"So why do you wanna go back to this musty ol' room again?"
The loud groan of the Exisal hangar's door is the first noise to greet the small boy's question. Shuichi watches that typical lackadaisical smile stretched across his face, like there isn't a care in this world, as the two of them step into the hangar together. If he's bothered by this place, he's showing no signs of it — but by now Shuichi knows that him showing nothing means nothing, in the grand scheme of things.
"I just…want to see something," Shuichi says to him. "We won't be long."
It's with a hum that Kokichi responds to him, arms laced behind his head as he waltzes into the room like he owns the place. Such a gait is only disturbed by the slight stumble that he takes upon approaching one of the deactivated Exisals, now no longer in danger of being used… Permanently. He doesn't look directly at him, and while Shuichi doesn't understand everything about him, he knows enough to know that the normally confident Ultimate Supreme Leader not making eye contact always meant something. It helps that the files that he'd seen and the whiteboard continued to play at the back of his mind; and while he's never asked, he's sure it's doing the same for Kokichi, too.
Ghosts linger through every corner that Shuichi looks, despite the fact that he knows it'd never been real. The stench punctuates his nose anew, making his throat clog up in a way arteries should have, but couldn't. Metallic and coppery as if he could taste it on his tongue for himself, and he just barely prevents himself from gagging on it; but when he glances at the press again, there's no bright red that he sees. Instead, the day light reveals nothing between the slide and bed, as if nothing had ever been there in the first place. He blinks, tempted even to rub his eyes because despite the visual feedback telling him otherwise, it's as if he's drinking in something thick, with such a tiny body producing almost a lake right in the middle of the hangar, so loud and so obvious that even if Shuichi hadn't been looking at the time he would have noticed. He feels it trickling down his airways and yet he knows that his eyes expose the truth, even if, when he closes them, red becomes the first color that he sees.
'It's a lie,' rings in his ears.
"What?"
Kokichi lifts a brow at him. "I didn't say anything, Shuichi."
"Oh."
There's something about that, the way that Kokichi looks back at him with those wide, intense eyes that brings Shuichi back to the present, now. His lips still remain upturned, head slightly tilted, and he's so solid here that it's any wonder that Shuichi might have thought differently, just for a moment. The mustiness that Kokichi commented on before becomes apparent to him now, overshadowing everything else, as if this place had long been abandoned, as if they hadn't been walking here a month ago.
The patient expanding and contracting of his chest draws Shuichi's attention especially, as an idle thought tells him that there's still a beating heart inside there.
There's no doubt in Shuichi's mind that Kokichi notices him staring, but he says nothing about it. "So," he draws out the 'o', "what's this something, anyway? You never said, and you know how I hate it when you don't tell me things."
"Oh. Right." It's not like him, is it? To be so spacey — but his skin prickles as the thought comes back to mind of what he's actually here for, and of what his companion might think of it, or of him, for it. And that trepidation only worsens when he (reluctantly) draws his gaze away from Kokichi back to the press itself, back to the daunting machine that could be sprouting legitimate jaws at any moment, no matter how ridiculous the notion. Shuichi would believe it, after what he's seen. "Um, come with me."
Another raised brow, and that casual demeanor… It's comforting. Shuichi won't say so out loud, not yet, but he doesn't really need to, if he has to guess the reason that Kokichi is putting it on in the first place. "Did you lay a trap here for me? Is that what's going on?" Kokichi's grin turns more sinister. "Wow, that's cruel of you, Shuichi! Especially with what you know about this room, huh?"
You know what I'm thinking about, don't you?
It's an 'of course not' that never comes, but Kokichi continues as if it had, anyway. "No, that can't be it. You wouldn't be clever enough to do something like that." The stumble, again, Shuichi notices it and it sends a surge of electricity through him, fingers twitching uncontrollably. "C'mon, Shuichi," and that distinct whine in his voice sounds genuine, "you're keeping me in suspense! I don't like that!"
"You don't have to—"
"I'm fine," Kokichi roughly cuts him off, the smile faltering. It fixes itself, stitching itself like it's a mask growing upon his face, as if it hadn't stumbled like his gait had in the first place. "Don't start with that stupid shit, okay? It's annoying. I'm only kidding, anyway."
You don't want to be here. And the realization makes his heart pound against his ribcage. You're telling me to get it over with. And…you don't even know why I wanted to come here. Maybe Kokichi didn't mean it when he said it, but Shuichi's inflicting an act of selfish cruelty on him right now.
