Chapter Text
Tsumugi Shirogane does not have a soulmate.
She’s proud of that fact, actually. Most of the crew that works on Danganronpa lock themselves in a constant battle with their soulmates, trying to balance the responsibilities of producing the death game and their most important bond.
She looks down on them, bound by fate and a couple of measly words inscribed on their wrists.
It is said that those words are supposed to reflect the most common thing your soulmate says. A lot of it ends up being plain boring nonsense - phrases like I love you! and How are you? and other meaningless pleasantries pop up far too often to be helpful - but it still gives most people something to search for for their entire lives. Something Tsumugi has found solace in in Danganronpa.
It also gives most normal people something to bond over that isn’t Danganronpa, so Tsumugi views the idea of soulmates as nothing more but a competitor to squash. She’ll produce a story that will capture viewer attention so well that they won’t even care about the fruitless search for true love anymore.
(Secretly, Tsumugi is glad to not have a soulmate. It’s such a rarity to not have one that it finally gives her a stand-out quality. She is no longer just a plain background character, she’s a side character who has been hand-picked to be ignored.
She’s too plain to love, anyway.)
This idea lasts all the way until it is time to prepare the cast for season 53, the latest and greatest entry in the franchise. Tsumugi sits with them, watches her stupid mascots fumble through the introductory scenes, and subtly grins as the flashback lights work their magic to bring her characters to life.
Production cuts the cameras soon after that, checking everyone to see if any complications have popped up.
Usually, this will be something like a soulphrase revealing itself on one of the newly created cast members, which opens up an entire can of legal worms that no one envies litigating. Tsumugi isn’t expecting any such complications today, though. She’s gone the extra mile and worked “genuine” soulmate pairs into her story, such as making sure the characters in the iconic Kaito and Maki doomed love story have soulmarks that could match the other’s pre-written characters. As for any roles without a focused relationship, she went out and hunted for those who had already found their soulmates and paid them off to look the other way, or capitalized on the rare occurrence of those who also had no bond. In short, she has a perfectly planned cast at her disposal. It was expensive, but she knew it would pay off.
(And in a way, it felt good to be able to benefit from a soulbond at least once in her life. Especially with the dangers that being a mastermind brought onto her.)
“Hey boss! We’ve got a code wrist!”
Tsumugi sighs, and trots over to the production assistant while internally cursing her planning. Doubtlessly, this means one of the kids who told her they had no soulmate had been lying, and now she has a new variable in play while the teaser trailer has already revealed the cast. If she gets unlucky, this could have awful ramifications for Danganronpa. Legal precedent already exists for soulmates to sue the company if their other half dies while under the influence of the game, and she would hate to incur another lawsuit while playing the role of mastermind.
“Huh, that’s ironic. I’ll tell marketing, they’ll have a proper field day with this one.”
Inquisitively, she gets close to Kokichi Ouma, and is only slightly surprised when a soulphrase, glowing a fierce golden, reveals itself on his wrist. Danganronpa. Another meaningless soulmark that would never be able to tell his soulmate who they were. Practically everyone said Danganronpa multiple times a day at this point, with how prevalent the series was in modern culture.
“Hmm, keep an eye on him. It’s plain to see that we can’t delay the game for this, but we don’t want any lawsuits. If you find his soulmate, keep them quiet, by any means necessary.”
The production assistant nods, grimly, and scurries away to convey her orders. Tsumugi feels no such heaviness, and is honestly a bit giddy at the prospect of silencing the soulmate of one of her cast members. They belong to her before they belong to anyone else, after all. Their lives are signed away for the sake of the best fiction their world has to offer.
They still have time before the game has to begin properly, so Tsumugi deals with a final stack of paperwork and then takes advantage of the office facilities one more time before she plays the part of the Ultimate Cosplayer for however long the game takes. Their script has it set for roughly three weeks, but everyone knows that the longer it goes, the more variability is introduced, and the rougher the ending could be.
It isn’t until she’s in the shower that night, dreaming about the reception to her masterpiece, that she notices a soulphrase has manifested on her own wrist among all the chaos.
It’s a lie.
And she stops.
She stays still enough that the only movement in the room is the water still crashing down on her, but she doesn’t feel it, doesn’t even think about it.
She can only think, in that moment, how the Ultimate Supreme Leader was programmed to be even more of a chronic liar than he already was. She knows, intuitively, that he is her soulmate, and she is his. She doesn’t want to believe it, though.
And yet.
The words glow a brilliant gold as she stares them down with all her might, as if challenging her to doubt their very existence.
To doubt his existence.
To doubt her existence.
To doubt the existence of their soulbond, and the possible death warrant she has signed unto both of them just hours ago.
She can do nothing but look at it, and remember how neither of them are supposed to like the other in the script, or even interact with each other past the bare necessity.
She should be mad, because she’s spent her entire life resenting the very concept of a soulbond, but the only thoughts that come to the surface of her mind are ones of possibility.
She can only think of how different she might have been if she had just found him before she became so wrapped up in Danganronpa that it became the sole identifier for her. Before it became the clue granted to Kokichi by the fates to find her in a life where he wasn’t doomed from inception.
She understands that’s stupid, because her soulmate only exists now that he has been made by her and her team.
She thinks of how horrid it is that that is the only way that she would ever have been able to find her soulmate. She thinks of how much worth the world places on the concept, and how she has been robbed of even this standout experience by her own character building.
She realizes that she can’t let any of this become public, no matter how much or how little she might want to, for fear of destroying the entire series. Simply telling Kokichi just what they are to each other on live television could cause a domino effect big enough to destroy the company whose name now lives on his wrist. She can never tell anyone, least of all him.
She wonders if he’ll find out anyway.
(She promptly throws up.)