Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“The class has voted for Hasegawa Ken, the Ultimate Quiz Show Champion, to be executed.”

“This conclusion was correct.”

“As a result, Hasegawa Ken will be punished with death.”

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[BONUS ROUND]

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Ken had always wondered what dying felt like.

It was a guilty secret of his, a morbid train of thought he couldn’t help but indulge ever since that fateful day when he watched his sister die, unable to do anything but watch as the light slowly left her eyes. He knew that the human mind had strange ways to cope with loss and he figured that this obsession was just his brain’s slightly tasteless attempt at making him move on, but it didn’t make it any easier to admit without having people raise an eyebrow. So, for years, he kept his mouth shut about it and did the only thing he knew how to do: he studied. He borrowed dozens of thanatology and medical books from the local library, read firsthand accounts of people surviving horrific accidents or being brought back from the brink of death, watched wildlife’s desperate struggle for survival in animal documentaries — anything that could sate his unhealthy thirst for knowledge and soothe the ever-growing fear that clawed at his gut every time he thought about how he would one day meet his end. 

For some time, he thought he knew everything there was to know about death. This simple assertion reassured him. It kept him sane against all odds, allowed him to find comfort in the idea that, no matter what he did or what went wrong in his life, he wouldn’t have to fear what would happen when the day came for him to die.

Yet, there was no amount of research that could have ever prepared him for the excruciating end that awaited him when he was voted guilty.

It was terrifying how quickly fear took back control of one’s body when it was pushed to its limits. All the anger and hatred Ken had carefully poured into Mai’s murder — hatred towards his classmates, who hadn’t lifted a single finger to help Kazutoshi until it was too late, towards the masterminds who put them in this sick game, towards Monomoko, whose hesitation was the final nail that sealed his fate forever, towards Okazaki, who had killed his only friend for no reason other than pure malice, towards himself for allowing Kazutoshi to die in the first place —, it all felt so far away now that he was strapped to this X-shaped rack, unable to do anything but scream and cry and beg for his life as his limbs were slowly twisted and torn to pieces with every spin of the trivia wheel. All the horrors he had seen, all the resentment he had built up ever since he saw Miki’s unmoving corpse in the kitchen, all the sweet memories he had created with the others, all the plans he had made for when he would get out of here, it didn’t matter anymore. Not when he was here.

The realization slowly sunk in as he listened to the sickening crunch of his own bones and the metallic stench of blood overwhelmed his snot-filled nose: he was actually going to die here, wasn’t he? 

As the thought settled in his mind, Ken almost felt… peaceful, like a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He barely even felt the pain of his broken limbs anymore, a final mercy granted by his overwhelmed brain as a latch-ditch effort to keep him alive just a minute longer. 

He wondered what would await him after death. He had never been a devout person, so the question had never really crossed his mind until now. Would there be nothing, a simple lack of existence? Would his soul remain forever tethered to this world, dooming him to an afterlife of aimless wandering? Would he go to Heaven, Hell, or would he be reborn in another world — becoming something fundamentally different, yet eerily similar? He knew it was probably a stupid question to ponder when he was minutes away from death, but it was better than the alternative of focusing on the horrific torture he was currently going through. 

The screen of his execution chamber displayed its final question, one he knew he couldn’t answer. He smiled.

If there was an afterlife, he hoped he could see Kazutoshi again.

Before he could open his mouth, he felt a sharp pinch in his neck.

His body shuddered.

His vision blurred.

And it all faded to black.

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When Ken’s eyes fluttered open again, he was surprised to be greeted not by overwhelming darkness or the soothing blue of the open sky, but by a searing white. He flinched and shielded his face with his arm, hoping to get some reprieve from the painfully blinding light, but to no avail: no matter how much he blinked, the space around him remained the same endless, depthless white. He could already feel the hint of a headache start to settle behind his eyes and spread along his temples.

He was lying on the ground — or at least he thought he was, it was hard to tell: there were no shadows for him to anchor his sights to, no horizon or ceiling to help him make sense of what was up and down. If not for the barely perceptible pressure of the floor against his back, he would have thought he was simply floating in a still sea of light, with no land in sight to break its oppressive monotony. 

It felt wrong. Disorientating.

“H-Hello…?” he called out as he stood up, startling when his voice echoed sharply in the void despite the lack of visible surfaces to reflect any sounds.

No reply.

Familiar panic started to claw its way back into his chest. Taking a shaky breath to calm his nerves and racing heart, he combed through his memories in search of something, anything that could explain how and why he ended up in this place, but his mind was fuzzy, like it had been stuffed with cotton. Why was it so hard to remember anything —

And then, it all came back to him.

The murder.

The class trial.

His execution.

The ticking of the wheel.

The screech of metal.

The breaking of bones.

The pain.

The screams.

His legs buckled under him and he fell on his knees with an echoey thud. 

“I’m dead,” he breathed, looking down at his own trembling hands and legs. They looked perfectly fine — no blood, no bruises, no torn muscles or bone shards peeking through the skin, nothing that could hint at the torture he was forced to go through. Yet, the memory burned beneath this thin veneer of normality like a festering wound, making the reality of his situation all too clear.

He was dead, and this place was what came after it.

He… wasn’t sure what to make of this information.

Slowly, he brought a hand to his face. It was warm and soft and slightly sweaty and undoubtedly alive . He could feel the gentle give of his cheeks, the rhythmic pulse of blood under his fingers, the tickle of his breath against his skin, the slightly raised scar tissue under his left eye and — huh. His right eye was uninjured. The inconsistency was enough to completely derail his current train of thought, replacing his growing unease with a spark of curiosity. So this wasn’t a perfect replica of his body right before he died. Interesting.

Once his initial shock finally subsided, he stood up again and started to look around. This place can’t be completely empty , he thought. Surely if he walked far enough, he’d find someone, or at least something interesting to look at. Or at least, he hoped so. The idea of spending the rest of his (un?)life all alone in this blank space was enough to make his blood run cold and deepen the pit in his stomach.

Moving around in this place was even more jarring than staying still. Every turn of his head revealed only more white as far as the eye could see. There was no sense of distance or time as he carefully put one foot in front of the other — the loud clicking of his dress shoes against the “floor” was the only proof that he was making any progress at all. He somehow managed to stumble on empty space twice, making him huff in frustration.

Ken decided he didn’t like the afterlife very much.

After what felt like an eternity of wandering, his eyes caught a flicker in the distance, the vague hint of a shape against plain white. He squinted as he approached, trying to make sense of what he was looking at despite the blinding light.

When he realized what it was, he stopped in his tracks.

It was a sign. And on it, written in big bold letters, was a message.

Welcome to the afterlife for unrepentant murderers.

Current inhabitants: 2

The number, displayed on a small mechanical counter under the sign, sent a shiver of dread down his spine.

There was someone else here.

Someone who had decided to take someone’s life, not by accident, but with malicious intent.

Someone just like him.

As if on cue, footsteps echoed behind him, accompanied by the soft rustle of fabric. The pace was slow, light, calculated, like the prowling of a predator who had found a prey to toy with.

“I wondered when you’d finally show up.”

His breath hitched.

That voice . Cold, smug, soulless, with an eerie lilt that made even the most innocuous sentence sound like a disguised threat — like dancing on the sharp edge of a knife. When Ken had first met her, he had found her voice off-putting, but ultimately harmless. Now, each word out of her mouth was as pleasant to his ear as a fingernail scratching a chalkboard.

His heart was beating so fast he feared it was going to escape his chest. This couldn’t be real. This was all a bad dream his dying brain had made up to keep death at bay. This couldn’t be happening.

He heard a tongue click behind him. The footsteps drew ever closer. “Ouch, giving me the cold shoulder? Rude.”

He didn’t want to look. If he ignored her, she would go away.

“Ha. Se. Ga. Wa~” 

Something warm poked him in the shoulder.

Slowly, he turned around.

And there she was, leaning towards him with her hands behind her back and a shit-eating grin plastered on her unmasked face. The conniving bitch who had killed the only person he’d truly cared for in this stupid killing game. The selfish asshole who’d ruined his life and reduced his future to ash in one swift motion, all for the sake of a completely fictional rivalry. The manipulative snake who had done nothing but hurt everyone involved with her before giving them one final stab in the back on her way out. Okazaki fucking Hanano.

That was when Ken knew.

This wasn’t the afterlife.

He was in hell, and this was his punishment.

Chapter Text

“Hi.”

“...”

“It feels nice to have some company again. I was starting to get bored.”

Ken silently glared at Hanano, as if looking at her long enough would burn a hole through that stupid face of hers and make her vanish for good. 

Unfortunately, she didn’t disappear, forcing him to actually acknowledge her presence.

The afterlife felt neither hot nor cold, yet she still carried her impossibly big and fluffy coat over her shoulders. The white suit she wore underneath was completely unmarred by the blood she had shed while alive, making her already ghostly silhouette even harder to make out against the empty void surrounding them. She had pulled her fox mask all the way up, revealing a round face framed by wispy brown locks, a sly smile and piercing light grey eyes that shined with cold intelligence. Her head was slightly tilted to the side in a fake semblance of curiosity, her pawprint earring swaying gently against her cheek.

Without all the blood and the creepy mask and the manic expression on her face, Ken thought she almost looked… approachable. Almost. If he didn’t know her any better, he’d probably wonder what she was even doing in a bleak place like this.

But he did know her. He had seen what she had done and witnessed firsthand the misery she’d left behind in her wake. He had seen her taunt and gloat while completely covered in blood — Kazutoshi’s blood —, her face flush and eyes wide with excitement as everyone screamed, cried and begged for her to stop her theatrics. He had seen how selfish she truly was, killing not for survival, but for the sake of her own enjoyment and unhinged delusions. He had seen her cruel tricks, the devious way she spun gentle cajoling words to lull people into a false sense of security, leaving them completely helpless when the time finally came for her to strike. He had seen the haunted expressions of his classmates as they left the class trial grounds, unable to think of anything but the chilling realization that they’d been living with a monster and hadn’t noticed until it was too late.

Okazaki Hanano was exactly what her mask suggested — a fox. A cute little thing with soft fluffy fur, but sharp teeth hidden underneath. A cunning beast who reveled in the shadows, waiting for the smallest moment of weakness to sneak into the chicken coop unnoticed and claim its prize with a mocking yip, leaving nothing but blood and feathers and mutilated corpses behind. A cruel monster who killed not to feed itself, but simply to feel the rush of the hunt and the taste of blood on its tongue.

And Ken had been one of the fools who had let the coop door open, all because he was too trusting.

He’d wanted to trust people so hard. It was all he had left in this killing game — the last remaining shred of humanity he could offer without drowning in his own anxieties and paranoia. But as soon as he turned his back to her, she had snatched this trust out of his hands and left with what was most precious to him, sinking her teeth into his chest and ripping out his still-beating heart before tearing it to ribbons.

God, he hated her so much.

He took a slow breath in to ground himself, his clenched fists trembling against his sides.

“I have to say,” Hanano continued coolly, seemingly unperturbed by his lack of response, “you took longer to die than I expected. Your execution looked really painful.”

“Y-You…” The words came out rougher than he expected to, and he had to pause to stop his voice from wavering. Judging by the slight crease at the corner of Hanano’s eyes, she had noticed it too, like a shark smelling blood in the water. “... You watched me die?”

“Of course I did. It’s not like I had anything better to do,” she answered, taking a step towards him. She talked with the same emotionless drawl as she always did, but Ken could hear the prickle of mockery hidden in her lilt all the same. It made him want to tear her tongue out and shove it back down her throat. “I watched everything, you know. Your murder, the trial, the execution, everything. Honestly, I didn’t think you had it in you, at first. When you started wallowing in your room like a sad sack after my trial, I really thought you were going to let yourself die. I’m glad I was wrong, though — that would have been pathetic and boring. A sad excuse of a murder, not worthy of a trial at all.”

Ken’s eyes narrowed when she let out an eerie laugh and her mischievous smile widened into a toothy grin, revealing unusually sharp canines. He wondered if it was natural or if she actually had them filed — she definitely struck him as the kind of weirdo who would do something so inane.

“Speaking of murder!” she suddenly exclaimed, clapping her hands together. Her eyes shone with a familiar frenzied spark. Ken wished he’d never have to see that insufferable expression again. “I have to say, you really went above and beyond my expectations! Hiding notes and poisoning people to create paranoia, using the secret passages to set up your murder without being seen, using the floor weakness to kill without having to be there, locking yourself in the medical bay to give yourself an alibi, that was really clever, a devious plot worthy of a true bona fide villain!” She shook her clenched fists like a child with too much energy to spare — with how excited she was, one could almost forget she was talking about murder. “Oh, and the door traps! I see someone was inspired by my devilish ingenuity! The student surpassed the master at last — I was so proud it almost made me tear up.”

Ken could feel his body tense up and his jaw tighten with each of her cutting words. He wished he could shut her up for good, punch the smile off her face and choke her until her laughter died in her crushed throat, but he knew from her expectant gaze that that was exactly the kind of reaction she was waiting for. She was like a cat toying with a mouse: she wanted the attention to be on her, she wanted to see him squirm and squeak and tire himself out before dealing the killing blow. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, so he remained still and silently held her gaze. If he had to be stuck with her, he’d do his best to make this experience as miserable as possible for both of them.

His lack of immediate response seemed to calm Hanano down. She put her hands back in her pockets and tilted her head to the side, her smug expression shifting back to her usual indifference with alarming speed. Knowing her, she was probably already thinking up a new way to make him lose his cool.

“I remembered you being a bit more talkative.”

Her measured tone didn’t betray anything, but her wording and unwavering stare gave her away: she was getting frustrated, Ken could feel it. His heart fluttered with satisfaction at this small victory.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” he said curtly as he took a step to the side, then another. “Go away.”

“We’re stuck here together now,” she insisted, although she didn’t make a move to follow him. “You should get used to it.”

“I’m not doing that. Leave me alone.”

She blinked slowly. “Why?”

“You know why. Stop trying to pretend you don’t know what you did.” He turned away from her. “I’m leaving. Don’t follow me.”

The moment of silence that followed Ken’s retort as he walked away was pure bliss in his ears. It didn’t last long, unfortunately, and Hanano’s voice soon echoed again behind him, cold and calculated. “This is about Kamimura, right? I thought we were past all th—”

Her words were like a stab in the heart. His breath hitched.

Before he knew it, he had already turned around, fists clenched so hard he could feel his nails digging in his palms.

“ Don’t ,” he snapped, the loud echo of his own voice making him freeze in his tracks.

She paused, surprised by his sudden outburst. “... What?”

“Don’t you dare talk about him.”

He winced when his voice, overcome by a surge of conflicting emotions, wobbled pathetically at the very last moment. Hanano didn’t react immediately, her expression as impassive as ever and her silence as heavy as the lull before the rumbling thunder. It was only when she slowly walked up to him, eyes shining with a new intensity and body straightened up like a snake ready to strike, that Ken realized he had made a grave mistake — she’d found a weakness in his armor, and she was going to use it to her advantage.

Ken forced himself to keep a neutral face as she drew closer, stopping only a mere step away from him. Her grey eyes locked with his. Despite his instincts screaming at him to look away, he stared back.

“Or what?” she breathed, leaning forward until she was the only thing he could see without turning away. They were so close he could feel the warmth radiating from her. The hint of a satisfied smile formed on her lips when he didn’t answer. “Or what, Hasegawa? What are you going to do to me?”

He needed to say something, anything. Letting her have the last word was tantamount to admitting defeat. He couldn’t let that happen.

“Y-You killed him,” he finally said, heart pounding wildly in his chest.

“I did.” She tilted her head to the side. He’d noticed her doing that quite often during the killing game, and although the lack of a mask to hide her features made the gesture somewhat less threatening, he couldn’t help but tense up. “What about it?”

She spoke with the casual nonchalance of someone who was being told off for leaving their dirty dishes in the sink. It made Ken’s blood boil. Did she truly have no regrets for what she did, for the lives she had ruined? How could someone possibly be so heartless?

“You killed him,” he continued, his voice hoarse with simmering rage. “You drugged him, kidnapped him, tortured him, then you killed him and desecrated his corpse. He wanted to live for the first time in years, he had a future to look out to, and you killed him .” Unable to calm down his frantic breathing, he let out a weak laugh. He knew he should stop talking — he was giving her more heartstrings to tug, more ammunition to hurt him with —, but he simply couldn’t find the strength to stop himself. His words, like water in a broken dam, spilled forth: “A-And all for what? To stop me from investigating your- your stupid roleplay murder? Because I was a threat to you? He died for nothing. You killed him for nothing.”

“I did. I think I made that pretty clear during the trial, didn’t I? You should really get your ears checked.”

Rushing blood roared in his ears. His jaw clenched so hard he felt his teeth grind.

He hated her.

He hated her so much.

If only she never existed.

If only she was never born at all.

If only.

“You know, I wonder what Kamimura would think of you now,” Hanano mused, her voice feather-light, yet still as scathing. “After all that moralizing and weeping, you ended up killing someone, and now you’re stuck here with me. Seeing his gentle little service dog become a cold-blooded murderer — he must be so disappointed, right now.”

Words caught in his throat. His body was wound up tight, like a bowstring ready to snap. “... S-Shut up.”

If only.

If only.

If only —

Another head tilt. “You seem mad at me.”

Her confusion almost seemed genuine.

Something in him broke.

His fist flew forward, hitting the side of Hanano’s face with a satisfying crunch. She stumbled to the side, stunned by the blow, and brought a hand to her face. It came back stained with red.

She looked up at him with wide eyes.

And she smiled. “Ah, there it is.”

A second blow struck her temple, then a third to her jaw, each more forceful and desperate than the last. Blood bloomed on Ken’s burning knuckles, a stark and breathtaking red in a world of pure white. Before she had a chance to recover, he lunged at her, grabbing her by the collar and pushing her backwards with all his weight. They were roughly the same height, but her build was surprisingly lighter than he expected — he supposed her clothes made her look much more imposing than she actually was. She struggled against his grip, but ultimately didn’t give much resistance, sending them both tumbling to the ground with a hard thud. He straddled her with ease, pinning her to the ground. 