"Right. Okay." It's easy, sometimes, to forget that Kokichi's the same age; he portrays himself as seeming younger, has the composure of someone older, but there's something tight in his face and he's pretty sure Kokichi himself is aware of it, too. And that's why he's here, too; that's why he's here, and Kokichi will come to see that. Sucking in a shaky breath, working in his nerve as he can tell his companion is, he barely even notices his own stumble as his feet glide over to the edge. His stomach tightens as the expectation arises, subconsciously, that his shoes will brush along liquid, barely fresh and rising to lap along the soles.
Fingers glide along the press's bed, a hitch of a breath ringing in the air. It takes Shuichi a second to realize it's not his own.
The slide stares dauntingly from above Shuichi's head, and the control panel taunts him from his peripheral vision. The layout of the buttons projects within his brain, the texture of the button tingling his fingertips, despite them currently pressing against metal. Metal, and metal alone, he sharply reminds himself, it's metal he's feeling at the moment.
"Shuichi?"
It presses past water that somehow leaked into Shuichi's ears with how distilled it is, and he releases a tense breath between teeth to clear it. He doesn't look back at him. "Can you…go to the control panel?"
"But…why?"
"Please, just do it, Kokichi. I promise it will make sense."
He doesn't need to look back to feel the hesitation in Kokichi's body. Fingertips skitter along his back before they're removed, before he hears the tap, tap, tap of the staircase. He spots white within his peripheral vision, contrasting greatly with the musty yellow. Eyebrows nestled together give Shuichi a surprisingly plain view of what he must be thinking.
His stomach rolls as he focuses on the flat surface in front of him, but all that follows it is a swallow. He's not about to back out of this now, not after he dragged him into it.
He sidles his rear over the side of the bed, palms pressing beneath them as he uses them as leverage to take his legs along him. Shadows cross all over his body, the green neon lights' rays no longer reaching him as he's swallowed beneath the slide. As he twists to follow along with the bed, what was in the corner of his eye is now much of what he can see if he doesn't want to stare up into deep, plain gray. His eyes follow the humps of the staircase until they arrive straight at the Ultimate Supreme Leader himself, where Shuichi told him to go.
He's rimrod stiff.
"Shuichi?" he says it again, and now that Shuichi's really listening he can hear the note that he'd missed before: fear. Kokichi's eyes are wide on him, and his knuckles white from how tightly he's gripping the railing. The podium hides Kokichi's legs but from the way he's struggling to stay upright, Shuichi's sure those are shaking, too.
Despite the pinch in his chest, Shuichi doesn't answer him, not yet. Instead, he begins to adjust himself as he presses his back against the bed, feeling the cool metal seep in like tiny tendrils willing to snuff out the remainder of his warmth. He points his head upward rather than to the side, despite a part of him wanting to gauge Kokichi's expression now, wanting to drink in everything about how he feels watching this for himself. Eyes light upon the plating that hovers above him, just waiting to come down upon him. He's locked in place, almost, mesmerized by the fact that this harbinger of destruction is just hanging there, and there's nothing that will make it move unless it's told to. That such a power would lie at any human being's fingertips… He'd witnessed it before, both on video tape and through his own volition, but it's different being underneath it.
Nothing warm cradles his back, and in a way that's more comforting than if there had been.
He swallows again, fingers splaying out near his sides, and toes being unable to decide where they want to go. It's almost as if he's subconsciously attempting to flatten himself against the bed, as if that will avoid whatever fate awaits him.
It's so quiet in here.
Did they talk a lot, before it happened? Did Kokichi?
He can imagine it, the boy cracking a few jokes or ridiculous comments, as if the longer he speaks, the more he can delay reality.
"… Can you press the button, please?"
Of course, upon speaking himself, he can't imagine how tense breaking that silence must be, considering how loud it sounds to him, despite the fact that Shuichi is always quiet.
"What?"
Shuichi winces. He'd expected this.
"Is — is this a joke, Shuichi? 'cause if it is, it's not fucking funny—"
"No." Shuichi licks his lips. "I'm being serious. I want you to press the button."
Shuichi doesn't think he can bear looking at him, so he doesn't. He doesn't know what the pause that follows means, but it becomes so quiet that if a pin dropped from across the room, he could hear it. Despite that, it's a strain that Shuichi needs to pull when Kokichi speaks again, his voice cracking, "Why?"
