Disclaimer: I do not own Dangan Ronpa.
.:nil desperandum:.
Once upon a time, Sayaka Maizono fell for a boy.
He was nothing special, really – an ordinary boy with an ordinary name who was anything but ordinary to her – with striking eyes of spiralling vines against gunmetal thunderclouds, untamed brown hair framing an innocent face and hands that healed with a single touch.
She revelled in a flash of glamour and glitz, while he was the kindofadorable unpopular geek in the background who'd catch her eye from afar and swivel away hastily, ecru cheeks already suffused with a deep red.
(she blew him a kiss, fragile and ephemeral, woven from her palpitating heart)
Once upon a time, they became the children forced to grow up too fast.
In the enshrouding swirl of despair, keeping them locked in like caged animals, she kept him close to her, every so often clasping at his arm with a vice-grip as if to reassure herself that he was real, and she wasn't alone in this lunacy.
He was warm and solid and real. He was real, he was hope, and that was all that mattered.
(she's a liar)
Once upon a time, Sayaka Maizono was a world class act.
She was a crystal beauty, a glistening shard of ice commandeering a permafrost aura that compelled others to stop and look and listen to the belle of the ball, she who toed the gossamer-thin line so expertly into the light.
(then her backstage assistants fell and she, the infallible tightrope walker, plunged headfirst into the darkness)
Once upon a time, Sayaka Maizono decided to kill a man.
(she wrapped her arms around him and whispers Makoto and Naegi and sorry like a mantra against his chest)
Once upon a time, Sayaka Maizono fell to despair.
Once upon a time, she found herself pressed up against the rattling door of the bathroom, heart throbbing, her life flickering rapidly before her eyes like slides of a film reel, allowing her to catch fleeting glimpses of the innocent boy she betrayed as her heart teetered on the verge of imploding on itself.
Once upon a time, she wondered. If her time weren't ticking away on a clock, would she have had the courage to confess; to pull him close and let the fateful three words roll off her tongue?
(she'll never know – lies and love were never meant to mix)
Once upon a time, she found herself flying forward, crumbling headfirst against the wall, crimson leaking from her body in rivulets.
Once upon a time, she felt a tide of darkness and despair, slick and tenebrous, closing in on her and steeling herself for the impact that never comes, she thought,
I
love
you
N
a
e
g
i
(then, her eyes closed for the last time)
Once upon a time, Sayaka Maizono loved a boy.
She waits for him, still, in her garden of Eden, watching the butterflies' stained-glass wings shimmer against sprawling fields of blossoming flowers and their minute heartbeats shatter on the breeze to whisper tales of his glorious victory against despair. She waits for him with her killer, he whose fingers ghost hers in a vestigial imitation of holding hands, a subtle dance of neutralism and accepted apologies and misunderstandings best buried in the past. She waits for him with hope that blooms as brightly as the sun.
(she'll wait for him for eternity and after)
((Published 5 October 2013))
REVAMPED 7 NOVEMBER 2013
A/N: Nil desperandum: never despair.
Thanks for reading!
~TLoC