Hanano’s face was a complete mess: blood welled from her nose, pooling at the corners of her split lip and dripping on the pristine floor. One of her eyes was already swelling shut, her long lashes matted with blood from the cut on her brow. The entirety of her left cheek was starting to bruise, marring her pale skin with sickly red. And still, she smiled with bloodstained teeth, her good eye shining with obscene excitement. “Now, that is the face of a killer! I was wondering when you’d finally show your true s— ack!”

Ken didn’t let her finish: he wrapped his fingers around her bandaged throat and squeezed . 

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he yelled, his voice straining with anger.

Hanano’s flesh was warm and soft under his fingers. He could feel her pulse flutter wildly beneath the skin, muscles tensing as she tried — and failed — to take a breath in. Her eyes widened in surprise and her mouth twisted in a quiet gasp for air, but he held strong, pressing his thumbs harder against her windpipe. She started to struggle, not out of true self-defense — they were already dead, after all —, but pure instinctive panic. Her legs kicked uselessly under him, desperately trying to find purchase on the frustratingly smooth floor. Her hands shot up, fingernails digging into his wrists with reckless abandon. His heart fluttered with excitement when sharp pain prickled his skin, small beads of blood pooling under Hanano’s fingers and staining her bandages red. 

If he could feel pain, that meant she could, too.

Good.

He tightened his grip, his fingers trembling from the strain. A pathetic rasp escaped Hanano’s lips. 

Strangulation by blocking airflow usually takes several minutes, but it is much quicker when combined with a restriction of blood flow to the brain , he thought before shaking his head, focusing on the task at hand. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted by random trivia.

Eventually, he felt her strength start to falter. Her face flushed before taking a blueish hue. Her pulse slowed underneath his fingers. Her hands stopped clawing and instead started weakly grabbing at his sleeves. Her body writhed in a vain last-ditch attempt to buck him off before finally going slack. Tears welled up in her half-lidded eyes. She was fading fast, and for the first time, Ken saw a flicker of something other than smug cruelty on her battered face — vulnerability. Not quite fear, but close enough for him.

Before she could fall unconscious, he let go.

Hanano rolled to her side with a wheeze, clutching her bruised throat as she coughed and gasped for air. She tried to push herself to her knees, but her uncoordinated limbs struggled to hold her weight after so much time spent without oxygen and she stumbled back down like a foal trying to take its first steps — only less cute and more pathetic. A pool of red was forming underneath her, blood steadily dripping from her nose and painting star-shaped blotches on the empty canvas of their new white reality. 

Ken watched her fumble around, fists trembling and heart pounding hard in his chest. His hands hurt like hell — he could see the bruises from his repeated punching start to spread on his knuckles. The scratches Hanano left on his wrists burned with a dull ache. His arms felt like they were on fire. Choking someone out definitely looked much easier in movies. He decided to take a mental note of that, just in case it happened again — because it would happen again, he was sure of it. For as long as he’d be stuck here with Hanano, his rage would remain, simmering under the skin until it would eventually boil over again.

Hanano looked up at him, still lying on the ground. Her gaze was glassy, unfocused, like she was struggling to find his face in the blinding white. Slowly, she raised a trembling bloodstained hand towards him and cupped the side of his face. Strangely enough, he let her. The strain of their scuffle had started to take its toll on him — he was too worn out to care anymore.

She smiled.

“That… that was fun,” she croaked, her voice still weak and raw. “I think we’re going to have a great time together, Hasegawa Ken.”

Chapter Text

… Now what?

Such was the question that lingered in Ken’s mind as he stared at the endless white, arms loosely wrapped around his legs and head resting on his knees. The adrenaline high and burning rage he had felt mere minutes ago had long since left his body, leaving him uncomfortably lethargic, like his mind and body had been laden with lead. The bruises on his knuckles, now a faded blue, throbbed dully as if to remind him of their presence. He winced when he tried to flex his fingers — he was pretty sure he’d broken a bone or two during his scuffle with Hanano.

The longer he gazed into the void, the more its oppressive emptiness and immutability overwhelmed him. There was nothing to do or see here. No sky nor horizon to gaze at, no sounds or music to listen to, no cold nor heat to stave off, no interesting places to be, no sunrises or sunsets to witness, nothing but white and silence and her . He wasn’t even sure if time actually passed here. He didn’t feel hungry or tired yet — he could have been staring into empty space for two minutes or ten decades for all he knew. He would never know, and that was what frightened him about this place. 

Maybe this was his punishment for killing someone, being stuck with someone he despised without being able to do anything but look at the same boring blank canvas until the end of times.

He decided to rest his eyes for a few seconds, trying to bask in the silence. He had always been one to enjoy the small moments of quiet in his life — the comfort of a peaceful morning, the soothing stillness of an empty park, the unsaid words of a friend resting at his side. It relaxed him, gave him time to breathe in a world that kept changing at breakneck speed without waiting for him. However, the silence here was different. It wasn’t peaceful, but hollow, less of a lull than an absence of something , so loud that it almost made his ears buzz. It offered him no comfort, no rest. In fact, he actually felt worse — his head was starting to hurt, as if to punish him for trying to relax. With a frustrated click of the tongue, he opened his eyes again and was greeted by the same searing white.

After yet another failed attempt at finding something interesting to look at, his weary gaze eventually drifted down, stopping on a familiar figure. Hanano was lying on the ground where he had left her, curled up on her side like a sick dog waiting for death. The front of her suit was crumpled and bloodied from their previous fight, and her fox mask had been hastily pulled down over her face when he wasn’t looking. If he had to guess why, she probably didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of contemplating the sorry state in which he’d put her any longer than necessary. A shame, really: the memory of the pained expression he’d managed to force out of her was enough to make his heart flutter with excitement. She remained eerily still and silent — if it weren’t for her uneven wheezing and occasional coughing fit to break the silence, he would have mistaken her for a corpse.

He stared at her for a moment, then quickly looked away with a scowl. He might be bored to death, but he wasn’t desperate enough to try and talk to her.

… Not yet, at least.

He took a slow breath in an attempt to soothe his restless mind. 

It didn’t work.

He tried to think of something else to pass the time. There were a thousand things he could do that were way more interesting than talking to Hanano. Like… staring at the void. Or picking at his nails. Or unraveling the loose seam on his sleeve. Or testing how long he could hold his breath. Or measuring how many heartbeats he could count to before the numbers started to blur together. That definitely wasn’t boring at all and something that busy people did all the time.

He settled on reciting random trivia facts for the time being. It felt familiar, reassuring.

Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire, having been founded in 1096, while the city that would become the capital of the Aztec Empire was founded in 1325.

Deers are more closely related to whales than horses, due them both being artiodactyls.

In a room of twenty-three people, the chance of two of them sharing a birthday is fifty percent.

The Anglo-Zanzibar war is the shortest recorded war in history, having lasted between thirty eight and forty five minutes.

A group of flamingoes is called a flamboyance.

The chance of getting a royal flush in poker is about one in six hundred forty-nine thousand seven hundred and forty.

…

…

…

He couldn’t keep doing this forever.

With a sigh, Ken stood up and walked to Hanano’s side. Then, after a long moment of deliberation, he nudged her in the arm with his foot. Not gently, but not too harshly either — just enough to be annoying. “Are you going to get up?”

There was a beat of silence before Hanano shifted slightly, a groan of discomfort escaping her lips.

“In a minute,” she said as she slowly rolled onto her back. Her voice was weak and hoarse, but he could hear the familiar lilt slowly weave its way back into her tone. “In case you didn’t know, getting your afterlife almost choked out of you tends to be a bit… hard on the body.”

“We’re dead,” Ken deadpanned. “You’ll be fine.”

She huffed in amusement, although the noise sounded more like a broken squeaky toy than anything. “You know, if you really wanted someone to talk to, maybe you shouldn’t have tried to crush my windpipe. I thought you were supposed to be the smart one here.”

He crossed his arms. “I never said I wanted to talk to you.”

She tilted her head to the side at his words. Her expressionless mask gave the innocuous motion a disturbingly owlish quality. “Are you sure about that? Because from what I’m seeing right now, you’re the one who started this conversation, not me.”

“I— you— i-it’s not—” He tried to think of a reasonable explanation, but nothing came to mind. His lips pressed into a thin line. “... I was just checking if you were still breathing.”

“Ah. Of course you were, Ken.”

The sound of his first name on her tongue felt like a slap across the face. He turned his gaze away from her unblinking stare when he felt a frustrated flush start to creep up his neck. “Shut up, or I’ll choke you again.”

“And lose your favorite conversation partner?”

His fists clenched. He had to take a step back to stop himself from actually reaching down and finishing what he had started. “I said shut up. Forget I said anything. You’re the worst.”

She chuckled. “You’re really fun to tease, you know that?”

“ Stop talking .”

Surprisingly enough, she did, letting her head drop to the floor with a small huff. He assumed the fight had probably exhausted her far more than she was willing to admit.

… Which meant that Ken was back to square one — stuck with his own thoughts without anything to do.

He looked down at his hands once again.

“... Huh?”

His injuries were gone. The bruising on his knuckles had faded, like it had never been here in the first place. The moon-shaped scratches Hanano had left on his wrists had closed without so much as a scab, leaving nothing but smooth skin behind. He tentatively flexed his fingers — no pain, no discomfort, nothing. He couldn’t help but frown, his understimulated mind clinging to this strange new piece of information like a drowning man clung to a lifebuoy. Did wounds heal faster in this place, or did time pass much quicker than he initially thought?

“Is… is this normal?” he asked out loud.

Hanano stirred. “What?”

“My wounds. They’re already healed.”

“Ah, this.” She gave a noncommittal shrug, or at least attempted to — it was hard to do when lying on the floor. “Injuries don’t last for long here. Cut your hand, sprain your ankle, bite your tongue, gouge out your eyes, blow your brains out — after some time, you’ll be as good as new, like nothing ever happened. The healing is even faster if you keep your mind off the pain. Ignore it for long enough, and it’s gone. Convenient, right?”

He blinked, still somewhat perplexed. “... I see.”

At first, he felt relieved. He really didn’t like being hurt, after all. He’d managed to avoid physical harm for most of his life — emphasis on most —, which also meant that his tolerance for pain wasn’t exactly the best. So, knowing that he wouldn’t remain battered and bruised forever in the afterlife comforted him. However, his contentment quickly soured in his mouth when he heard the shuffling of clothing next to him.

If I heal quickly, then that means she does, too.

Slowly, carefully, Hanano pushed herself into a sitting position. It looked like it still hurt — her movements were stiff and her breathing remained somewhat shallow and labored. She didn’t seem to care, however, and she hooked a slender finger under her mask and lifted it off her face in one practiced motion. She definitely looked in better shape than before. The cuts on her lip and brow had closed and the massive bruise on her cheek had faded. Her eyes were keen and alert. Even the blood staining her face, her suit and the ground was starting to vanish into thin air, turning their cathartic fight into nothing more but a faint memory.

It made his blood boil.

“That should do it,” she hummed.

Ken stared silently as she got up on unsteady feet and casually dusted her suit and coat, as if she’d simply fallen instead of almost being strangled to death. He could do it again. Push her down while she had her guard down, wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze until the light in her eyes faded again. Make the silence last a little bit longer. It would be easy, now that he’d seen how weak she actually was. But he knew that would do nothing to quell his resentment towards her. Not anymore. He wanted her to hurt, and he wanted that pain to last. If nothing mattered here, if Hanano was going to be back on her feet mere minutes later as if nothing happened, then there was no point in lashing out. It would offer him no satisfaction.

So he didn’t move. He simply stared.

Hanano turned to face him. Her expression looked… different, somehow. It was still as impassive and unreadable as ever, and her eyes glinted with her usual sly smugness, yet he was certain he could see something new in her slightly hunched posture, in the way she slowly walked up to his side and stopped a few steps away from him instead of invading his personal space like she’d done earlier: she seemed strangely calm. Subdued. Settled. Like she’d seen exactly what she wanted to see. Like she’d eaten her fill and couldn’t afford another bite. He wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or not.

“Follow me,” she said, pointing towards the empty space with her chin. “I’ll show you around the place. There are some things you haven’t seen yet.”

Ken frowned, suspicious at her sudden offer. “... Why would you do that for me?”

A sigh. “Because I’m bored. Besides, I know how this place works, and you don’t, so I don’t really think you have a choice.” Her eyes crinkled with mirth. “Unless you plan on brooding in a corner for eternity, that is.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Oh, come on now,” she tutted, a hint of frustration prickling under her usually unexpressive voice. “You’ve made your point: you hate me and you’re angry that I killed your boyfriend—” His train of thoughts stuttered at her words. Boyfriend? She probably noticed the sudden change in his expression, because she added with an offhanded flick of the wrist: “—or whatever it was that you guys had, I don’t really care. Now what? Are you planning on avoiding me for the rest of your afterlife?”

Once his thoughts and racing heart finally settled down, he answered with what he hoped sounded like resolute sternness. “Pretty much, yes.”

“That sounds pretty boring.”

“I don’t mind being bored if it means I’m not talking to you.”

Hanano stared at him for what felt like forever. Then, much to his surprise, she spun around and shrugged. “... Okay, suit yourself. But don’t come to me crying when you start clawing your eyes out from boredom.”

Ken stood still as she walked away from him, the fading echo of her dress shoes clicking against the floor like a taunt in his ears. 

The deafening silence pressed in.

He looked around him, hoping to find something else to focus his attention on that wasn’t her.

As always, the emptiness offered nothing.

…

…

…

With a sharp sigh, he followed after her.

“Don’t make me regret this,” he mumbled when he reached her side, ignoring the satisfied spark that shone in her eyes as he did so.

“Hurray,” she said with a deadpan lilt. “I promise it will be worth it.”

Chapter Text

After a short walk — Ken had counted about three hundred heartbeats, which would put their travel time at around three minutes or so —, Hanano stopped in her tracks. Ken looked around and frowned. “There’s nothing here.”

“Look down.”

He did so, not expecting much as he watched her lift her foot forward and gingerly touch the floor with the tip of her shoe, like it was made of glass.

But then, something happened.

The ground shifted , like water disturbed by ripples from a falling leaf. It shimmered brightly for a few seconds before suddenly losing its shine, darkening into a perfect circle at their feet — about ten feet across, he estimated. Colours swam on its rippling surface like oil on water, creating dancing shapes he failed to make any sense of, but couldn’t help but be entranced by. After spending so much time in the oppressing whiteness, this oddity felt like a drug to his understimulated senses.

“What’s that?”

“Look inside it. You’ll see.”

After a short moment of hesitation, Ken carefully leaned over the circle, making sure to not stand too close to Hanano as he did so — just in case. The colours kept swirling in a chaotic motion. Deep greys and browns, sometimes punctuated by a pale blue or a streak of bright red before shifting again, but no distinct shapes. It felt like watching something with his head stuck underwater. His brow furrowed in confusion and he turned to Hanano. “What am I supposed to—”

“Focus,” she said, her voice unusually quiet. “The view sharpens when you focus on it.”

Ken did as she asked.

The ripples slowed. Colours shifted and mixed together. Blurry shapes became clearer, more steady. 

His heart skipped a beat.

High buildings. Giant street signs. Jam-packed roadways. Flashy shopfronts. Crisscrossing wires. An endless crowd threading through a colourful maze of narrow streets and crosswalks like ants in a nest. It was all so familiar, too familiar.

“Is that… Shibuya?”

“Seems like it. That’s where you lived, right?” Hanano’s voice was almost soft as she spoke — probably fake curiosity, he thought. “It usually shows you things that you’re familiar with. Places or people you want to see. I’ve been watching the rest of the killing game from here. Otherwise, there isn’t much else to do except watch strangers.”

Ken didn’t answer, too busy staring at the view. It all looked so real, so alive — he could almost make out the hubbub of the passers-by and the smell of street food.

He took a step forward before he even realized he’d moved.

… Or at least he tried before a firm hand grabbed him by the back of his collar and tugged him backwards. “Wh—?!”

“Don’t step in it,” Hanano said coolly. “You’ll sink like a rock.”

The confused anger that had started to bloom in his chest simmered down at her explanation, leaving him feeling uncomfortably awkward. Had she just… saved him? Unable to hold her piercing gaze any longer, he decided to readjust his collar instead. “O-Oh…  Did you fall in before?”

“Just the one time. I can’t say it was a very pleasant experience.”

“What is it like?”

“It feels like you’re drowning.”

He searched her face for any hint that she was lying. Her expression was the same as ever, her eyes burning through him with their usual coldness, but he swore he could see the faintest hint of tension in her brow.

He decided to take her word for it. That didn’t feel like the sort of things she would be lying about — or at least he hoped so. His gaze slowly drifted back to the rippling circle, as if drawn by an unseen force. “... Is this actually real?”

“As far as I know. I’ve watched you die in it and you arrived here soon after, so I assume that what we see happens in real time in the living world. You can’t interact with what’s inside, but you can hear conversations if you focus hard enough. It will tire you out if you do it for too long, though, so be mindful of that.”

“I... I see,” he muttered, unable to repress the growing tightness in his throat.

An aching hollowness opened in his chest as he watched all these strangers go on about their lives — walking streets he knew like the back of his hand, eating food he used to eat all the time, passing shops he frequented, exchanging words and laughs like nothing had happened, like they hadn’t even noticed he was gone. He was well aware that he was watching something he never should have been able to see, that he shouldn’t be peeking into this life that he’d never get to experience again. And yet, despite how much it made his eyes water and his head pound, he couldn’t bring himself to look away, as if staring at the familiar view for long enough would somehow bring him back.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

The feeling of Hanano’s warm breath on his neck made him jump out of his skin, narrowly avoiding stepping in the hole through sheer luck. It took all of his willpower not to punch her in the face again out of pure defensive instinct.

“Ah!” he yelped as he pressed a hand against the ear she had whispered in, hoping that his outrage helped conceal the embarrassment flushing his cheeks. “D-Don’t do that!”

Hanano chuckled, a wide grin on her face. “That was easy. If you don’t step up your game soon, I’m going to start getting bored.”

Once his heart didn’t feel like it was going to burst out of his chest, he let out a frustrated huff and dusted off his slightly crumpled suit. She wasn’t worth his anger, he told himself like a mantra — only his indifference. That was what would drive her crazy. “... A-Anyway. Do you have anything else to show me, or are you done playing tour guide?”