Why? It's the question that Shuichi never asked enough. Why would Kokichi do this, why would Kokichi do that? Why did Shuichi not bother to listen to him? Why did Kokichi not trust them with this? Why, why, why? He'd done it in the beginning, trying his best to understand him, but he'd given up then. Given up like he'd given up for a while on the hope that they would ever get out of here, on the hope that he would be able to find the mastermind, on the hope that he would ever be able to undo any of his mistakes. And it's strange, because even to the end, Shuichi knows Kokichi never gave up. He never gave up asking, he never gave up changing his plans — to the end, even when his veins coursed with poison, he still did his best to make the best of the situation. Did his best to point them all in the right direction, and maybe they would have earlier, if they'd just listened.
And that might be the worst realization of all to have here, within the hydraulic press, knowing that Kokichi is still listening, despite everything.
"I want to see what you saw," he says candidly.
That's clearly not enough to convince him to press the button for him. "Yeah?" But it is clearly enough to get to him. Shuichi hears it in his voice, a shake that's not been present during the killing game and a shake that Shuichi sometimes wonders he's the only one who's ever picked up on. "Well, that's fucking stupid. You're fucking stupid. And crazy! Don't forget that!" His voice rises, and Shuichi's chest constricts. He… He understands, he knows what Kokichi is actually saying, and it's taken him this long to hear it. "You're gonna get—"
"I won't." Shuichi won't let him entertain whatever dark fantasies are running about within Kokichi's brain. Not again. "It has an emergency stop. I'm — I'm not…" Suicidal. "I just…want to understand."
The lack of noise is so loud Shuichi's sure his eardrums will explode.
"I trust you."
It expands further, and Shuichi fears that before Kokichi even gets to press it his heart will burst forth from his chest and wreck his ribcage, tearing him apart with how frantically it bangs against it. Fingers curl up more tightly and the tenseness threatens to suffocate him. His back aches as the cool metal that was before comforting becomes almost claustrophobic in the way that it grips him—
The humming of the hydraulic press hits his ears.
It's happening. The thought hits him harder than the tennis ball that Ryoma knocked back into him. This is really happening right now.
And maybe it's even worse, then, that he'd heard it before he saw it, because he knows immediately what it means when the slide begins to fall closer toward him. Before it hovered effortlessly, as if nothing could move it, and now heavy metal accelerates toward him. It's almost poetic how fluid the movement is, with no jerkiness or disruptions or anything that could stop it, like a train whose brakes no longer function. There's no loud screech like every big blockbuster out there, nor a spark or a fire that would indicate immediate apparent danger to the body; just something solid coming straight for him, and in a way that allows him enough time to consider the inevitable, to imagine the way that it would feel as it pressed against his skin and made certain work of the bones that lie beneath.
Every movie shows this moment the same. Life, flashing behind one's eyelids, considering the friends and family that a person has made, especially about a significant other that that person may be leaving behind… Of memories colored in sepia tones with a swelling, dramatic piece playing within the background on repeat. The climax rises as the death becomes all the more certain, as escape becomes a far-off dream, but there's always a smile on the person's face because they leave without regrets, because the life they're leaving behind is the one they created, is the one they used to save everyone else. It's always a hero's death, and when the inevitable does occur and Disney doesn't bring them back, it's something of a triumphant score that greets the aftermath. The death brings pain, it brings grief, but it also brings happiness at the end.
But when Kokichi's swallowed by the machine to the point that Shuichi can no longer pick him out, even in his peripheral vision, he knows immediately that's not what Kokichi saw or heard. He's no expert in understanding this, in understanding Kokichi, hell, Shuichi would argue in understanding anything — but he doesn't need to, to know it never worked out like the movies portray.
As his surroundings begin to disappear one by one, even the neon lights no longer being able to creep underneath and join him, it's one thought alone that stands out the most:
He was alone.
He shared this room with Kaito at the time. Kaito could have spoken to him then, Shuichi doesn't know. But it doesn't matter if he had, because for all Kokichi knew, Kaito was there to help him carry out a plan… Nothing more, nothing less.
'Pathetic? Look at yourself, Kokichi. Kaito always has us by his side, see? But no one wants to be around you. You're alone, Kokichi. And you always will be.'
Kokichi died thinking Shuichi hated him.
It doesn't matter if they all turned out to be alive in the end, that it all turned out to be fake. It doesn't matter, because to Kokichi, that death was real for him.
Those words played on repeat in Kokichi's brain. Shuichi's sure of that. They are in his, and he's the one who said them. He's not the one who had to receive them. He bought into all of Kokichi's bullshit, all of it. He saw cracks of someone he wanted to trust, but he never tried to dig any deeper, because Kaito's simple and easy to understand and so is Kaede, but Kokichi isn't. Kokichi says he wanted them to think this way.
