances up to find Kuina waving at her. She's wearing a striped blue tank top, necklaces jangling around her neck as she approaches. She's pushing a wheelchair and Yuzuha is shocked to see Ann, still in pale pink scrubs and with bandages around her forehead, quietly smiling at her. Her lips are painted a dark red, and Yuzuha wonders if she had Kuina sneak in lipstick for her.
Yuzuha shifts on her crutches, turning to face them. “Hey.” She hadn't been able to work up the courage to see them earlier, despite wanting to. The idea that it would be the last time had left her frozen. Still, she was glad to see them. Something in her seemed to relax when they were around. She looks down at Ann. “I thought you weren't cleared to go outside yet?”
“I'm not,” Ann shrugs, unbothered. “But I wanted to see you before you left, and you hadn't come to my room. So I had Kuina steal a chair when the nurses weren't looking.” She taps the large, black sunglasses resting on her face. “It should be fine as long as I wear these.”
Something in her warms. “You wanted to see me?”
“Of course I did. Do I strike you as the kind of person to spend a lot of time with people I don't care about?”
No, she didn't. “It's good to see you, Ann.” She feels like she's said the words before, though she can't remember when. At some point déjà vu had become so familiar that she hardly even noticed it anymore.
“I see who's the favorite,” Kuina huffs. When Yuzuha looks though, she doesn't actually seem upset. “I was the one who introduced you two, don't forget.”
“How could we?” Ann asks, “You remind us every day.”
Yuzuha laughs. She runs her hand over a patch of white flowers she can't remember the name of. She finds her throat tightening, choking up with the emotions she had so desperately been trying to temper. “I'm... going to miss this.”
Kuina frowns, “You say that like we'll never do it again. I know you're being released and everything, but that doesn't mean we have to stop talking.”
“You want to stay connected?” Yuzuha feels a little pathetic, asking so plainly. Feels like she's standing at that doorway all over again, staring at her father's back as he leaves.
“Of course we do.” Kuina says it so easily. Like the idea of anything else had never occurred to her.
“We actually came here to discuss making plans outside of the hospital,” Ann says. It's impossible to read her expression from behind her sunglasses, but Yuzuha can see the edges of a smile on her lips. “I won't be released for at least another month, but the both of you are free to go out and do things together. Though I'd hope you'd both visit me until I can join you.”
“That...sounds great,” Yuzuha says. It's everything she wants, everything she'd been afraid she wouldn't get to have. Well... almost everything. But she'll settle with what she can get.
“Ann, you're not saying the important part. It's confusing her.” Kuina rolls her eyes, but she's chewing at her lip the way she does when she's nervous. “Usagi... we want to hang out with you more but- but not just as friends.”
“We like you,” Ann says, “romantically.”
“Ann!”
Yuzuha grins—she can't help it. Now, she's getting everything she wants. Everything she could have hoped for. There is still a part of her that is aching with loss, with loneliness, but she knows now that those things won't be there forever. With Kuina and Ann at her side, she thinks she can face them and even begin to heal from them. She doesn't have to be alone anymore. She has people to catch her when she falls.