She stayed silent for a second, considering his question before tilting her head to the side. “Are you sure you don’t want to look in the window a bit longer? I thought you’d like to see what the others are doing now.”

His body tensed up, as if struck by lightning. By the others, he assumed she meant the people they had been trapped with during the killing game — or at least, what remained of them. Wada Masanari, Ojima Takeshi, Hiroaki Nakamigawa, Tamba Ruiko, Yanagi Shigeki. The ones who had failed to protect the only person that had mattered to him during this whole farce. The ones whose carelessness had led Kazutoshi to his death. The ones he’d tried — and almost managed — to kill before his perfect plan was foiled by that stupid rabbit.

The words, bitter and sharp, escaped his mouth before he could think. “No. They can rot for all I care.”

He didn’t want to see them. He didn’t want to think about them. The mere thought of them living their lives while he and Kazutoshi were left rotting in that medical bay was simply too unbearable.

“... Wow,” Hanano finally said. The long silence before she found her words told him that her astonishment was genuine, or at least as genuine as someone like Hanano could manage without looking disingenuous. “That’s harsh, Ken. I thought you tolerated at least some of them. Aren't you a little bit curious?”

“No. They don’t matter to me. Also, stop calling me Ken.”

“What about your family, or your friends? Don’t you want to see what they’re doing?”

His breath hitched, the knot in his throat growing ever tighter. “N-No. I don’t.”

Not now , he almost said, but he thought against it. Don’t feed her. Don’t give her ammunition. He had already given too much today.

A cold shiver went down his spine when he noticed her lips tick upward. He clenched his fists, expecting an offhand remark or cold jibe at his dullness. However, strangely enough, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she lightly swept her foot against the surface of the circle — or as she called it, the “window”. Ripples tore through the familiar view, shapes turned into chaotic blotches of colour, and before he knew it, the hole shimmered back into its old appearance. 

“Well, that was pretty boring,” Hanano muttered, shoving her hands in her pockets as she took a step back. “Let me show you something else. It should keep us distracted a tad longer.”

Ken didn’t answer and simply followed her lead. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, and she hadn’t tried anything sketchy yet, so he decided he might as well make use of his time by actually learning something new. In the worst case scenario, he could always leave if she ended up being too annoying.

She led him away from the window before turning to face him, her coat billowing behind her like a big fluffy cape. “Okay, time to teach you how to make things.”

He stared. “... Make things?”

“Mm-hm. It’s not that hard, honestly. Picture something in your head hard enough, and you can will it into being. It’s easier with things you are familiar with, but you can technically create whatever you want as long as you remember what it looks like and how it works.”

“That sounds… convenient,” he frowned, unconvinced.

She clapped her hands together. “It is! It’s a good way to pass time. Let me show you.”

Before he had a chance to respond, he noticed her clothes start to ripple and change. Her coat vanished from her shoulders like a dandelion flower blown away by the wind. The bandages covering her hands and throat came undone and fell into the ground without a sound. Shadows wrapped around her orange tie until it was completely black. The golden accents of her clasps shifted to a muted silver. Her suit and dress pants shimmered slightly before fading to a dark hue, the sleeves tightening into a straighter cut against her wrists and a faint floral pattern weaving its way into the hem. 

Ken stared for a long time before the realization suddenly struck him. His stomach turned with disgust.

“That’s mine,” he said, voice low. “Take that off.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” she answered with a pleased hum. She looked down at herself and did a little twirl, striking different poses like a preening bird. Seeing his own clothes hang on her slim frame felt wrong in a way he couldn’t describe — like looking at a warped reflection in a broken mirror. “It’s quite comfortable, and the cut is not too bad. I actually think it suits me pretty well. What do you think?”

He took a deep breath to calm himself down. Don’t punch her, it’s not worth it, don’t punch her, it’s not worth it, don’t punch her— “... Will you change back if I give you my thoughts?”

She smiled, unperturbed — or perhaps emboldened — by the bitterness dripping from his every word. “Sure, since you’re offering so nicely.”

Ken rolled his eyes and gave her a cursory glance, arms crossed against his chest.

… His clothes did suit her pretty well. They had a similar build, after all. The fabric was too dark for her pale complexion and the cut seemed a bit too loose around her shoulders and too tight around her waist, but she somehow managed to make it work. Confidence went a long way to make someone look dapper in any kind of outfit, apparently. There was no way in hell he could say that to her face, though. He would hear about it for the rest of his afterlife if he did.

After a long minute considering how to possibly phrase his opinion in a way that wouldn’t put him on the spot, he let out a sigh of defeat. “... You look… fine, I guess.”

“Just fine, huh…” She tilted her head pensively, then shrugged. “I’ll take it. I hope you’ll come up with something better next time.” Her outfit shifted again, turning back into her familiar suit and coat without a sound. “Your turn, now. Try my outfit.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Why not? I think you would look nice in white.”

The idea sounded even worse than watching her parade around in his suit. “I’m not wearing your clothes. It’s weird.”

“Come on, Ken,” she insisted, her voice dropping to a gentle tone. He knew that tone of voice very well — it was the one she used to cajole people into doing what she wanted, the one she used to make people think she cared about them. She didn’t. She probably just wanted to see him squirm. “Think of it as training, okay? It’s easier to practice with something that’s right in front of you. Just look at it and picture it in your head. It’s not that hard.”

Ken silently held her gaze. “... Fine, if that means you’ll leave me alone.”

He closed his eyes and pictured Hanano’s clothes, imagining how the fabric would feel on his frame. The white suit, too bright and too clean for the monster that hid underneath. The fluffy coat, big and warm. The golden buttons. The orange tie. The weird skirt over the straight-cut dress pants… 

Why did she even wear that thing? It didn’t even look good—

He felt something shift against his skin. A weight on his shoulders. An uncomfortable tightening around his wrists and neck.

He looked down.

The coat was warm, but much heavier than he expected. It was uncomfortably dense, like it was actively trying to smother him, and the faux fur lining the collar tickled his neck and face every time he moved his head. The suit’s cut was too tight around his shoulders, hindering his movement. The dress shoes were too heavy. The bandages around his hands and throat clung to his skin like coiled snakes, making it hard to breathe. The fabric of the suit, unfamiliar and rough, felt like hot coals pressed against his skin. He shivered, suppressing the growing urge to scratch to try and soothe the discomfort running through his body. He just felt… wrong. Like he was wearing someone else’s skin — which he was, in a way.

Hanano’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the sight, and she let out an appreciative hum. “Would you look at that,” she cooed, taking her sweet time to circle around him and get a complete look, like a predator closing in on its prey. He tried his best to not to stiffen under her sharp gaze. “It suits you more than I expected. It makes you look taller, and the cut is quite flattering on you. Your bearing leaves a bit to be desired, though — you really need to work on your confidence.”

“I don’t like it,” he answered curtly, keeping his arms close to his chest as if it was going to protect him from her. “How can you wear this all the time?” 

She stared at him like he’d just asked her why the sky was blue. “B-Because they’re my clothes...? I’m used to them.”

“... How do I get my clothes back? Do I just think about them?”

“That’s the gist of it, yes.”

Ken closed his eyes and focused on his suit.

With a ripple, the white vanished from his frame and was replaced by black.

He let out a sigh of relief and smoothed the wrinkles off his jacket. “That’s better,” he muttered, stretching his arms and basking in the familiar sensation of soft fabric against his skin.

“Good. It seems you’re a quick learner. That makes things easier.”

He paused, throwing Hanano a sideway glance. “... Thanks, I guess?” 

A moment of silence stretched between them. To stave off the growing awkwardness, he added: “So, we can just create whatever we want, whenever we want?”

“Almost, yes, as long as you can picture it with enough detail. Although, do keep in mind that creating items can tire you out pretty quickly, and the items you create will disappear if you don’t actively think about them for too long. That includes sleeping, so assume everything will be cleared up when you wake up.”

“... Right.”

Another pause, longer this time. He shuffled his feet, clasping his arm in his hand to keep his mind occupied. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do, now that their little lesson was over — or at least, he assumed it was over. Should he just… leave? Go back to the window? Should he make some items to train and pass the time?

God, this was awkward. And here he thought that the worst thing about being stuck in the afterlife with the person he hated the most would be the endless fighting… as it turned out, spending time with your enemy was the same ordeal as any average relationship, regardless of how much you wanted to throttle them. The more you knew.

Hanano suddenly let out a sharp sigh and flexed her fingers, snapping him out of his rambling thoughts. “Okay, time to make something a little more entertaining.”

Ken couldn’t help but tense up, his brow knitting into an expression of quiet concern. In any other context, the sentence would have been perfectly fine, but when spoken by Okazaki Hanano of all people, in a place where they could literally create anything out of thin air, the words felt as reassuring as a lit match in a room full of gasoline. Knowing her, she will probably create something weird or dangerous, just to annoy him.

He decided to take a step back. Just in case he was right.

And right he was.

A flicker of black materialized in her hand, metallic colours coalescing into a sleek and sharp shape that fit perfectly in her grasp. He recognized the item very well. He’d seen her use it, after all.

Her handgun. A SIG Sauer P220, if he remembered correctly.

“Are you serious,” he sighed, unable to conceal the bewildered disappointment in his voice.

“Yes,” she answered idly, too busy examining the weapon in her hand to pay him any mind. When she finally turned to him and noticed his visible discomfort, she shot him a casual smirk. “I know how to use it. Relax.”

“That’s what worries me. You—” His word caught in his throat as she played with the gun with the nonchalance of a child twirling a stick. “Y-You’re literally pointing it at me. Stop it.”

“The safety’s on. Look.” To illustrate her words, she flicked the decocker, which unlocked with a soft click. Much to his relief, she pointed the now very unsafe gun away from his general direction. “Besides, we’re dead. It wouldn’t kill you.”

“It would still hurt, though.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, if you don’t want your afterlife to be a boring slog, you’re going to have to accept the fact that there’s only so many ways to have fun here.”

Before he had the time to wonder what the fuck she meant by that, she spun on her heel and calmly drew the gun towards the white welcome sign a few paces away — did it get closer when he wasn’t looking, or had his sense of distance gotten completely skewed by the lack of contrast in this place? 

She fired once. The shot echoed, the sound sharp and deafening in the open emptiness. Then another rang out, and another. When Hanano was done, Ken counted five shots. By squinting a little bit, he managed to make out a little shape on the battered sign: a crooked, lopsided smile.

“Huh,” was all he managed to say. “That’s… pretty impressive, actually.”

“You finally recognize my talent,” she said with a pensive smile, cocking the hammer. She turned to face him. “Thank you, really.”

A sixth shot rang out like thunder.

Pain bloomed in Ken’s thigh.

His leg buckled and his knees hit the ground hard, gritting his teeth as a sharp scream tore from his throat. Warm blood pooled quickly between his trembling fingers, staining his pants and the pristine floor with red. He looked up in disbelief, his vision swimming from the pain and the tears misting his eyes.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” he spat between two heaving breaths, groaning as he tried and failed to stand up.

Hanano didn’t answer. Her expression was colder than ever before, eyes piercing through him with an intensity that almost made him shrink in fear. He didn’t notice the gun was gone from her hands until she pulled him up by the collar and drove her fist right into his jaw.

The strength of the blow resonated in his skull, making him fall to the side with a strained gasp. Hot pain burst inside of his mouth — he’d nipped the inside of his cheek, overwhelming his tongue with the coppery taste of blood. He barely had the time to recover before Hanano reappeared in his blurry periphery, slowly walking over to him like a silent phantom. The panic rattling in his chest screamed at him to get away, to do something, anything to defend himself and survive. Because if he didn’t do anything, he was going to die. He knew it was a stupid thought to have right now — he was already dead, after all. Even so, he listened to it, bracing himself on his arms despite the pain pinning his leg in an attempt to crawl away.

He wasn’t fast enough, unfortunately, and Hanano slammed her foot in his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. Then again. And again. He heard something crack. It was only when he took in a trembling breath and felt the grinding pain clawing at his chest like a thousand stab wounds that he realized that it had been the sound of his ribs breaking. 

“F-Fuck,” he coughed, his voice gurgling from the blood invading his lungs. He barely had the strength to open his eyes when he heard the fox draw nearer.

She towered over him, even as she crouched down and lifted his chin up with a gentle hand. “Consider this a comeuppance for almost killing me,” she said, her voice low and soft. The lack of emotion in her tone made her words even more chilling — no anger, no frustration, no elation or smugness, nothing. Just cold, measured calculation, like someone who had planned everything from the beginning.

“You…” He winced when she roughly pressed a thumb over the bruise marring his jaw. He briefly considered biting it off. “Y-You’re the one who started it…”

“I was simply making polite conversation. I didn’t do anything wrong, and yet you decided to hurt me.” She tilted her head, the ghost of a smile tilting the corner of her lips before disappearing just as fast. “That’s hardly fair, now, is it? You only have yourself to blame.”

“... Fuck… you…” he hissed through gritted teeth, although the pain made the insult lose most of its bite. “You’re completely insane…”

“So I’ve been told.”

Ken’s fingers twitched. He wanted to move, but his body barely registered his commands.

He hated her.

He hated her so much.

Why did he have to be stuck with her?

A fleeting thought cut through the haze of his mind — he needed something in his hand, right now. He forced himself to focus, not on Hanano’s face above him, not on the warm stickiness on his thigh or the throbbing pain in his side, but on a single clear image: one of a knife. A plain kitchen knife. Its weight, the chill of its steel, the bite of the blade against the skin.

Something flickered in his trembling palm. He tightened his grip on the object, and with all the strength he had left, drove it upward.

The knife sank in Hanano’s chest with a muffled thud. She shuddered, eyes wide. “O-Oh,” she breathed, looking down at the growing bloodstain on her suit. The pain registered a second later, in the form of a trembling smile and a strained chuckle. “I guess I let myself open on this one. You really are a quick learner.”

Blood seeped from her clothes at an alarming rate — he’d definitely hit something vital. She swayed, catching herself with her arm for a moment before finally slumping forward, right on top of him. He could feel the wet warmth of her blood slowly soaking into his suit, the disgusting gurgling of her shallow breath against his ear. He tried to push her off of him, but his body felt too weak and her weight pinned him to the ground completely. After several unsuccessful attempts, he let his body go limp with a huff.

Apparently, he was going to be here for a while. Guess he couldn’t have nice things.

He turned his head to face her.

He hated how happy she looked even as the light in her eyes dimmed.

Weirdo .

Chapter Text

It took Hanano about four thousand and eight hundred heartbeats to get back on her feet, this time. Apparently, the severity of the wounds still influenced how much time they needed to heal — that, or her wounds hurt like absolute hell and she simply couldn't ignore them for long enough. Ken didn't know which option he liked the most.

… Although that also meant that he was stuck under her for just as long, which wasn't fun, especially with several broken ribs.

Thankfully, they both calmed down after the gun incident, and with that, Ken's first day in the afterlife — or whatever counted as a day in this place — came to a close without any more mishaps. He felt completely worn out, like he'd just run a full marathon: his thoughts were fuzzy, his eyes were heavy, his muscles ached and trembled from exertion, and he dreamed of nothing more but to be able to lay down and doze off for a little while. Unfortunately, he quickly came to learn that sleeping in the afterlife was… an uncomfortable experience, to say the least. With the hard floor as their only mattress and the unwavering light above as a permanent nightlight, getting to sleep was just as miserable as staying awake. Hanano managed to circumvent the issue by using her ridiculously oversized coat as a makeshift pillow and eye mask — lucky her. Ken tried to do the same with his own blazer, with lesser success. He also attempted to make himself a mattress, but realized that the concentration needed to keep it there prevented him from sleeping and gave him a headache, so he quickly abandoned the idea with a frustrated sigh.

For a place that was supposed to be a resting ground for the dead, the afterlife sure had yet to give him a modicum of comfort.

Still, after an eternity spent tossing and turning, he managed to fall asleep somehow.

He dreamt of Kazutoshi that night.

He wished he never had to wake up again.

.

.

.

Ken woke to the sensation of something warm prodding at his cheek. He tried to ignore it at first, keeping his eyes firmly shut and rolling onto his side with a groan to hide his face inside his blazer, but that didn't stop the uncomfortable feeling — if anything, it only seemed to make it more forceful and persistent. He could already feel the precious remnants of his dream slip away from his fuddled mind, replaced by a familiar simmering frustration that prickled at his skin and made his blood run hot. The numbing embrace of sleep was slowly leaving him as well, making him all too aware of how horribly sore his body was: he felt like he'd just been ran over by a car and left to rot on the pavement. Sleeping directly on the hard floor apparently did that to people.

Reluctantly, he cracked one bleary eye open.

Once he was used to the blinding whiteness, he managed to make out a familiar silhouette hovering over him, way too close for comfort. Of course, it had to be her.

"Rise and shine," Hanano said with a playful lilt, poking him in the face again.

Ken swatted her bandaged hand away with a scowl. "Go away. I'm trying to sleep."

That didn't seem to deter her. She jabbed him in the shoulder, this time. "It's morning. Wake up."

"There's no morning, here."

"It's morning in the real world." A shuffle of fabric. If he had to guess, she'd gotten up. "Up."

A forceful shove on his side made him fall back onto his back. He hissed as the pain in his tense muscles flared up at the sudden movement. "O-Ow! What was that for?!"

"I'm simply making sure you're not letting yourself rot away on the floor."

"… How considerate," he deadpanned through gritted teeth, rubbing his sore neck and shoulder.

Obviously she didn't want him to stay asleep for too long. After all, time he spent sleeping was time spent away from her and her weird antics, and she couldn't possibly have that: she enjoyed her fun way too much to let it go. She was like a dog who'd found a new toy to play with — she was riding the high and wouldn't stop until the poor thing was completely shredded to pieces and unrecognizable. Or in his case, until he was completely torn apart.

He wondered how long he would last. Would she ever get tired of him? If she did, he hoped it would happen before he completely lost his mind and started clawing at the walls.

"What can I say? I'm a generous soul." She took a step back and motioned towards something he couldn't see. "Get up. Let's get breakfast."

"Breakfast…?"

