I had this idea knocking around from the moment I finished watching EP9 , so I would have written this anyway, but I'm dedicating this to all my fellow Yoi/Ruruka shippers and/or Ruruka fans :) I hope you all enjoy it. ((And even if you're not a fan of hers and/or don't ship the pairing, I hope you enjoy this anyway.
Izayoi somehow didn't expect the afterlife to be quite like this.
In the first place, he found himself surprised to realise that his eye was not bleeding, that his left side was no longer purple, that there was no longer a killing game bracelet clipped around his wrist. For all states and purposes, he was as intact and clean as he had been in the moments before his last ones (though he could still feel the memory of those moments, etched into him); But what was more surprising to him was where he had ended up.
He had imagined he'd be somewhere smaller, a single room perhaps, or a threshold that needed to be crossed, leading into the same sort of set-up. He had thought that there would other Future Foundation members seated there or lined up, watching waiting for whoever would join them next, bound by the killing game that they'd all fallen victim to. He had assumed that perhaps others he had known-his parents, perhaps, or someone to that effect-might have been around too. And he had also hoped there would be some way of viewing the living world, keep an eye on what was happening. That, he needed the most. Ruruka….
But instead, Izayoi was alone on a tree-lined, sunny street he did not recognise, with pretty houses to match. But their details all faded into one generic mix in his mind, whereas the specific house he had ended up in front of was more detailed to him. The painted wooden gate was a creamy sort of colour, and left open, leading to a small front garden was just paving slabs, but terracotta pots of pretty, vivid flowers were lined up, underneath the wide windows, the panes of which had been painted a cheerful blue, to match the door. The house itself-which looked like it simply had a downstairs, and upstairs and possibly an attic and seemed spacious enough-was white, with reddish roof tiles. Next to it was some kind of garage or shed, for which he instantly started imagining the workshop possibilities before realising that firstly, he was dead, and secondly, he could not just take over someone else's house like that.
So once Izayoi'd had enough of just frowning at his surroundings, he decided to try and figure it out, why his afterlife would take him to this place of all places. As the gate was open, he just went in and studied the front garden, poking through the flowers, looking at the pattern the paving slabs made. Nothing was familiar, not as a whole, but little details, here and there, nagged at him, tugged at a memory of sorts, but he could not quite reach it. Why….don't I recognise this place? Scrutinising the door, he noticed that there was a cat flap at the bottom, and bent down to push it and peer through, giving him a glimpse of carpeted floor and no signs of life, when he leaned against the door and it nudged open.
Startled, Izayoi stood back up again, and peered around the door, getting a glimpse of the wallpaper this time-simple, a pale, neutral colour, complementing the warm green carpet, and the staircase too. But again, he observed there were no signs of life. In fact, the house looked perfect-almost as if it was waiting for him. This makes no sense. Who the hell lives in a house this perfect? Stumped, he went back to the gate, and scanned it for the nameplate, which he found easily-metal, mounted on wood. He noted the good work, easily pictured the procedure for making it, but he was taken by the surname carved on it.
For it was his own.
Wait, could this be? It was utterly preposterous, made no kind of sense, but….frowning, he bent a little, so that he could read the two names, written in a much smaller font underneath. And just like that, the memories came back, of a kinder, better time.
"It's not really like we need a huge house, right? Not if it's just the two of us, right, Yoi-Chan?"
"Anywhere is fine, as long as you're happy, and we're together." He smiled down at her as she flipped through the random selection magazines on the bed, inspecting the pictures, constructing possible futures.
"Maybe something like this? This is pretty." Ruruka held up one picture. He studied it while absently playing with her hair.
"It's a bit plain, with no garden like that. Wouldn't that bother you?"
"Welll…." Ruruka scrunched up her face. "Flowerpots, right? That'll make it look pretty, and much better than having to deal with an actual garden."
"Right." He just nodded, pretending that he had considered that. Ruruka saw through it, and teased him for a few moments, before returning to the abandoned magazine and looking at the same picture.
"Still, it looks like a house like that would have a really small kitchen though….." she sighed wistfully. "That's no good. And what about a cat flap?"
Izayoi had been all prepared to say something reassuring about kitchen sizes, but the cat flap comment threw him off.
