:🍥: ➢ 𝙰 𝙱𝚕𝚞𝚎 𝚃𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑 (𝚂𝚊𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚖𝚊 𝚘𝚗𝚎-𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚝𝚜)

Watching from the sidelines

{Postgame AU}{Angst?}

The heart monitor beside his bed made small beeps indicating that he was in fact still alive, yet his vision was obstructed by something covering his eyes. He felt small wires attached to his arms and legs, and he laid on the bed paralyzed."Sidekick?" asked a familiar voice and Shuichi felt like jumping up but he felt extremely numb."Uh?" said Shuichi, but he wasn't able to form a lot of words considering he couldn't feel his jaw.

"Don't worry, we'll go get a doctor to remove the headset." said a female voice.'Kaede?' thought Shuichi, didn't she die in her execution? Even if she survived that hanging (Which was very unlikely), her body was squished by the piano along with Monokid. Shuichi then heard shuffling and then his headset being removed from his head along with some wires.

Shuichi finally opened his eyes and saw that he was in a hospital gown and that all of the students in his class were in fact surrounding his bed."Everyone?" asked Shuichi and Tsumugi nodded."Yeah we are all here." said Kaito with a proud look on his face. Shuichi frowned, as he sensed the lie coming from Kaito's mouth. No, everyone's not here, there was a purple haired boy who didn't seem to be at his bedside.

"Where's Kokichi...?" mumbled Shuichi, his voice barely audible and everyone felt silent."Where's Kokichi?" asked Shuichi, his voice now audible for everyone to hear."Shuichi... Kokichi didn't pass the test." said Rantaro, looking away and Shuichi became silent."Wh-what do you mean?" asked Shuichi and Rantaro gulped."The hydraulic press affected the wires attached to him drastically, and he was in so much pain that he begged to be terminated." said Rantaro.

"Why.... why did you let him?" asked Shuichi and Rantaro looked away with guilt."Why did you let him go?" asked Shuichi again, holding onto the collar of Rantaro's shirt."Sidekick, calm down!" screamed Kaito, pushing Shuichi off of Rantaro, making the green haired boy stumble back and the ex-detective be pushed back into the bed.

"I don't know." said Rantaro and Shuichi frowned. From what he could decipher with the headset that was placed on him, the whole thing was just a virtual reality with wires attached to the body will inflict pain in the regions they got hurt. So, Shuichi wanted to apologize to Kokichi for what he said after Gonta's execution. Something inside of him wanted to believe that Kokichi wasn't dead, that the liar was still living and breathing in this world.

"No he can't be dead." said Shuichi and Kaito sighed."Shuichi, Rantaro explicitly said that Kokichi died. Why can't you just accept that?" asked Maki and Shuichi looked away without an answer."I think I'm just killing the mood. I'll go and leave." said Rantaro, exiting the room and closing the door behind him.

"What are we going to do now?" asked Shuichi and Kaede shrugged."I don't know, but I think the doctors said that we'll be going through some therapy and then they'll send us to Hope's Peak Academy." Ryoma let out a small laugh and said "We'll need more than just therapy to get over with this whole thing." with Kirumi agreeing with the ex-tennis player.

"Maybe we can try and improve with our ultimates." said Tsumugi and Kaede raised an eyebrow."What are you talking about? Didn't the doctors just say that our ultimates aren't real?" asked Kaede and Tsumugi shook her head."But that doesn't mean that we could improve in our 'ultimate's' fields." said Tsumugi.

"C'mon, didn't we all enjoy doing the ultimate we were assigned to do?" asked Tsumugi and Shuichi raised an eyebrow."I didn't appreciate looking at dead bodies and being the cause of other people's demise." stated Shuichi and Tsumugi gave him a sad look."I'm very sorry really." apologized Tsumugi looking away and Shuichi sighed."No it's okay, we'll give you another chance." said Shuichi.

"Well then that would take a long time for me to give you another chance." said Maki and Kaito said "C'mon Makiroll, you don't have to be like that!""Makiroll?" asked Kaede before giggling to herself, making Maki look away out of embarrassment."I mean a caregiver would be pretty useful for us." said Kirumi and Kaito, Maki, Shuichi, Himiko, Kiibo, and Tsumugi became silent before awkwardly agreeing with the ex-maid.

"Alright then, should we pursue our ultimates?" asked Tsumugi, pumping her fists in the air with anticipation."Yeah let's do it!" exclaimed Kaede with Kaito cheering a long. Everyone laughed at how light-hearted these guys are trying to make the room be after everything that happened, but it was nothing more than a mere distraction from all the hurt they felt from the game. Especially when the mastermind is the one in the group.

:Time Skip to 3 months later

Shuichi knew that he had to let go of Kokichi one way or another, but he wanted solid proof that the boy was actually dead. Yeah, people would say that Shuichi was being stubborn and delusional, but the boy was determined. Every single time he was done with his homework and daily activities such as training with Maki and Kaito, he would jump to his desk and start looking for evidence to conclude if the ex-supreme leader was dead or not.

Kaede tried to help Shuichi with his quest to get the actual answers, but she felt like she wasn't contributing much in his investigations and let him go on his merry way. Maki would try and help from time to time while she is trying to become an actual caregiver despite her hate for children.

Shuichi dashed down the streets as he swung his jacket over his shoulder as he was trying to head to the cafe that was near campus to get his homework done so that he could soon continue his search. After settling down in a seat and ordering a crumb cake along with his coffee, Shuichi opened up his laptop and started scrolling through the many articles that were bookmarked on his laptop.

He decided it wouldn't be bad if he would do a bit of investigating and then do his homework since he did most of his homework during free time and he just had a bit of math to do to complete all of the assignments given to him. He then noticed the coffee being set beside him and then his crumb cake. Shuichi mumbled a small thanks to the waiter without looking up from his work and the waiter just left his table.

He finally found an article that showed all of the players in the game and looked at the supreme leader's profile. Shuichi didn't notice, but he found himself staring at Kokichi's picture on the laptop. When he noticed, he immediately closed it and looked away. Why is he so invested into finding where the supreme leader was. Maybe he was what Rantaro said he was, dead, and terminated.

Shuichi sighed as he took a drink from the coffee. When he set it down, he read his name, but he couldn't help but think that the handwriting seemed so familiar. Maybe it was just his imagination as he looked at the work sprawled all over the table.

While the student was organizing his work on his messy table, he didn't notice a boy that had white hair with purple and yellow eyes staring at him from a table that was the other side of the restaurant.

______

"Hey Amami-chan?"

"Hm, what is it Kokichi?"

"If Shumai ever wakes up can you tell him that I died?"

"Why would you want to do that? Don't you want to talk to him again and see him?"

There was a sad giggle coming out from the boy in the wheelchair

"Well, it's a bit complicated. I don't think your brain would even be able to comprehend it."

"Kokichi, you know that I'm bad at lying."

"Well you can just say that you lied and put on a sad expression. Everyone trusts you after all..."

"Well what are you going to do then? You don't want anyone to see you."

"I'll just watch from the sidelines. Afterall, I wouldn't think anyone would want to see my face and know that I'm alive."

"Oh.......Okay, I guess I can lie a bit."

"Thank you."