Ken pushed himself on his elbows in time to see a small table and two chairs materialize from thin air a few paces away. Hanano sat down, draping her coat over the back of her chair, and cast him an expectant glance as two steaming bowls appeared in front of her. The smell, warm and mild, didn't take long to reach him — rice and miso soup.

Slowly, he stood up and allowed himself to stretch before sliding in the chair opposite her, which she took as permission to grab her chopsticks and immediately start eating. Rude. He eyed her food curiously. The smell was appetizing enough, but despite not having eaten anything since his arrival here, he didn't feel that hungry.

"Do we even have to eat, here?" he asked.

She shrugged, chewing on a mouthful of rice before talking. "Not really, no, but it feels nice to keep some habits. It's better than doing nothing. Plus, you get to eat your favourite food without having to worry about your health, so enjoy it while you can."

He considered her words for a moment and let out a sigh. He hated to admit that she was right — it was better than doing nothing. Besides, he might not feel hungry, but he didn't feel not hungry, either. Eating something definitely wouldn't hurt him.

He tried to imagine something decent to eat. Not the prepackaged meals he would often eat during the killing game, but actual food, like his mother used to make. With some effort, he managed to create a small bowl of rice as well as a plate of grilled fish and steamed vegetables. Hanano gave an acknowledging hum. "Looks homely."

Ken didn't bother answering her and took a bite of his food. It tasted exactly as he remembered, but the feeling didn't last long: as soon as he swallowed, the weight and flavour was gone, leaving nothing but a hollow feeling in his stomach.

… Of course the afterlife wouldn't let them fully enjoy the comfort of food. That would have been too easy. The more time he spent here, the more convinced he was that he was in actual hell.

They ate in silence, the kind of silence that was too deliberate to truly be comfortable. Hanano seemed perfectly at ease with it, sipping her soup and watching him with the lazy interest of a cat watching a cornered mouse. After what felt like a eternity, she spoke. "So. Yesterday was fun."

Ken froze mid-bite and glared. "You shot me. Don't think I've forgotten that."

"And you stabbed me," she retorted lightly. "Which reminds me — the score isn't settled yet."

He clenched his chopsticks at her words, his rising anger only kept in check by his complete bewilderment. "It was self-defence. You broke my ribs. Did you expect me to just lay there while you kicked me?"

Her lack of answer told him everything he needed to know.

"You're unbelievable," he muttered between two bites. "You're not even going to try and apologize?"

She paused, cocking her head to the side. "Why would I do that? You hurt me, so I hurt you. If you didn't want to get shot, then you should have thought twice before throwing yourself at me like a rabid dog."

He silently held her gaze, hoping to find a shred of decency or regret in those cold grey eyes of hers. He didn't find any, only the quiet resolve of someone who believed with her whole heart that she was in the right and that he was the stupid one for not thinking the same. What is wrong with her, he thought, baffled. How could someone be so delusional as to wilfully hurt other people like that? How could someone be so entrenched in their own beliefs that they completely ignore the misery and hatred they leave in their trail?

He would never understand her. He could never understand her.

Hanano neatly set her chopsticks down on her empty bowl and wiped the corner of her mouth with her thumb. "So," she started, the smile audible in her voice, "What should we do today?"

Ken frowned, but didn't look up from his plate. "… We?"

"Yes, we." She leaned forward on her elbows, smirking. "Unless you're planning on staring at a wall until the end of times, of course. I wouldn't want to disrupt that busy schedule of yours."

He didn't answer, chewing slowly to conceal the growing tension in his jaw. If there was something he hated more than the sound of her smug stupid voice, it was the fact that she somehow always managed to stick her fingers right where it hurt the most.

"I've been thinking about some activities we could do together while you were sleeping," she went on. "We could try to create more items to train you. Or play some games. Or watch people through the window. Or do some painting. Or…" Her eyes suddenly lit up in excitement. "Or! We could do target practice!"

"No," he snapped sharply. "You're just going to shoot me again."

His harsh refusal seemed to calm her down. She pensively tapped her finger against the side of her face. "… Okay, what do you want to do, then?"

Ken idly clicked his chopsticks together, heart fluttering with a mix of anticipation and suspicion — she was offering him the reins for once. She probably had her reasons for doing so, but he couldn't simply let it go to waste. "… Board games are fine, I guess, just…" He looked up at her with a stern expression. "No violence or any weird mind games, or I'm leaving."

Hanano's eyes crinkled at his words. "That's a bit rich, coming from someone who hit me first with no warning and insulted me."

"Okazaki."

He didn't want to argue with her. He didn't even want to fight her anymore. He just wanted to be able to do something a bit more entertaining than stare into space or get trapped in his own thoughts without risking getting his ribs smashed in every time he turned his back or said something she didn't like.

After a long moment of silence, Hanano leaned back on her chair, the playful shine in her gaze growing sharper like the blade of a knife catching the light. "… Say please."

He bristled, recoiling like her words had physically burnt him. "Wha- no- I-" When he failed to find a suitable retort, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Despite being trapped in a place where he literally had all the time in the world, he felt like he lost his patience and resolve way too quickly for comfort. Was his will already starting to falter? "… Okazaki, please."

She cocked her head to the side like a puppy heeding its master's command for the very first time, quiet satisfaction curling her lips. "Okay, let's play something, then. I'll try to go easy on you, since it's our first game."

It took him all of his restraint to not let out a huge sigh of relief.

A shimmer rippled on the surface of the table, replacing Hanano's dishes with a checkered board. She smiled. "Do you know how to play shogi?"

Chapter Text

For Ken, spending time with Hanano instead of doing nothing was like choosing to saw his own foot off to prevent a gangrene from setting in. Both options were a miserable experience and honestly, he'd rather not have to chose between either of them, but the situation made him so desperate that he was ready to take the risk of bleeding out if it meant staying alive for a little bit longer. He knew he couldn't listen to the buzzing silence or stare at the same empty spot any longer — at least not without risking his sanity. So here he was, hanging out with the very person who was responsible for him being here in the first place, the person who had killed his closest friend, like they were simple acquaintances.

If the him from a day ago — or worse, the him from two weeks ago — could see him right now, he probably wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry.

They played games for a good while: shogi, go, koi-koi, rummy, anything and everything they could remember the rules for. He would almost dare say he was having fun if it wasn't for the fact that Hanano somehow managed to cheat in every single game — a stolen piece here, a hidden card there, she even managed to create some extra cards for her to use when he wasn't looking. She wasn't even that bad at the games: she had a quick and sharp mind, a strong sense of when to push her luck and when to pull back, and a scarily good poker face. She just did it because it was fun — that, or she really wanted to win… or to see him lose.

The fact that she managed to get away with it even though he knew she was doing it was pretty impressive in its own right, if not incredibly frustrating to deal with. Still, he managed to win a game of shogi and a solitaire duel, though that was probably out of sheer luck than thanks to his abilities. He'd never been that good at board games. Except Trivial Pursuit, but he doubted Hanano would allow him to play a game where he had such a clear advantage. He knew all the answers already, anyway. It wouldn't be very fun. Although, watching her silently seethe as he got every question right would have been deeply satisfying.

However, with the games also came the talk. And boy, was Hanano talkative when she had nothing else to do.

… Well, less talkative, and more like insufferably nosy.

"So, about you and Kamimura…"

Ken felt his shoulders tense up, anger roiling in his chest all over again. Why couldn't she stay nice and quiet for more than thirty minutes at a time? Wasn't the chess game entertaining enough for her?

"Don't even start," he hissed, planting his bishop right in front of one of her pawns with more force than necessary.

He knew she was trying to test him, to force a reaction out of him and get him to lash out just like he had on the first day, but he couldn't help the frustration dripping from his words. There was something in her voice that instinctively made him tense up, a Pavlovian feeling of danger and suspicion that put him on the defensive every time she opened her mouth. He hated how much power she managed to have on him after a single day of cohabitation. He'd have to be more careful if he didn't want to be completely under her thumb by the end of the weeks.

"Am I not allowed to talk about him at all? I'm just making some friendly conversation. There's no need to be so aggressive."

"I'm not discussing him with you." His voice trembled slightly as he continued. "You killed him."

She ignored him and pushed her rook forward with a gentle finger. "I struggle to understand what you saw in him. He wasn't very pleasant to be around. Not very classy. He was also kind of greasy and gross."

He frowned, completely taken aback by her blunt words. "W-What? No, he wasn't. He was probably the cleanest and most organized of all of us."

"Well he didn't really show it. He looked like he was about to keel over and die if someone coughed on him too hard. What a fragile little thing, so easy to break." She hummed, looking down at the board to plan her next move. "He did smell pretty nice, though. Very citrusy. I stole his shampoo during the first week. It was pleasant enough."

His stomach clenched painfully. The idea of Hanano carrying Kazutoshi's scent without him even knowing made him want to puke. "You what."

"But I suppose love does that to people," she continued, casually brushing over her confession like she'd told him where she'd gone for lunch. "It's not a very rational feeling. It blinds you, makes you completely unaware of anything ugly or undesirable." Her sharp gaze left the board to meet his, pinning him where he sat like a butterfly on a display plate. "You loved him, didn't you?"

He opened his mouth to prove her wrong, to retort that he didn't, that they were simply friends who enjoyed each other's presence, but the words caught between his throat and his fluttering heart. He swallowed hard, his lips pressing shut as heat crept up his neck.

Hanano's eyes lit up. His silence had told her more than enough.

"So you did love him," she cooed, her voice soft like a knife wrapped in velvet. "The shy nerdy boy and his prickly best friend. How sweet. It's not very surprising, though — it was so obvious it was pitiful to watch. I almost felt bad about having to kill Kamimura, watching you trail behind him like a lovesick puppy like that." She leaned over the board with a conspiratorial smirk, eyes glittering with fake curiosity. "Tell me: was he your first love? Did your heart throb every time you managed to make him laugh? Did you imagine silently holding his hand when he was at his lowest? Did you dream of how his lips might have tasted against yours? Did you picture the future you might have lived together right before you found him in pieces? Were you planning on telling him how you felt, or were you waiting for him to make the first move because you were too scared of losing your only meaningful friendship?"

Ken's fingers clenched so hard around his knight he could feel the polished marble dig into his skin. Heat rushed to his face, shame and fury at being read so easily burning hot in his tightened throat. He wished he could shut her up for good, wipe the smile off her face and claw the words away from her toxic lips, but he knew he couldn't. That would only give her more excuses to bully him. "S-Shut up," he hissed, putting his piece down.

She rested her head on her hand, her smile softening with satisfaction as she studied him. "Aw, did I strike a nerve? You're so predictable, it's almost boring."

Blood pounded in his ears. He couldn't let her win this. He needed to say something, turn the tables, make her lose her momentum just long enough for him to take back control.

A cold and razor-edged thought settled in his mind. He looked up at her as she idly played with one of her pieces. "What about you, then?" His voice was low, steady. "What about Watari?"

For the first time, Hanano stilled, fingers hovering over her bishop for just a moment too long before she recovered. Her insufferable smile had dropped, leaving behind a steely expression and narrowed eyes. "That's none of your business now, is it?"

Her words were deathly cold, a dangerous lilt straining her voice like the glint of a knife's blade. A warning. A threatened wolf baring its fangs before it tried to go for the throat. Ken's heart fluttered with anticipation at that realization. He had found a crack in that mask of hers. Now, the only question that remained was how long she would let him prod at it before she tried to bite back.

He let out a humourless chuckle as he held her glare with his own. "It's not so pleasant when it's about you, right? You're prying into my life, so I'm prying into yours. You were always with her, and she followed you everywhere. She trusted you until the very end. So, what was she to you? Did you love her," he gritted his teeth,"or was she just another plaything for you to use and throw away?"

He had never been that close to Nishino during the killing game. Before Kazutoshi's death, he'd seen her as a bit too intense and outgoing for his liking, her warm and unserious persona too overwhelming to deal with in a situation as dire as the one they were trapped in. Once Kazutoshi was gone, however, she became nothing more than a shadow in his eyes. A cruel reminder of what he'd lost, of the monster that she unwittingly let roam free because she failed to notice the sharpness of her teeth or the dried blood matting her fur.

He wanted to hate her so much. To pin all the blame on her carelessness and blind trust — because she was partly to blame. If she'd been more watchful, if she'd kept Hanano in check somehow, maybe none of this would have happened. However, when they had found her body, charred beyond recognition, he'd realized with bitterness that she was just another victim of Hanano's cruelty, just a pawn in her games even after she was gone.

He didn't feel sad when she died. If anything, he found her pitiful. A lonely fire dancer, so desperate for warmth that she threw herself into the first arms that gave her a modicum of comfort and safety, not realizing that she had stepped right into the fox's den.

Hanano's eyes flicked to the board, then back up. The silence stretched taunt between them, so sharp he could feel it prickle at his skin.

"Of course I loved her," she finally said, nudging a pawn forward.

Ken blinked, caught off guard by how easily the answer left her lips. Her voice was stripped of any venom or smugness, leaving nothing but plain and vulnerable truth behind.

"How much?" he asked.

She tilted her head to the side, although the gesture lacked its usual mischievous undertone. "Does it matter? She liked to be with me, and I liked to be with her. We kept each other warm, we made our lives a bit more bearable. That's enough to be called love in my eyes."

Her voice didn't waver once, so soft it almost felt like a whisper. For a moment, he almost wanted to believe her, but her confession quickly soured in his chest, burned away by simmering rage. The idea that a monster like her had loved someone was too unbearable to stomach. It felt obscene, unholy. She didn't deserve that, not after everything she had done. She didn't deserve Nishino's love and trust, and she got it anyway. For a heartbeat, she had everything, just like he did, and still, she decided to throw it all away for the sake of her delusions and blood lust. And because of her selfish desires, Nishino had died, alone and betrayed.

It made everything she had done all the more despicable.

"You don't get to say that," he spat, sliding his bishop between her thinning ranks and capturing a trapped rook. "You don't get to claim you loved her after what you did. She cared for you, and you used it against her. She needed you more than anything, and you left her to rot. You're pathetic."

Hanano's eyebrows twitched for a second, but her voice remained light, unbothered. "Careful. You're starting to sound like you care about me." With a graceful hand, she slid her queen across the board. "Checkmate."

Ken stared, stunned. "H-Huh?" He leaned closer to the board, replaying her every move in his mind in the hopes of finding a foul play or a stolen piece. It wasn't possible. He had made sure to protect his king, even while they talked. "You cheated."

"I didn't." Her lips curled back into her usual smile, folding her hands beneath her chin. "You just weren't paying attention."

He looked again, then another time, but no matter how much he stared at the pieces, nothing changed. He had lost. Again. He sat back in his seat with a frustrated sigh. "… Checkmate."

Hanano hummed, eyes sly and bright. "You're not very good at this. I should keep track of our scores."

He clenched his fists, his nails digging half moons in the soft wood of the table. He hated her. He hated how easily she steered the conversation even when it didn't go the way she wanted, how much control she managed to breathe in every movement like nothing had happened. And yet, beneath the sting of defeat, a flicker of satisfaction burnt at the back of his mind.

He'd managed to make her slip, to take her by surprise. He'd gotten under her skin, and she had to scramble back for control. For once, she had been the vulnerable one, if only for a minute.

The feeling left him lightheaded.

She might have won the game, but he had found a weakness in her — and it was worth every victory.

.

.

.

Hanano started growing restless after several hours of play — apparently, winning all the time and cheating wasn't as fun when the opponent didn't try to do anything about it. After she "accidentally" forgot about his chair, causing him to fall on his ass for the third time in the span of twenty minutes, he eventually relented and let her choose their next activity. He'd seen what she was capable of when she was in an okay mood: he didn't want to push his luck when she was starting to lose her patience.

They did some painting, next.

Ken quickly realized that he sucked at painting.

The mere effort of having to focus on both his paints, his palette and his canvas to keep them present in the white space was enough to make his head swim. His paint-stained hand trembled with each stroke of his brush, turning his genuine attempt at making something decent-looking into awkward scribbles that looked like they'd belong on a kindergarten wall. He didn't even know what he was trying to paint anymore — he thought it was supposed to be a landscape, but now he wasn't so sure. His complete lack of artistic talent, along with his patience, was only made worse by his growing despondency when he occasionally glanced at Hanano's canvas.

Sometimes, he forgot that painting masks was her actual occupation and not just a quirky title that the killing game organizers had given her. Her painting looked good, the kind of good that made him reconsider all his life choices. It wasn't like Ojima's vivid doodling, where each line and splotch of colour painted a grander and whimsical picture, nor was it aggressive and detailed like Hiroaki's sharp designs. Instead, her lines were slow and careful, like she'd already planned in advance where every stroke would go.

He couldn't help but stare as her paintbrush glided lightly over the canvas like a surgeon's scalpel, leaving a perfectly unbroken line in its trail. She stood back for a moment, admiring her handiwork before smiling and lifting her brush again. Her fingers didn't stir even once. Her breathing was slow, steady, like the smallest shift in her posture would ruin her work. Her eyes shone with intensity, brow slightly furrowed in concentration and the tip of her tongue occasionally sticking out of her mouth to moisten her lips.

If there was anything he could be sure of, it was that she definitely was in her element.

"What are you painting?" Ken finally asked, too curious to stay quiet any longer.

Hanano's art style seemed to be a refined and minimalist one, one where each stroke conveyed as much information as possible in its colour and shape, with no regard for realism or detail. However, as beautiful as it was, he wasn't exactly sure what he was looking at — if he had to guess, some kind of animal running… somewhere?

His own painting wasn't going anywhere, anyway, so he might as well talk to her. Hopefully that would annoy her enough to get her to make a mistake. If she could be annoying, then he could be too.

"I'm not finished," she breathed without looking away from her canvas. "You'll see."

He let out a small frustrated huff from his nose and continued painting half-heartedly. When the silence became too unbearable — about two minutes later —, he spoke up again. "… How does one become a mask artisan, anyway? That's an oddly specific field of work."

This seemed to pique her interest: once she was done with her current brush stroke, she shot him a glance behind her shoulder. Her eyes glinted like a hawk's, her smile almost predatory. "You're awfully talkative today."

He repressed the instinctive urge to defend himself. He had nothing to justify or explain to her. "You're the one to talk. You haven't stopped pestering me all day. Why can't I do the same? That's not fair."