"A cat flap? Why?"
At this, Ruruka looked at him so incredulously he had to stifle a laugh at the sight.
"But, Yoi-Chan, aren't we going to get a cat?"
Laughing a little, he straightened and studied the house once more. Who could have imagined that the afterlife would be modelled on something out of his imagination, their imaginations, off of the dreams that they had built up and tried to hold onto, even as they became more and more impossible? He certainly couldn't have. But here he was, dead and standing in front of one of the possibilities.
And it hurt. Because he was alone. This was never meant to be a dream of his own. He was meant to have lived here with Ruruka, to have lived a full, long, contented life with her, growing up and old together, through everything. Not end up having to while away the rest of time here, alone. If she was here too, then it would be a little better, but….that would mean that she'd have to die, too. That….I don't….it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Izayoi thought about turning his back to all this, finding some other place to dwell. But he figured it would be okay to go inside, to see if how it looked up on the inside matched up with what they had both dreamed of, back in those better days.
So, he did.
…
He was in the kitchen-warm, spacious and bright, just as she would have wanted-looking through the cupboards and puzzling over the supplies of equipment and ingredients, when he spotted someone in the back garden, just wandering around casually.
"Hey, who are you and wha-"Izayoi's words promptly drained away as he recognised the man.
"Kizakura? You're dead?"
Kizakura chuckled lightly at this and shrugged as he took a swig of what Izayoi recognised as some sort of alcoholic drink.
"Apparently I am. Not too long after your demise, actually, so I'm not too surprised to have wandered into your afterlife. But, I am surprised about how it looks. Pretty place. Childhood home, or something?"
Izayoi did not give Kizakura the privilege of an answer, but he did have his own question.
"'My' afterlife? What do you mean by that? Does that mean it's possible to meet the other members who died? Where are they all?"
"Ah, hold up, hold up, kid! I just got here, remember?" Kizakura held his hands out. "So I don't know anything much…..but the way I see it, I think it's a bit like a Venn diagram, this place."
This made no sense whatsoever, and Kizakura seemed to notice this, for he sighed heavily and closed his eyes for a moment before re-fixing his gaze onto Izayoi and explaining.
"It seems like each of us have our own separate spaces to….well, do whatever, I guess, given that we're dead and all, but as this conversation demonstrates, it's possible for us to meet at some halfway point that connects us. I met Chisa-Chan already because of that, actually, but anyway. I guess that somewhere there's a place where it all converges, and we could all meet….much like I assume you'd expected the afterlife to be in the first place. I'm sure if we wander around enough we'll eventually find it."
"I….I see. " Izayoi frowned, and thought about this. He thought of asking Kizakura if there was any place to look back on the living, but somehow suspected that there was no point. Kizakura, for his part, just smirked from under his fedora and swigged his drink, seemingly unconcerned about not having enough. Is his afterlife a bar or something?!
"How did you die, then?" he asked.
"Same as you." Kizakura replied. When Izayoi just stared, he sighed once again.
"Triggered my Forbidden Action, didn't I? Still, it was worth it in the end, I think, for fulfilling a promise. I wonder if you can say the same about yours?"
Izayoi thought of the sharp, pulsing shock of the poison, mixing with the sugar in his mouth. Of tears flowing down Ruruka's face, and how much that hurt more than the sensation of dying ever could. Of the final kiss, the last thing he would ever be able to do for her. Could I say the same thing? Was it worth it? He wasn't sure that those questions could even be applied in the first place. He did not think that it was anything anyone else could ever understand.
"Ah, were you unawares, then? I wasn't around long enough for Kirigiri-Chan to finish her investigation, though I imagine she's doing just that right now anyway, you see. "
"Does it really matter?" he asked, stiffly.
"Ah, it's just curiosity, you know. " Kizakura breezed, shrugging. "It's not often you actually get to get the victim's point of view in these things now, is it? So indulge an old, drunk man. Were you aware of your death, the fact that your girl betrayed you?"
