Work Text:
he’s sitting on the stairsteps in his high school, his feet on the dirty tiles, ridden with trash and muddy tracks. there’s a flyer for a cultural society under his tennis shoes, but he doesn’t seem to notice. his head is buried in his hands, and all she can see from far away is white spiked hair and pale, almost anemic, bruised arms. he has a jacket, but the sleeves slip and every wound he’s received is on full display. he’s crying, but the noises are soft; the shaking is more prominent, like he’s trying to retain warmth desperately. but if he’s here, he probably didn’t find the merciful heat he was looking for. because who sits on the bottom step of a twisting staircase afterschool, where the only people staying behind are the custodians? who does that?
when she finds him, she sighs in relief and slight frustration. the click click of her high heels as she approaches him, tapping her pen against her jeans, makes a resonating noise in the echoing school halls. he looks up immediately, and she tries to give him a kind smile, but he still looks terrified. she can understand it: a pretty girl approaching a pathetic kid can only lead to tension. she laughs a little to herself, but she keeps the smile there because she knows how to do this by now. “hello?”
“h-hey.” his voice is small, like his stature. she is about six inches taller than him, and she appreciates the slight dominance. he plays with his fingers tentatively, “who are you?”
“shirogane tsumugi.” she holds out a hand, bending down a little to reach him. when cold hands grasp perfectly manicured ones, she shakes it firmly before releasing. “i heard you signed up for the next season of danganronpa?”
he raises his eyebrow, “i thought you were meant to be more discreet about recruiting. you don’t want your cast to get leaked, right?”
she shrugs light-heartedly, “there’s nobody you could tell, anyway.” his blue eyes seem to register the implications of the statement, leaving him shocked and hurt. his body language became a lot more closed and sure, this was all good and well, but she has a mission. “i run character design. i needed to meet with you to find out more regarding your personality, but this was the only time i could catch you. i’ve been here for two days, jeez.” she blows a strand of blue hair out of her face.
“sorry?” it’s phrased like a question, but she waves it off assertively. the boy looks hesitant for a moment, but he speaks again. “i’m iidabashi ken.”
“ken?” she blinks, “doesn’t that mean strong?”
“yeah. my dad thought it would be a good idea to have a big, tough son.” iidabashi laughs sadly. “that didn’t work out.”
“mm.” she hummed. “anyway, i have a couple of questions if that’s ‘kay?”
“sure.” he sighs, leaning against the railing on the stairs. “go ahead.”
“alright!” she flips through her clipboard, mumbling to herself. “you’re so much more compliant than the last guy i had to talk to. he was just plain rude! now, where is it? ahah!” she pulls out her pen and grins victoriously, “there we go! okay, first question. what is your connection to danganronpa? is it just a show for you, or is it your life?”
“i like it.” he replies softly. “i try to watch all the new episodes when they come out. i like watching the protagonists prevail, putting all the clues together. i love when they actually get the culprit, that feeling of satisfaction after all the anticipation. i want them to win. y’know?”
“yes, i do know,” she chirps happily, scribbling some stuff down. “thank you, that’s what we love to hear. okay. what do you wish to gain from this experience?”
it takes him a little bit longer to reply. he shifts a bit, hugging his knees and thinking deeply. she doesn’t mind the wait; she’s glad he’s actually thinking . it’s more interesting than the people who shrug, or who already know everything. he opens his mouth to answer but closes it again as he considers the question a few times. then, he lets out a small laugh, and says, “power.” before shirogane can reply, he continues, “i know, kind of a dumb answer, and it sounds really… really intense. but i… i don’t really care about money. sure, i would appreciate it, but that’s not really the reason i…” he trails off. he looks behind shirogane, at the wall, and his voice is a hell of a lot quieter when he whispers, “i kind of want to escape this. the hell that is my school life.”
“you’re bullied?”
“can’t you tell? i can’t go a day without being berated, or insulted, or pushed down and kicked. some… some guy cornered me in the locker room and… and g-groped me. i can’t keep doing this; i’m just a sophomore but i know it’s going to get so much worse and i don’t want to do it anymore. i can’t.” a tear slips down his face again, and he looks like a scared little kid. “i want to join danganronpa so i can… so i can be stronger than them. so i can be powerful. so i won’t just be a little… a little pussy, so i can be iidabashi ken. or... or maybe i won’t be me. i can be someone else. i just want to change. i really need it.”
shirogane is silent for a moment, sizing up the boy. he’s now shaking with sobs, looking at her desperately, begging her to talk to free him from the weight of his words. eventually, she indulges him, her voice a bridge away from actually caring: “what makes you perfect for danganronpa?”
“i will let you do…” he lets out a shaky sob, “ anything . a-anything to me. i don’t care. i will take what you give me… and i will be a good character. i’ll... i’ll owe you forever. i’ll do anything-”
“who do you want to be?” she clips her pen back to the paper because she knows how he will answer. she will remember.
“anybody else.”
shirogane purses her lips and nods, turning on her heels and walking away. before she can turn the corner, to leave iidabashi behind, she feels a small hand against her shoulder. she startles, but before she could scold him, he mutters, “make me a robot. make... make me cold. i... i…” his voice rises to a fever pitch, “I DON’T WANT TO BE A… A FUCKING HUMAN ANYMORE! I’M DONE! DONE! ”
shirogane shakes off his grasp, turning to look at him. he falls to her knees before her, and she can almost see the code in his icy eyes. she brushes her hair away from her face and nods at him, quickly and briefly, before officially exiting the building. she’ll never have to enter that damned school again, and she pities the coworker that would have to call him to the office, to install him into the software that is danganronpa, that is his future, she’s decided. she doesn’t feel sorry for him-- she couldn’t care less-- but there’s still a hint of tragedy that there’s a boy in a hellhole of a school, pining so desperately for a restart. there’s something beautiful about that sadness, too; it’s why she took the job. so she’s unsure, and she doesn’t like that, but the damned school is so plain that she couldn’t be bothered to care.
(later, she will text her friend about character design, and the two of them will sketch out iidabashi’s appearance a million times on paper. it’s then when it occurs to her that maybe, maybe iidabashi was a fictional character all along, because he looks like stardust and broken glass assembled into a husk of a human.)