Oumatsu Week

Happy Birthday, Princess

Day 7: [Kaede's Birthday/Free Day]

For this, I'm doing a free day and Kaede's birthday. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do for day 7 and after some thinking, I chose this. I wanted to do a postgame thing with day 1, but had a better idea with pregame. So this is somewhat recycled. This won't be the same timeline as pregame. Will I be proud of it? Let's find out

Hospital Kokichi: AlmondMilk79 on Reddit

PJs Kaede: WhoopsItsLily on Reddit

Scars added by me
TW for mentions of scars and scars in the picture

The room was almost silent, the only sounds being the soft heartbeat monitor, the oxygen machine pushing the air into the patient’s lungs, and the quiet drippings of the IV. A blonde laid her head on the foot of the bed, sleeping quietly.

The door opened and a blue-haired male walked in. He looked at the sleeping blonde and frowned slightly. The doctors said she’d been in here since she woke up, only leaving for her therapy and the patient’s checkups. The nurses even brought her meals.

No matter how much the staff tried, they couldn’t get her to leave Kokichi’s side. How could they? They were engaged to be married, after all.

Shuichi walked over to the sleeping girl and shook her a little. “Kaede, it’s time to wake up.” She groaned softly, shifting slightly and stretching herself on the bed, yawning and opening her eyes. She looked up at the bluenet, blinking slowly. “What is it…” She suddenly perked up and looked at her lover, hoping Shuichi woke her for him.

Kokichi’s eyes were still closed, his breathing mask still on his face.

“The others asked me to come get you. They’ve arranged something for you.” “I’m okay. Thank you, though.” The male sighed. “I know you’re waiting for him to wake up. But you should try to take your mind off it. It’s your birthday, after all.”

It was, wasn’t it. She honestly didn’t keep track of time since she woke up from the game, aside from the fact it's been 5 weeks since she woke up, 3 of those spent in Kokichi’s room, waiting for him to wake up.

“I’m fine, Shuichi. I don’t care that it's my birthday, it’s not the same without him.” “Would he want you to be like this? Isolating yourself from everyone, depressed and just waiting for him?” Kaede suddenly stood up, the chair she was sitting in being pushed back, almost falling over. “You try being kidnapped with your fiancé just a month before your wedding, forced into a killing game with no memory of each other, and watch each other die in awful ways.”

She put her hand just below her neck, giving focus to the scar around her neck. “I was hanged. He was crushed. We didn’t ask for this, but here we are.” “Yeah, I know. I watched it all first hand. But we’re fine now. Danganronpa is done, no one else will suffer, and that includes you and Kokichi. But what I’ve learned from this situation is to not hang on to the past. We have to move on, for ourselves and for everyone we left.”

Shuichi looked at her with a determined look. She was honestly a bit surprised. The Shuichi she left behind was shy and didn’t have a shred of confidence. She knew what happened, Team Danganronpa forced them to continue watching for the despair aspect, which obviously hit particularly hard on her because of Kokichi. But she also watched Shuichi grow into a real detective. She just wasn’t used to it being directed at her.

Kaede looked over at her sleeping fiancé, who still hadn’t moved an inch, before sighing. Shuichi was right. Kokichi always wanted her to be happy and not worry too much. Yeah, he didn’t mind, but he would never want her to spend all her time worrying. Especially today.