✨ STARS AND SUNRISES ☀️ | DRV3 FIC | KOREKIYO SHINGUJI & ANGIE YONAGA

1/2 | STARS ✨

Angie Yonaga always prayed on the steps at the front of Hope's Peak. She would kneel on the concrete, beneath a canopy of stars, and she'd clasp her hands together like she was trying to keep the joys of the world trapped between her palms.

That night was different. That night, she was not alone with the stars.

Korekiyo Shinguji was a man who needed fresh air to think properly. Any study he wrote in resembled a library, what with the high ceilings and the windows. However, high ceilings still blocked him off from the world, and immersing himself in the world was an easy way to calm down. He sat outside that night to catch his breath. Of course, being faced with the infinitely high wall didn't help his fretting, but he felt like a bird in a cage rather than a bird without wings.

He'd take any joy he could get.

Angie stood in the doorframe, tugging her yellow coat around her. It was a cold night. Korekiyo was shaking. "Have you accepted Atua into your life as well, Korekiyo?"

Korekiyo jumped at the voice. He was faced away, perched on the steps with his journal in his hands. He turned the page he was and got a paper cut. He pressed his bleeding finger on the page until a distinct mark was made. It would have been fun to collect people's fingerprints at the start of the game. If every person he'd ever met had placed a fingerprint in his journal, he would always have a part of them.

Of course, he always had one dead person with him. It was a mental fingerprint.

"Angie. How wonderful to see you." He spoke truthfully despite himself. Angie was a wonderful girl. She would have loved her.

Angie clocked onto his surprise and decided to pester. "Are you frightened?" In hindsight, the statement had been too vague, but Angie strongly disliked specifics.

"Frightened? Of you? Of course not."

"What about the game?"

Korekiyo went silent and closed his book, pressing his hand onto the leather cover. The drawings he'd done would scare her. He didn't want to scareaway potential friends. "I don't fret over hypotheticals." Then, quickly, "I suppose you came here to pray. I shall leave you to it."

He started to get him when he felt someone tug on his sleeve beside him. Angie was fast, so fast that Korekiyo hardly noticed her sitting next to him. She pulled him back down into a sitting position, shifting to kneel down and resting the backs of her hands on her knees.

Korekiyo looked at her, puzzled. "I can go if you wish to pray. I dare not encroach."

She flexed her fingers and proceeded to put her hands together, interlocking her fingers. "Stay. Think. Atua's world is a wonderful thing to reflect on."

And Korekiyo stayed.

He didn't put his hands together but he did lean back and look at the stars. He didn't recognise the constellations; they were all individual to him. He always spotted the North Star before any other star because it reminded him of her.

He thought about everything that had lead to this. Everything that would continue on after this. If his plans would work. If he could successfully send off another friend for her. If he'd have to kill Angie.

Korekiyo was crying before he knew how to stop himself. He leaned forward, his head in his hands. Angie had her head bowed into her hands, and she tightened her grip. The joy would fly away if she let them go. "It's okay to cry. I cry when I pray too." Korekiyo didn't see the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, but he could pick up on the wavering in her voice.

The beauty of humanity was how complicated the people making up a society could be. How a maniacal killer could still feel guilt and how a religious young woman could break down his walls until he was as innocent as a child.

They stayed there for a while. Angie left first and said something to Korekiyo about a good night's rest. Korekiyo let his walls rebuild and opened his journal again.

He was as free as a bird in a cage. His victim would share his fate.

Unfortunately, things don't always go to plan.

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Word Count - 730.