Danganronpa: Painful Truth

Oblivious

Himiko surveyed the array of colorful bottles with a frown. There were far too many options for drinks, and they all looked nice. Did she want a dark cola, something fruity, or something even sweeter? Feeling indecisive, she pouted and crossed her arms. "I want all of them. But they don't taste good all mixed together, I've tried that."

"Ugh, you still haven't decided?" Kokichi whined, pushing up the wide brim of the stolen hat so he could see her better. An idea occurred to him suddenly. He smirked at her mysteriously and picked up one of the die-shaped plastic goblets from the table. "Okay! I'll just surprise you. Close your eyes!"

As he'd expected, she gave him a suspicious sidelong glance. "No. You're gonna do something weird."

"Like what?" he asked innocently. "Come on, what kind of prank do you think I could pull off with this many people around?"

She thought for a moment, then closed her eyes begrudgingly. "Fine. But if you make me mad I'll scream."

"Deal!" He scanned the bottles thoughtfully, wondering which one she might like. A bright blue soda caught his eye. It was supposed to be cotton candy flavored, although it was hard to think of cotton candy without the presence of the unique airy texture. Even still, it was delicious and extremely sweet, to the point where Shigeri wouldn't even drink it. Moving slowly so that the sound of the carbonation wouldn't tip her off, he opened the bottle and filled the cup. "Hmm..." he mused as he poured. "Should I give you gravy, or olive oil...decisions, decisions..."

"Hey!" She opened her eyes angrily, just in time for him to shove the cup of blue, bubbly liquid into her hands. "Nyeh?"

"Gotcha! Nee-hee-hee!" He chuckled happily as he picked up his own cup and strolled away. As he passed her, he took the hat he had stolen off of his own head and put it back in its place atop her short red locks. "Now that you've decided, you can have this back, for now."

She blinked and stared after him, feeling a small flutter in her chest. Her cheeks burning, she took a tentative sip from the cup he'd given her. Her eyes sparkled as she tasted the intense sweetness. Cotton candy. It really hadn't been a trick after all.

But why was he being so...cute all of a sudden? It wasn't like she had never thought it before, but the secret, silly crush had been dampened by Tenko's assurance that he was 'seriously bad news, even for a boy.' After Tenko's 'death,' it had crossed her mind again, but by the time she'd finished mourning enough to be able to give it any serious thought, he was already setting his horrid plans into motion. Even when she'd been convinced that he was the mastermind who had trapped and tormented them, her silly little interest in him hadn't fully gone away, only transformed into a painful feeling of betrayal and anger.

Learning about his death and his true intentions to end the killing game at the same time had been hard, but to express the weight of those emotions to the others, while they were already confused and suffering, would have been far too much of a pain. She had shoved it from her mind as best she could, in order to survive. There had already been too many horrible things on her mind that had made her want to give up, she hadn't needed a silly crush that she'd missed her chance to act upon to be one of them.

She had assumed that, even if everyone was still alive, she would never see him again. She hadn't really wanted to at the time, too mentally exhausted to take another ride on such a pointless emotional roller coaster. She wasn't good enough at expressing herself to deal with roller coasters just yet. Maybe an emotional ferris wheel, something slow and calm. She could deal with that.

However, not only did she see him again, but he and his friends had been the ones to come back and save them. Even though the facility had been strangely deserted, it wouldn't have been nearly as easy to escape without them. Panicked by the sudden reopening of old wounds while she was already disoriented and scared, she had been cautiously defensive toward him, but instead of retaliating with a rude comment of his own, he had almost seemed...sad. Almost like he felt guilty for everything he had done. Like he had feelings to feel. She had thought so once, but the others, including Kokichi himself, had persuaded her otherwise.