Her paintbrush hovered for a second, the silence uncomfortably long before she drew another stroke. "Hm. I suppose you're right."

He blinked.

... Huh. He didn't expect her to relent so easily.

"How about this." She offered, her tone calm and light. "We take turns. I answer your question, and you answer one of mine. Is that fair enough for you?"

He frowned, searching her gaze for any kind of trickery, but her eyes were as unreadable as always, like staring in an opaque ocean of silver. "… This feels like a trap."

"It's not. I promise I will choose questions that aren't too difficult to answer. As long as you do the same, of course."

He considered the offer. Hanano made a lot of promises, but she always managed to twist them to her advantage or ignore them completely when it didn't benefit her anymore. Was this really worth risking his sanity for?

... Well. He was bored. That counted for something.

"... Sure," he answered tentatively. "So, how did you become a mask artisan?"

Hanano smiled and grabbed a smaller brush that she gently dipped in red paint. "I learned how to make masks with my late grandmother. She used to be part of the Yakuza and had to learn the sacred art of mask-making to protect her identity. She died before I could inherit the family business, unfortunately, and I've been on the run ever since. You could say her teachings saved my life."

... What.

"That's a lie," he blurted out.

"It's the truth," she insisted confidently.

It took all of his willpower not to sigh in disbelief. "I've literally read your profile. I feel like it would have mentioned you being related to the mafia in any way."

She shrugged. "What can I say, I'm just that good at keeping my identity secret."

She wasn't. He knew that. He had read her profile. People who were good at laying low didn't have entire profiles written about them. They also didn't get kidnapped and put in killing games. If anything, he thought Hanano was as inconspicuous as a flashing neon sign in the middle of the night.

"What is it with you lying all the time?" he asked.

"You never mentioned that I wasn't allowed to lie," she explained, tilting her head in an infuriating pretence of innocence.

He let out a slow breath through his nose to calm himself down. He was this close to trying to kill her again. Why did she have to be so difficult?

"Just…" He could feel a headache start to settle behind his eyes as his focus on his canvas wavered. He clicked his tongue. "You aren't allowed to lie anymore, okay? Just answer the question."

"… Okay." She painted a broad U-shaped stroke with a single graceful flick of the wrist. "I've always been a pretty crafty kid. I wasn't really good at school, but I knew I liked creating things, so I did just that. I tried my hand at a lot of arts and crafts during that time: drawings, paintings, pottery, wood and stone carvings, collages… and mask-making. I made them out of all sorts of things — wood, ceramic, paper mâché, metal, plastic. I realized I was good at it, so I kept doing it until people started to reach out to get their own. One thing led to another, and now it's my job. Kind of. It's mostly commissions, so it's not really a steady outcome."

Ken straightened up to look at her, his brush hovering over an ugly blotch of colour — he'd painted over it to try and fix it, but it only made it look worse. "… That's it?"

Her eyes creased slightly, amused. "What? Did you expect something a bit less—"

"—Mundane? I guess, yeah. I thought the life of someone like you would be a bit more… I don't know, exciting."

"That's your fault for not believing my Yakuza story. I was doing you a favour."

"That wasn't a favour. You were trying to trick me into giving you information about me without giving me anything in return."

"I wouldn't call it a trick," she mused, twirling her brush between her fingers. "More like an advantageous exchange."

"So a trick, then."

"Call it what you want." Her sharp gaze landed back on him, making him tense up. "My turn. How did you become a quiz show champion?"

"Oh, um…" Ken stared down at his palette and idly mixed two colours together, relief washing over his shoulders. He didn't expect her to actually keep her promise, and that caught him off-guard. "It's really not that impressive. It started because I liked learning about all sorts of things when I was young. I read a lot of books, watched a lot of documentaries on TV, and I studied every day. I guess that and my good grades impressed my middle school teachers, because they encouraged me to join the local trivia night. I got first place. Then, I joined another, then another. I became a sort of local celebrity, and it didn't take long for it to be noticed by the local television. I got invited to my first shows when I was fifteen, and I haven't really stopped since."

"… I see," she said, lightly tapping a green-coloured brush against a background of muted blue — a sea, maybe? "Your story is even more mundane than mine. I guess it suits you."

He gave her a careful side eye. "Are you calling me boring?"

"Yes. Your turn."

He didn't grace her with a reaction and continued painting. It took him a minute to find a new question: it turned out that coming up with something interesting was much more difficult when the person you were talking to was as open as a brick wall.

"Why… why do you wear a mask all the time?"

It was the first thought that went through his mind when he saw her for the first time. To be fair, it was probably everyone's first thought when they met her — it was a difficult thing to ignore, after all. It made sense to get it out of the way now.

The corner of Hanano's mouth curled. She didn't look at him, her attention focused on the swirly, golden-brown streaks she was now painting. How she managed to be so careful and yet so fast at the same time, he had no idea. It was a bit scary. "What do you think? Why do you think I wear one?"

"Don't just send the question back at me. I asked because I don't know."

"Guess."

He sighed, rubbing his face with his hand. It was only when he looked down and noticed the smear on his palm that he realized he'd just covered his cheek with fresh paint. He tried not to let it show. "Is it… because you don't like your face?"

That earned him a chuckle, sharp and mocking in a way that made his hair stand on end. She looked up from her canvas, eyes sparkling with mischief. "No, definitely not. I think I'm quite handsome, thank you."

He rolled his eyes, unimpressed. "Then why?"

"Why does anyone wear nice clothes, or put on makeup, or get their ears pierced? Because they like it. It's the same for my masks: I like them, and what better way to show them to the world than by wearing them?" She lifted a hand and gently slid her fox mask off the top of her head. The ceramic glinted in the light as she brought it near her face and peeked at him through the tiny eye hole. "Besides, I like the way it makes me feel."

"The way it makes you… feel?"

"Hm-hm. When you wear a mask, you're in control of everything. You decide exactly what parts of you people see, and they have no choice but to accept it, because the thought of not being able to see who you truly are is too scary. You can be yourself, someone else entirely, or no one at all, and they're none the wiser — they just see the mask and the false image of you they create in their head." The fox mask slowly dropped from her face, stopping just before her mouth. Despite the bottom half of her face being obscured, Ken could still see the excitement in the way her eyes shone, hear it in her lilt, breathy with awe. "There's power in that. Safety. You set up people's expectations, instead of the other way around. It's… liberating, in a way."

Ken stared at her expressionless mask, brows knitting together in a mix of confusion, disgust and disbelief. He didn't know why he expected anything different from someone like her, honestly. "So what, you're just… pretending all the time because you enjoy manipulating people to do what you want?"

"That's part of it, yes. Besides, it's fun to watch people guess what you look like underneath, knowing that they'll always be far from the truth."

"You're awful. Truly."

If the remark reached her, the perfectly smooth mask in front of her face didn't show it. With a graceful flourish, she plopped the accessory back on the top of her head.

"Don't give me that face, Ken," she said, making him scowl even more. "Everyone plays pretend all the time. We smile when we want to cry, we laugh instead of spitting in our enemy's face, we nod along a conversation even though we're too tired to care. We all wear different masks depending on who we're with — our family, our friends, our coworkers. I just so happen to wear mine a bit more literally. I don't see how that makes me more reprehensible or manipulative than other people." She picked her paintbrush and tapped it pensively against her palette, a faint smile on her lips. "If anything, I think that makes me more honest than anyone out there. I wear my mask with pride. If people are too stupid or naive to see it, then that's on them, not me."

Ken let out a humourless scoff. "You're completely delusional. None of what you're saying makes any sense."

"To you, maybe." Hanano dabbed around her painted animal — which he was pretty sure was some kind of fox now — with a glittery silver paint, making it look like it was floating above shimmering waters. "I could make you a mask, if you want. Then you would understand what I mean."

"I'm not doing that."

He didn't want to understand her, her life, her feelings, or anything related to her at all. She wasn't something to be understood: she was a heartless monster, and monsters weren't meant to be understood, only killed or scorned.

He hated her, and that was how it would stay forever. Any other option would be nothing short of a betrayal, not only of himself, but of every single person Hanano had hurt. The fact that he was even spending time with her was already a dubious enough decision. He wasn't planning on making things worse by trying to put himself in her shoes.

"Okay," Hanano shrugged. "Your loss. The offer still stands, though. In case you change your mind."

"I won't," he deadpanned.

"You don't know that. You couldn't even stand the idea of being near me yesterday, and look at you now. We're painting together. Isn't it nice?"

"It's only marginally better than doing nothing." He took a weary glance at the sorry excuse that served as his painting. "I'd rather be doing anything else, honestly."

Hanano's eyes twinkled even brighter. "Like making a mask?"

"No. Actually, I think I'm going to take a break now."

She ignored his remark and pensively tapped her chin with her finger. "I think we'd look great with matching masks…" Suddenly, her face lit up, as if struck by an idea. "Okay, here's my next question: what animal do you think would represent you the best?"

"I'm not answering that, you're not making me a mask."

"Come on, Ken, it's not a hard question."

"Do you ever stop talking?"

Despite his complaints, she continued talking — obviously.

"If we want to match, you'd have to be a predator — you know, because we're both murderers. I'm already a fox, so you can't be one. For you, I'm thinking some kind of bird, like a hawk, or maybe an owl. They're watchful and silent, they wait for their time before they strike, but they make it count. However, they aren't that strong and have fragile bones, so they're easy to take down once you manage to ground them. I think that suits you."

Ken groaned, hiding his face in his palms. "Shut up…"

This was worse than the killing game, somehow. There was no way he was going to last more than a week here.

Chapter Text

Against all odds, Ken did manage to last more than a week in the afterlife.

His first few days with Hanano were just as uncomfortable and infuriating as the first two, on account of her being here. Her mere presence, always looming over his shoulder like a carrion bird waiting for its chance at a meal, was an open wound that refused to close, a grating white noise that buzzed at his ears like a bug he couldn't swat away, a constant reminder that he wasn't where he was supposed to be, that he had failed. And yet, with the overwhelming emptiness threatening to unravel them both, he couldn't get himself to keep her away for very long. No matter how much he despised her, her silhouette still broke the monotony of boundless white, her cold words still kept the oppressing silence at bay, the frustration and hate she so effortlessly weaved in his heart still kept his chest warm and mind running. She was, for lack of better options, the lesser evil in this place.

It wasn't really companionship — it would imply that he enjoyed her presence, which couldn't be farther from the truth —, more like a distraction in the void they now called their home. An extremely annoying distraction that made him want to claw his hair out, but a distraction nonetheless.

They started small at first, and did the exact same things they did before. They played board games until their brains couldn't absorb any more rules, painted and drew until their hands trembled and the colours blurred together, created random items until their heads felt like they were about to split open from the strain. However, as time slowly ticked by and their boredom only grew stronger and harder to please, their activities started to become a bit more elaborate. It wasn't simply about what they enjoyed doing anymore, but rather what would keep their minds and body occupied for the longest.

So, they started having small competitions, like who could create the most extravagant or unique item they could think of, who could make the tallest house of cards before it toppled down or they became too tired to maintain it, or who could create the nicest outfit with the clothes they remembered wearing when they were still alive. Hanano usually won thanks to her being more experienced with manifesting items, but Ken didn't mind it that much. As long as it kept him occupied, he would take any amount of prattle and bragging any day.

When that eventually became boring, too, they decided to give more physical activities a try. Hanano put target practice back on the schedule, creating bottles and cans for them to shoot down. Thankfully, she didn't shoot him again and even taught him how to use her gun, which, he had to admit, was pretty fun. They played tennis and croquet despite not knowing the rules. They even tried their hand at some workout exercises, and although it quickly became clear that none of them knew what they were doing without a clear regimen to follow, it still was a pleasant change of pace compared to their usual activities.

Unfortunately, Hanano remained as insufferable as ever. She seemed to relish in his frustration and misery even when they had a decent time together, prying even the smallest reaction out of him and parading it around like a prize. It was like her brain couldn't fathom the idea of having a positive interaction with someone without getting something else in return or being put on a pedestal. The longer Ken spent time with her, the more confused he became at how how Nishino managed to have her by her side for so long without going crazy or noticing that something was deeply wrong with her.

The fact that she hadn't lost her best friend to her probably helped a little bit.

Ken had come to realize that Hanano's need for attention ebbed and flowed like the tide. Some days, she'd be surprisingly docile, almost — almost — pleasant to be around, and on others, she'd become obnoxiously cruel and harass him for hours on end. He quickly learned to distrust her moments of unusual placidity, knowing that they were simply a small reprieve before the vixen eventually got bored, the calm before the inevitable storm. And the longer this lull lasted, the more destructive the lightning would be when it finally fell.

Despite his best attempts to mentally prepare for her shenanigans, she somehow always managed to find the things that would irritate or unsettle him the most. She "accidentally" stepped on his foot to distract him just long enough for his items to vanish into thin air. She asked him countless questions about anything and everything while answering his own either with careful deflection, a cold jibe or complete lies. She stood uncomfortably close, their shoulders brushing against each other, to see how long it would take for him to try and get some space. She played the violin — badly —, mumbling about how "it looked easier when he — whoever that was — was playing it". She pointed out every single detail of his body language with a lighthearted lilt — the way he straightened up his shoulders every time he spoke up, the way he fiddled with his sleeves or clasped his hands together when he didn't know what to do with them, the way his gaze never managed to meet her eyes for long — just to see him scramble to conceal them. She handcuffed him when he was sleeping to see how long it would take for him to beg her to free him. She put on his clothes, or sometimes Kamimura's, to see how he'd react. She aimed her gun or pointed a blade at him, just to watch him squirm.

He tried to keep his composure, he really tried, but Hanano had a way of getting under his skin. Sometimes, she would say an offhanded comment, let out a soft chuckle or smile a bit too innocently, and before he knew it, he would lash out again, grabbing her by the collar and wiping the smugness off her face with a biting insult or a well-placed punch — whichever came to his mind first.

And Hanano would retaliate tenfold, sharp and merciless.

She liked to call their little outbursts "sparring sessions". Ken called them for what they actually were — punishment. Sometimes, she punched him until his face was so bruised he could barely feel it. Sometimes, she kicked him until his ribs cracked and he couldn't breathe without choking on his own blood. Sometimes, she pinned him to the ground with her body and gently pressed the tip of a knife against his neck to create bloody patterns on his skin. Sometimes, she dug her nails in his arms and tugged at his hair until he pleaded at her to let go. Sometimes, she choked him out, releasing her grip just as he was about to pass out and relishing in the way he coughed and gasped for air before squeezing the life out of him again. Sometimes, her punishments weren't the physical kind: sometimes, she'd stay quiet for hours, her eyes cold and unreadable, ignoring him as if he didn't even exist. Her silence somehow felt more suffocating than the bruises she left on his skin.

Sometimes, Ken would fight back, covering her face and body in wounds that mirrored his own. Sometimes, he wouldn't, because he knew it would only make things worse for him.

Ken hated these punishments. They implied that he was guilty of something and that he deserved to be hurt — which he definitely wasn't —, like he was a petulant child whose mistakes Hanano needed to correct. He hated the fact that he had learned to expect them over time even more. And most of all, he hated the fact that a part of him had grown to secretly enjoy them.

The blows hurt, of course. The scratches burned. The bruises throbbed. And yet, as he lay on the ground with Hanano, his chest heaving, his muscles hurting and his body drenched in a disgusting mix of sweat of blood, he couldn't help the warm feeling of lightness that spread in his chest. The pain, as excruciating as it was, filled him with something other than numbing emptiness. It reminded him that he still existed in this complete farce of an afterlife, that his heart still beat, that warm blood still pumped in his veins. It made him feel real. Alive. More alive than he could ever remember being.

Sometimes, he caught himself pressing his fingers against his bruises or brushing his nails against a half-healed cut just to make them linger and feel their sting a little bit longer. Hanano noticed. She always noticed what he wanted to keep for himself. She mocked him for it, but went uncharacteristically quiet when Ken shot back with a venomous barb of his own. It made him wonder if she found the pain of their scuffles just as necessary as he did.

This strange routine of theirs — waking up, eating, playing, bickering, fighting, hurting, recovering, rinse and repeat — didn't take long to set. Soon enough, a day passed, then another, and another.

It was terrifying, how easily he settled into this new "life" with Hanano, despite the pain she inflicted, despite the hate he protected himself with, despite… everything, really. He told himself it was better than doing nothing, that it was simply his mind's way to cope with the crippling loneliness, that in any other circumstance, he would have hated every moment of it. Yet, when he started catching himself mumbling a reluctant praise at one of Hanano's move during their daily board game session, huffing a dry laugh at one of her deadpan jokes, or sharing personal anecdotes she would have had to waterboard out of him just days ago, he realized that he wasn't so sure about that anymore.

God, this place was going to be the end of him.

.

.

.

When Hanano wasn't too busy tormenting him, or when they were both too injured to do anything substantial, she spent most of her time at the window. She'd sit there for hours, her head propped up on her folded knees, which she clutched against her chest in a way that almost felt childlike. Sometimes, Ken would notice her let out a soft chuckle or smile at something he struggled to make out through the blur of moving colours. Other times, she'd lightly brush her fingers against the rippling surface with an unreadable expression on her face, watching the way the shades swirled around her hand like she was contemplating diving in the windows' dark waters.

It made him wonder if there was someone waiting for her in the living world, someone who wondered if she would ever come back from her weird ventures, blissfully unaware of the awful things she had done and the grisly fate that had befallen her. He remembered reading about her old roommates in her file: had they noticed she was gone? Were they hoping for her to return? After looking at the fox-masked murderer for another minute, Ken had quickly banished the thought with a dismissive snort: with her eccentric personality, it was honestly a miracle Hanano even had friends to begin with. There was no way someone could hold her in high enough esteem to wait for her, let alone mourn her. Or if they did, then these people were fools.

Ken avoided the window whenever he could, despite Hanano's insistence and the curiosity gnawing at him. He had spent the entirety of the killing game being a spectacle for the organizers and their nameless audience, and unlike them, the idea of watching other people's lives without them knowing didn't exactly fill him with joy. He knew that nobody would ever be able to tell that he was doing it, but still… it felt voyeuristic in a way that sent shivers down his spine.