"It wasn't a betrayal!" He growled. It wasn't. It was fear, and panic and pain, and ghosts of the past rising and winning, the cumulative effects of history. It was disappointment and sadness and regrets too heavy to carry. It was the result of this stupid, stupid killing game, of the idiotic excuse of despair that a bunch of teenagers had used to destroy the world. It was the worst thing that could have ever happened, not just to him, but her, too. But for all that, it was not a betrayal. It was not.
"Woah, woah, okay! Kizakura held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, calm down, Izayoi-kun, I get it. It wasn't a betrayal. Then, what do you call it?"
Izayoi stared at Kizakura. He hadn't much liked the man before, and that hadn't improved after being expelled from Hope's Peak. He did not know what to think of him, whether he was fully sincere, even with those pockets of honesty he had revealed during the conversation. So he said nothing, and stared him down, willing him to go away. Eventually, Kizakura sighed, and shrugged heavily once again.
"Okay, whatever. Well then, I guess I'll see you around." With that, Kizakura turned around neatly and walked back down the garden, eventually seeming to fade, or just disappear out of sight, to wherever his afterlife was. Izayoi's eyes couldn't quite see how it happened, the stepping in from here to there, but sure enough, he was gone. Relieved, he let out a sigh, and headed back inside the house, for there was still more to see.
…
"Yoi-Chan, Yoi-Chan, look at this!"
Izayoi could picture her here, how utterly ecstatic she would be by everything here, pulling out and inspecting everything, possibly even deciding to make something right there and then and donning the strawberry-patterned apron hanging on the kitchen door (it looked like one he'd given her for a past birthday, but newer) before proceeding to do just that. Perhaps he'd be roped in with helping, but it was not as if he had a clue. Sure, he had spent countless hours over the years, sitting in one kitchen or another, watching her do her thing, but that was the point. He was never watching the procedure, it was always her. How she moved around the kitchen, the way she'd run her fingers along the packet sides or the labels on the bottles before selecting what she wanted from the cupboard, how she carried the different bits of equipment to and from where she needed them to be. The expressions she had-frowns, smiles, blank concentration, confusion-when measuring out ingredients, when tasting the mixture, testing the oven, watching her creations cook, taste-testing the final product. The sounds of her frustrations when it didn't go right and her utter delight when it did. He had memorised it all, and as a result, he could conjure her up here, and now, all too easily. It was almost as if she was really here, right now, and he was almost disappointed when he reached out to touch her shoulder and reality made a fool of him.
How, exactly, do I manage, existing like this for the rest of time? It was not as if other rooms didn't evoke other similar potent feelings in him, other imaginings of Ruruka. But there was something particular about the kitchen, and those memories. Perhaps because he knew that while she was in the swing of things, while she was in the creative zone, her demons had little to no power over her. Perhaps. Either way, he knew that from this point on, it was here that he would constantly be making a lonely fool out of himself with his memories. And yet, it was here he wanted to stay the most.
So he got up from the chair he had been sitting on, and went to make himself a cup of coffee (and, imagining Ruruka doing her thing, made sure he wasn't getting in her way while he was doing it). Once he had done so, he went back to the chair and sat down again, and continued to watch her.
…
Later-he wasn't sure how much later-he decided to go for a walk around the area. Perhaps he could see whether Kizakura's idea of their afterlife being like a Venn diagram was correct, and perhaps meet someone else. Maybe someone who had been around longer, who knew of a way to see the living world. The tiny black kitten he had found on the pillow of the dream house's bedroom decided to follow him, and though he could not understand why it (he had dubbed the cat Liquorice, the only black sweet flavour he could think of) would want to do that, he just went with it. It was sort of nice to have a companion, anyway.
They went in a random direction, since there didn't seem to be any indicators that one way was more significant than the others, and so they passed other fade-into-the-background type houses for a while, before coming up to a park with a pavilion at the other end. It was grassy and smooth as far as the eye could see, with occasional breaks caused by large flower beds. Someone was by the large flower beds, picking flowers. A large grey dog (of a species he could not determine) was sitting next to the person, looking very happy, especially when the person turned to stroke it every so often. Oh. It's Kimura, he realised during one such instance, when the person stopped to push a long lock of hair away. Izayoi hesitated, then bent down to pick up Liquorice, and walked over.
"Kimura."
