yogen | (closed) watch me dissolve, slowly.

( very thorough, she doesn't seem to be up for games which is understandable when he starts getting beat by a broom as he lays under the bed, a piece almost poking in his eye — )

Ahaha! You win, you win!

( a fair and easy win that he gives to her, he didn't want to make it that tedious of a game. he slides out from under the bed, his back on the floor as he looks up at her. )

You found me. ( his arms across his chest, hands on his sides to keep the from slipping. )

[she looks down at him, eyebrow raised, one hand on her hips.]

You didn't bully this out of Crona, right? [because honestly they are a chatterbox it probably just came out completely unforced.]

I didn't know you spoke about me so much, and it's why I didn't choose the closet.

( he watches her innocently, as if he could do no wrong. )

Crona-san said no murder, which... sounds boring... do you want to commit a crime with me?

( he doesn't mind since there's already been a crime, a dead body in the pool, they might as well make one in the dormitory next. )

I'm good on crimes right now, thanks. Is that all?

[honestly she just wants to see if he actually remembered or if this is just normal weirdness.]

Is it?

( stop that's what he's doing to her honestly, who is going to break first. he did come into her room with crona conveniently not here. )

I think you wanted me to come back around, but I can leave...

[lightly] I do have a lot of homework...

[bounces back onto the bed.]

Ah, I understand. So you want me to help!

( okay, he'll slide out from the bed properly, and then get to his feet so that he stands tall. he's dusting himself off, looking towards stephanie like he's waiting. )

How much are you willing to learn?

( towards the end... his eyes meet with hers to allude to something. )

... [snorts]

Did you decide that the opposite of "talking to me like I'm a dumb kid" is "talking to me like you're a sphinx asking me to solve your riddles three?"

Don't be that way...

( he laughs, a hand on his hip as he shakes his head. a sphinx with riddles, well, it checks out considering he's never been straightforward. )

I am here, though... not many people are interested in what I say, and how I say it... what made you curious?

I'm always interested in the things you say. [thinks] And not just because you're my friend or anything. You see everything... differently, from me, and everybody else here. Lots of different perspectives are good for solving problems... And, I think there's a few problems here you're particularly interested in solving. Problems nobody but you might be willing to talk with me about.

[because of the whole "she is literally a fifth grader" thing.]

You shouldn't listen to me the way that you do, they'll say things like I'm getting in your head... sending you down the wrong path, but it really is your hope that interests me.

( hope comes first, so wherever hope leads him, then he'll follow, and there's only a few people who thinks like him enough to understand. as for stephanie, she has a child's innocence, but her mind is different from the adults who think hard — she's more imaginative, creative, still impressionable. )

That said... What problem do you think I can solve for you? I know what I'm doing, but what is it that you want to do?

( learning, understanding the people's hope that's around him. that's not so bad. ) Help me solve my problems?

You are. And you do. [a shrug] Let people say what they want. I listen, but, at the end of the day, I'll always do what I think is right, and nothing less.

[pauses]

... We're gonna escape this place. I know that more than anything. It's just... What are we escaping to? [glances at her arm, fidgets with her bracelets] Hiro remembers how he died. Why don't I remember what happened to me? And I'm alive, as far as I know. Everybody else has way more marks than me, but they're alive. How are we alive if we all died?

You're a second year, aren't you?

( he pauses, thinking back on what npc-kun said — graduation isn't meant for the first and seconds, and it's mostly for those of the third year. they aren't given the luxury of "graduation", something most people here seem to look up to. )

Ah... Arisu-kun is aware of his death. ( so was rokkun, but it seems some people choose whether they want to remember how they die or not. ) The reason you're alive now is because of your hope, but all is not what it seems... ahaha, as long as you don't allow despair to consume you, you're able to keep living!

( looking down at his right arm, he thinks of his number of tallies, and then he flops down on the bed next to stephanie. ) Each tally is a mark of hope... why does it have to be about living or dying?

[rolls eyes] I already know you think deaths are hope, so don't bother with that.

[sighs]

I don't know if I'd be as... I don't know, stuck on this, if it was more than one. The fact that it's just the one... What happened? How did it happen? Why don't I remember? [who did it]

( he crosses his legs in thought, and his attention latches onto the wall across for him — the chalkboards writing holding him for a moment as stephanie muses. )

...Okane-san, what did you think of her predicament?

( it's without effort as he turns his head to the side, a bored expression on his face. )

Before you state it was wrong or sad, think of the topic at hand.

... Her predicament of you murdering her?