A part of him still wondered about his family. His disappearance must have been noticed almost immediately. Mao was probably searching for him. She was smart, and she definitely wouldn't stop looking until she either found him or stumbled upon his rotting corpse. He thought about his parents, too. Did they cling onto hope and Mao's investigation like a lifeline, or had they already had a funeral for him, dug an empty grave right next to his sister's? He thought about the emptiness his absence might have left: would people mourn him, or would they simply go on without him?

He had no idea which answer was worse, so he stayed away from the window. It was probably better for him not to know. He was already familiar with the pain of knowing too much. He didn't want to saddle himself with more suffering now that he was gone.

Which was why he was particularly annoyed when one day, Hanano shook him awake to go watch the window. Again.

"Ken," she said coolly. "Wake up."

Ken swatted her hand away and buried his face in the crook of his arm with a groan. "No."

As always, his complaints didn't stop her. If anything, they only seemed to embolden her.

"Get up," she insisted, giving his shoulder another rough shake. Her voice was strangely sharp for this time of the day and lacked its usual teasing lilt, which intrigued him: she usually was in a good mood when she woke him up, but right now, her tone almost sounded… urgent. "You have to see this."

"Why?" he asked, cracking one bleary eye open.

Hanano wasn't sporting the smile she usually wore when she successfully managed to rouse him from sleep, but her eyes shone with unusual intensity. That alone was enough to put him on the alert: her getting excited about something that early in the morning was never a good sign. Not for him, at least.

"Something's happening." She grabbed him by the sleeve and tugged him upright. "Come on."

Ken rubbed his eyes with a mumble and stood up, reluctantly letting himself be dragged away. Even if he couldn't trust her, he knew better than to argue with her when it was that early.

The window was already open when they approached, ripples spreading outwards to reveal rapidly shifting colours underneath. Ken carefully leaned over the surface, unsure of what to expect: knowing Hanano's preferences when it came to distractions, it would either be something stupidly mundane or horribly grotesque, and after seeing how insistent she was for him to see it, he was leaning towards the latter option.

The blurry shapes sharpened under his gaze, dark colours coalescing together until he could barely make out the walls of a cramped apartment bedroom as well as the clutter of strewn clothes, empty mugs and unopened mail. The curtains were drawn tight over the window, blocking out what little light might have filtered through; the only illumination came from a computer on a dusty desk, its idle screen blanketing the space in a faint, cold light. In that pale electronic glow, the bed stood out, unmade, the blankets spilling over its side like they were trying to escape. And on the mattress, lying stiffly on its side like an injured animal, was a familiar figure.

Masanari.

The voice actor's skin looked ashen, almost waxy in the dimness, his dishevelled white locks crowning his brow like a pale wreath. His face was more hollowed and his body thinner than ever before; his cheekbones were so sharp they looked like they could pierce through the skin at any moment, his wrists so thin Ken was pretty sure he could circle them with two fingers. His eyes were shut, but his expression wasn't the peaceful one of someone who'd managed to find sleep. No, instead, it was heavy, vacant in a way that made Ken's stomach twist with horror.

Masanari wasn't dead — he could still make out faint breathing through the loose T-shirt hanging on his impossibly small frame. However, it was clear that he wouldn't be alive for much longer and that they were witnessing what would quickly become his last moments: his body looked like it was ready to give up on him at any second.

Masanari's phone suddenly lit up, the vibrations of the awaiting phone call making it wobble dangerously close to the edge of the bed.

The boy barely twitched.

"… W-Why are you showing me this?" Ken finally managed to say as he turned his head to Hanano, his voice low with bafflement.

"Why wouldn't I?" she answered softly. "You wanted them all dead, didn't you?" She vaguely gestured towards the window, her smile way too lighthearted for someone who was looking at a dying person. "Well, here you go. If we wait for long enough, we'll get to see the others bite the dust, too. Eventually. It might take a bit longer than Wada, though."

Ken's scowl only deepened as he tried to understand her thought process. Was this her idea of caring for him or something? If it was, it felt pretty tasteless. It was on the same level as a cat dropping the mangled carcass of a mouse on its owner's brand-new carpet as a gift — the thought was there, but he couldn't possibly have anything positive to say about it. Because it was a carcass. On his carpet.

"… You don't look very happy about it," Hanano added coolly when he didn't answer. "And here I thought I was being nice by not letting you miss this."

"It's not, I—" Unable to find the words, he instead let out a sigh. "Why would I want to see that?"

Ken was never that close to Masanari. After Miki's sudden death left them both reeling, the white-haired boy was too busy either following Manami's trail like a lost duckling or cowering in his room for them to truly bond over their shared loss. Besides, Ken had never really felt the desire to spend time with him, and he definitely didn't want to talk him after what happened to Kazutoshi. The way he only had Manami's name on his lips during the third trial and shed tears only for her, as if Kazutoshi's gruesome death was nothing but an afterthought in his mind, only served to make him resent him even more.

He hated them all, and he hated Masanari all the same. He'd wanted to see him die; not because his death would have brought him any kind of joy, but simply because he thought he didn't deserve to live. None of them did after everything that happened, after all the horrors they'd seen and the blood they'd shed — either through inaction or ignorance. They should all have died on the trial grounds, with betrayal and anger misting their eyes as they were all dragged away to their execution.

But what unfolded before Ken's eyes right now didn't feel like retribution, nor justice. It was simply giving up.

It was pitiful.

He felt his throat tighten.

"W-We shouldn't be watching this," he muttered, unable to conceal the disgusted tremor in his voice. "This is sick."

"Why? I think it's fun." Hanano let out a sigh as she leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand with the nonchalance of someone looking at a sunset through their kitchen window instead of watching one of their classmates starve to death. "I knew Wada was pathetic, but I didn't think it would go that far. I can't believe he's just giving up like that, when I tried so hard to shake him up a little. To think he reached the end of the killing game and got out, only to let himself rot away like that… what a waste, really. If he was going to be such a waste of space, he should have killed himself sooner and given his place to someone else instead." Hanano's sharp eyes trailed away from the window to settle back on him, a smug smile stretching her lips. "I'm sure Mai would have enjoyed surviving more than he ever did."

Her words felt like a slap to the face. Ken bristled, fists clenching against his sides.

"You—" The retort caught in his throat. "H-How can you say something like this when you're the one responsible?!"

"I…" Hanano tilted her head to the side, completely unbothered by the accusation. "… fail to see how it is my fault. I didn't kill Wada."

"Stop acting like you don't know anything," he snapped sternly, his words whetted sharp by his growing frustration at Hanano's fake innocence. "You know exactly why. You killed the only person he felt like he could rely on. He needed Tsuno, and you left him with nothing — of course he wasn't going to be okay after the killing game."

"Well, it's not my fault if he's too weak-willed to survive on his own," she shrugged. "At this point, it's simply natural selection. The strong lives, the weak dies. He wasn't strong enough to deal with Manami's death, so he dies. I don't make the rules — that's just how the world is. Honestly, I doubt he would have survived for very long even if Manami was still alive, anyway."

Ken recoiled at her words like they had burned him, an unsettled sigh escaping his lips as he took a small step back. He really shouldn't have been surprised at this point, and yet, hearing her explain her twisted mindset all while staring down at Masanari's lifeless body like she was watching a movie filled him with so much disgust and contempt he almost felt physically nauseous.

"… You really don't care about anyone but yourself, do you?" he breathed. "It doesn't matter if other people get hurt; as long as you get what you want, you're happy."

Hanano looked away and hummed, as if she was pondering the question for the first time in her life. Knowing her, that might actually have been the case.

"I guess I am," she said softly, her sharp gaze flicking back to him. "What about you?"

He froze. "… What?"

"You keep talking like you're better than me," she continued, her tone maddeningly calm, "but you killed someone, too, didn't you? When you murdered Mai, did you think about what people would think of you, about the lives you would ruin, about the people who would mourn her? Did you think about the empty void she'd leave in her family and friend's lives, about the people she could have saved if she was still alive, about the fulfilling life she could have led?" She closed the gap between them with a single step and slowly leaned towards him, so close he could feel the heat of her breath on his face as she spoke. Despite her smile, her expression showed no warmth, only the self-serving interest of a predator prodding at the weakness of its prey. "You didn't. You simply killed her. Not for justice, not for retribution, not for Kamimura's sake, but for yourself. You killed because you are selfish and wanted to see everyone suffer — you're no better than me."

"I—" Ken wanted to argue, to fight and deny the horrifying implications of Hanano's words, but the weight of them pressed down on his chest and stole the air from his lungs. Another wave of nausea hit him, disgust tying itself into knots in his stomach. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, strained. "It's… that's different."

"Try to say that to Yanagi." A soft chuckle escaped her lips. "In his eyes, you're probably even worse than me."

The silence that followed as she stared him down waiting for an answer was suffocating. He opened his mouth to say something, anything to try and justify his deeds, to show her that she was the only person worthy of being called a heartless murderer, but the words stayed stubbornly stuck in his throat. He took a slow breath in to give himself some time to think, but the fox's grey eyes right in front of his face were too unnerving to ignore — she was waiting, watching his every reaction and expression like he was a test subject for her to experiment on. A part of him wanted to make her wait, to not grant her an answer and just leave her here, but he knew that she would see his silence as an open admission of defeat. He needed to protect himself, or she'd use his weakness to sink her teeth even deeper.

"… I'm not like you," he hissed with as much venom as he could muster, but even he could hear the trembling uncertainty in his voice. "You're the one responsible for everything. If you hadn't been there, I would never have done such a thing."

Hanano's eyes crinkled in silent amusement. "Keep telling yourself that, Ken. It doesn't change anything. You're a selfish murderer, just like me. Don't act like you have some kind of moral high ground over me."

The words cut sharper than Ken wanted them to. His breath caught, and for a moment he almost looked away. But then, a thought resurfaced through the fog of his churning mind — the conversation they had while playing chess, the vulnerability he had managed to claw out of Hanano. It didn't feel right to use another person's gruesome death as a weapon, but this was his last resort, the last argument he could use against her to shake her up a little and get just enough leeway to have the last word. Surely he'd be forgiven.

He spoke up through gritted teeth: "At least, I didn't drive the only person who ever loved me to kill herself."

Hanano's reaction was almost immediate. Her lack of regard for his personal space became her downfall in the end — the slight widening of her eyes, the tension in her brow, the downward twitch of her smile, the hitch of her breath against his face, he noticed it all despite her best attempts to repress it. And he knew from her steely stare that she was well aware of that.

"Careful," she breathed.

All trace of mockery was now gone from her voice, her warning turning cold and flat like a razor's edge against his throat. She tried to take a step back, but Ken grabbed her by the collar of her coat and kept her there before she could make a swift escape. She didn't struggle in his grip — probably because it would have made her look too desperate to get away from him —, but her unusual stiffness told him everything he needed to know about what she thought of his action. He was definitely going to be in trouble later, but that didn't matter to him right now. He had the upper hand right now. He had to finish this.

"Tell me, Okazaki," he continued. He could barely hear his own voice over the wild pounding of his heart. The mix of anticipation, trepidation and anger pumping in his veins made him feel lightheaded. "Do you think she was too weak, too? That she was too trusting, too naive? That she should have known better? That she should simply have carried on with her life, while bearing the guilt of having loved a murderer and not noticing it until it was too late? Are you really stupid or crazy enough to believe that she could have done that?"

Hanano's narrowed gaze didn't waver, but her voice came out strained. "Let me go."

Ken didn't, his fist tightening on her collar and tugging her closer. "You ruined her, Okazaki. She gave you everything she had, she was the only one who ever gave a shit about you, and you left her with nothing. How was she supposed to keep on living after something like that?"

"Stop."

"Watari died because of you. You can try to delude yourself into thinking otherwise, but it doesn't change the fact that her blood is on your hands. You killed h—"

Hanano lunged forward before he could brace himself, sending them both tumbling to the ground with a hard thud and only narrowly avoiding the window in their fall by pure chance. The force of the impact knocked the air out of Ken's lungs; he barely had a chance to recover before Hanano's hands were at his throat, fingers digging roughly into his skin and pinning him to the floor. A trembling gasp escaped his lips, eyes widening in fear as he met the fox's gaze.

He'd never seen Hanano make that kind of expression before.

He could see every detail of it from below. Her composed smile, twisted into something almost feral, her jaw tight and teeth clenched like she was actively fighting the urge to bite his throat out. Her cool grey eyes, flared wide with emotion, their calculating spark now turned incandescent and dangerous. The crease of her brow, the tremor of her fingers pressing against his windpipe, her frantic breathing, there was nothing left of the cold and sly person who had stood before him just seconds ago — only fury, unfiltered and unpracticed, like it had been left to fester for years before he finally ripped it out of her. The ugliness and unfamiliarity of it made his heart flutter and stomach drop — with terror or excitement, he wasn't really sure.

And in the blink of an eye, it was gone, replaced by her usual mask of cold impassivity.

"I told you to stop," Hanano hissed, her jagged voice dropping to a low tone.

"Why?" he rasped as he grabbed at her wrists, unable to stop the smug smile spreading on his lips. "Because it hurts? Because you feel bad about killing h—"

She squeezed harder, trapping the words in his throat. Stars danced at the edge of his swimming vision.

"I didn't. I didn't kill her. She killed herself. She… she made her choice."

Her voice quivered at the end, softening to a barely audible whisper. That was when Ken knew that he had hit the bullseye.

He was on the edge of unconsciousness when she finally let go, shoving herself off of him with a grunt. He rolled to his side and took in a trembling breath, fingers clutching at his neck to soothe the bruising that bloomed on his skin. When he found enough strength to sit up and looked up to Hanano, he was surprised to meet the cool shine of her ceramic fox mask instead of her face.

"I'm going for a walk," Hanano said, her voice flat, but still charged with something dangerous — like the heavy static in the air right before the lightning. "I don't want to see your face for a while."

Before he had a chance to open his mouth, she turned on her heel and strode off into the endless void, her white coat flaring behind her. The click of her shoes echoed sharply in the emptiness, hasty and unrefined, and soon enough, he was alone again, with nothing but the frantic beating of his heart against his chest to break the silence.

He swallowed. His throat burned with every breath, his shoulders were sore from the rough tackle, and yet, he could feel something warm bubbling beneath the throbbing pain, beneath the fear that shook his body. Satisfaction.

For the very first time, the hungry fox had retreated, with her tail between her legs and nothing but reopened wounds to show for her efforts. She had failed, and he had won.

… She was definitely going to make him suffer later. But right now? It was completely worth it.

He let out a trembling sigh.

Motion at the edge of his vision drew his gaze back to the window: Masanari's phone was ringing again. It vibrated once, twice, before falling to the ground with a loud clatter.

Masanari didn't even stir.

Ken looked away and closed the window with a hasty swipe of his hand. That was enough peeking for today.

Chapter Text

When Ken opened his eyes and was greeted by something other than endless white, he almost couldn't believe it.

At first, he thought it was yet another dream of his, the kind that felt so uncomfortably real that he would get lost in them and wake up feeling nauseous. He had been having a lot of these dreams lately, despite not managing to remember a single one back when he was alive — dreams about the killing game, about spilled blood, about his childhood, about Kazutoshi, about the life they could have lived but never would. He wouldn't have been surprised if this was yet another creation of his slowly unravelling brain, so bored by the monotony that it couldn't even be bothered to think of something new to dream of anymore. However, the lingering soreness in his back that came with sleeping directly on the hard floor told him that he was very much awake, and that the splashes of green and purple he could see in the distance where the window was supposed to be were undoubtedly real.

After a quick stretch to ease his burning muscles, he grabbed his blazer and got up, only stopping in his tracks when he saw Hanano. As always, she had woken up first and was already crouched down by the window to investigate, the fluffy white fur on her coat blocking her face from view. Unease settled heavily in Ken's stomach as he slowly approached her, his breath catching when her head perked up at the sound of his shoes echoing loudly in the empty space. Yesterday's argument had put her in a foul mood for the entire day, and she hadn't failed to take her frustration out on him in increasingly cruel and petty ways. He could still feel the shameful prickle of yesterday's "punishments" burning under his skin. A part of him prayed that a good night's sleep had allowed her to clear her mind and forget about the bad blood between them, if only for a moment — he really didn't feel like fighting today.

Thankfully enough, his apprehensiveness quickly made way to bafflement when he got close enough to make out what Hanano was looking at.

Flowers.

Growing directly from the smooth featureless ground, were flowers. Actual, living flowers.

Ken could see two different species spreading along the edge of where the window usually was, their colours sharp and almost painful to look at against the unmarred whiteness of the afterlife. One bore dense blooms of deep violet atop slender stems, the tiny petals soft and fragile-looking. The other stood higher and bolder, bell-shaped blossoms drooping in tightly-packed clusters mottled with white, pink and purple. The patch wasn't large by any means, a dozen plants at most, yet the sight was enough to make his heart swell.

Never in his life had he imagined that seeing a handful of flowers could feel so comforting and confusing.

"How even—," he finally blurted out, completely at a loss for words. "When did they get here?"

"They were already there when I woke up," Hanano answered with a noncommittal shrug before turning to face him. The softness of her voice and the impassive expression on her face told him she was probably just as confused as he was. "Do you know what they are?"

Ken felt his body straighten up in anticipation. The opportunity to annoy her was too perfect to ignore. "They're flowers," he deadpanned.

The corner of her lip twitched and her eyes narrowed. If it was from amusement or frustration, he had no idea. "When exactly did you get so cheeky?"

"When you started messing with me every single waking hour of my life."

She chuckled softly, her usual complacent smile stretching her lips. A wave of relief washed over him — she was in a good mood. Hopefully it would stay that way. "I'm not messing with you, we're just having some fun together. Don't pretend like you don't enjoy it."

He rolled his eyes. "I really don't."

She shot him a knowing look. Although he'd never admit it out loud, they both knew that it was only a half truth — he did enjoy spending time with her, albeit in the same way someone might prefer jumping through a window to escape a burning building than burn to death. Thankfully, she didn't pry any further and settled her gaze back on the flowers before his composure could start to crack. Apparently, he wasn't the only one whose curiosity was getting the better of him.