"Huh, oh….ah, Izayoi!" Kimura startled, and the dog stood up, instantly, sizing Izayoi up. Kimura's hair was as long and straggly as her weird drugs had made it, but she didn't have the same pinhole-eyed, crazed look that said drugs had given her, and she wasn't wearing her mask anymore. She also looked scared and pitiful, and so Izayoi sighed.
"I'm hardly going to kill you. We're both already dead, after all." There's no point, he added silently. Kimura sized him up for a moment, then let out a breath, turning to the dog and spending some time calming him for a moment before looking back at Izayoi.
"I…I didn't think you'd be dead so soon….." Kimura murmured. "What happened? Was…was it the attacker, too?"
"Forbidden Action." Izayoi stated, simply. There was no way of knowing what she would say to the full story, and he didn't want to tell anyone else anyway. So he didn't elaborate.
"Ah…what….what was it? If it's okay to ask?" Kimura blinked, looking fearful as she spoke. Izayoi sighed. Just keep it short…..
"Putting food in my mouth."
Kimura said nothing to that for a long time, and looked at the ground. The dog, sensing her emotions, nudged at her with its nose, seemingly concerned. Kimura absently rubbed behind the dog's ear.
"Was…..did Ruruka-Chan know about it?" the question came as an almost-whisper. Izayoi let out a heavy sigh, but did not answer. But that in itself seemed to be enough answer for Kimura.
"I see…..I think. Where did it go wrong, I wonder?" she murmured. "I wish it hadn't, you know…I just wanted to help people, to be a friend-I wasn't responsible for the incident at the tests, you know. I wasn't. "
Izayoi had never believed Kimura about this before-there was no possible way that things could have gone the way they did back then if it was for her-but now there was no reason to lie, which had him wondering if really, all that there had been to the incident was just a tragic mess. Oh, bloody hell.
"I suppose it doesn't matter now." He said, off-handedly. Kimura looked up at him, surprised, and nodded, even smiling a little. To his own surprise, Izayoi smiled back. They had been friends once, but he had never considered her much asides from how she related to Ruruka, and that had coloured everything. But until the presumed betrayal, he had not hated her or anything like that. Though it would never, ever make the pain of not being by Ruruka's side any better, perhaps it would be nice to befriend Kimura on their own terms this time. Perhaps.
"Did…did you find that cat in your….your afterlife?" Kimura asked, pointing. Izayoi looked down at his arms, having almost forgotten he was carrying Liquorice. He nodded.
"Yeah."
"What's his name? Is it a he?"
"She. Liquorice."
"Cuuute." Kimura cooed softly, getting up to stroke the kitten's fur. "And soft, too. This is Ushio. I found him in my place."
Kimura pointed at the large dog, and Izayoi stared at it, noting how ridiculously happy it looked but not sure what to do with that information.
"Ushio?" he eventually asked, at a loss. Kimura shrugged and coloured.
"First name I could think of."
"Ah."
There was an awkward silence for a moment, and they both turned away from each other, wondering what to say next. Izayoi fidgeted, and Liquorice wriggled out of his arms and decided to crawl up to his shoulder, when all of a sudden a piercing scream cut through the silence.
"W-what was that?" Kimura asked, startled. The scream didn't stop, but rather quietened and became an undulating moan of terror. Izayoi ignored her, and listened closely to the sound. It was coming from the direction he had just left. And he recognised it. Chillingly, he recognised it.
It can't. She's supposed to be alive….this isn't…
But it was, and he knew it, so without thinking any more about it, he ran.
…
She had no jacket on, and she was huddled, tucking her limbs and her head in, trying to fend off something or other, shaking violently. Though the whimpering was mostly one tone of distress, he caught the words 'stop' and 'please' as he went to her.
"Ruruka! Ruruka!" he crouched down as soon as he got to her, and put a hand on her shoulder, trying to get through to her, saying her name over and over. What's wrong, what's happening? Is this related to her death?
"Ruruka, it's me. I'm here. It's okay." He repeated, over and over, at a loss to do anything more. Eventually, Ruruka uncurled a little, but still shook, and when tear-filled eyes met his, she didn't fully seem to see him.
"It hurts…" she moaned, quietly. "It…it…."