[frowns] Well... If she ever comes back, she'll be really mad at you. That won't be very fun. Killing people in revenge for killing people is a dumb idea; I've already told everybody that when I get killed, they aren't allowed to go after who did it. It ends there.

[she pauses, seems to realize she absolutely did not say "if," and frowns harder.]

Don't worry about that, she's never coming back.

( as if that's the last thing they need to worry about, he laughs as he shakes his head. )

Think of her tallies, the four that were on her arm... I put those there, she had none when I met her.

( komaeda-arata pauses, waiting for stephanie to connect the dots, or did she already do that before, either way, it's part of his explanation. he did catch her lack of if, and he glances at his hand as if that may become the culprit before ignoring it after. )

I already understand your ideal death, so if you're ready to leave this world, I don't mind helping.

Hm. So, maybe she would've agreed with me, that killing for revenge is silly. Maybe she forgives you - or would, eventually.

[she rolls her eyes and socks him in the upper arm, because eventually someone offers to kill you so many times that you've just decided it's one of their many amusing idiosyncrasies and not potential homicide.]

I love being alive. You can't play sports when you're dead, or eat an apple, or make new friends. You can't draw pictures or learn new things. All you do is be dead all day. It sounds really boring, so I'd like to put it off as long as I can.

... What do you mean, "never?"

( he flinches at stephanie hitting him in his arm, chuckling softly as he lifts a hand to rub at the area — that'll surely bruise. as he does so, he thinks about what okane aiko would have thought of them all, but it ends immediately as he thinks... she's not here, her death is what brought them hope, her death is why they're here now. why arisu maya is now in power, why ishimaru kiyotaka gained his chance at redemption... and so many things followed after.

he smiles in his sudden amusement, but he knows if he says that... stephanie will only deny him. )

Really? You can do all of that while dead, the concept of it must be frightening, but... it's obtainable, has always been.

( with that said, he'll fall back onto her bed carelessly, a fwump! onto the mattress as he looks up at the ceiling above him. with that said, he wonders if she'll catch it. )

I'll make sure of it... ( he hums, thoughtful. ) I'll kill her again for our hope. Knowing that, she'd be afraid of returning, right?

Even if she was, it's not like she'd have a choice over whether she comes back. None of us have a choice about being here.

[she'd say she wouldn't let him kill her again, but she's not entirely sure she could. better not make promises you know you can't keep.]

... You only like the sound of death because you think it has to be better than being alive. You don't really like being alive, do you? [sigh] It's probably awful, though. You never see happy ghosts, do you? Or happy zombies. Being dead probably hurts... If you could remember one of yours, I bet you wouldn't think like that anymore.

Some of us might have made the choice, it depends on how you look at everything... have you opened your eyes yet, Stephanie?

( he sounds like the npcs here, but no, he's heard it so many times from them, and with what rokkun told him, maybe komaeda's eyes are finally open. the truth before him, what he knows, what he withholds, and maybe that will be able to help the hope of the people around him. he pauses on their conversation, eyes looking up towards stephanie — if he could remember?

his expression flattens, almost bored as he sighs... did stephanie want to hear the truth for him, or old acts that mean nothing anymore. )

...I poured poison into the bottle of a fire grenade, and I set it with the many others in a factory, they all looked the same; no one would notice.

How am I supposed to open my eyes when they keep me in a dark room? I'll just keep seeing the same thing.

[...]

Is... that you continuing some kind of weird metaphor, or is that something you actually did? Because I can't figure out what it's metaphoring.

I left to a warehouse, and set up cut out panels one by one from the door to the curtain in the back... I placed an oil lighter in front of the last one, and moved on to something else...

( his voice low and soft as always, but he speaks with disinterest, as if he's spoke about it millions of times. he has, in his head, it was an insane plan he had set into motion with one goal in mind. )

I played music with the boombox you've seen here... and hung a spear with a cord along a ceiling girder so it could hang sharp-end down...

... You really gave them a lot of different options. [pause] Why? Was there a reason, or was it just to make more stepping stones?

In the back of the warehouse, I tied my arms and legs to rope that was attached to the wall, and the rope on my right hand... I burned it. I made sure my right hand was free during this though, unlike everything else.

( he stretches his arms, his mechanical one whirrs, and there's the sound of something popping, probably his bones snapping into place. )

With my left, I held onto the rope that kept the spear hanging from the ceiling girder in place. That way, I could lay down face up beneath it, and then afterwards... I covered my mouth with duct tape.

( no one would know the inner workings of his mind, that he did that so no one could predict his further actions, even as he thinks about it... he can remember the smell of the warehouse, the cool of the floor... )

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