"You still haven't answered my question," she said, her fingers brushing against the tiny purple blossoms. The stems trembled under her gentle touch, as if the slightest disturbance would make them wither away, but the flowers held on. The smell, soothing and heady at the same time, wafted to Ken's nose despite the absence of wind. The flowers definitely weren't fake, he was sure of it now — or if they were, they were extremely realistic.

"That one's lavender," he answered without hesitation, pointing to the plant she was touching.

She tilted her head to the side. "I knew that one."

"It's a common aromatic plant. I would be more surprised if you didn't know what it was."

She hummed pensively, her hand reaching up to poke at one of the thimble-shaped flowers. "What about this one, then? I don't recognize it."

"It's foxglove."

Hanano's head perked up ever so slightly. The sight made him huff in amusement — of course she'd be interested in that one. "… I see."

None of them said anything for a moment. The silence pushed him to continue his explanation, if only to fill the awkward lull in the conversation. "I-Its actual name is digitalis. It's a common plant in western Europe, less so in Japan."

"It's pretty. Why is it called like that?"

"The name comes from old stories — people used to think foxes would wear the flowers on their paws like gloves to keep their steps silent while hunting. It's an extremely poisonous plant, but it can also help with heart problems with the right doses. Some people even called it witch's glove because of how unpredictable its use was in the past, and—"

Ken paused abruptly when he realized that he was starting to ramble. Hanano shot him a sly smile. Unable to conceal the self-conscious flush on his neck, he sheepishly looked away, fiddling with his sleeve to stop his hands from fidgeting too much. He couldn't let himself get carried away like that, especially not in front of her.

"A-Anyway," he stammered. "What do you think they mean?"

Hanano tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"The flowers. There must be a reason why they're here, right?"

They had spent weeks in the afterlife without noticing a single change — or at least, nothing except for the items they would painstakingly recreate over and over again each morning. The fact that the afterlife had changed now of all days and without their own intervention was way too intriguing to be ignored: what could possible have brought such an unexpected change?

Hanano didn't answer immediately, keeping her eyes trained on a cluster of white foxglove. Her hand gently caressed the blossoms, as if trying to coax an answer out of them.

"… Maybe it's a message," she mused quietly. The uncertainty of her words felt uncomfortably alien on her tongue. "Or some kind of sign."

Ken frowned. "A sign? Of what?"

"That something is changing, maybe? I'm… not exactly sure."

"If that's true, then I don't really understand why. They couldn't have appeared for no reason at all. Did we… do something to make them appear?"

Ken tried to make a mental list of everything he and Hanano had done together during the last few days and remember any strange occurrences or changes in their routine, but he quickly realized that it was a wasted effort: the more he tried to think about it, the more the days blurred together in an indistinguishable mass of mindless recreation and petty fights. He couldn't even remember how many days they had spent together. Was it a month? He was pretty sure it was a month, but at this point, he wasn't sure he could trust his own mind anymore — not when the mind in question considered hanging out with Hanano a better alternative than being bored.

… The flowers definitely weren't there when they went to the window yesterday, though, he was sure of it. He and Hanano would have noticed it right away if it had been the case. Did that mean that whatever happened then caused something to change?

The memory of their quarrel was still fresh in his mind. The disturbing sight of Masanari's almost lifeless body through the window. The desperation with which Hanano had lashed out at him, denying all responsibility in Nishino's death. The words she had branded in his heart, chilling and searing at the same time, so he wouldn't forget them.

You're a selfish murderer, just like me.

You're no better than me.

Ken's chest suddenly felt too tight.

"… I can't think of anything worthwhile, no," Hanano finally answered, snapping him out of his thoughts. After a moment of silence, she looked up at him with an unreadable expression. "… Maybe there's no meaning at all, then. Maybe it's just decoration."

Ken couldn't help but make a face, folding his arms against his chest and tapping his foot against the floor as he considered her idea. "No, they must mean something."

She cocked her head to the side. "You seem… really sure about that."

"They have to," he insisted. "It wouldn't make sense otherwise."

"I…" Her voice took on a higher, almost trembling pitch — she was taken aback. "… don't think the afterlife is a good standard for what makes sense and what doesn't. They're just flowers. We probably shouldn't read into them too deeply."

He ignored her doubtful comment and paced around the window as he pondered the many questions racing in his mind, careful not to trample the flowers at his feet. Why flowers? Why not something else? Why now? Why lavender and foxglove in particular? They weren't exactly common flowers in Japan outside of decoration. The fact that it was these two specific species must be important… but how?

A sudden thought stopped him in his tracks.

Two flowers. Two of them.

That had to be it. It couldn't be a simple coincidence.

"Do you know hanakotoba, Okazaki?" he asked.

Hanano blinked slowly. "Flower language? I can't say I know much about it. It doesn't really interest me. Honestly, I think it's kind of dorky." A mocking smile stretched her lips, her voice taking on its usual airy lilt. "Why? Do you know hanakotoba, Ken?"

He brushed the jibe aside despite the heat rising in his cheeks. Now really wasn't the time to get riled up by her banter. "A-A little bit, yeah. Lavender is often associated with positive things like love, devotion, peace, or happiness because of the soothing properties of its scent."

"Hm." Hanano stared down at the lavender, her brow slightly furrowed as if deep in thought. "What about foxglove, then?"

"Foxglove is a bit more complicated in its symbolism. Its toxicity and association with foxes gave it a bad reputation in the West — there, it usually means deception, secrets or insecurity. Here, it's associated with lies and insincerity too, but also with love, strangely enough. Not the same kind of love as lavender, though. Lavender is a softer, more innocent kind of love, while foxglove is more about intensity and passion."

"… I see," Hanano said before smiling softly. "I think I like the foxglove better. The lavender's boring."

"Figures," he mumbled. "It suits you."

Beautiful and loving in its own strange and unique way, but treacherously toxic. It was almost scary how easily it fit her.

… Which left him with lavender. Pure, sweet and boring lavender.

The thought left a bitter taste in his throat.

He still remembered the day he learned about flower language for the first time. After a fascinating lesson about the life cycle of plants, he had rushed to the school library to borrow some books instead of going on his lunch break. He remembered spending hours tucked away in a corner of his bedroom, reading about various plant life and learning all about their secret meanings and symbolism just for the sake of it. He remembered finding comfort in the plain gentleness of lavender and keeping a small sachet of dried flowers under his pillow to calm himself down. Its scent grounded him when the world felt like it was closing in on him and he found himself unable to breathe — it helped remind him that no matter what happened to him and how bad he felt at the moment, everything would eventually turn out okay.

The person he used to be would have seen himself in the blooms growing at his feet, shivering as if caressed by a wind that didn't exist. However, that boy had long since died — he was killed when Reina was hit by a car right under his eyes, when he had found Kazutoshi's maimed corpse in the art supply room, when he had finally decided on his plan to kill everyone in the killing game and then himself. Now, the lavender's meanings left nothing but a hollow feeling in his chest. The thought of claiming them for himself almost felt obscene, like wearing clothes that he used to love as a child but had long since outgrown.

He didn't deserve the lavender, not after everything that he had done — even if he were to close his eyes and bask in its nostalgic scent, it would never conceal the metallic stench of the blood staining his hands.

Ken's attention was brought back to reality when he saw Hanano move out of the corner of his eye. He looked down and eyed her silently as she reached out to a foxglove plant and held up one of its bell-shaped blossoms with the tip of her fingers, a pensive expression on her face. After a second of silent contemplation, she smiled and carefully wrapped her hand around the stem…

… Before snapping it off its root with a sharp tug.

"W-What are you—" His retort was curt short when she reached down and yanked off a second foxglove plant — a white one, this time. "Okazaki, stop that!"

"Hm?" Hanano stood up, her unbothered gaze meeting his. "Why?"

"You can't just remove them like that! We don't even know what they do! What if they're important? What if they don't grow back?"

She gave him a dismissive shrug and started picking at the fistful of foxglove in her hand, removing most of the leaves and plucking the imperfect blooms off the stems. "I didn't take them all. Relax."

Before he had a chance to protest even further, she slid the purple stalk inside her breast pocket with surprising care, adjusting it so the flowers fanned neatly against the lapel of her suit. Then, she tucked the white one alongside it, crossing them like a pair of miniature swords.

"You were right," she said, her usually cold lilt warm with appreciative surprise as she looked down at herself. "They do suit me. What do you think?"

"… You're impossible," he muttered, crossing his arms. He wanted to be frustrated at Hanano's reckless behaviour, but his indignation quickly faltered when he saw how beautifully the flowers' bright colours contrasted against her pristine white suit. It made for a discreet, but much needed change in her otherwise muted outfit. He wasn't going to tell her that, though. She was being annoying. She didn't deserve to hear it.

It didn't take long for Hanano to reach down to the flower patch again. His fingers clenched against his arms and he straightened his shoulders, ready to tell her off. Again.

"I told you to—" She grabbed a handful of lavender stalks and pulled them up, the thin stems snapping with little effort under the strain. Ken let out a weary sigh — no matter how much time he spent with her, he would never get used to how frustrating she was to be around when she decided to be difficult. "… Why do you never listen to me?"

"I'd listen if you had something interesting to say," she answered idly, too busy twirling the lavender stems between her fingers to notice his growing frustration.

Once she was done studying the purple blossoms, her piercing gaze settled back on him. A shiver of unease travelled down his spine when he noticed the resolute spark shining in her eyes — she had something in mind, but he wasn't sure what. And if there was one thing he'd learned to dread over the weeks, it was when Hanano had ideas that he wasn't privy to. They usually meant trouble for him.

His stomach dropped as she silently took a step towards him, nothing to betray her intentions except for her confident poise and the knowing smile on her face. Her sudden approach made him realize how close they'd been standing during their whole conversation, and he silently cursed himself for being so careless before taking a hasty step back. When did he start letting her get so close without even realizing it?

"What are you do—"

The words caught in his throat when her fingers brushed lightly against his lapel, slipping the lavender sprigs into his breast pocket and spreading them apart with swift precision.

"Look," she said softly, giving his pocket a little pat before leaning back to admire her work. He hoped she didn't feel the frantic pounding of his heart through the soft fabric. "Now we match."

Ken, dumbfounded by her action, silently dropped his gaze to the lavender. The purple looked too soft, too tender on his dark suit, and the stalks sat heavily against his chest, laden with empty meanings of love and comfort that did nothing but worsen the growing unease in his heart. The blossoms shivered faintly with every shift of his breath, their heady and familiar scent a constant reminder of their presence, undeserving and out of place, like a scathing mockery of who he used to be and would never be again.

The longer he stared at it, the more wrong it felt.

A part of him wanted to tear it off of him, to crush the fragile blooms in his palm until nothing remained and silence the quiet lie they weaved. And yet, an unfamiliar feeling stilled his fingers, making them hover gingerly over the petals as if they were something precious. Maybe it was nostalgia, refusing to let him cast away this phantom of his past; maybe it was cowardice, making him fear Hanano's reaction if he were to refuse her gift and the cruel message that came with it; maybe it was desperation, a knee-jerk reaction of his understimulated mind at the thought of destroying one of the only source of colour and life that this bleak void had ever given them. But whatever it was, it left him frozen in place, forced to endure the lavender's presence like a brand against his torn heart.

"You don't look too happy about it," Hanano commented.

"It's fine, it's just…" He cleared his throat, quashing the bitterness that threatened to taint his words. "I just don't think it suits me that well, that's all."

She let out a pensive hum, tilting her head to the side. "Is that so? I think it looks nice on you. It makes you look softer, more… approachable." Her eyes crinckled with slyness. "If I didn't know you, I could almost forget you're a murderer."

Ken clenched his fists, heat prickling at the back of his neck. How did she always manage to stick her fingers where it hurt the most without him even saying anything?

"Shut up," he mumbled.

Hanano chuckled softly. "And here I thought I was being nice by trying to comfort you."

"If that was supposed to comfort me, you're not doing a good job."

"Hm, I guess I still have some things left to learn, then." She turned her gaze back to the flower patch, holding her chin between slender fingers. "What should we do with the rest of the flowers? I think we should press them. Or maybe make some wreaths. It would look nice."

"I," he blinked, perplexed, "don't think you could make a wreath out of foxglove, the stem is too thick. Besides, we have nothing to hang them on."

"We could hang them on the sign."

He gave the sign a sideway glance. "… Sure, that will definitely lighten the place up," he muttered, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Glad you see my vision."

He let out a sharp sigh. "We've removed too many flowers already. There's not going to be any left if we keep doing that. We still don't know if they're going to stay for very long."

Hanano's eyes narrowed with mirth. "All the more reason to enjoy them while they last, don't you think?"

He opened his mouth to retort something, but couldn't find the words. How was even supposed to placate someone as frustratingly stubborn as her?

"Let's just… leave them be for now," he finally sputtered. "We'll see if they're still here by tomorrow, or if something changes. After that, you can do whatever you want with them."

"… Okay."

After fiddling with the foxglove in her pocket one last time, Hanano spun on her heels and walked away from the window — to where, Ken had no idea, but he followed her anyway. She usually had better ideas to pass the time than he did, and he didn't want to leave her unsupervised for too long. He'd tried to ignore her once, and she'd somehow managed to set up a tripwire trap that ended up with him falling face first and spraining both his legs. She insisted it was an accident. He didn't believe her.

It didn't take long for them to find something new to do. Still, even as they went about their business and settled back into their routine, the smell of lavender lingered around Ken, sending his heart aflutter and leaving him feeling restless.

The afterlife could change. But why? And if flowers could grow in a place as empty as this, then what could possibly follow next? Was the afterlife shifting on its own for a reason they couldn't possibly fathom, or was this change because of them? This last idea unsettled him — it implied that something, or someone, was watching their every move and reacting to them, which was a thought disturbing enough to send shivers down his spine. And yet, beneath the unease bloomed something else, something warmer.

Hope.

Ken didn't want to hope. Hope was a fragile seed that could sprout even in the darkest places, only to wither when faced with the cold harsh reality of the outside world, leaving nothing but disappointment and an empty husk behind. He had seen this hope bloom and rot away time and time again in the killing game, had witnessed the beautiful flowers it created and the never-ending sorrow it brought when the blooms eventually wilted. He knew its dangers, the pain it left in its wake when it died out. He didn't want to feel that hurt again. And yet, he couldn't silence this faint flicker of possibility: the idea that they wouldn’t have to stare at an endless void forever; that the flowers would keep on blooming; that maybe, there could be more waiting for them in the afterlife than silence and penance.

His fingers brushed against the lavender in his pocket.

Maybe things could get better. Maybe.

But as the gentle thought settled in his heart, another followed close behind, trailing like a shadow of doubt at the back of his mind.

Did they truly deserve it?

Chapter Text

Against all odds, the flowers didn't fade away.

Ken found himself hovering near the window each morning, half-expecting the lavender and foxglove to be gone, only to find them clinging stubbornly to the impossibly smooth ground like it made sense. Some mornings, a stem or two would droop, their petals shrivelled and dried on the cold floor; on others, new shoots would push through the cracks, their roots spreading outward day by day and bright colours pressing against the stillness of the afterlife as if the world beyond the window was trying to bleed into theirs. Hanano had joked lightly that the plants were going to smother them in their sleep if they didn't keep them in check. Ken didn't believe it for a second — they couldn't just die twice —, yet he couldn't help but watch their slow growth with uneasy curiosity, wondering if they would end up filling the entire afterlife, one day. He hoped not: as much as he hated the oppressive blankness of the afterlife, the alternative of navigating a thick jungle of permanent fragrance and toxicity didn't sound all-too pleasant, either.

They passed the time the same way they always did: talking in circles, creating things that never lasted, playing meaningless games and finding new ways to argue and annoy each other just for the sake of noise. However, with the flowers and the potential they symbolized always at the back of their restless mind, it quickly became clear that their diversions were starting to wear thin. The thought that their world could change only made the sameness of their days harder to bear, the silence heavier on their hearts. The monotony that used to be their constant wasn't just dull anymore — it was suffocating, like managing to take in a small gulp of air right before the waves dragged them both under the water again. Even on good days, the heady smell of lavender clung to Ken's suit like a bloodstain, reminding him of how truly empty his world would be without it.

It was maddening.

.

.

.

Ken hadn't meant to make them fall through the window.

It all started like most of their fights usually did. They'd been playing a game by the window for the past hour or so — a strange board game with convoluted rules that he was pretty sure were completely made up on the spot by Hanano — when Hanano finally decided that it would be much more fun to annoy him instead. She said something she shouldn't have, her words carefully twisted to slip effortlessly past his guard and sink deep into his chest like a blade coated in poison. He retorted sharply, fists clenched against his side and jaw tight with barely concealed irritation. He couldn't remember what he'd said, only that Hanano had laughed softly, as if amused by his feeble attempt to defend himself. That had been enough to make him see red.

He knew very well that she was just fighting for his attention, that all she wanted was to goad him into lashing out at her just so she could get the satisfaction of punishing him without consequences. And yet, he couldn't help but indulge her anyway. It felt easier than resisting it.

Hanano tilted her head to the side, her usual knowing smile stretching her lips when he stood up from his seat and caught her by the collar, the smooth white fabric crumpling between his fingers as he yanked her closer. Her body shifted slightly in his grip, as if to test him, and when she realized she didn't have the strength to simply shove him away, she grabbed him by the wrists and dug her fingernails deep into his skin in an attempt to make him lose his hold, her grey eyes glinting with the excitement of a predator that had finally found a worthy opponent. Their heated breaths mingled together in way that felt almost intimate as they struggled uselessly in each other's grasp, tugging and shoving and punching and clawing without ever managing to gain the upper hand, but Ken didn't care — he just wanted to unwind and for her to shut up, and it was working. That was all that mattered to him at that moment.

Neither of them noticed how dangerously close they were standing to the window, its surface shimmering gently as if caressed by a nonexistent breeze. The lavender and foxglove brushed against their legs, blossoms trembling and stems snapping under their feet to make way for their careless squabble.

Ken's right hand curled into a fist as he swung it towards Hanano's face, but her sharp eyes caught the movement right before it could connect. She dodged if effortlessly, her paw-print earring catching the light as she took a swift step back to regain her balance.

… Or at least, she tried to.