"It's over now. It's not happening anymore." He rubbed her back, in slow and careful circles. "You're safe now, Ruruka."
In the midst of his efforts, he noticed Kimura was trying to catch his eye. Surprised that she had followed him in the first place, he frowned at her. She shrank back, then pointed at Ruruka.
"What happened?" she half mouthed, half whispered. Izayoi just shook his head to indicate he had no idea. Kimura seemed concerned, and studied Ruruka for a while, before saying something else.
"Maybe….the attacker? But she was awake and aware, for some reason?"
This time, it was more mouthed than whispered, so it took Izayoi a moment to decode what she had said, but when he did, his blood ran cold. The attacker struck outside of the sleep period? And…..Ruruka was his victim? The thought, all the possibilities of what the attacker could have done to her, it made him want to scream, hit something, hunt down this person.
"What happened?" he asked Ruruka instead. "What happened to you?"
"I….I….it hurts, it hurts….." Ruruka's breath hitched, and something in her eyes cleared, as she refocused on him. "Y-Yoi-Chan?"
Relieved, he nodded vigorously.
"Yoi-Chan. Am I….I'm d-dead now?"
He nodded again, and Ruruka instantly welled up again.
"I….it….I…..Yoi-Chan, I'm so, I….betrayed you, I…."
Just as he had in the last moments of life, he cut her off with a kiss, pulling her close. When he broke away, he didn't let go of her, afraid to lose her again.
"It's okay, Ruruka. You don't need to say anything, anymore. It's okay, I understand. I know. I know."
Stricken, she looked at him.
"But I….everything…I do…n-need to say." she gulped for breath, still having trouble with her sentences. "Everything…so much I did wrong…..with S-S-Seiko-Chan too and I….and I…"
"Shhh, now." He hugged her to him, rubbing her back again. "Later, okay? If you need to, then later. There's time aplenty for that, that's fine. Okay?"
Ruruka nodded into his jacket, and snuggled a little bit more, sniffling. He looked over her head at Kimura, who stood there, stunned, Ushio at her side. Briefly, he considered alerting Ruruka to her presence, but decided that it was too much, too soon, especially when she was like this. But he knew that it was needed, this possibility of reconciliation, and he was willing for it to happen. So he nodded at Kimura and mouthed 'later'. Soberly, Kimura nodded, and after giving a quiet command to Ushio, went back the way she came, fading away in the same inexplicable way Kizakura had done earlier, in the back garden. When she had gone, he turned his attentions fully back to Ruruka, and waited for this storm to pass.
Moments passed, and eventually, she quietened, and became silent. It took a little while longer before she straightened to look at him.
"You're….you're really here?" she asked. Izayoi nodded.
"Of course I am. Where else would I be?"
"Mmm. Oh!" Liquorice had jumped off of Izayoi's shoulder, and was now nudging Ruruka's knee, looking up at her, as if aware of her feelings and trying to do something about it. "Oh, a kitty. Ours?"
"Yeah."
Ruruka gazed at Liquorice, who continued to nudge at her knee, trying to climb up.
"Oh, let me help you!" her voice was still wobbly, but clearer, as she used both hands to lift up the cat and set it on her knee, before stroking it. The cat seemed content with that, and decided to make that known.
"Meeeeee!" it proclaimed, happily enough. "Meeeee."
Ruruka giggled at that, and looked up at Izayoi. He smiled at her, and put an arm around her shoulder, before they both went back to playing with Liquorice.
And in that moment, under the sun, outside the house they had only ever been able to dream of, Izayoi felt alive.
Literally the only reason I included a kitten in this is because my sister's music teacher recently got a kitten and I got to see it (because I am the one who has to take her to said lessons-.-'). But the kitten is SO ADORABLE so yeah. The kitten is there to stay. Meow!
My portrayal of the afterlife is (very) vaguely based on The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, but also just because I'm not really a person who believes in hell and heaven in the afterlife sense, except as a metaphor. That, and I couldn't make a heaven/hell based afterlife fit with my ideas for this one-shot. Hence this being what Kizakura calls a 'Venn diagram' afterlife.
But anyway, yeah, I do hope you enjoyed this, and please leave feedback!