Who We Were Before

Inner feelings

While Kaede and Shuichi walked along the city streets chatting about their respective pasts, a certain purple haired boy sat lazily on his apartment couch.

No not his apartment couch.

Their apartment couch.

His and Shuichi's that they had lived in together before going into that horrid game. The apartment where they had apparently fallen in love and lived their lives to the fullest before leaving it all behind for a world of betrayal and robotic bears.

The apartment where Kokichi now sat, grape panta in hand as he contemplated what would happen when the object of his affection eventually arrived at his... no their doorstep.

It wasn't exactly a secret that Kokichi had a crush on the shy detective. If not for his joking personality, he was sure everyone on the planet would've known by now. He had always found him kinda cute, found the way he hid those beautiful golden eyes under his hat when he got nervous very endearing. He flirted with him endlessly in the game, always calling him his beloved and saying how much he liked his company, though Shuichi seemed way too dense to realize he was actually serious. After he died in the game and woke up in the hospital, those feelings had only strengthened with the time he spent away from the detective. That combined with his other mental issues from being treated the way he was in the game, was often too much to handle.

He did a good job at hiding his emotions for the most part, taking care to mention Shuichi as little as possible in conversation. Not that anyone really talked to him anyway. It wasn't until one day when Kaede came into his room to give him his breakfast only to find him sobbing on the floor of his bathroom, surrounded by used tissues and little sketches of Shuichi stained with tears, that he finally let someone know about the feelings that had plagued him for so long, and his fears of how the detective might hate him when he eventually woke up.

After that incident (and one certain event that he didn't want to think about ever again), Kokichi started seeing a therapist, fixing his mental issues and even stopped telling so many lies (or maybe that was a lie in itself. Who knows?). With her help, he came to terms with his feelings and stopped relying so much on the confident facade he used during the game. He even was able to overcome some of his big obstacles he had faced since waking up. He had a few people now that he would even call friends! Kaede and Kirumi were the first ones to come around, acting almost like mother figures, providing him comfort and advice whenever he needed it. Weirdly enough, Miu and Gonta both forgave him for his actions in the game, and the 5 of them were now super close. They were the only ones who knew about "the incident" (Kaede and Kirumi having witnessed it for themselves and Miu and Gonta having been told by them), the only ones allowed to see him without his mask, and the only ones who knew about his crush on the detective (not that he was exactly making an attempt to hide it).

With his friends there to support him, he had even begun to think his feelings for the shy detective were fading.

That is, until he was finally given his phone before being discharged from the hospital.

Until he saw the lock screen which was clearly a picture of him and Shuichi on a date at the beach, the taller boy lifting the shorter by the waist as they looked into each other's eyes as if they were the only 2 people on the planet, the sunset behind them basking them in a warm and romantic glow as the sea sparkled in the background.

The heart rate monitor he had to wear at all times had spiked so fast the nurses were afraid he was dying. He was held another day so they could monitor his vitals. He vowed not to turn on the phone again until he was safe and sound in his apartment.

He met with Kaede, telling her what he found and making her promise to tell Shuichi not to look at his camera roll just in case. Turns out that ended up being a good idea.

He nearly went into cardiac arrest again when he entered the place he once called home. The walls were filled with pictures of them together, pictures from as far back as grade school based on their small forms and squishy cheeks.

Pictures of them dressed to the 9's, slow-dancing at someone's wedding, a picture of him kissing Shuichi's cheek as they both blushed. A picture of them watching the stars together, holding hands and cuddling close for warmth.

He decided to go straight to sleep.

He was woken up by the first text from Shuichi, informing him that he was awake and wanted to meet "her" and become friends. Kokichi replied as calmly as he possibly could, playing the part of a concerned yet excited girlfriend while his heart thumped in his chest, threatening to burst free at any given moment.

Figuring that he couldn't possibly get any more flustered, he decided to look at the rest of the pictures on his phone.

That was a big mistake.

There were so many pictures of them together Kokichi wondered how long they had been dating. They clearly had known each other for a long time based on the pictures of them together as kids. Just how much of their lives had they spent together?

He just kept scrolling and scrolling, his heart pounding in his chest as he took in each individual photo of him and Shuichi together. But he couldn't stop.

That is until he found the more... intimate pictures of the 2 of them, which he then swiftly deleted. They may have dated in the past, but they weren't now. He wasn't going to disrespect Shuichi's privacy like that, no matter how much he wanted to drink in those pictures of his beautiful curves, his toned muscles, his perfect ass and his... his...

He needed a cold shower.

After having some uhh... alone time, Kokichi booted up his laptop, desperate to find any information on his past. He learned that Shuichi apparently did art commissions and wrote for a local newspaper, and that they ran a small gaming channel together on YouTube. Well... it wasn't so small anymore. The doctors had warned him he would become super famous after the show's cast announcement but he wasn't expecting this.

Their channel which apparently had only had around 250,000 subscribers before the game, now had over 700,000, and the show hadn't even aired yet! Only the cast announcements and a couple small previews had been released so far!

Kokichi watched a couple of the videos and one of the streams but he couldn't handle it. It was clear that the 2 of them were so in love with each other. It made his heart ache. He couldn't bare to watch any more of them and simply decided to plop down on the couch with a Panta while he contemplated everything he'd done in his entire life up until this point that could've possibly warranted the situation he was now faced with.

The 3 faint knocks on the door broke Kokichi out of his stupor and his heart froze. Shuichi was here. He was about to see Shuichi, who thought he would be met at the door by a pretty girl who had answers, not someone like him. Not the person that had made the game even more of a living hell than it already had been.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to get up from the couch and into his wheelchair. Trying not to look at the photos on the walls, he prepared the persona he had tried so hard to maintain in the game. It would still look weird, he knew that. Hopefully Shuichi would be too distracted by the wheelchair to notice.

He put his hand on the doorknob, twisting it and pulling it open as he met those sparkling golden eyes he loved so much.

"Hiya Shumai! Guess we've got a lot to talk about huh?"