Her heel snagged on some tangled stems, sending her body tumbling backwards. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in a silent gasp, her mask of calculated calm shattering to reveal raw, unguarded panic.

"W-Wait, Ken—" she exclaimed, her hands blindly reaching out to grasp something to steady herself.

… Which just so happened to be him.

They fell down,

and instead of hitting the cold hard floor,

… they kept falling.

The air turned into daggers in his lungs, heavy and cold,

closing over him like the dark waters of a frozen lake.

Ken tried to call out to Hanano,

but no sound came out of his tightened throat.

Her words came back to mind as he struggled to breathe,

"It feels like you're drowning."

His hand reached out for something, anything to hold on to,

but his fingers closed around nothing.

His heart lurched in his chest as panic tried to take over,

and before he knew it, everything went dark.

.

.

.

Ken woke up to the hum of air conditioning and the sharp tang of antiseptic.

It took a minute for his eyes to get accustomed to the unusual dimness. He managed to make out the single bed he'd been lying on, its cold metal frame squeaking loudly and biting into his palms as he slowly pushed himself upright. The sheets, thin and coarse underneath his hands, were spread carelessly on an uncomfortably hard mattress. A worn stuffed toy, a red fox with washed-out fur and a torn ear, rested against the pillow, its glassy eyes catching the pale light filtering through a narrow window across the room.

He rose up to his feet, his eyes carefully sweeping through the unfamiliar room as he did so. It was cramped and austere, the kind of space whose sole purpose was to keep its occupant alive, not comfortable. The furniture looked cheap and worn: in addition to the shabby bed, there was a wardrobe, its door slightly ajar to reveal a handful of clumsily folded clothes, a wooden desk with a small lamp and a bookshelf that seemed ready to collapse under its own weight despite the few books it contained. A side room in the corner, which he guessed was probably a bathroom, took up what little space there was left.

It reminded him of a hospital room, in a way… or a prison cell. He didn't know which option was worse.

And yet, despite how stark and drab the room was, it looked anything but vacant: a puzzle sat unfinished on the desk, its edges completed and the centre pieces in the process of being sorted by colour. Several books were stacked at the bottom of the bed, waiting to be read; out of curiosity, he grabbed the one at the top of the pile, which looked brand-new and had a bookmark halfway through, and gave the back cover a cursory glance — a children mystery novel. The dreary white walls were carefully concealed by a barrage of colourful drawings, their art style childish, but unmistakably skilful. It was clear to him that whoever lived there was trying their very best to make the space their own — a futile, if not admirable, effort.

Glancing behind him, he noticed a door, left half-open like a silent invitation.

He pushed it open.

The hallway beyond the door was the exact same featureless white, stretching endlessly towards a point that only seemed to move further away the longer Ken stared at it. For a moment, he hesitated. Something deep inside him told him that something was wrong, that he wasn't supposed to be here — and still, he kept walking, as if pushed forward by an unseen force. He passed several doors, all similar to the one he'd exited except for the enigmatic engravings on their metal plaques. The clicking of his shoes echoed too loudly in the silence, disturbed only by the faint buzz of the pale neon lights above his head and the distant humming and beeping of machines. The air sat stale in his lungs, dry and cold and reeking of disinfectant. It made his heart lurch with each breath.

He needed to get out of here.

As he approached what looked like the end of the hallway, voices cut through the stillness, stopping him cold in his tracks. Slowly, carefully, he peeked around the corner, keeping close to the wall as he did. His eyes were immediately drawn towards the two unfamiliar figures standing a few paces away from him in front of a half-open door that looked exactly the same as all others. The first person was an elegantly-dressed woman, her short brown hair and dark glasses framing an impatient scowl and an intense glare that almost sent a shiver down Ken's spine. The other figure, an older man — who he assumed was some kind of doctor or scientist, judging by the stained white coat he was wearing — with greying hair and confident poise, smiled nonchalantly as the woman stared him down, completely unbothered by her visible irritation. Their conversation was sharp but hushed, as if they were concerned about someone overhearing them. Despite that, none of them seemed to notice his presence as he got close enough to make out what they were saying.

"I have to say, her body is taking the procedure surprisingly well," the doctor said to the woman, his tone smooth and light despite the growing tension between the two. "Resilience like hers is a hard thing to come by these days, especially at such an early age. She makes for a wonderful guinea pig — I wish my interns were as interesting to study."

The woman clicked her tongue disapprovingly, and when she opened her mouth to retort something, Ken felt his heart drop.

He had heard this voice before.

That was the sharp voice he had heard through the intercom during his trial. The woman who had sentenced him to a cruel and drawn-out death. One of the masterminds behind the sick game they'd been forced to partake in.

What was she doing here?

… Where even was he?

No matter how much he searched his mind for some kind of explanation, his thoughts came out eerily blank, as if surrounded by a thick haze he couldn't escape.

Why couldn't he remember anything?

"I'm not letting her stay here so you can poke at her or cut her up," the woman said, her tone as dry and stern as her expression. "You promised me fast results, Kan, and I'm not seeing them. She's growing way too restless — I can barely get her out of her room without her getting hysterical."

"Have a little patience, Haruka. Yume's just a child. It's normal for a kid her age to become a bit… defiant towards her caretakers, especially when she feels distressed. She'll settle down eventually."

"She bit me, Kan. I just don't understand why we can't sedate her. That would make things easier for both of us."

"I need her awake and reactive during the procedure to make sure the injections are taking well. She's very perceptive of her own pain and body — it makes the doses easier to tweak and my reports easier to write."

The woman's expression scrunched up into a disgusted grimace. "You're a sick man."

"Would you rather this take longer, then?"

After a moment of stunned silence, she let out a dry huff. "… Just make sure she calms down for the day. We've already wasted enough time with her tantrums and your little experiments. The sooner we're done with this, the better." She took a step to the side, her heels clicking loudly against the tiled floor. "I'm going home, I have work to do. Don't call me back unless you have something new to report."

The doctor tilted his head to the side ever so slightly. The mannerism felt familiar. "Aren't you going to watch over Yume? She's your daughter."

"You can handle her. She listens to you more than she ever did me, anyway."

"… As you wish, Haruka. I'll take good care of her."

Ken felt a shiver run down his spine. Still, the honeyed words seemed to satisfy Haruka and she left without looking back, her pace brisk and driven as she disappeared down the hall. Once she was out of sight, the doctor — Kan, he corrected himself — let out a sigh and quietly slipped back inside the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Ken lingered around the corner for a second, then another, letting out a breath he'd been unconsciously holding out of fear of being discovered. When he was sure nobody would notice him, he stepped closer and gingerly reached out to the door. That was when the stench hit him, hidden underneath the bitter scent of antiseptic and cleaning products — the foul, metallic stink of dried blood, sweat and rot. It clung to his tongue like ash, cloying and familiar… too familiar. The memory of it, so close and yet so far away — there had been so much blood in the art room, how could such a small body hold so much blood —, was enough to make his stomach twist in disgust.

His trembling hand hovered over the cold metal. Muffled sobs spilled from the other side of the door, weak and subdued, as if someone was desperately trying to stay quiet.

Ken didn't want to go inside. Still, something compelled him forward.

Swallowing down the bile rising in his throat, he pushed the door and slid inside. The air almost seemed to cool down as the door closed behind him.

The room beyond was small and windowless, claustrophobic in its bareness. A single white light burned overhead, casting long claw-like shadows on the walls and floor. A padded chair stood in its centre, reclined to be almost completely flat and surrounded by flickering machines and metal trays filled to the brim with metal instruments and bottles of unidentified liquids. The doctor sat beside it, his back turned to Ken, hands fiddling with something he couldn't quite see.

His gaze slowly moved past him, heart hammering faster and faster in his chest as he took in the sight that unfolded in front of him. It finally settled on the small figure strapped to the chair. A child. A girl, probably no older than ten, far too pale under the searing eye of the examination light. She wore nothing but medical scrubs that seemed to do nothing to protect her against the deathly chill that permeated the room, the thin fabric clinging to her thin frame and leaving her arms and legs completely bare. Several IV lines snaked along her arms, hastily taped down over the blueish blotches of barely-healed bruises that marred her forearms and hands. Bandages covered parts of her body and seemed to extend under the gown, some fresh, others darkened with dried blood. The restraints dug deeply into her limbs, the skin on her ankles and wrists blooming with deep red where the leather had rubbed it completely raw.

Kan leaned closer to her, a gentle smile on his lips — his golden eyes reminded Ken of a hawk, patiently waiting for the right moment to swoop down and catch its unsuspecting prey. The child's gaze, half-lidded and unfocused, slowly followed his movement. Her face was damp, cheeks reddened by fresh tears and sweat plastering long strands of brown hair against her forehead, neck and shoulders. Her chest heaved with effort as she took in small quivering breaths.

"You're doing so well, Yume," the doctor whispered, his voice too warm and sickly-sweet in the oppressing silence. He reached out towards her and brushed the hair away from her sweat-covered brow, tucking it neatly behind her ear. She flinched under his touch, as if burned, her arms twitching weakly against her restraints before going slack. "Remember, this is for your own good. We're doing this because we want you to live. Because we —because I — love you. You want that too, don't you? You want to live?"

The girl didn't answer right away, her lips trembling as if the mere act of parting them hurt her. When she finally managed to let out a sound, her voice came out as barely a whisper, hoarse and broken and incredibly small.

"… Yes."

The doctor's expression seemed to brighten at her word. His hand slid away from its resting spot near the side of her head, fingers bending to gently cup her cheek. The child barely stirred this time, too exhausted to move away. Instead, she silently leaned into his touch, burying her face in his palm and shuddering as his thumb lightly brushed against her eyelash to catch a stray tear that threatened to fall — because of the cold, pain or fear, Ken had no idea.

The view made his stomach turn.

This felt wrong.

He shouldn't be watching this.

"You're a really brave girl, Yume," Kan said softly. "I'm so proud of you."

"I-It hurts," she hiccuped.

"I know."

His hand moved away from her cheek as he turned to a nearby table, causing her face to loll weakly to the side. With her long hair out of her face and the doctor's frame out of the way, Ken could make out her features a bit better; round cheeks glistening with tears, thin eyebrows and pale grey eyes, vacant and feverish as she struggled to keep them open—

Ken froze, heart skipping a beat as the familiarity clicked like puzzle pieces in his mind.

He knew who this child was. It had to be her.

"… Okazaki?"

Hanano startled at the sound of his voice, echoing loudly in the cramped room. She blinked once, twice, dazed, before her gaze slowly drifted towards him. The doctor completely ignored his presence, humming a light-hearted tune as he fiddled with his equipment.

After what felt like an eternity, she finally found him through the haze. Her eyes briefly widened, cracked lips opening in a quiet gasp.

"Ken…?"

Her expression shifted. The fog in her blank stare lifted in the blink of an eye, replaced by a wild flurry of emotions: confusion, disbelief, but also something strikingly familiar — a sharp gleam of cold intelligence that didn't belong in a child's gaze at all. Ken's breath hitched in recognition.

No matter how many times he saw it, he would never get used to it.

He took a step forward, hand slowly reaching out towards Hanano. Her breathing picked up, her eyes quickly darting towards the doctor, then back to him as he drew nearer. She tried to move away, but the restraints on her limbs held on despite her weak protest.

"N-No," she breathed.

As the word escaped her lips, the world dissolved around him.

The examination light flickered like a dying star above his head. The tiles and walls rippled like water before peeling away into impenetrable blackness. The humming of machines turned into screaming static, so loud he could feel it echoing in his bones. The doctor's predatory eyes and intimidating presence bled into the growing shadows. Even the air itself, thick with the cloying scent of death and rot, seemed to melt away, leaving a hollow feeling in Ken's chest, as if the oxygen had been clawed right out of his lungs.

Ken felt the floor suddenly tilt under his feet. He tried to grab onto something, but his grip found nothing but empty air.

Before he knew it, he found himself falling again, and the darkness swallowed him whole.

.

.

.

Ken was freezing.

The steady rain felt like cold needles against his skin, soaking through his ill-fitting suit and plastering long strands of hair against his forehead. The scratchy black fabric clung awkwardly to his narrow shoulders, the soaked sleeves hanging past his thin wrists and the hem of his pants creasing uncomfortably against his ankles. His shoes squelched in the slippery mud each time he readjusted his footing, his legs burning from standing in place for so long. He shivered, clutching something between reddened fingers — a white lily, trembling and bruised in his childish grip, raindrops shimmering like tears on its pale petals. Despite the growing soreness in his knuckles, he didn't dare loosen his grasp: with how strong the rain was, he was scared the fragile bloom would slip from his fingers and fall in the mud.

He looked up. Familiar faces, towering over his small stature and blurred by the unrelenting rain, leaned against one another for comfort and warmth, their voices and cries kept low so as to not disturb the solemn silence. Friends and family, gathered in shared loss and grief — his mother, her usual gentle expression buried in shaky hands as she cried; his father, his eyes puffy and empty; his sister, desperately clinging to their father's arm like a lifeline, unable to do anything but stare vacantly at her own shoes to stop herself from breaking down in front of everyone. None of them looked at him, their gazes instead focused on the grave that lay at their feet, covered in mud and freshly bought flowers. The sight of it and the name engraved on its marbled stone made Ken's heart clench painfully in his chest.

It was so small.

He took in a trembling breath as tears blurred his vision. He wanted to take a step towards her grave, to give the lily its proper place, but his legs wouldn't obey, sorrow and guilt keeping him firmly rooted in place.

It was all his fault. He should have been watching her. He should have followed her when she decided to play further away from the safety of their front porch. He should have noticed when she wandered onto the road. If he had paid more attention, had been a more responsible brother, none of this would have happened.

But it did happen, and now, he would never see Reina ever again.

A strangled sob escaped his tightened throat, tears and salt blending with the raindrops already wetting his reddened cheeks. He curled up on himself as shivers shook his body again, pulling the lily closer against his chest as though it would shield him — from the rain, from the cold, from the shame, from the entire world. The flower quivered as he hiccuped, staining his crumpled shirt with even more water and pollen.

That was when he saw her.

For a moment, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. However, although she stood a few steps away, her figure stood out starkly between the dark coats and bowed heads of the crowd. Her white suit was immaculate as ever, as if untouched by the weather, and the fox ceramic mask shielding her face gleamed gently with raindrops, making her look more like an apparition than an actual person. Even with her mask on, Ken could tell Hanano was looking right at him. He'd spent enough time with her to know when her attention was on him even when her eyes were concealed — she'd be just a bit too still, her movements slightly too slow, like a stalking predator waiting for an opportune moment to strike. She was surprisingly easy to read once the veneer of eerie inscrutability she built around her chipped away… although it didn't make her persistent staring less uncomfortable for him to bear.

Her head tilted ever so slightly in recognition when their eyes met, the familiar mannerism sending a shiver of apprehension down his spine.

She wasn't supposed to be here.

It didn't make any sense.

Why was she here?

Before he knew it, she was already striding towards him, her pace steady and confident despite the treacherously muddy ground. Despite her incongruous attire, nobody seemed to notice her presence even as she drew nearer, weaving effortlessly between the mourners as if they weren't there. She loomed over him in an instant, her fluffy coat billowing like mist around her tall frame and blanketing his entire world in familiar white. Ken's breath hitched as he stumbled back and craned his neck to see her face properly. The lily quivered in his grasp.

"Okazaki…?" he breathed.

His voice was higher than he remembered, shaky with grief and hoarse from crying. He hated how weak he sounded.

"Ken." Hanano's voice cut like a blade through the rain and the sobs, calm and cold, but edged with unusual urgency. "This isn't real."

He stared up at her, eyes wide. He parted his lips to say something, but no sound came out, the words lost beneath the thrum of the freezing rain, the low keen of the mourners and the beating of his heart. Unable to shake off the chilling feeling of her cold eyes piercing him through the mask, he shook his head weakly and took a step away from her. He was so cold. His chest felt too tight. His drenched hair clung to his face. His suit rubbed at his skin. His legs hurt. His head hurt. His hands hurt. He wanted to go home and see Reina again. Why did she have to leave? Why was she dead, when he was still alive? It wasn't fair—

"Ken," she said, more firmly this time. "Listen to me. None of this is real. You have to wake up."

Ken let out a shuddering breath as a gust of wind swept blew and pressed his drenched clothes harder against his skin. He tried to look away, to ignore her and settle his gaze back on the familiar grave, but Hanano took a step to the side, blocking the view completely. His eyes squeezed shut as tears welled up again. He just wanted to see Reina again, to make things right by her. Why did Hanano have to be so cold?

"L-Leave me alone," he hiccuped.

"No. Wake up."

Her hand suddenly shot out and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, yanking him up. Her grip wasn't harsh, but firm enough make him jolt in surprise and send his heart aflutter with fear. His breath hitched as he felt the lily slip from his numb fingers. He tried to catch it, but it was too late — he watched as it fell silently at his feet, the white petals bruising under the assault of the rain and slowly drowning in the mud. The sight of it, pale and fragile and out of place and forever stained and ruined, left a pit of uneasiness in his stomach.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go.

This… wasn't right.

With that thought, the world started to fade away.

The air turned even colder and heavy in his lungs, and his surroundings peeled back like an old painting, layer by layer, revealing familiar depthless white. The patter of the rain turned into a thunderous rumble that drowned everything in its deafening embrace. The silhouettes of the mourners stretched and twisted at the corner of his vision like monstrous shadows before dissolving into nothingness, their wailing warbling into mindless noise and umbrellas melting like candles over their heads. The muddy ground rippled like water beneath his shoes, the ripples spreading and making the grass and trees shudder and bend in a way that felt wrong. The edges of the grave turned brittle before crumbling into light, the flower wreaths surrounding it withering away and scattering like ash in the wind.

The smell of lavender, sweet and heady, hung in the air.

Suddenly, the ground gave way under Ken's feet and he stumbled backwards into blinding emptiness, hands outstretched and lips parted in a silent cry for help. Hanano, who still had her hand firmly clutched on his collar, tumbled with him through the endless white. As his fingers closed around the thick fluff of her overcoat, he felt Hanano's free arm settle on his back and press him closer against her. Even after spending so much time under the freezing rain, her body felt comfortably warm.

"Don't let go of me," she said.

Before he knew it, the light swallowed them both.