A/N BIG WARNING!!! this whole chapter is basically about suicidal thoughts and a suicide attempt, but nothing actually happens and no one actually gets hurt and also there's hurt/comfort !!!!! but yeah thats your warning :)
Suicide. It was an unsettling topic, one that was brought up in therapy sessions and always met with silent stares and uncomfortable voices claiming that they'd "never do it". But above all, lies. It was met with lies.
Because suicidal thoughts were common with almost all of them. After waking up from a killing game and being forced to face the mistakes they made during it, while also simultaneously dealing with the fact that their lives were all fake and made up for entertainment....yeah, the thought of suicide stuck with all of them.
Some people dealt with it better than others. They could cope with it, using their friends, using therapy, using medication. The struggling didn't go away, but at least those people could smile.
Kokichi was not one of them. It had been a year since he woke up from the game, but it barely got any better. The days mushed together, and he couldn't remember most of it. Some days, it was tolerable. That's how he met Shuichi again, on those tolerable days. Days where he felt like himself again, where the thoughts were not so loud. He could talk to Shuichi, he could be with him.
Time went by and they got close. Too close. Close enough that he could almost see through Kokichi's mask. It was scary, and Kokichi distanced himself a lot. Those were the terrible days. The days where Kokichi's mind ate him up, replaying his mistakes over and over again, screaming at him that he was alone and he always would be. Shuichi would fall with him, and they would argue, before falling into a hug and a hushed silence. They would wake up together, with their arms around each other and their tear-stains dried. Suddenly the tolerable days were back. And they felt okay again.
The two eventually found a pattern with each other, and worked on it together. No longer would they argue every week, instead they would just...talk. And they would cry together. The truth was something Kokichi wasn't used to. But he found himself finding it endearing for once in his life.
The platonic ways they had eventually advanced, and it wasn't hard for them to accept the budding romantic feelings they had for the other. The days became brighter as their smiles became wider and their hearts became fuller.
They moved in together, hand in hand in a new apartment. With cheek kisses in the morning, and forehead kisses at night.
Everything was...great.
But lately, the tolerable days were disappearing. They didn't feel "tolerable" anymore, when any second Kokichi could sink into a depression that lasted all week.
It was stressing Shuichi out. Every day, when he came home from work, he would run over to Kokichi in his bed with a worried expression. He would take care of him, give him baths and feed him.
And though Kokichi would do the same for Shuichi, he didn't feel like it was right. He was just being a burden and he wished he could get better, for Shuichi. So everything would be okay again. They could be okay again.
But he wasn't getting any better, he was only getting worse.
The only other option to make everything okay would be to eliminate the problem. To eliminate Kokichi.
Though he promised Shuichi he wouldn't do it, like he explained before, the topic of suicide was always met with lies.
And Kokichi lied, he lied about how he felt, he lied about how bad he was getting. He lied to Shuichi, his therapist, himself.