Shuichi…was tired. He'd been tired at the time, that's the excuse he goes by. But does it really matter what reason he had for saying it?
And Shuichi knows, too. He knows that everyone relied on his word, he knows that everyone trusted him and looked at him as a bringer of the truth. He knows it's not just Kokichi who heard those words.
It's coming closer to him, now. He can almost feel the metal up against his skin, and an anticipatory pain, as if his body is ready for something to happen to it, ready to pump in the endorphins, readying a fight-or-flight response so he can get out of there alive, and yet he has to fight the instinct with everything he has. He can't run. He can't run because there's nowhere to run.
Shuichi gets himself to think what Kokichi must have thought.
I can't run from this. If I do, Maki will be made the blackened, and this'll have been for nothing.
But…
Shuichi's throat tightens.
I'm scared.
A creak shakes him to his very core, running through his entire body despite the fact he's nowhere near it. When an alarm sounds, it hits him then: the hydraulic press must've stopped.
Shuichi's breath is shaking badly when he does manage to hear it again. He shuts his eyes tight.
He wasn't suicidal. He wasn't looking at the slide like a brave hero would in some movie. He didn't regard his own actions as heroic…
This wasn't peace for him. It was just inevitable. He had to do it. He had to.
"Shuichi?"
Kokichi's voice ends the alarm. The machine moves again, but it's the slide moving back up. Shuichi's veins still pump with adrenaline, with his body's need to protect him, and he has to continue breathing, remind himself to continue breathing.
Metallic footsteps sound in a room in which all other noise has faded. Shuichi doesn't rise to his feet yet, so he knows it's Kokichi, despite his eyes being closed. In a way, the repetitive noise is comforting… It's different from the hydraulic press. It contains some kind of life to it.
They eventually stop, and Shuichi can tell by the distance that Kokichi isn't far from him. In fact, he's likely up against the bed itself, and it makes him wonder if Kokichi fears it a little. Even if he does, here he is—
Here he is, for Shuichi.
"I'm sorry," Shuichi chokes out, after a moment. Fear has his heart leap into his throat, but he forces his eyes open anyway and looks at Kokichi, really looks at him.
Kokichi's eyes are the same wide as they were before he went into the press, but there's something softer to them that wasn't there before. "You're crying," he tells Shuichi.
Shuichi hadn't even noticed until Kokichi pointed it out.
Kokichi's head turns, slightly. "You look stupid and ugly when you cry."
And somehow, some way, that gets a laugh out of Shuichi. A soft, broken laugh, but it's a laugh nevertheless. Did you say something like that to yourself? But Shuichi won't ask that question, nor will he ask any of the others, at least not now. They'll…have plenty of time now, to talk about it. That's what he will make sure of, anyway. "Sorry."
"Stop apologizing, idiot."
"Sorry—"
"Ughhh," Kokichi groans, but Shuichi sees it — he's smiling. And it's different from the smile of before, from when they first entered the hangar. It's something real, as if there's a latch of understanding between the two of them that wasn't there before, and it has Shuichi's heart lurch to see it. To know that Kokichi would smile like that, at him, after everything that happened. After the pain that he caused him. "You're so dumb, y'know? And really transparent, too. I know what you're thinking right now."
"What am I thinking?"
"You're thinking I'm totally a crybaby like you." Kokichi waves a hand. Shuichi opens his mouth to ask what he means by that, but— "You'll figure it out, Mister Detective. But as lovely as this place is, I don't wanna be in it for another minute more… So…if you're done…?"
The feeling is definitely mutual. Shaking palms press against the edge of the bed, legs swinging over it, but he can feel the shake within them. He can feel the shake within everything. It's as if he really was about to die, back there, under the hydraulic press; that if the emergency stop hadn't gone off…
He glances at Kokichi, who despite sounding impatient before, is waiting for him easily, albeit while looking at his fingernails. No, he thinks to himself. Kokichi was manning the controls. If the emergency stop didn't go off, Kokichi would have stopped it instead.
'I trust you.'
Shuichi had meant that. It wasn't a lie.
"Okay. Let's go."
He reaches out for Kokichi's hand.
Kokichi eyes it and he hesitates. "What, you want help out? Is crying tuckering you out that much?"
Shuichi raises an eyebrow at him. Kokichi seems to understand, then, as he takes his hand.
And then it occurs to Shuichi right then what Kokichi meant.
I forgive you, so don't worry about it anymore.